1972 Ephesians Enhanced Notes

from R. B. Thieme, Jr.

1972 Ephesians
212	1	08/10/1972	Ephesians 1:1	PROTHESIS; doctrine of apostleship
212	2	08/17/1972	Ephesians 1:1b–2	Doc/sanctification; function of Trinity in prothesis/God
212	3	08/24/1972	Ephesians 1:3	Doctrine of positional truth
212	4	08/27/1972	Ephesians 1:4	Doctrine of election
212	5	09/03/1972	Ephesians 1:5	Doctrines of predestination, adoption
212	6	09/10/1972	Ephesians 1:6–7a	Doctrine of grace
212	7	09/17/1972	Ephesians 1:7–8;

Lev. 17:10–14	Doctrine of the blood (extensive explanation); doctrine of redemption
212	8	09/24/1972	Ephesians 1:9–10a	Outline of dispensations; doc/the mystery; divine decrees
212	9	10/01/1972	Ephesians 1:10–11	Doctrine of the Millennium
212	10	10/08/1972	Ephesians 1:12	Doctrine of glory
212	11	10/15/1972	Ephesians 1:13–14	Doc. indwelling of Holy Spirit; 5 meanings of "seal"
212	12	11/14/1972	Ephesians 1:15–17	Relaxed mental attitude around other believers; doc/glory
212	13	11/21/1972	Ephesians 1:18	Doctrines of inheritance (heirship); GAP
212	14	12/19/1972	Ephesians 1:19–20	Doctrine of resurrection
212	15	03/13/1973	Ephesians 1:21	Doctrine of the angelic conflict (pt.1–11 amplified)
212	16	04/10/1973	Ephesians 1:21–23	Doctrine of the angelic conflict (pt.12–13)
212	17	04/24/1973	Ephesians 2:1	Doctrine of death (types)
212	18	04/30/1973	Ephesians 2:2	Devil's seven; doctrine of the old sin nature
212	19	05/01/1973	Ephesians 2:3	Doctrine of divine essence: sovereignty and righteousness
212	20	05/02/1973	Ephesians 2:4a	Doc/divine essence: justice, love, eternal life, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence
212	21	05/03/1973	Ephesians 2:4b	Doc/divine essence: omnipotence, immutability, veracity; Stonewall Jackson a supergrace believer
212	22	05/04/1973	Ephesians 2:4–5	Doctrines of love, propitiation, grace
212	23	05/14/1973	Ephesians 2:6–7	Doctrines of baptism of Holy Spirit, the heavenlies, surpassing grace. "Stonewall Jackson" by Col. Henderson quoted
212	24	05/15/1973	Ephesians 2:8–10	Doctrines of eternal security, human good, divine good, walking
212	25	05/28/1973	Ephesians 2:11	Doctrine of circumcision (Jewish culture)
212	26	05/29/1973	Ephesians 2:11b–12	Superiority of the Jews; South vs. Federal Government
212	27	06/11/1973	Ephesians 2:13	Doctrine of the blood
212	28	06/12/1973	Ephesians 2:14;

Gal. 5:1	Freedom/soul in Christ. Wall of snobbery.
212	29	06/13/1973	Ephesians 2:15	Doctrine of hypostatic union
212	30	06/14/1973	Ephesians 2:16	Doctrine of reconciliation (amplified, revised)
212	31	07/17/1973	Ephesians 2:17–22	Doctrines of intensification of the angelic conflict, reconciliation, baptism of the Holy Spirit
212	32	08/14/1973	Ephesians 3:1–2	Docs/dispensations, intercalation. Contrast of Church Age to Age of Israel
212	33	08/15/1973	Ephesians 3:3–4	Doctrines of dispensations, the mystery
212	34	08/16/1973	Ephesians 3:5	Doctrines of apostleship, inspiration
212	35	08/17/1973	Ephesians 3:6–7a	Doctrines of positional truth, the ministry
212	36	08/19/1973	Ephesians 3:7	Doctrine of the ministry (cont.); doctrine of grace
212	37	08/19/1973	Ephesians 3:8	Doctrine of supergrace
212	38	08/20/1973	Ephesians 3:9–10	Doctrine of the heavenlies
212	39	08/21/1973	Ephesians 3:11–13	Doctrine of glory
212	40	08/22/1973	Ephesians 3:14–15	Doctrine and concept of prayer, intercession
212	41	08/23/1973	Ephesians 3:16	Doctrine of GAP (Grace Apparatus for Perception)
212	42	08/24/1973	Ephesians 3:16	Doctrine of the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit
212	43	08/26/1973	Ephesians 3:17–18a	Doctrine of the indwelling of Jesus Christ
212	44	08/26/1973	Ephesians 3:18b–19a	Doc. of the human spirit; occupation with Jesus Christ
212	45	08/27/1973	Ephesians 3:19b–21	Doctrine of PLEROO; supergrace (review)
212	46	09/18/1973	Ephesians 4:1	Doctrines of walking, election
212	47	09/19/1973	Ephesians 4:2	Doctrine of the royal family
212	48	09/20/1973	Ephesians 4:3–5	Doctrines of the Body of Christ, baptism of Holy Spirit (revised); characteristics of the royal family
212	49	09/21/1973	Ephesians 4:6–8	Doctrines of ascension, spiritual gifts
212	50	09/23/1973	Ephesians 4:9–11a	Doctrines of PLEROO, apostleship
212	51	09/23/1973	Ephesians 4:11b–12a	Doctrine of Pastor–Teacher
212	52	09/28/1973	Ephesians 4:12b	Doctrine of the ECS (Edification Complex of the Soul)
212	53	09/30/1973	Ephesians 4:13–15a	Warning to reversionists
212	54	09/30/1973	Ephesians 4:15b	Importance of Bible doctrine; doctrine of the Head (N.T.)
212	55	10/05/1973	Ephesians 4:16	Points on joints and ligaments
212	56	10/07/1973	Ephesians 4:17–18a	Doctrine of the stages of reversionism
212	57	10/07/1973	Ephesians 4:18b	Doctrines of blackout of the soul, the heart (revised extensively)
212	58	10/08/1973	Ephesians 4:17–18	Review: stages of reversionism, the heart, blackout/soul
212	59	10/08/1973	Ephesians 4:19a	Scar tissue of the soul, hardness of the heart; adultery; hardness of Pharaoh's heart
212	60	10/09/1973	Ephesians 4:19b	Doctrine of reversionism. Review/scar tissue of the soul, hardness of heart; adultery
212	61	10/10/1973	Ephesians 4:20–21	Doctrine of DIDASKO
212	62	10/11/1973	Ephesians 4:22	Doctrines of the stages of reversionism, old sin nature. Change from emphasis on lungs/soul to right/left lobes
212	63	10/12/1973	Ephesians 4:23–24	Doctrine of rebound
212	64	10/25/1973	Ephesians 4:25–26	Dissertation on lying; alcohol and drug problems
212	65	10/26/1973	Ephesians 4:27;

Rev. 19:6	Doctrines of the royal family, the body of Christ, manifestation of the body, devil's seven
212	66	10/28/1973	Ephesians 4:28	Doctrine of the poor; dishonesty in race relations
212	67	10/28/1973	Ephesians 4:29	Doctrine of the tongue
212	68	10/29/1973	Ephesians 4:30	Doctrines of the Deity of God the Holy Spirit; sins against & sealing of God the Holy Spirit
212	69	10/30/1973	Ephesians 4:31–32	Doctrines of sanctification, bitterness
212	70	01/22/1974	Ephesians 5:1	Doc/super grace life; principles of imitators of the Lord Jesus Christ; doctrine of the royal family of God
212	71	01/23/1974	Ephesians 5:2	Docs/propitiation, Christ's love for us. No right to oppose government through revolutionary activities
212	72	01/24/1974	Ephesians 5:3	Doc/adultery; review lessons 70 and 71; dating
212	73	01/25/1974	Ephesians 5:4–5a	Sexual conduct while dating; doctrine of the phallic cult
212	74	01/27/1974	Ephesians 5:5b–7	Doctrine of idolatry
212	75	01/27/1974	Ephesians 5:8–9	Doctrines of light, walking
212	76	01/31/1974	Ephesians 5:10–13	Doctrine of human good
212	77	02/01/1974	Ephesians 5:14a	Doctrine of reversionism
212	78	02/03/1974	Ephesians 5:14b	Doctrines of the sin unto death, rebound
212	79	02/03/1974	Ephesians 5:15–16	Doctrine of one day at a time
212	80	02/04/1974	Ephesians 5:17	Doctrine of GAP (pts.1–5)
212	81	02/05/1974	Ephesians 5:17	Doctrines of GAP, divine guidance
212	82	02/06/1974	Ephesians 5:18	Doctrine of drinking
212	83	02/07/1974	Ephesians 5:18b	Doctrines of indwelling of Holy Spirit, spirituality
212	84	02/08/1974	Ephesians 5:19	Music in the church
212	85	02/10/1974	Ephesians 5:20	Doctrine of authority
212	86	02/10/1974	Ephesians 5:22	Taboos in selection of a husband for singles, divorcees, widows
212	87	02/11/1974	Ephesians 5:22	Doctrines of category 2 Love; right man/right woman
212	88	02/12/1974	Ephesians 5:22	Woman's soul in response to the right man
212	89	02/13/1974	Ephesians 5:23a	Doctrine of the church
212	90	02/14/1974	Ephesians 5:23b–24	Doctrine of the enslaved male
212	91	02/15/1974	Ephesians 5:25	Doctrine of the loving husband
212	92	02/17/1974	Ephesians 5:26a	Doctrine of sanctification
212	93	02/17/1974	Ephesians 5:26b	How the right woman is cleansed
212	94	02/24/1974	Ephesians 5:27a	Doctrine of the Rapture of the Church
212	95	02/24/1974	Ephesians 5:27b	Doctrine of the manifestation of the bride
212	96	02/25/1974	Ephesians 5:28–31a	Right man to right woman as Jesus Christ to the Church
212	97	02/26/1974	Ephesians 5:31b–33	Doctrines of the mystery, intercalation
212	98	02/27/1974	Ephesians 6:1	Mother, teaching a male child. Parental responsibility toward children. Children as adults at home
212	99	02/28/1974	Ephesians 6:2–4	Obedience and respect results in prosperity and long life
212	100	03/01/1974	Ephesians 6:5	The issue of slavery
212	101	03/03/1974	Ephesians 6:6–9	Social action vs. bible doctrine; responsibility of labor and management
212	102	11/28/1974	Ephesians 6:10	The Roman soldier
212	103	11/28/1974	Ephesians 6:11a; Psalm 138:2	Doctrine of importance of Bible doctrine
212	104	11/28/1974	Ephesians 6:11b–12a	The devil's seven
212	105	11/29/1974	Ephesians 6:12b–13	Demon army ranks and discipline
212	106	11/29/1974	Ephesians 6:14–15	Doctrine of witnessing
212	107	11/30/1974	Ephesians 6:16a	Doctrine of witnessing (continued)
212	108	12/01/1974	Ephesians 6:16b–17a	Doctrine of faith–rest
212	109	12/01/1974	Ephesians 6:17b–18	Offensive weapons of the believer
212	110	12/02/1974	Ephesians 6:19–20	Doctrine of ambassadorship
212	111	12/03/1974	Ephesians 6:21	Faithful Pastor (plugger) and the congregation
212	112	12/04/1974	Ephesians 6:22; 1Cor. 1:19–2:16	Doctrine of GAP (revised pts. 1–5)
212	113	12/05/1974	Ephesians 6:23–24; James 1:19–25	Doctrine of GAP (cont.)

END OF SERIES

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #1

1 08/10/1972 Ephesians 1:1 PROTHESIS; doctrine of apostleship

Chapter 1

The literal translation of the first six verses of this chapter:

Verse 1 — Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God's purpose, will and design, to those being saints and faithful in Christ Jesus:

Verse 2 — Grace to you and peace, from the ultimate source of God our Father, and Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 3 — Worthy of praise and glorification the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one having provided us benefits by every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ:

Verse 4 — Even as he has chosen us for himself in him before the beginning of the world, that we keep on being saints and blameless in the presence of him:

Verse 5 — In love having pre designed us with the result of the appointment of adult sons for himself through Jesus Christ, according to the benevolent purpose from his will,

Verse 6 — Resulting in recognition of glory from the source of his grace, from which he has pursued us with grace in the one having been loved.

The whole objective of the epistle is to demonstrate how God pursues the super-grace believer with grace. The subject of the chapter is the prothesis of God — God's pre designed plan.

The Pauline epistles fall into four general categories: a) The second missionary journey; b) The third missionary journey; c) The first Roman imprisonment; d) After the first Roman imprisonment. During the second missionary journey Paul wrote 1Thessalonians from Corinth in 52 AD. He wrote 2Thessalonians from Corinth in 53 AD. So it was about 52 AD that Paul began writing. Then during the third missionary journey he wrote four epistles: Galatians, written from Ephesus in 55 AD; 1Corinthians, written from Ephesus in 55 AD; 2Corinthians, written from Philippi in 57 AD; Romans, written from Corinth just before Paul left for Jerusalem in 58 AD. From 58 AD we have a silence from Paul for four years. He went into reversionism by going to Jerusalem. When Paul wrote Romans he should have carried the epistle himself to Rome, he should have gone to Rome from Corinth. He got out of the geographical will of God by going to Jerusalem. After his recovery he wrote possibly the four most important things he ever wrote: Ephesians from Rome in 62 AD, Philippians from Rome in 63 AD, Colossians from Rome in 62 AD, Philemon from Rome in 62 AD. Then we have Paul's release, a fourth missionary journey and a second imprisonment. During the fourth missionary journey he wrote 1Timothy from Macedonia in 65 AD; Titus from Macedonia in 66 AD; 2Timothy from Rome in 67 AD. Paul began writing in 52 AD and he died in 67 AD.

The true destination of Ephesians. The stated destination in Ephesians 1:1, "at Ephesus," is not found in the original text. This phrase is not found in any of the better MSS. Basil the Great testifies that it was never found in any of the ancient MSS. The absence of a personal greeting plus the fact that Paul does not call the believers "Beloved brethren" indicates that this epistle was a circular letter rather than written to one church. Actually it is a circular letter to the churches in the Roman province of Asia, the seven churches of Revelation 2 & 3. The fact that the benedictions of this epistle are in the third person rather than the second person also indicates that this is a circular letter. There is also a patristic evidence which favours a circular letter to the Roman province of Asia coming from Tertullian and Origen. So there is no question about the fact that this was addressed to a number of churches. This also explains why the content varies a little bit from Colossians which was addressed to one church only.

By way of background information, this letter was written by Paul from Roman imprisonment in 62 AD. Both Ephesians and Colossians were delivered by Tychicus. Onesimus was the bearer of Philemon. Ephesians was designed to correct reversionism in the Roman province of Asia. And not only to correct reversionism but to erect edification complexes and to ultimately move the believers into the super-grace life.

Again, the first chapter is the prothesis of God or the predetermined plan of God. The last chapter relates to the angelic conflict. The word prothesis is taken from the Greek. Qhsij is taken from tiqhmi which means to appoint, to plan; pro means beforehand. So it means a predetermined plan. In this case the predetermined plan and purpose of God. It also means a way of thinking.

The outline of chapter one

The salutation of the epistle: Verses 1 & 2.

The long sentence, or the relationship of the Trinity to the prothesis: Verses 3-14.

The first apostolic prayer, or the dynamics of prothesis: Verses 15-23.

Verse 1 & 2, the salutation of the epistle.

Verse 1 — "Paul." Pauloj, a proper noun meaning "little." His name was originally Saul of Tarsus but at the point of salvation he took on the name of Paul — Acts 13:9. This is his adopted name of grace orientation.

"apostle" — a)postoloj without the definite article. It does not mean "one sent." A)postoloj from the fifth century BC to the present time means admiral of the fleet. The reason this word became the word for the highest rank in the church is because some of the admirals were getting rich. The Spartans had a lot of money and were bribing them to throw the battle. So a plan was devised whereby the admiral would be selected from a group just before a battle, after which he was escorted all the way to the harbour, put on the ship, and he was the one sent by the rulers of Athens to command the fleet. As the word is used in Christianity it represents absolute dictatorship. Paul was in command of all the churches. Peter was in command of all the churches.

The gift of apostleship not only carried this great authority but it had along with it communication. This was a temporary gift, it did not exist beyond the canon of scripture. The writers of the New Testament were all apostles or (in two cases) one associated with an apostle. Mark associated with Peter; Luke associated with Paul.

One other point of syntax. All nouns have quality and identity. Identity is indicated by the definite article; quality is indicated by omission of the definite article. There is no definite article with "apostle" and therefore the quality of the gift is emphasised.

The doctrine of apostleship

1. Apostleship is the highest spiritual gift ever to exist in the church. It is sovereignly bestowed by the Holy Spirit to certain individual — 1Corinthians 12:11, 28; Ephesians 4:11.

2. Apostleship was a temporary gift designed to carry the church until the canon of scripture was completed. It had the authority of dictatorship because such and authority did not exist until the completion of the New Testament. Now the absolute dictatorship is the New Testament. The gift carried absolute authority in both written and verbal communication of doctrine.

3. The time of appointment. The apostles were appointed after the resurrection of Jesus Christ — Ephesians 4:8,11. Hence, they must be distinguished from the apostles to Israel in Matthew 10:2ff.

4. The extent of the gift. This spiritual gift exercised authority over all the local churches. Once the canon was completed the gift was removed. Today all local churches are autonomous with authority vested in the canon and the local pastor-teacher.

5. The qualification of apostles. Apostles had to be eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Christ. This qualified the eleven and Paul was qualified on the Damascus road — Acts 1:22; 1Corinthians 9:1; 15:8,9.

6. The authority of the apostles was established by the possession of a certain temporary gift which went with it. Every apostle also had the gift of miracles, healing, and tongues. These were spectacular type gifts which he had to use to establish his authority when he went to certain places. These gifts do not exist today. Acts 5:15; 16:16-18; 28:8,9. Once the apostle's authority was established in an area he didn't use these gifts any more and eventually when the apostles' authority were all established these gifts were removed.

7. The roster of apostles. We have the eleven minus Judas Iscariot. Matthias was elected but he was not an apostle. Man cannot superimpose his will on God's will ever. The twelfth apostle is Paul — 1Corinthians 15:7-10. He is the one whom God appointed to replace Judas Iscariot.

8. There were others who had delegated authority from apostles and therefore in a sense exercised from apostolic authority when they were sent on apostolic missions. They include Barnabas — Acts 14:14; Galatians 2:9; James, the Lord's half-brother — 1Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19; Apollos — 1 Corinthian 4:6,9; Sylvanus and Timothy — 1Thessalonians 1:1; 2:6.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #2

2 08/17/1972 Ephesians 1:1b–2 Doc/sanctification; function of Trinity in prothesis/God

"of Jesus Christ" — as an apostle of Jesus Christ Paul belongs to Him. Xristou I)hsou, two genitives. Paul is talking about his authority and his authority is in Xristou which means "appointed" by God, commissioned by God. "Jesus" [I)hsou] is the name for His humanity but Xristoj is not a name, it is a title — anointed one, appointed one. The Father appointed Jesus, Jesus appointed Paul. Both words occur in the genitive case which is a case of definition and description. Here we have both the genitive of description and the genitive of possession. Paul belongs to Jesus Christ and we have the description of his appointment, the source of his appointment.

"by the will of God" is literally, "through the will of God," dia plus the genitive singular of qelhma which means will, purpose, design. All three words are pertinent here. Plus the genitive of possession of qeoj. "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God's will, purpose, and design." Notice again the absence of the definite article. This places qualitative emphasis on the noun rather than its mere identity. This draws attention to the quality of the will, design, and purpose as well as the essence of God — qeoj. Since God is perfect His will, His design, and His purpose are perfect.

Summary

1. It was the purpose of God in eternity past to take the worst sinner who ever lived and make him the greatest saint who ever lived — 1Timothy 1:12-16. This is grace.

2. In grace everything depends on who and what God is, what is His plan, His purpose, and His design.

3. God is perfect, the absence of the definite article emphasises the quality of God [perfection].

4. Since God is perfect His plan, His purpose, His design is perfect. It is impossible to have an imperfect plan, purpose, and design coming from a perfect God.

5. In reality Paul was the twelfth apostle appointed by God to replace Judas Iscariot.

6. The election of Acts 1:15-26 was a farce.

7. Peter was out of line by suggesting it. Matthias was elected by men but apostles are appointed by God.

"to the saints" — the dative plural from a(gioj. The dative case is used here for the indirect object to indicate the ones in whose interest the epistle was written. This epistle was written on your behalf and in your interest. It is a dative plural. Every believer is a saint, and because he is in union with Christ, not because he is good. This is also a dative of advantage. It is to your advantage to have this information.

"which are" — there is no "which". There is the definite article plus the dative plural present active participle from e)imi. That means you are alive! It should be translated "to those being saints." This is for believers, for those who are born again. Present tense, linear aktionsart: once saved, always saved.

"to the faithful" — the word for "faithful" is again a dative plural from pistoj. It is correctly translated "faithful." It is used of God in certain passages such as 1Corinthians 1:9; 10:13; 1Thessalonians 5:24; Hebrews 10:23; 1Peter 4:19; 1John 1:9. So the noun is used for God and whenever it is it indicates His immutability. This word is also used for believers in the technical sense of those who are responding to doctrine, positive toward doctrine, growing up spiritually, building an ECS, and moving toward the super-grace life. It does not refer to believers who are either spiritual morons or in some stage of reversionism. The dative case is again used as the indirect object and it is used to indicate the ones in whose interest the letter is written, and that refers to all believers who study this epistle. It is of no benefit to those who do not study it. Ephesians is an epistle for those who are positive toward doctrine.

"in Christ Jesus" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of I)hsouj, the proper name for the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity, and Xristoj which has to do with His commission, His appointment.

The doctrine of sanctification

1. The word "saints" is a(gioj which means two things. Sometimes it means "saints" and sometimes "holy." The same word is used for both, and adjective and a noun. The noun is "saint," the adjective is "holy."

There are a number of words taken out of the same root:

a(giothj which means holiness and refers in many of the passages of the NT to our relationship with God. Our relationship at the point of salvation is holiness because we are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ.

a(giosunh means sanctification and has to do with one of the 36 things we receive at the point of salvation — entrance into union with the person of Christ. This is where we are first of all sanctified.

a(giasmoj — means holiness, and there is a verb, a(giazw, which means to set apart, to sanctify, and so on.

2. Basically all words for sanctification connote some form of separation into, therefore a relationship with.

3. The agency of sanctification. a) The Son of God, Jesus Christ — Hebrews 10:10, 14. ; b) The Holy Spirit — Romans 15:16; 2Thessalonians 2:13; c) The Word of God — John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26.

4. Phase one of sanctification: positional truth. God's plan is divided into three parts.

5. Phase two sanctification is the super-grace life. It is the combination of a maximum amount of time logged in the filling of the Spirit, as per 2Thessalonians 2:13, and the daily function of GAP, John 17:17. By the daily function of GAP over a prolonged period of time the entrance into the super-grace life is accomplished. That is the area of experiential or phase two sanctification.

6. Phase three sanctification is the believer in his resurrection body. This is often called ultimate sanctification — Romans 8:29; 1Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 3:21; 1Thessalonians 5:23; 1John 3:1,2.

7. There are some other words that are connect with ultimate sanctification, beside resurrection. Many of these are words which indicate some of the results of resurrection.

No old sin nature

The removal of all of the human good which the individual has accomplished in his lifetime.

In Jude 24, "He has done exceedingly abundantly," we have two words that indicate ultimate sanctification.

8. The principle of experiential sanctification in phase two. Experiential sanctification has several objectives.

It is to carry the believer during the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. In this intensification every believer is an ambassador for Christ and every believer is a priest, therefore in full time Christian service. This fact from the moment of salvation onward plus the intensification of the angelic conflict demands experiential sanctification and/or the entrance into the super-grace life.

Secondly, the objective of experiential sanctification is to establish divine viewpoint in the devil's world and to provide capacity for every believer to be the rapid beneficiary of grace under all circumstances and situations.

Thirdly, the objective of experiential sanctification is to provide from the capacity for love in super-grace maximum occupation with the person of Christ. One of the great objectives of the Christian life is to appreciate who and what Jesus Christ is right now on this earth, not waiting until we get to heaven. This can only be accomplished through Bible doctrine.

The fourth objective is to glorify God through the establishment of the ECS. The ECS is reflected glory. We glorify God through the structure in the soul from which all bona fide function and all divine good must emanate.

The fifth objective is the production of triple-compound divine good. When it is it falls into the category of gold, silver, precious stones and it mean that we have accomplished something in this life that will glorify God forever. All rewards in the future do not glorify the individual who receives them, they glorify God's grace who made them possible.

Translation: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, through God's purpose, will and design, to those being saints, and faithful in Christ Jesus:"

In this salutation everything that is connected with our relationship with God at the point of salvation is mentioned or suggested. At the moment of salvation we receive 36 things which can never be improved. For example, the baptism of the Spirit, regeneration, the sealing of the Spirit, the spiritual gifts, and so on. These things received at the point of salvation are non-improvable. Our capacity to appreciate them and our capacity for blessing is going to come out of our spiritual growth but spiritual growth does not mean improving positional truth or the things we received at salvation.

Verse 2 — the principle behind all of this. "Grace" — the noun xarij is without the definite article. It means everything that God has done for us. Xarij depends on who and what God is. It is the name of the plan of God, the principle of the plan of God, and the only word that explains the concept that God is perfect and therefore His plan has to be perfect. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the noun in the Greek language. This focuses attention on the concept that everything depends on who and what God is, nothing depends on us.

"to you" — the dative plural from the personal pronoun su, and it includes not only the original recipients but all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. The dative is used as the indirect object to emphasise the ones in whose interest the epistle is written. This epistle is written in your personal interest.

"and peace" — the noun e)irhnh. It means benefit, welfare, tranquillity, and prosperity. In other words, it is simply a synonym for blessing. Here it connotes prosperity. The believer becomes prosperous through the intake of Bible doctrine. It denotes benefit. The believer is benefited by the intake of Bible doctrine. It denotes welfare in the true biblical sense, not in the communist sense! Therefore the believer's welfare is directly related to the amount of doctrine which he absorbs into his soul. Also, when you have the first three meanings you have tranquillity. Tranquillity of soul is based upon Bible doctrine. So we have benefits accruing through the daily function of GAP and this is in effect the subject of the epistle.

"from God" — the preposition a)po plus the ablative singular of qeoj referring to God the Father. God the Father has a marvelous plan for all believers.

"our Father" — the ablative of pathr is added so that we will know the planner is involved here.

"and our Lord Jesus Christ" — also in the ablative and refers to the second person in the Trinity and the one by whom we understand God and everything related to God. If there is any key to grace it is in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ — first His incarnation and then His work upon the cross. "Lord" — the ablative of kurioj is used for the deity of Christ.

We now have in verses 3 through 14 the longest sentence of connected discourse in any language in history. While the English text has a period at the end of verse 6, the end of verse 12, and the end of verse 14, there are no periods in the Greek. This is all one sentence. This sentence describes the function of the Trinity under the divine plan, operation grace.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #3

3 08/24/1972 Ephesians 1:3 Doctrine of positional truth

In verses 3-6 we have the function of God the Father in the prothesis.

Verse 3 begins with a verbal adjective, e)uloghtoj. This is used only of deity in the New Testament. In other forms where the Koine Greek is used you will fond it for people but in the New Testament the word is used only for deity, as in Luke 1:68. This is actually taken from the participle e)ulogew. This is a verb which looks very similar which means to praise. Since e)uloghtoj is a verbalised adjective it means "worthy of praise and glorification." The verb means to praise. It is broken down from two words, e)u = good or well; legw = to speak. It is a technical word, one of the high words of praise used only for God, along with another one, e)peinoj which is "super praise." [e)inoj = praise; e)peinoj = over praise] This word is going to occur several times in this passage. To be ready for this verbal adjective one must have completed at least part of his ECS, and especially the fourth floor where you have capacity for love, category #1 directed toward God. Once you have this capacity you begin to appreciate the fact that the members of the Trinity are worthy of praise and glorification and that the capacity for this comes from what the Father has provided by way of spiritual food. Food is converted into energy in the human body; spiritual food is converted into energy of the soul, the ability to truly appreciate who and what God is. When you realise that people can appreciate who and what God is, this in itself is almost miraculous inasmuch as God is invisible, God is a great distance away as far as the residence of heaven is concerned, God cannot be understood where spiritual death is concerned and we were born spiritually dead (therefore no fellowship, no relationship, no ability to comprehend God). Therefore it is a miracle of grace that we in our souls as believer priests have as the highest function of our priesthood e)uloghtoj, the ability to appreciate God. E)u is a part of e)uquj which is used for straight speaking, it means straight to God, worthy of praise and glorification. You cannot glorify God or praise God or appreciate God or have capacity to love God apart from Bible doctrine.

"the God" — o( qeoj. This time we have the definite article to indicate the identity of the noun, "God."

"and Father" — we have pathr again, mentioned this time to indicate once again the first person of the Trinity who is invisible and unknowable apart from Bible doctrine, and the key to knowing Him is the Lord Jesus Christ. With this we have the ascensive use of kai, it indicates apposition but closer than apposition. It means talking about the same person. God and Father aren't really apposition, they are the same person. We have no definite article with pathr to call attention to the quality He is, the Father is the absolute authority. The first person of the Trinity is the author of the divine plan, the ultimate source of grace, and not only the absolute authority but the basis of order and freedom and function within His own plan.

"of our Lord Jesus Christ" — tou kuriou h(mwn I)hsou Xristou. This phrase presents the focal point of the Father's plan and at the same time emphasises that the only celebrity of the Christian life is Jesus Christ. The definite article tou indicates the quality of every one of these words. Every one of these words is a genitive of relationship. Tou is the genitive of the definite article, it gives us the key. Tou kuriou is genitive of relationship and it is a relationship between the Son and the Father. The Son has the same essence as the Father — essence box. "Lord" is deity. Then we have I)hsou in the genitive, the humanity of Christ. At this point, when we get to the word "Jesus," we now see something of the uniqueness of Christ. He is coequal with God the Father but He is different from the Father because He is true humanity. The Xristoj indicates that His humanity was sent through the sovereign decision and plan of the Father. The humanity of Christ was sent to the world. So man comes into contact with Jesus Christ, and when he does he learns about the Father; first of all by receiving as his saviour the living Word — phase one, Christ on the cross; then phase two, the written Word — the Bible, the canon of scripture, doctrine — and then he learns about both Christ and the Father and the whole plan. So each one of these is a genitive of relationship. The verbal adjective indicates that God the Father is the author of the plan — operation grace. He is the object of all worship, praise, glorification, homage, adoration, and thanksgiving. Jesus Christ is both the revelation of the Godhead and the first phase of the plan of God. As the Father of Jesus Christ the first person of the Trinity sent the Son as the grace entrance into the Father's plan. Christ said, "I am the door." The work of the Son on the cross not only excludes but it precludes all human works for salvation. Since Christ is the only saviour the Lord is the entrance into the Father's plan, there is no other way.

"who" is not found in the original manuscript. Instead there is a pre-positive definite article o(, usually translated "the one." It always refers to the person in context about whom everything is being said: "the one" — God the Father.

"hath blessed" — literally, "the one having blessed." This is the aorist active participle from e)ulogew. God the Father is the subject of the participle. A pre-positive definite article has a participle, it means this article is the subject of the participle. This is a gnomic aorist tense, one in which a doctrine is regarded as an absolute. It is to be taught as an absolute thing. This verb really means to provide benefits. It is an absolute in this universe of relatives that the God provides the benefits. There is a very close relationship between the gnomic aorist and the culminative aorist. Sometimes they cannot be distinguished. There is a sense in which this is culminative in that all blessing must ultimately come from God. This means any blessing that comes from sin does not come from God and therefore it means that that is not blessing in the absolute sense, in the grace sense. So it is important to understand the gnomic aorist. This is an absolute. The active voice: God the Father produces the action, He provides the benefits, does all the work, there is no place for human ability, human talent, human personality, human ingenuity. This is a participle. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb: "he hath chosen us," found in verse 4. First of all He provided benefits and then He chose us. Notice what comes first. The blessing comes before the person. Before He chose us He provided the blessing first because the blessing was based upon His perfect essence.

"us" — the accusative plural of the personal pronoun e)gw refers to believers of the Church Age. Therefore the phrase reads. "the one having provided us benefits."

Summary

1. Since aorist means occurrence the aorist tense can be an occurrence in eternity past. The aorist tense is not related to time, it has no temporal significance and therefore it can be an occurrence in eternity past. God the Father provided benefits for us in eternity past, long before we existed.

2. In eternity past God the Father provided benefits for us, grace benefits which we could neither earn nor deserve nor gain by our function in time.

3. While people can be a blessing to us in time only God can be a blessing to us in eternity past before we existed.

4. Here is the perfection of the divine plan compatible with God's character. He provided us the benefits and then He provided us.

5. God is perfect, therefore His plan inevitable must be perfect.

6. But the plan would not be perfect if anything depended upon man — and nothing does.

7. Grace blessing preexisted all believers.

8. The blessing came first, therefore you had nothing to do with the blessing, you were just there; it preexisted you.

9. Since the blessing of the believer existed before the believer it is impossible for such blessing to be based on human merit or human ability.

10. Therefore under the aorist active participle of e)ulogew God blesses or provides benefit on the basis of who and what He is, never who and what we are.

11. Remember the accusative plural of e)gw, the object of the participle. As the object of the participle the inference is obvious. Grace blessing in eternity past was designed for believers in time.

12. Such blessing becomes a reality through cognisance and inculcation of Bible doctrine.

The concept

1. Since the aorist tense represents occurrence not related to time God the Father blessed us or provided benefits for us in eternity past before we were born, before man existed, before angels existed.

2. In eternity past God the Father provided grace benefits for us which we could not earn or deserve, and these are benefits that belong to us on the basis of who and what He is.

3. While people can be a blessing to us in time only God can be a blessing to us before time existed in eternity past.

4. This is the perfection and the superiority of the divine plan which is compatible with the superiority and perfection of His person.

5. God is perfect, His plan is perfect. God is superior, His plan is ultimately superior. It is the only plan.

6. If man could do anything to earn or deserve in God's plan then the plan is no stronger than man. If anything depended upon man (and nothing does) then all grace blessing is gone.

7. Grace blessing preexisted all grace recipients, all believers. The blessing of grace was provided before the beneficiary of grace.

8. The blessing came first, therefore you had nothing to do with the blessing, either salvation or anything after salvation.

9. Since the blessing of the believer existed before the believer it is impossible for such blessing to be based on human merit or human ability.

E)ulogew: God provides benefits for you on the basis of who and what He is and who and what He was in eternity past, and He is the same today as He ever was, there never was a time when He was different. This blessing only becomes a reality to us by inculcation, cognisance, GAPing it daily.

"with all spiritual blessings" — materialistic things and things that produce happiness in life are secondary to spiritual blessings. There must be a stabiliser for what we have in life or what we do not have and spiritual blessing is the stabiliser. We have the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of paj [all] plus e)ulogia [blessing, benevolence] plus pneutatikoj [indicates a category of blessing]. This is a long prepositional phrase. It should be translated "by means of every spiritual benefit." The provision of grace covers many facets of life, but since God is a spirit benefits which come from God must be spiritual. God is a spirit, God is perfect, what He gives you is spiritual. It might be a right man or a right woman who is flesh and blood but the fact that you have right man or right woman is a spiritual blessing because of the source. So pneumatikoj is not used here in the sense of anything that is respectable or religious or legalistic. It refers to the very character of God, not only His essence. His character is spiritual. Anything that comes from God is pneumatikoj. Pneumatikoj is used for spiritual gifts. God the Holy Spirit sovereignly bestows the gifts. So a materialistic thing can be spiritual or not spiritual, it all depends on the source. If the source is God then it is spiritual.

"in heavenly places" — spiritual benefits include Bible doctrine. Your salvation is a spiritual benefit. But so is everything that you have which is materialistic that is from God. This is e)n plus the locative plural of e)pouranioj which is "upon the heavens." This is best translated "in the heavenlies," that is the place where God dwells. This anticipates the next preposition phrase which describes positional truth. In effect, "in the heavenlies" is going to relate all blessings that you have to your position in Christ. Your position in Christ, then, is the source of all your blessings and it is the same concept — pneumatikoj. When God provides a woman, money, a house, a car, or whatever, that is spiritual. The benefit is from God therefore it is spiritual. That doesn't describe the essence of the benefit, that describes the essence of the giver. Spiritual describes the essence of the giver. Pneumatikoj combines the essence of God, the character of God into one principle. You can't see God the Father. He is real, He is spiritual, therefore anything that comes from Him is a spiritual gift.

The preposition e)n plus the locative plural of e)pouranioj occurs five times in Ephesians. It is generally translated "in heavenly places" and that is not bad, but we can shorten it up to "in the heavenlies."

The five use:

a) The sphere and source of divine blessing — Ephesians 1:3.

b) The sphere of Christ's power — Ephesians 1:20.

c) The sphere of the Christian life — Ephesians 2:6.

d) The sphere of angelic activity — Ephesians 3:10.

e) The sphere of spiritual conflict — Ephesians 6:12.

"in Christ" — e)n plus the locative of Xristoj for positional truth. There is no definite article here. The absence of the definite article emphasises the quality. The quality is perfect, Christ. The quality is resurrected, ascended, and seated Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father. His humanity is in the place of highest glorification. His deity always possesses glorification. As the God-Man seated at the right hand of the Father in hypostatic union He is absolutely unique.

Translation: "Worthy of praise and glorification the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one having provided us benefits by every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ."

The doctrine of positional truth ["in Christ"]

1. The mechanics of positional truth are found in Acts 1:5; 1Corinthians 12:13 [mechanics]; Ephesians 4:5 [principle]. In other words, at the point of salvation every believer receives 36 things. Five of these are directly accomplished by God the Holy Spirit, one of which is the baptism of the Spirit whereby He takes us an enters us into union with Jesus Christ.

2. Positional truth belongs to the carnal as well as the spiritual believer, to the super-grace believer and the reversionist — 1Corinthians 1:2, 30.

3. Positional truth protects the believer from divine judgment in eternity. Being in union with Christ means that we share His life [eternal], His righteousness [+R, which means it is impossible for us to be judged at the great white throne], His sonship, His heirship, His priesthood, His election, His destiny, His kingship. Romans 8:1.

4. Positional sanctification qualifies the believer to live with God forever. If you are going to live with God forever there are certain things you must have: eternal life, +R — 1John 5:11,12; 2Corinthians 5:21. The believer enters into union with Christ, he shares the life of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, therefore he is qualified to live with God forever, he has the same kind of life that God has, the same kind of righteousness that God has.

5. Positional truth explains both election and predestination. The principle is that in eternity past Jesus Christ was elected by God the Father, so Christ is elected. In electing Christ He also gave Him a destiny. When we enter into union with Christ we share the election of Christ, we share the destiny of Christ; therefore we are pre designed, foreordained by virtue of union with Christ. Remember that Christianity is a relationship: union with Christ, not a religion.

6. Positional truth produces a new creature in Christ — 2Corinthians 5:17.

7. Positional truth guarantees the eternal security of the believer — Romans 8:38,39.

8. Positional truth exists in two categories: retroactive and current. When Jesus Christ died on the cross the sins of the old sin nature were poured out on Him and judged, human good was rejected. When we accept Christ as saviour we enter into union with Christ as He is seated at the right hand of the Father. But we also enter into union with Christ as He was upon the cross. We are identified with Christ in His death, we are identified with Christ in His resurrection and ascension. Retroactive positional truth is identification with Christ in His death — Romans 6; Colossians 2:12; 3:3. Current positional truth is identification with Christ in His resurrection.

9. The implications of current positional truth. They all have to do with the fact that we share what Christ has. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, we share everything that Christ has and is.

a) Christ is eternal life — 1John 5:11,12.

b) Christ is absolute righteousness — 2Corinthians 5:21.

c) Christ is elected, we share His election — Ephesians 1:4.

d) Christ has a destiny, we share His destiny — Ephesians 1:5.

e) Christ is the Son, we are in union with Christ, we share His sonship — 2Timothy 2:1.

f) Christ is the heir, we share His heirship — Romans 8:16,17.

g) Christ is sanctified, we share His sanctification — 1Corinthians 1:2.

h) Christ is a King, we share His kingdom — 2Peter 1:11.

i) Christ is a high priest, we share His priesthood —Hebrews 10:10-14.

10. The characteristics of positional truth.

a) It is not an experience, it is neither emotional nor ecstatics.

b) It is not progressive, it cannot be improved in time or eternity.

c) It is not related to human merit or human good. Grace escalates divine good and excludes human good.

d) Positional truth is eternal in nature, it will last forever.

e) Positional truth is known only to the Word of God.

f) Positional truth is obtained en toto at the moment of salvation. It is accomplished by means of the baptism of the Spirit, one of the 36 things we receive at the point of salvation.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #4

4 08/27/1972 Ephesians 1:4 Doctrine of election

Verse 4 — "According as" is the compound verb kaqwj, made up of the preposition kata = norm or standard; the adverb o(j = as, just as, like. When put together it is used here is a causal sense, especially as a conjunction beginning a sentence. God is the cause of election. He is the cause of His own plan. He is perfect, therefore His plan is perfect. The fact that He has caused a plan means that there is in this world one perfect plan, the origin is God the Father. This is the meaning of the compound adverb at this stage. The planner came before the plan. We translate it, "Even as."

"he that chosen us" — the aorist middle indicative of the verb e)klegw. The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist, it is designed to state something which is axiomatic, something which is completely and totally absolute without equivocation. It is very similar to the culminative aorist in which the event is reviewed in its entirety but regarded from the viewpoint of existing results. Here we have an absolute state. The Father's perfection is revealed in the fact that he has chosen us, we have not chosen Him. Not only has He chosen us but He has chosen us within a sphere, within a principle: the principle of grace so that at no time in all of our existence will anything ever depend on us and everything will depend on Him. The middle voice: the subject, God the Father, acts toward participating in the outcome. While the active voice stresses the action the middle voice stresses the agent. God the Father is the agent. Hence, the middle voice relates the action more intimately to the subject. So in the middle voice this verb is very intimately united to the subject as the source. God the Father is the source of election. This is also known in Greek syntax as a direct middle in which the verb carries a reflexive connotation. This relates the action of the verb to the subject. The reflexive middle here emphasises the sovereignty, the perfection of God — His ability, His sovereignty, everything. God has all ability to provide for us. We are related to the God of the universe, the first person of the Trinity, who has no limitation in His ability in any way. The indicative mood is the reality of God the Father having selected or elected us for Himself — "Even as he has elected [chosen] us for himself."

"us" refers to all believers; "in him" is e)n plus the locative of the pronoun a)utoj, a basic reflexive pronoun. It refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. The pronoun emphasises a subject already known to the readers. It is also intensive, isolating the person of Jesus Christ from everything else and indicating that God the Father intends that for us as believers there is only one celebrity in the universe, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father has sent us and has given us the only celebrity. Principle: In Christianity there can be many heroes but only one celebrity, the God-Man, the unique person of the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ. The prepositional phrase here refers to positional truth. E)n plus the locative refers to being in union with the Lord Jesus Christ.

"before the foundation of the world' — pro katabolhj kosmou. Pro plus the genitive indicates before something began. Kosmou indicates the order of things that came from God in this world. So literally, "before the beginning of the world." Kosmoj means order. It originally has to do with God creating this world. Kosmoj today is used for the devil's kingdom.

The word "chosen" is the key to the doctrine of election.

The doctrine of election

1. All members of the human race are potentially elected to the plan of God by the doctrine of unlimited atonement — 2Timothy 2:10.

2. Christ was elected from eternity past — Isaiah 42:1; 1Peter 2:4,6. If there is going to be a plan the plan must centre on a person, and the person in the plan is the unique person of the universe, Jesus Christ. A plan must involve a key person. Election for the believer means to share the election of Jesus Christ, even as predestination means to share the destiny of Christ. In eternity past Jesus Christ was elected by God the Father. The Father is perfect, He elects the Son. Through the cross where Christ died for us we enter into union with Jesus Christ. Christ is elected; we share His election. Christ is predestined; we share His predestination.

3. This election of Christ which we now possess occurred in the doctrine of divine decrees and/or the eternal life conference in eternity past — John 15:16; Ephesians 1:4; 2Thessalonians 2:13; 1Peter 1:2.

4. Every believer shares the election of Christ through the mechanics of positional sanctification — 1Corinthians 1:2, 30; Romans 8:28-32; Ephesians 1:4.

5. Election is the present as well as the future possession of every believer. Therefore election is both temporal as well as the eternal possession of the believer — John 15:16; Colossians 3:12.

6. This election occurs at the moment of salvation — 1Thessalonians 1:4; 2Thessalonians 2:13; 2Timothy 1:9.

7. Election is the foundation of the Church. We are members of the body of Christ, the Church, and election is the basis of the foundation of the Church — 1Thessalonians 1:4. The foundation of the Church universal is the plan — election; the foundation of the church local is Bible doctrine.

8. Orientation to election comes through doctrine in the right lobe and in the super-grace life.

9. Regenerate Jews of the previous dispensation, the Age of Israel, also had an election as a part of the plan of God — Romans 11:1-7.

"that" is not found in the original manuscript. However, it is bona fide as a word in the translation because the infinitive often denotes purpose. "That" is a device in the English to connote purpose, so it is used here to translate the infinitive with the accusative of general reference.

"we should be" — "we" is the accusative plural of the personal pronoun e)gw, and in the plural it should be translated "we," referring to all believers under the concept "he has chosen us." Notice that "we" is the subject of the verb "should be." But "we" is in the accusative and it is called the accusative of general reference, whereby when you want to emphasise something and have run out of superlatives you go to a grammatical change. In the sense of etymology we have now run out of superlatives, therefore we go to a device in the Greek. Take an accusative (in this case an accusative plural. It is always the object of the verb) and turn it into a subject. When you turn it into a subject you can't use an ordinary verb, you have to use an infinitive. So the infinitive should be the present active infinitive of e)imi, the absolute status quo verb. We have present tense, linear aktionsart. The active voice: all believers. The accusative plural of e)gw, the subject. The infinitive: this is God's purpose. Therefore it should be translated, "that we keep on being." Then we have another accusative, the object of the verb, but the problem is that the verb is e)imi which doesn't take the accusative case. So once more we have a very strange construction, an accusative of general reference followed by an accusative. This in itself is a very strong way in the Greek of underlining something.

"saints" — a(gioj. The principle of the phrase, "that we keep on being saints" is to indicate that the purpose of grace is to make each believer of the Church Age exactly like the celebrity, like Christ. The Father is going to accomplish this in three stages and all three stages come under the word a(gioj.

The word "saints" has to do with positional sanctification, i.e. every believer in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are saints because Christ was set apart to God the Father in eternity past. Christ was set apart in time because of His uniqueness. The uniqueness of Christ leads to the fact that He is sanctified or set apart. Christ is the original saint, we are in union with Christ, we share His set-apartness. Positionally we are set apart, experientially: super-grace life, and ultimately in resurrection body we will have a body exactly like that of the Son of God.

"and without blame" — the ascensive use of kai which sets it up in apposition, and it should be "even unblemished or blameless." Anomoj is an adjective and it means "blameless" or "unblemished." It connotes the absence of defects. This is accomplished at present through union with Christ. In phase three the resurrection body is exactly like Him. The fact that we are saints now and the fact that we were saints at salvation means that we will always be saints. Because the believer is in union with Christ he is blameless — Romans 8:1. Because he is going to have a resurrection body exactly like Christ, he is blameless. What he is experientially is beside the point. The point is he is in the plan of God and it doesn't depend on the believer.

"before him" is an adverb, katenwpion, which has a dual connotation. It means first of all "in the sight of." This refers to phase two sanctification which as to do with super-grace life. It also means "in the presence of" which refers to phase three sanctification based on having a resurrection body. We are in union with Christ, therefore we are in the sight of God right now. We are also going to be in the presence of God in a resurrection body. We translate this "in the presence of him." This includes the fact that we are in His sight now, we will be in His presence in the future.

"before him [of him]" is a genitive singular of a)utoj referring to God the Father. This is a genitive of reference.

"in love" goes with the next verse.

Translation: "Even as he has chosen us for himself in him [Christ] before the beginning of the world, that we keep on being saints and blameless in the presence of him."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #5

5 09/03/1972 Ephesians 1:5 Doctrines of predestination, adoption

Verse 5 — the words "in love" at the end of verse 4 in the KJV are actually the beginning of this verse. So the verses actually starts, "In love having predestinated." "In love" is the preposition e)n plus the locative of a)gaph. A)gaph is a mental love, a love which has no emotional connotation. It is the absence of mental attitude sins and is the concept and the dynamics of love from the standpoint of thinking. Here it refers to the love of God the Father as the motivator in His plan. Love must not be compromised and therefore we have the concept of propitiation whereby God enters into relationship with us.

"having predestinated" is the aorist active participle of the compound verb proorizw which means to predesign or to predetermine.

The doctrine of predestination

1. The doctrine of predestination deals with the believer only. There is no such thing as the unbeliever being predestined to hell. The believer has a destiny, the unbeliever goes to hell by his own decision — John 3:18, 36.

2. The biblical concept of predestination does not conflict with human volition but emphasises it.

3. The purpose of the doctrine of predestination is to relate the believer permanently to the plan of God through positional truth — Ephesians 1:5.

4. There are five Greek words used to communicate the biblical doctrine of predestination.

a) Proorizw, a verb meaning to predesign — Romans 8:28,29; Ephesians 1:5, 11.

b) Protiqhmi, a verb meaning to predetermine (proorizw and protiqhmi are really synonyms with slight changes of meaning) — Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:9. These words are occasionally used for man.

c) Proqesij, a noun meaning a predetermined plan — the subject of Ephesians 1. It is so used in Romans 8:28, " … according to his proqesij." Also used in Romans 9:11; Ephesians 1:11; 3:11; 2Timothy 1:9.

d) Proginwskw, a verb meaning to foreordain or preordain when God is the subject — 1Peter 1:20; Romans 8:29; 11:2.

e) Prognwsij, the cognate of proginwskw, which means foreknowledge or a predetermined purpose — Acts 2:23; 1Peter 1:2.

5. The crucifixion of Christ is related to the divine decree and predetermined purpose of God — Acts 2:23, "Him [Jesus Christ], being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." The word "counsel" is the word boulh, "decree." The word "foreknowledge" is prognwsij but it should be predetermined purpose." So Jesus Christ was delivered by the predetermined purpose of God the Father. Predestination inevitably involves the person of Jesus Christ, and therefore it is related to the doctrine of divine decrees, the plan of God designed in eternity past. It centres and focuses around the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not conflict with human volition, it anticipates human volition. It anticipates human volition involved in the first sin. It anticipates human volition in believing in Christ. It anticipates human volition in rejecting Christ. But here we have it related to the person of Christ, and prognwsij is mistranslated "foreknowledge" in Acts 2:23. It does not mean foreknowledge, it is stronger than that. It means predetermined purpose. So Jesus Christ was delivered by the thoughtful decree and the predetermined purpose of God the Father.

6. All believers' suffering is related to the predetermined plan of God — Romans 8:28 where we have the word proqesij. " … according to his predetermined plan." Because of divine provision in eternity past all suffering in phase two works together with grace resulting in divine good.

7. In grace God in eternity past thought about us and predesigned provision for us. This is what predestination is all about. This includes provision for both time and eternity — Romans 8:29,30. " … he also predesigned [proorizw]."

8. God the Father predetermined the grace concept of propitiation — Romans 3:25, " … through the forbearance of God." The word forbearance is protqhmi, "the predetermined plan of God."

9. The predetermined plan of God takes care of the believer before his birth — Romans 9:11, proqesij.

10. Both proqesij and proorizw combine in Ephesians 1:11 to define the divine decrees and relate them to predestination: "In whom also we have received a destiny, having been predesigned according to a predetermined plan, from the one [God the Father] putting into operation the all things according to the decree from his will and purpose."

11. The born again Jew of the previous dispensation is a part of the preordained plan of God under the unconditional covenants to Israel. Therefore the born again Jew of the Old Testament is not a castaway — Romans 11:2. Therefore there is a definite relationship between predestination and eternal security. Predestination gives the basis for eternal security.

12. The Father through perfect expression of His thinking predesigned His perfect plan in Christ. Predestination is related to Jesus Christ, therefore predestination inevitably is related to the only celebrity of the Christian life, Jesus Christ — Ephesians 1:9; 1Peter 1:2, 20; 2Timothy 1:9.

"having predestinated" is the aorist active participle of the compound verb proorizw which means to predesign or to predetermine. Aorist comes from the Greek word a)oristoj which means unlimited. Aorist means that we have an indefinite tense without essential temporal significance. The aorist does not signify completeness but an action as already attained. It states the fact of the action, the event, without regard to its duration. The aorist states a past action without reference to its duration simply as a thing attained. The aorist, then, expresses a simple occurrence of the action in past time, although some of them anticipate the future and some are related to the present. We have a constative aorist here which contemplates the action in its entirety. In other words, it takes everything designed in the divine decrees in eternity past and gathers it up into one whole or one entirety. When the aorist participle here says "having predesigned" it means that in eternity past everything that would be needed for you personally was provided then — salvation and everything after it in phase two. So the constative aorist here takes into view everything that you would ever need. God will never be taken by surprise at any disaster in the believer's life and in eternity past He had already made provision in grace. We also have the active voice of this participle: God the Father did the work. In the active voice the subject produces the action and God the Father is the subject producing the action. This is also an aorist participle. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb: "he has chosen us for himself." He also did that in eternity past, and this is to show logical progression in eternity past. In eternity past, after He had provided everything the believer needed, He chose him.

"us" is the accusative plural from e)gw — "In love having predesigned us."

What is "us"?

1. Omniscience anticipates human volition but never coerces it. Human volition is still free to operate on positive or negative signals.

2. Since God the Father had the good sense to know in eternity past who would believe in Christ, having predesigned us He chose us for Himself in Christ. He knew who would believe in Christ; He knew who would not. So He said the plan would apply to those who believe. Those who do not are outside of the plan.

3. Predesigned in eternity past are 36 things received by every believer at the point of salvation.

4. Predesigned in eternity past is everything the believer will ever need for the super-grace life.

5. However, this passage emphasises the salvation provision of eternity past. Other passages emphasise what God has provided to get the believer into super-grace.

6. The present Calvinistic doctrine of predestination is based on the Hegelian fallacy that for every thesis there must be an antithesis. However, if the Bible does not state the antithesis it does not exist.

7. The Bible states the destiny of the believer as heaven. While the believer is predestined to heaven in a resurrection body the unbeliever is not predestined to hell. The unbeliever goes to hell by his own decision, not by the plan of God. The plan of God made provision for everyone to stay out of hell — unlimited atonement.

8. God's plan calls for the unbeliever to go to heaven but rejection of Christ from his own free will places him forever in the lake of fire. However, it is not God's predesigned plan for that unbeliever to go to hell but it is the unbeliever's own volition.

9. Out of this a principle: God has designed beforehand a plan, not the person. The person enters the plan by faith in Christ. God knew beforehand who would enter His plan and who would not.

10. Therefore God predesigned that all who believe would be taken by God by the Holy Spirit and entered into union with Christ.

"unto the adoption" — the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of u(ioqesia [u(io = adult son; qesij = placing]. This is a Roman custom, the recognition of maturity. Adoption means recognition of maturity, it does not mean to adopt someone outside the family. The words "of children" are not found in the original. It should read, "In love having predesigned us with the result of the appointment of adult sons." E)ij, the preposition, is used in the concept of result.

The doctrine of adoption

1. Isagogics: the Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. The noun u(ioqesia refers to a Roman custom in Paul's time. In the Roman empire the son was placed under slaves and teachers during his minority. At around age 14 he had graduated from a system of intensive training and discipline which was administered by slaves, those who taught him. He was then recognised as an adult member of the family. The ceremony was called u(ioseqia, the word "adoption" in our passage. The basic concept of the ceremony was freedom to function as an adult citizen in the Roman world. This custom is taken by Paul. There is no concept here of adopting someone outside the family, it is recognition of someone inside the family, that they have now grown up.

2. We must relate the etymology to the isagogics. The word u(ioseqia comes from the Greek word u(ioj which means adult son, and qesia come from tiqhmi which means to appoint or place. U(ioseqia means, then, to be appointed an adult son as a member of the family. It refers to one of the 36 things that every believer receives at the moment of salvation, and it has to do with the believer's freedom. At the moment you believe in Christ spiritually you are brefoj, a child on mother's breast. But you are at the same time in union with Christ who is the Son of God, u(ioj, and being in union with Him positionally you are u(ioj. You are a child spiritually, experientially, but positionally you are an adult son. This indicates that every believer, no matter how he fails, is still another u(ioj of God; he is in union with Christ.

3. The mechanics of adoption. Positional truth in Ephesians 1:4,5 gives us the mechanics. By means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit every believer enters into union with Christ. Positional truth is the mechanics of adoption. The word tiqhmi, the verb from qesij, is fulfilled by the baptism of the spirit — 1Corinthians 12:13. At the moment of salvation every believer is an adult son.

4. The time of adoption is the point of salvation — John 3:3,7; 1:12; Galatians 3:26; Titus 3:5.

5. The implications of adoption are freedom to have relationship with God and serve Him — Galatians 4:5. Remember that adoption as well as salvation in general gives us freedom toward God, not freedom in the human race. Therefore full time Christian service is nothing more or less than the believer free to have relationship with God — Romans 8:15.

6. There is also a future aspect of adoption — Romans 8:23, the resurrection body, minus the old sin nature, minus human good. In other words, the future aspect of adoption is ultimate sanctification.

"by Jesus Christ" — dia plus the genitive which is "through Jesus Christ." Union with Christ makes the adoption reality.

"to himself" is e)ij plus autoj and it means that the direction of the baptism of the Spirit, union with Christ and adoption, is toward God Himself.

"according to the good pleasure" — kata plus the accusative of e)udokia which means benevolent purpose.

"of his will" — we have to be careful here because the word is qelhma and it is in the ablative. It means "from the source of his will." This is what is called the objective use of qelhma which means what is willed, what one wishes to bring about by his own action. Since God by His own action has undertaken to do what He has willed this refers to His plan and His purpose. It is a benevolent purpose of God which He has undertaken to adopt every believer at the point of salvation as an adult son. This is a benevolent purpose compatible with grace.

Translation: "In love having predesigned us with the result of the appointment of adult sons for himself through Jesus Christ, according to the benevolent purpose from his will."

Principle: Positional truth was designed to make every believer at salvation an adult son, whether he is carnal or spiritual, whether he is in reversionism or super-grace. Therefore positional truth was predesigned to give every believer eternal security regardless of his experiential status in phase two.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #6

6 09/10/1972 Ephesians 1:6–7a Doctrine of grace

Verse 6 — "To the praise" is a prepositional praise, e)ij plus the accusative singular from the compound noun e)painoj [e)inoj = praise; e)painoj = over-praise] which can be translated applause, recognition, or approval. Literally then, "resulting in recognition." The preposition e)ij plus the accusative here indicates a result. This is the believer's response to the plan of God. You cannot begin to appreciate who and what God is, or His plan, until you recognise its ultimate parts. The fact of over-praise recognition indicates the response of a believer with an ECS and this is really super-grace recognition. Ephesians 1:6, like James 4:6, is not dealing with grace in the ordinary sense but it is referring to the function of the super-grace life. So this is tantamount to occupation with Christ as the fourth floor of the ECS plus the capacity for loving Jesus Christ under the super-grace life. A more detailed response is presented in Psalm 32.

"of the glory" — the genitive singular doca is without the definite article. This word refers to the quality of God. Glory is used here in that sense because of the absence of the definite article, calling attention to the quality of the noun. The specific part of God which is being described is His plan so we have "the glory of …

"his grace" — the ablative singular of xarij which is source here, "glory from the source of his grace."

"wherein" — an ablative from the relative pronoun o(j and should be translated "from which [grace]." Grace is the antecedent of the relative pronoun. In other words, it is the grace of God which has made us "accepted in the beloved."

"he hath made us accepted" is an aorist active indicative of xaritow which does not mean to be accepted. Xarij means grace, and xaritew here means to pursue with grace or to grace out — "he has pursued us with grace." The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist stating a present reality with the certitude of a past event. The past event is the doctrine of divine decrees or God's decision in eternity past to treat mankind in grace. Therefore, since man is hard to catch this verb recognises man as a believer being pursued by grace. The dramatic aorist is often used for a status which has just been realised, and the whole objective of Ephesians 1:6 is to become aware of with the result that you enter into the super-grace life. Paul in reversion recovery has come to realise the fact that ever since the moment he was saved he has been pursued by grace. The active voice produces the action of the verb. In this case God the Father is the subject and He does the pursuing. It is the plan of God the Father that pursues us from the point of salvation to the point that we depart from this earth. The indicative mood is the reality of the super-grace believer being pursued by God's grace.

"us" is the accusative plural of the personal pronoun e)gw. This personal pronoun means that any believer who is positive toward doctrine is under this principle. It is a question of whether you are going to be disciplined by grace or pursued by grace. If you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ are negative toward doctrine it is inevitable that you will be disciplined by grace. But if you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ are positive toward doctrine it is also inevitable that you will be pursued by grace.

"in the beloved" — the perfect passive participle of a)gapaw. A)gapaw is used for mental attitude love. In the case of God it is right from His essence. The perfect tense is the permanent fact that God loves us. He loves us because He first of all loved His Son. The perfect tense is used to first of all indicate there was a permanent love always between the Father and the Son. We are "in" — e)n plus the locative form of the perfect passive participle which refers to the fact that since we are in union with the one who has always been loved we now share being the object of that permanent love. God the Father loves God the Son with a permanent love; God the Father loves every believer with a permanent love. The passive voice indicates that we receive this love without earning it or deserving it or working for it. You do not work for the love of God, it is maximum at the point of salvation, and God's love for you from the point of salvation on never is improved. Every believer is in union with the one having been loved. Therefore we are the objects of maximum love from the start and it never changes. Since the believer is in union with Christ the Father can only love us with the same capacity of love that He has for the Son. Consequently we are "the ones having been loved." This is taught in Colossians 3:12; 1Timothy 6:2; Hebrews 6:9; 2Peter 3:1; 1John 3:2.

Translation: "Resulting in the recognition of glory from the source of his grace, from which he has pursued us with grace in the one having been loved."

The doctrine of grace

The plan of God, operation grace, was provided for man before man was created. Therefore man cannot earn and cannot deserve this grace. Under grace God does the work and man is only the beneficiary. Under super-grace God does the pursuing and man does the benefiting.

1. Grace is all that God is free to do for man on the basis of the cross. God is free to express His love through grace and He does this without jeopardising His essence. No one can truly give apart from freedom and God gives out of total freedom because of the cross to us. Grace is the work and the plan of God on behalf of man beginning at the cross. It is God's plan and God's policy for mankind. It is a plan, a policy, a function, a mechanic, a divine modus operandi, a divine modus vivendi.

2. Under the principle of concept grace depends upon the essence of God, therefore grace depends on who and what God is. Grace is what God can do for man and still be consistent with His own character.

3. The believer must sort out the difference between grace and legalism. Legalism is man's ability and works intruding upon the plan of God. Man's works cannot coexist with God's works. Such an implied coexistence is blasphemy. Grace excludes human works.

4. Grace, sanctification, and the angelic conflict all meet in the plan of God. The greatest thing God can do for a believer is to make him exactly like His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only celebrity of the Church Age. Ultimately it is the objective of God's plan to make everyone like His Son. Man was created to resolve the angelic conflict and since man was given free will it is inevitable that he would fail. Adam through his free will sinned. Jesus Christ had to become a human being and not an angel in order to resolve the angelic conflict — Hebrews 2;14-16. In other words, the first Adam lost the victory through the fall and the last Adam wins the victory through the cross — Colossians 2:14. Grace found a way to take man created inferior to angels and make him superior, and this is accomplished in all three stages of the plan of God for mankind.

Stage one is positional sanctification in which the believer enters into union with the glorified Jesus Christ. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, this is an application of current positional truth. Every believer is in union with the Lord Jesus Christ therefore believers are positionally higher than angels. When Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father in His humanity He is higher than angels, we are in union with the God-Man, Jesus Christ, and we are now positionally superior to angels.

Stage two is our life on this earth and under the construction of the edification complex of the soul and the entrance into the super-grace life it is possible for our experience to represent in an effective way what was provided for us at the point of salvation. In other words, the super-grace life is the only normal Christian life which expresses the priesthood of the believer. Believers who do not grow up never live the normal Christian life. So stage two is designed through grace whereby God can tale a believer living in the devil's world in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict and make it possible for this individual to adequately represent the Lord Jesus Christ.

Stage three is comparable to phase three in which the believer receives a resurrection body exactly like that of the Son of God, minus the old sin nature, minus human good. As a result he is exactly like the Son of God fulfilling Philippians 3:21, and this is the ultimate.

5. Every believer has tasted the grace of God at least once — Hebrews 6:4; 1Peter 2:3. At the moment of salvation every believer receives from God 36 things and he never loses these things. This grace package of salvation cannot be cancelled or destroyed either by God Himself, by angels, or by mankind. Among the 36 things received by grace at salvation we have the principle of propitiation in 1John 2:2 whereby the believer regardless of spiritual status is always under maximum love from God. But grace can only find a place to lodge where there is capacity for grace and capacity for grace only comes through the super-grace life.

6. The occupational hazard for believers is disorientation to grace in the field of reversionism. Under these conditions, in Galatians 5:4, reversionism is called "falling from grace," and in Hebrews 12:15 it is called "missing grace." So reversionism is a great danger after one has erected an ECS.

7. The divine attitude in grace: God is constantly waiting to pour out His grace to every believer in phase two — Isaiah 30:18,19.

8. Grace in phase two is found in such passages as Psalm 103:8-12; Romans 3:23,24; 4:4; 5:20; Ephesians 2:8,9; Hebrews 2:9.

9. Grace in phase two is the believer in time.

a) The prayer of the super-grace life — Hebrews 4:16. You will use prayer to the maximum once you enter the super-grace life.

b) Grace is suffering — 2Corinthians 12:9,10. Super-grace suffering is designed for greatest possible blessing.

c) Grace in growth — 2Peter 3:18.

d) Grace in stability in phase two — 1Peter 5:12; Hebrews 13:9.

e) Grace as the modus vivendi — 2Corinthians 1:2; Hebrews 12:28.

f) Grace in the production of divine good — 1Corinthians 15:10; 2Corinthians 6:1.

10. Grace and giving — 2Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 4:14-18. Grace orientation is the bona fide motivation for the thought pattern involved in giving.

11. Grace in suffering — 2Corinthians 12:7-10.

12. Some axioms concerning grace.

a) God is perfect; His plan is perfect.

b) A perfect plan can only originate and function from a perfect God.

c) If man can do anything meritorious in the plan of God it is no longer perfect.

d) A plan is no stronger than its weakest link. For this reason grace excludes all human merit, all human ability. Grace also excludes any form of human good.

e) Legalism and human good is always the enemy of grace.

f) Therefore works of human righteousness have no place in the plan of God.

g) All human good is associated with the greatest mental attitude sin of pride. Reversionism is characterised by pride, jealousy, and other mental attitude sins.

13. There are four areas of pride which reject God's grace. This explains Satan's pride, human pride, why pride is the worst and most devastating of mental attitude sins.

a) The pride of the believer who rejects the doctrine of eternal security. To say that you can commit a sin that is greater than the plan of God is blasphemous. Hebrews 12:28.

b) The pride of the believer who succumbs to pressure and adversity. He thinks his pressure and suffering is greater than the grace provision of God — 2Corinthians 12:8-10.

c) The pride of pseudo spirituality, the believer who thinks his human systems of spirituality are greater than the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. These systems usually include some system of personality imitation, observation of taboos, confusing the means and the result, assuming that witnessing to 10 people a day is the filling of the Spirit whereas in reality the filling of the Spirit results in effective witnessing, relativity which says in affect "My sins are more refined than your sin, therefore when I compare myself with you I'm spiritual and you are carnal," the operation of the holy roller who thinks that their pseudo tongues somehow has spiritual content.

d) The pride of the believer in emotional revolt of the soul who assumes that his feelings and his emotions and his experiences are more important than Bible doctrine — 2Corinthians 6:11,12.

14. Grace is related to the divine assets of John 1:12,16,17; 1Corinthians 1:4,5; Ephesians 1:6,7.

15. The principle of super-grace is taught in James 4:6 were it is called "greater grace."

a) The super-grace of the Lord Jesus Christ — John 1:14,16,17.

b) The super-grace of the believer in phase two — Philippians 4; James 4; Ephesians 3:19,20, 2Corinthians 12:8-10.

Notice a progression of grace in our context. In Ephesians 1:6 we have "his grace." In verse 7, "the ruches of his grace." In 2:7, "the exceeding riches of his grace." There is a principle involved here. Once grace starts pursuing you you go from grace to the riches of His grace to the exceeding riches of His grace.

7 09/17/1972 Ephesians 1:7–8; Lev. 17:10–14 Doctrine of the blood (extensive explanation); doctrine of redemption

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #7

Verses 7-12, the work of the Son related to the plan of the Father.

Verse 7 — the function of the Lord Jesus Christ in harmonising God's love with God's holiness. "In whom" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j. The relative pronoun must always have an antecedent. Here it is the Lord Jesus Christ — "the one having been loved."

"we have" — present active indicative of e)xw which means to have and to hold. The present tense is linear aktionsart which means unchanged. We will always have, hold, redemption through His blood. Here is the basis by which God can pursue us with grace after salvation because His righteousness and justice are not compromised by His love. Propitiation, redemption, reconciliation, imputation, justification all combine so that God is able to bless us to the maximum in time without compromising His divine character. We are pursued by grace at the point of entering the super-grace life. Long before we were pursued by grace we had the basis for it, we had it at the moment of our salvation.

"redemption" — the accusative singular from a)polutrwsij, the strongest word for being purchased from slavery. It means a deliverance from slavery by payment. A)polutrwisij means the slave was purchased and released as a free person.

The slave is free but he has no capacity for freedom. He has to learn a great many things before he can begin to appreciate, to enjoy, or to utilise his freedom. He has to learn things, he has to know things. You and I at the point of salvation are freed from the slavemarket of sin but just because we are born again, just because we are children of God, just because we have eternal life, it doesn't mean that we have any capacity for the freedom which God has provided through redemption, through grace. Therefore it takes the learning of Bible doctrine to have capacity for freedom and one of the first characteristics of the super-grace life is capacity for freedom. You have to learn doctrine after you are saved, that is the whole objective. Capacity for freedom is in the soul, not in the body.

Verse 7 — we enter into the function of the Son as it relates to the plan of the Father. Since God demands that justice and righteousness [His own] must be harmonised with His love the next section, verses 7-12, deal with the work of the Son. This is the only way that God can be consistent with His own essence.

Verse 7 begins with the preposition e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j. The antecedent for the relative pronoun is the Lord Jesus Christ who is said to be in the English "beloved," but it is a perfect passive participle, "the one having been loved." "In whom [Christ]."

"we have" — present active indicative of the verb e)xw which means to have and to hold; "redemption" — here is the principle, the blood will give us the mechanics. The doctrine of redemption is used to illustrate the principle at this point. Under the doctrine of redemption we have the noun in the accusative singular, the object of the verb, a)polutrwsij which is the strongest of all Greek words for this. Lutrwsij means to purchase; a)po means from an ultimate source. When put together it means to purchase a slave, not to be used as a slave but to purchase a slave and to give him his freedom. So it connotes not only freedom from the slavemarket of sin but it also indicates that the person is no longer a slave. He is delivered from shackles and bondage and is considered a free man. "In whom we have been purchased to freedom."

The doctrine of redemption

1. The principle of redemption is found in John 8:31-36 in which the Pharisees challenged the Lord Jesus Christ. They said, "Why do you say that we as a nation are slaves? We have never been in slavery to anyone." At the time that they spoke they were in slavery to the Roman empire, they were in slavery to the Pharisees, they were in slavery to religionism and legalism, and in addition to that they were born slaves in the slavemarket of sin, i.e. born with old sin natures. But the Lord Jesus Christ made an issue only out of the old sin nature.

2. Christ paid the ransom for sin on the cross. In other words, Christ purchased redemption — Psalm 34:22; Galatians 3:13; 1Peter 1:18,19.

3. Redemption is a doctrine which the believer can apply in time of pressure or catastrophe and find both blessing and happiness — Job 19:25,26.

4. Redemption results in the biblical doctrine of adoption — Galatians 4:4-6.

5. The doctrine of redemption was communicated in the Old Testament sacrifices by the shedding of animal blood — Hebrews 9:22.

6. Redemption provides the basis for the believer's eternal inheritance — Hebrews 9:15.

7. The blood of Christ is the ransom money or the purchase price of redemption — Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; 1John 1:7; 1Peter 1:18,19. The blood depicts the spiritual death of Christ.

8. Redemption includes the forgiveness of sins — Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14.

9. Redemption provides the basis for justification — Romans 3:24.

"through his blood" — dia plus the genitive of a(ima. The issue is found in the blood. Never in human history has one principle, one doctrine, been so abused in the scripture. The blood of Jesus Christ is mentioned quite frequently in the New Testament and its counterpart, the representation of it, the blood of animal sacrifices in the Old Testament. With regard to the doctrine of the blood there are several things that must be kept in mind. First of all, Jesus Christ did not bleed to death. Nor does His physical death have anything to do with salvation, except to indicate the fact that it was finished. Salvation was completed while Christ was alive on the cross.

The Blood of Christ

1. The blood of Christ is represented by animal blood in the Old Testament. Blood is said to be the seat of animal life: "The life of the flesh is in the blood" — Leviticus 17:10-14. This is not talking about people, it is talking about animals. The life of mankind is in the soul, not the blood. The animal does not have a soul.

2. Animal blood was used in the Old Testament sacrifices to represent the spiritual death of Christ on the cross — Leviticus chapters 1-3. Therefore we have a representative analogy between the blood of animals in the Old Testament and the spiritual death of Christ on the cross, so that in the New Testament whenever the blood of Christ is mentioned it is referring to His spiritual death just as the animals refers to that in the Old Testament. Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 10:19; 13:20; 1Peter 1:2.

3. The doctrine of redemption was communicated in the Old Testament by means of animal sacrifices — Hebrews 9:22.

4. Christ did not die physically on the cross by bleeding to death — John 19:30,33,34. The physical death of Christ occurred as an act of His own volition, not by bleeding — John 10:18. After His work of salvation was completed Jesus Christ dismissed His spirit into the presence of the Father — Luke 23:46; Matthew 27:50. When Christ died physically His blood was still in His body — John 19:34.

5. Therefore the blood of Christ is a part of a representative analogy between the physical death of the animal in the Old Testament sacrifice and the spiritual death of Christ on the cross bearing our sins — 2Corinthians 5:21; 1Peter 2:24.

6. The blood of Christ depicts four doctrines of soteriology: a) Expiation — Revelation 1:5. Expiation means that Christ paid the penalty of sin and blood of the animal dying physically represents Christ dying spiritually for our sins; b) Redemption — Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; 1Peter 1:18,19; c) Justification — Romans 5:9 where we are said to be justified by His blood; d) Sanctification — Hebrews 13:12, we are sanctified by His blood. All of these refer to the spiritual death of Christ on the cross making it possible for us to be free from the penalty of sin [expiation], liberated from the slavemarket of sin [redemption], receive the righteousness of God imputed [justification], and set apart unto God forever [sanctification].

7. The blood of Christ is also the basis for the rebound technique — Leviticus chapters 4 and 5; cf. 1John 1:7 with 1John 1:9.

The blood is now actually defined: "the forgiveness of sins." The word for "forgiveness" is a)fesij which means forgiveness, remission, pardon. Basically the noun connotes the cancellation of an obligation. It also connotes punishment or forgiveness of guilt. All of these were accomplished on the cross when Christ was bearing our sins. Remember that forgiveness of sins is in apposition to blood. The word "sins" is paraptwma and is not usually the word used. It is used for sins against God, sins in the sense of being all against God. When this word is in the singular it refers to Adams original sins, as in Romans 5:15, but the plural indicates the sins of the entire human race, as in Romans 4:25; 5:16; 2Corinthians 5:19; Colossians 2:13. Ephesians 1:7; James 5:16. So it should be translated "the cancellation of sins." Our sins were canceled when Christ bore them on the cross and God the Father judged them on the cross in Christ.

"according to the riches" — kata plus the accusative plural of ploutoj plus the definite article. Ploutoj means riches or wealth, it also means abundance.

"of his grace" — genitive singular of xarij to describe the plan of God. The principle: Unlimited divine resources are thrown into God's plan under the concept of grace. The whole character of God, the power of God, the ingenuity of God, the faithfulness of God, all meet in providing a perfect plan for you and me. The wealth of grace is a description, then, of that perfect plan. The wealth or the abundance of grace is the source of cancellation of our sins on the cross. The pattern is set in salvation and there is no blessing in time or in eternity apart from this principle — God's grace. Under grace everything depends on who and what God is.

Translation: "In whom [in Christ] we keep on having the redemption through his blood, the cancellation of sins, according to the wealth of his grace."

Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the cross is the blood, is the coin of the realm, is the payment for our release from the slavemarket of sin.

Verses 8-10, how the Father's plan centres around the Son.

Verse 8 — the Father's plan is focused in the Son. "Wherein" is an ablative singular from the relative pronoun o(j. It should be translated "From which." The antecedent of this relative pronoun is grace, and therefore we can translate it "From which grace."

"he hath abounded" is the aorist active indicative of perisseuw which means to have over and above, to superabound. This is a culminative aorist in which the event is presented in its entirety but regarded from the standpoint of existing results. The existing results: we are liberated from the slavemarket of sin. God the Father planned in eternity past everything we would ever need in grace. Therefore from this grace God the Father has caused to superabound toward us these things through the daily function of GAP. The active voice: God the Father is the subject of the verb and therefore He produces the action. God the Father centres His plan around the only celebrity for phase two, the Lord Jesus Christ. So this Father picks up the work of the Father, delineated what He has planned for the believer priest through the person of Jesus Christ. The indicative mood is the reality of grace superabounding to the believer through the daily function of GAP.

"toward us" — the preposition e)ij plus the accusative plural of e)gw. Toward all super-grace believers.

"in all wisdom" — the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of two words, paj, and sofia which means spiritual insight into things through knowledge of doctrine — technical here for Bible doctrine in the right lobe or the heart of the believer, accomplished through the function of GAP. This should be translated "by means of all doctrine."

"and prudence" — also an instrumental singular and also an object of the same preposition e)n. This word is fronhsij and it means objective thinking. It is used actually for Bible doctrine on the launching pad of the right lobe. it is the divine viewpoint of life, it is the fulfillment of 2Corinthians 10:4,5 — "bring every thought into captivity for Christ."

Translation: "From which grace he [God the Father] has caused to superabound toward us [super-grace believers] by mans of all doctrine [in the right lobe] and divine viewpoint [doctrine on the launching pad]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #8

8 09/24/1972 Ephesians 1:9–10a Outline of dispensations; doc/the mystery; divine decrees

Verse 9 — "Having made known" is the aorist active participle of the verb gnwrizw which means to make known or to reveal. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which becomes a gnomic aorist used for a truth which must be regarded as an absolute. The active voice: God the Father has made known His plan and His grace through doctrine contained in the canon of scripture and through no other source. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, "he cause to superabound to us." The believer had to function daily under GAP for a long time before God the Father superabounded toward him. In other words, in super-grace God superabounds toward us. Therefore superabounding has to come from a knowledge and a continuous knowledge of Bible doctrine and this requires the daily function of GAP. There is no substitute for the daily feeding upon the Word of God.

"unto us" is the dative plural of the pronoun e)gw used here as an indirect object. The dative of indirect object is one in which the person in whose interest the action is being performed is emphasised. Out of the indirect object we have the dative of advantage. So we are receiving great advantage for having known these things.

"the mystery" — musthrion is a technical word in the New Testament epistles. It has a definite article with it. The noun was originally used to depict the doctrines and the secrets of the Greek fraternities of the ancient world. Here it refers to the classification of doctrine known as Church Age truth. This classification was hidden from the Old Testament saints and communicators but is now revealed through the Church Age apostles, as per Ephesians 3:1-5.

The doctrine of the mystery

1. The word musthrion is derived from an Attic Greek word musthj which was a person being initiated into a Greek fraternity in the ancient world. There is a verb that goes with it, also from the Attic Greek, muew, which means to initiate or to instruct in the basic doctrines of the fraternity. Therefore the doctrines or the secrets of the fraternity are known only to those who have been initiated and not to the outsiders. Jesus used this meaning with the disciples in Matthew 13:11; Mark 4:10,11.

2. In the epistles of the New Testament the word "mystery" refers to some aspect of Church Age doctrine — Ephesians 3:2-6.

3. Mystery doctrine of the Church Age was not revealed in the Old Testament — Romans 16:25,26; Colossians 1:26,27.

4. Part of the mystery doctrine, including the blindness or hardness of Israel during the Church Age, is also a part of the fifth cycle of discipline — Romans 11:25.

5. The mystery as Church Age doctrine was a part of the divine decrees in eternity past — 1Corinthians 2:7.

6. The pastor or minister is responsible for communicating Church Age doctrine. This is called the stewardship of the mysteries — 1Corinthians 4:1.

7. The Rapture of the Church is a part of the mystery doctrine — 1Corinthians 15:51. This means that the Rapture of the Church was not revealed in Old Testament times.

8. Mystery doctrine is always related to the dispensation of the Church and only to the Church Age — Ephesians 1:9; 3:2.

9. Mystery doctrine is understood through the function of GAP — Colossians 2:2; 1Timothy 3:9.

"of his will" — the genitive singular of qelhma which qualifies the word "mystery" in this passage. It means will, purpose, or design. The will, the purpose, and the design of God are part of the doctrine of divine decrees, they were known in eternity past but not revealed until the Church Age.

The doctrine of divine decrees

1. The divine decrees is the sum total of God's plan designed in eternity past.

2. The plan centres around the person of Jesus Christ, as revealed from the commands of 1John 3:23; Ephesians 1:4-6.

3. Entrance into the plan of God is based on the principle of grace whereby the sovereignty of God and the free will of man meet at the cross — and they meet without any merit on man's part. Man is never benefited under God's plan by his talent, his works, his thoughts, or his plans. Man is blessed on the basis of who and what God is and what God has provided through grace.

4. God's plan was so designed in eternity past so as to include all events, actions, related to their causes and conditions as a part of an indivisible system, every link being a part of the integrity of the whole. The theological definition of the doctrine of divine decrees: The decree of God is His eternal, holy, wise, and sovereign purpose, comprehending at once all things that ever were or will be, in their causes, conditions, successions and relationships, and determining their certain futurition.

5. Without interfering with human volition in any way God has designed a plan so perfect that it includes cause and effect, directive, provision, preservation and function for all believers.

6. Under His plan God has decreed to do some things directly and some things through the agency of Israel and the Church, and some through individuals.

7. Therefore there are primary, secondary and tertiary functions within the plan of God, but all these constitute one great all-comprehensive plan, perfect, eternal, unchangeable, without loss of integrity.

8. The plan of God is consistent with human freedom. God does not limit or coerce human freedom, however a distinction should be made between what God causes, like the cross, and what God permits, like sin. God created man with free will, He permits human volition to function. This is how Adam sinned. God is not the author of sin, man's volition is the source of sin in the human race. God cannot tempt or in any way authorise sin.

9. This demonstrates that man has free will. God never condones or causes sin in the human race, and in the perfect environment of the garden God warned man against sin and its consequences.

10. Distinction should be made between the divine decrees which are related to the plan of God in both design and action and divine laws which regulate human conduct and function in the universe. Divine laws include laws of nature, laws of divine establishment, laws of function for blessing in a national entity.

11. As a principle of logic God's decrees do not arise from His foreknowledge. The foreknowledge of God makes nothing certain, it merely perceives in eternity past the things that are certain.

12. There is a difference between foreknowledge and foreordination. The decrees made certain, foreordination established certainty while foreknowledge does not. Nothing can be known until it is decreed — 1Peter 1:2; Romans 8:29; Acts 2:23.

13. Therefore the elect are foreknown and the foreknown are elect. In other words, God knew ahead of time which way every free will would decide at any given point in history. This does not imply divine coercion. God's plan, however, anticipates every decision of history. As free will decides so God decrees — John 3:36; 1John 3:23.

14. Since God cannot contradict His own essence He plans the best for the believer. God is perfect, His plan and provision are perfect.

15. The cross was decreed in eternity past but the human volition of Christ decided for the cross at Gethsemane — Matthew 26:39, 42. God has provided salvation for you through the cross but it must be your free will choice in time — John 3:36.

16. No decree in itself opposes human freedom, but once a choice is made from your free will then your entrance into the plan of God by faith in Jesus Christ means that the function of the decrees does limit your human freedom while at the same time giving you your volition, your freedom to serve God. A believer, to have inner happiness, must choose to function under GAP. Malfunction under GAP means misery for him. Once you believe in Christ the divine decrees do limit you. They limit you to a life of taking in spiritual food, manna from heaven, Bible doctrine. And the more concentrated your intake the sooner you reach super-grace. The sooner you reach super-grace the sooner God is free to benefit you to the maximum. The super-grace life frees God to give you maximum blessing.

"according to his good pleasure" — the preposition kata plus the accusative of e)udokia [e)u = good; dokia = taken from dokew for objective thinking] which means a norm or a standard. So it is "according to the standard of his good thinking."

"which" — the ablative singular of the relative pronoun o(j, "from which."

"he hath purposed" — the aorist middle indicative of protiqhmi which means to predetermine [pro = before; tiqhmi = appoint, design]. God planned it all in eternity past. The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist, used for a doctrine regarded as being an absolute.

The middle voice:

a) In the middle the subject participates in the results of the action. The subject is God the Father. It is God the Father who predetermined and predesigned.

b) The middle voice stresses the subject as the agent. God the Father did the thinking and therefore becomes the agent of the divine plan.

c) The middle voice relates the action of the verb more intimately to the subject, and through His predesigned plan God the Father is intimately related to us as believers. This intimate relationship is described under the family analogy. He is the Father, we are the children.

d) We have in this case an indirect middle in which the agent produces the action. God the Father is emphasised.

We also have in this verb the indicative mood. It is the reality of the predesigned and predetermined plan of God.

"in himself" is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the locative of a)utoj, a reflexive pronoun. This is the principle of union with Christ. The mechanics of the baptism of the Spirit are unique to the Church Age. it is a part of the doctrine of the mystery. God's plan for the Church Age is related to positional sanctification. In this way, the Father's plan centres around the Son and because of this all believers at the point of salvation are entered into union with Christ.

Translation: "Having made known to us the mystery of his will [purpose, design], according to the standard of his good thinking from which he predesigned in him [in Christ]."

Verse 10 — "That." We have a prepositional phrase here, e)ij plus the accusative which means "With reference to."

"the dispensation of the fullness of times." The Church Age is not the dispensation of the fullness of times, that is the Millennium. The Millennium is used as an illustration.

The doctrine of dispensations

A. DEFINITION.

1. A dispensation is a period of human history expressed in terms of divine revelation.

2. Dispensations are the divine categories of human history or the divine outline of human history.

3. In effect, dispensations are God's interpretation of human history as well as the divine plan for man related to time.

4. The believer's orientation to time is vitally necessary to understand God's plan, and therefore understanding God's plan he understands God's purpose.

5. In every age or dispensation the plan of God operates through a specific agency. The last one was Israel, now is the Church. In the Millennium Christ is the ruler.

6. Salvation is always the same in every dispensation: personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed in that dispensation.

B. GREEK WORDS TO PORTRAY THE DISPENSATIONAL CONCEPT IN THE NT.

1. Xronoj — time as a succession of events. Most frequently this word is used to portray history, the events of history in chronological order. Xronoj used technically in the dispensational concept is found in 1Thessalonians 5:1.

2. Kairoj — time in the concept of an epoch or a period. It is used for the dispensations or the organisation of events in categories — 1Thessalonians 5:1.

3. O)ikonomoj — is the Greek word usually translated "dispensations." A word that goes with it is o)ikonomia. It was used originally for the administration of an estate or a household. It refers to God's administration of believers for both blessing and judgment plus God's handling of the human race during the angelic conflict. In each dispensation God appoints a stewardship or an administration. He appointed Israel in the last dispensation, the Church in this dispensation, and Christ in the Millennium. Ephesians 3:2; Colossians 1:25.

4. A)ion, translated by the word "ages" in the English. It is a period of time, a divine category of human history, an era or an age. It is used in this way in Ephesians 3:5; Colossians 1:26.

B. THE AGE OF THE GENTILES — Genesis 1-11.

This age is divided into three parts: a) The period of innocence, really the period of positive volition; b) Conscience is the period of negative volition; c) The period of the development of the laws of divine establishment.

The ultimate in the development of the laws of divine establishment, in order to protect the human race during the angelic conflict and keep it from destruction, is the provision of nationalism. Internationalism is an attack, nationalism is the basis for the survival of the human race giving a maximum freedom to individuals. Nationalism gives maximum freedom, internationalism is just as much slavery as any system of slavery that has ever existed.

Under the Age of the Gentiles we have one language, one race. We have the development of and the attack upon the four basic concepts in the laws of divine establishment. The skeleton for the laws of divine establishment are the divine institutions: positive volition or freedom which was attacked in Genesis 3; marriage and the family was attacked in Genesis 6; nationalism was attacked in Genesis 11. This particular age goes from Adam to Babel. There was no canon of scripture, all divine revelation was given verbally through dreams or visions, and so on. Salvation was by faith in Jesus Christ, and during that dispensation there was no missionary agency.

C. THE AGE OF ISRAEL.

It, too, is divided into three parts; a) The period of the patriarchs from Abraham to Moses; b) The period of the law from Moses to Christ. Then we have an interruption of the Jewish Age in which the Church Age is inserted, and with the Rapture of the Church we have the end of the Jewish Age which is the Tribulation — from the Rapture to the second advent of Jesus Christ. During this period there are many languages in order to avoid any further internationalism that would destroy the human race. There are many races. The missionary agency is Israel. Security for regenerate Israel was found under four unconditional covenants: Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New Covenants to Israel. Israel had as the administrator of the dispensation a specific discipline for failure — the fifth cycle of discipline. It was administered to the northern kingdom once, to the southern kingdom twice. This dispensation terminates with the second advent, it was interrupted by the cross. Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ as illustrated by Abraham who believed in the Lord and it was credited to his account for righteousness — Genesis 15:6. Spirituality for the dispensation of Israel was the function of the faith-rest technique.

D. THE CHURCH AGE.

This is found in the New Testament epistles and in John chapters 14-17. The Church Age is divided into two parts. a) The pre-Canon period from 30 AD to about 96 AD; b) The post-Canon period which continues to the Rapture. This is the period of the completed canon of scripture. In this dispensation are a number of characteristics: the uniqueness of the believer; the baptism of the Spirit whereby every believer enters into union with Christ; the universal indwelling of Christ; the universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit; the universal priesthood of the believer; a completed canon of scripture; every believer in full time Christian service as an ambassador; every believer's life having meaning and purpose and definition regardless of who he is; we have one celebrity in Jesus Christ and many heroes. Any believer who enters the super-grace life and remains there is a super-grace hero.

E. THE AGE OF CHRIST (THE MILLENNIUM).

This is the period that begins at the second advent and Jesus Christ will rule the world for 1000 years. This is the time of perfect environment on the earth. There will be no religion. The father of religion, Satan, is removed from the world — Revelation 20:1-3. For the first time in history the ministry of God the Holy Spirit includes ecstatics — Joel 2:28,29. Israel is restored as a nation. For the first time in human history, under the reign of Jesus Christ, there will be universal peace. There will also be universal prosperity — Psalm 72:7,16. There will be a universal knowledge of God — Isaiah 11:9. There will be perfect world government — Zechariah 14:9; Isaiah 11:1,2; Psalm 72. There will be radical changes in nature, creation will be loosened from the bondage of sin — Romans 8:19-22. Animals will lose their ferocity — Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:25. Plant life will abound — Isaiah 35:1,2,7. At the beginning of the millennium there will be only believers, the survivors of the Tribulation. As the Millennium continues under perfect environment there will be a great number of unbelievers, and there will be a revolt which terminates the Millennium. However, life is extended and during the Millennium death takes a holiday except for the administration of capital punishment as part of the administration of justice. Justice will be available to all, according to Isaiah 11:3-5; Psalm 72:12-14. There will be a great revolt at the end of the Millennium and after it is put down there will be the destruction of the earth, the last judgment and the beginning of the new heavens, the new earth, the new Jerusalem forever and ever.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #9

9 10/01/1972 Ephesians 1:10–11 Doctrine of the Millennium

Verse 10 — "of the fullness of times" is a genitive of description of the noun plhrwma in the singular. With it is the word "time" in the plural. The word is xairoj which is time as an epoch and it is used for dispensations or a succession of events in a category. So it should be translated, "of the full measure of times." The full measure of epochs or dispensations is a reference to the Millennium, both the last and the full measure of all the dispensations. The Millennium is mentioned at this point to show the objective of time as far as God's plan is concerned. We live in the Church Age, a dispensation which is not associated with the Millennium in any way.

What can be expected from the Millennium?

1. We have perfect environment because Satan is bound and because there is no religion on the earth — Revelation 20:1-3. Remember that Jesus Christ supersedes Satan as the ruler of this world at the second advent. As long as Satan is the ruler of this world religion will exist.

2. There will be an optimum spirituality upon the earth — Joel 2:28,29; Isaiah 65:24; Zechariah 14:16,17. The filling of the Spirit is not ecstatics today.

3. In the Millennium we will finally have the peace of Jerusalem. The peace of Jerusalem can be a matter of prayer when the Tribulation begins because it will be fulfilled by the second advent. Israel is out under the fifth cycle of discipline until Christ returns. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who will finally deliver and regather Israel — Isaiah 5:26-30; 10:19-23; 11:11-16; 65:19; Joel 2:16ff; Zechariah 8:20-23; 10:6-12.

4. The fulfillment of the unconditional covenants to Israel — Daniel 9:24.

5. The nations will enjoy for the first time since Adam's innocence perfect environment under the reign of Christ. This perfect environment is described in many ways. a) Universal peace — Isaiah 2:4; Hosea 2:18; Psalm 46:9; Micah 4:3; b) Universal prosperity — Psalm 72:7,16; c) Perfect world government because the government is run by the Lord Jesus Christ — Isaiah 11:1,2; Zechariah 14:9; d) Everyone will understand Bible doctrine in those days. They may not accept it or agree but there will be a universal knowledge of God — Isaiah 11:9; e) Perfect environment will exist in nature — Romans 8:19-22; animals will lose their ferocity — Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:25; plant life will abound — Isaiah 35:1,27;

6. The longevity of the human race — Isaiah 65:20, death will be abolished except in cases of capital punishment.

7. Perfect objectivity in justice — Isaiah 11:3-5; Psalm 72:12-14.

8. The Millennium begins with a population composed of believers only. The baptism of fire at the second advent removes all unbelievers from the earth's population. Jewish unbelievers are removed in Ezekiel 20:34-38; Gentile unbelievers are removed in Matthew 25:31-46. So the beginning of the Millennium begins with believers only but this will change as the population increases.

9. The place of the millennium in scripture should be very clearly delineated. Wherever you find Old Testament passages dealing with the Millennium these are all prophecies. None of them are fulfilled on Old testament times. Whenever you find Millennial passage sin the Gospels they are still prophecy, but like the sermon on the mount the Millennium was offered with the reign of Christ. Christ offered Himself to the Jews as their King. The sermon on the mount is the platform for the Millennium, it is not for the present. There are certain paragraphs in the sermon on the mount which have application today but only application and the application comes through reiteration in parallel passages dealing with the Church Age. The Millennium is proclaimed in the Gospels — "at hand." It is postponed in the epistles. Due to the rejection of Christ the Millennium is not a reality in the Church Age.

10. In the Tribulation the Millennium is plagiarised — Matthew 13, we have Satan trying to set up a pseudo Millennium. He does this in Israel, he tries to attract the believers who have fled to come out of their caves and mountains and come down because he has such a beautiful setup for them, "the millennium is here."

11. At the second advent the millennium is presented.

12. The Millennium is a time of population expansion. As the millennium continues then believers will exist in greater numbers.

13. At the end of the millennium Satan will be released and there will be a revolution. It will be very brief — Revelation 20:7-10. This revolution indicates that perfect environment is not the solution to man's problems. This will be the final demonstration of the Millennium.

"he might gather together" — aorist middle infinitive of a)nakefalaiow [a)na = step by step or again; kefalaion = the head, the sum, the total] which means to sum up, to complete, to total, to bring together several things into one total. it means "that he might bring together under one total or one head." This is the aorist middle infinitive, this is the culminative aorist. The second advent is the end of many things and so we have the culminative aorist here. The middle voice is reflexive and therefore we must translate this "that he might bring together for himself under one head." The infinitive denotes purpose. The word "that" introduces the concept of a purpose clause, the infinitive here acts as a purpose clause. It is a purpose clause because it is a middle infinitive.

"all things" — the accusative plural of paj plus the definite article which is literally "the all things," referring to the Old Testament saints, the Church Age believers, the Tribulational believers.

"in Christ" — here is where the preposition is followed by the instrumental rather than the locative: e)n plus the instrumental of Xristoj. It is "by means of Christ," not "in Christ." Christ at the second advent in the means of bringing all these things under one person. It is a reference to the second advent which resolves both the angelic and human conflicts.

"which" is not found in the original.

"are in heaven" — e)pi plus the locative plural of o)uranoj, referring to the Old Testament saints, Church Age believers, Tribulational martyrs; and e)pi plus the locative means "in the heavens."

"and which are on earth" — e)pi plus the genitive. The preposition for its meaning depends on the case of the object. O)ouranoj is locative, so that means "in the heavens." E)pi plus the genitive means "upon." So we have "in the heavens and upon the earth." The object of e)pi the second time is the genitive of gh which is the word for earth. These are the Tribulational saints who are alive at the second advent.

"in him" is e)n plus the locative of a)utoj. Those who have a relationship with Christ, both dead and alive, are involved.

Translation: "With reference to the dispensation of the full measure of the times to bring together for himself [God the Father] under one head [Christ] the all things [dead and alive believers] by means of the Christ, those in the heavens [those who have died], those upon the earth [living believers] in him."

Summary

1. Those in heaven include the Old Testament saints, Church Age believers, Tribulational martyrs.

2. By the second advent all these categories will be in resurrection bodies, including the Old Testament saints and Tribulational martyrs at the second advent.

3. Those on the earth are Tribulational believers alive and delivered on the earth at the second advent.

4. They become the basis of a Millennial population and they will not receive resurrection bodies until the end of the Millennium, along with Millennial saints.

Verses 11-12, a continuation of the function of the Son at the present time. We go back to the dispensation in which we live.

Verse 11 — "In whom is the preposition e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j, referring to Christ.

"also" is the adjunctive use of kai.

"we have obtained an inheritance" — aorist passive indicative from klhrow. The aorist tense is gnomic, used to present a doctrine which is an absolute and axiomatic in its character. Therefore it is described as something that has actually occurred. "In whom also we have received a destiny" is what it means in the gnomic aorist. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that once you believe in Jesus Christ, though you may live on the earth a long time and have many discouraging things, you are in the plan of God.

"being predestinated" — aorist passive participle of proorizw [pro = before; orizw = to design or to mark out] which means "having been predesigned." The aorist tense is a culminative aorist in which an event is presented in its entirety but regarded from the standpoint of its existing results. God the Father predesigned everything we would ever need. The destiny was predesigned, our heritage was predesigned. Therefore the Father predesigned in eternity past every need we would ever have in time or for all eternity. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb, namely everything he will ever need, in eternity past. This is a participle. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb: "we have received a destiny." God provided everything we would ever need before he provided us a destiny.

"according to the purpose" — prepositional phrase, kata plus the accusative of proqesij which means a predetermined plan. There is no definite article. The absence of the definite article calls special attention to the character of the verb. It should be translated "according to the predetermined plan and purpose of God."

"of him" is not found in the original.

"who worketh" should be translated "from the one who worketh" because this is an ablative singular definite article plus the ablative singular present active participle of e)nergew. It should be translated "from the one putting into operation the all things." It refers to all creatures of the universe as well as all the laws of the universe.

"after the counsel" — kata plus the accusative of boulh which is the word for decree.

"of his own will" — the ablative singular of qelhma which refers to the will, the purpose, or the design "from himself."

Translation: "In whom also we have received the destiny, having been predesigned according to a predetermined plan from the one [God the Father] putting into operation the all things according to the decree from his will [purpose and design]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #10

10 10/08/1972 Ephesians 1:12 Doctrine of glory

Verse 12 — "That" is not found in the original. Instead we have the preposition e)ij plus the present active infinitive of e)imi. This is an unusual prepositional phrase because the object of the preposition is an infinitive instead of a noun. E)ij here connotes result with the infinitive. With it is a pronoun in the accusative of general reference and so it should be translated "With the result that we should be." We have E)ij plus e)imi plus the accusative plural of e)gw. The personal e)gw is used as the subject rather than as an object. Everything that we have had in the first eleven verses explains some of the principles of provision. It doesn't explain the details of our provision, it explains the principles by which God keeps His own character intact and provides for us in eternity past and makes the same provision available in time. At this point now we see why.

"to the praise" — a second prepositional phrase, this time e)ij plus a noun in the accusative, e)peinoj [e)pi = super; einoj = praise] which means "super praise, over praise, maximum praise" — "for the purpose of maximum praise."

"of his glory" — genitive singular of doca which refers to the glory of God the Father. So, "With the result that we should be for the purpose of maximum praise of his glory."

Summary

1. The believer continues on earth after salvation as a definite part of the Father's predetermined plan and provision of grace. It is the Father's plan for us to continue on the earth after salvation for X amount of time. The believer continues on earth after salvation as a part of the Father's predetermined plan and provision of grace. There are certain things that the Father can provide now in time that He could never provide in eternity. Time presents its own provision because time is the only time that believers will ever suffer, will ever have problems or difficulties, or be involved in a great conflict, the angelic conflict. So the believer continues on earth after salvation as a part of the Father's predetermined plan.

2. The provision of grace demonstrates the Father's ability to protect, to preserve, to bless the believer in Satan's domain of cosmos diabolicus; and in this dispensation to bless under maximum pressure.

3. The ultimate in living on this earth as a believer is the function of the super-grace life in which the believer under super-grace provision exists to the super praise of the Father's glory.

4. The Father is glorified to the maximum by the super-grace believer functioning under super-grace provision. 5. Since God provides for maximum blessing in the super-grace life God receives the super praise of His glory.

The doctrine of glory

1. Glory is used in a number of ways in the scripture. The first way it is used is connected with the essence of God. The essence box is the glory of God. Since His essence is perfect glory is used for the entire essence box. E.g. Romans 3:23, "… all have come short of the glory [essence box] of God." Ephesians 1:17; Deuteronomy 5:24; Psalm 21:5 are used as illustrations of where the word "glory" is used for the essence of God. Since God has an inherent glory one of the objectives of Bible doctrine is the realisation of this inherent glory and provision.

2. Glory is used for the edification complex of the soul. The first objective of the Christian way of life is the ECS. Ephesians 3:21; Colossians 1:27; 1Peter 1:8; 2Thessalonians 2:14.

3. The right woman is the glory of the right man — 1Corinthians 11:7,15. When right woman finds her right man she so responds to him as to become his glory. The woman's long hair is the sign of her glory but her soul's function is the actual glory. Just as the ECS reflects the glory of God when a man finds his right woman she reflects his glory.

4. The grace of God is also described as glory — Ephesians 1:6. That is another way in which the believer demonstrates the glory of God with his capacity for grace in the super-grace life. In the super-grace life grace pursues him. The pursuit of grace means living by grace and living by grace glorifies God.

5. The provision of God's grace is also called wealth — "the riches of his glory," Ephesians 1:18; 3:16; Philippians 4:19.

6. There is a glory in the future which is beyond human cognisance. This is called the glory of eternity. Heaven and eternal life are described as glory in 1Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 2:10; 1Peter 5:10; 2Peter 1:3.7. There is

another rather negative use of the word glory in scripture. Human glamour is described as glory in 1Peter 1:24; Philippians 3:19. This is a limited use of the word.

8. Glory is used to describe the wonders of the universe — 1Corinthians 15:40,41.

9. Glory is used to describe the resurrection body of the believer — 1Corinthians 15:43; 2Thessalonians 3:14.

10. Glory is associated with operation footstool and the presentation of the Church as the bride of Christ at the second advent — Hebrews 2:10.

"who" is not found in the original, there is no relative pronoun here. Instead we have a participle under the phrase, "first trusted." This is a perfect active participle of a compound verb proelpizw [pro = before; elpizw = in the present tense means to hope. In the present tense, the imperfect, and also the aorist it means also to trust] which in the perfect tense means to have confidence in something. It should be "having previously placed our confidence in Christ." The objective of this verb is to bring out the principle that the believer's soul was saved at the point of belief in Christ. At that point God gave him immediately 36 things, a guarantee you could never lose your salvation. The point is that if the believer had confidence in Him for salvation [believed], which required a minimum of faith and he was saved, what are the potentialities of phase two with a little more than no faith at all? The whole objective here is to show that he started out by believing in Christ with practically no faith at all, and if he started out that way, what is keeping him from going all the way to super-grace?

Summary

1. Before anyone enters the proqesij [plan of God designed in eternity past] of God he must first of all believe in Jesus Christ. We can't be in the plan of God until we believe — salvation.

2. In the compound of the verb proelpizw the perfect tense always means to have confidence.

3. We must first have confidence in Christ before we fulfill the purpose of super praise to God's glory.

4. The proqesij of God must have a beginning for those who enter in time — faith in Jesus Christ.

5. With this grace beginning and the permanent provision of doctrine in the canon there is no limit to the super praise of his glory. The only limitation is imposed by negative volition toward Bible doctrine.

6. The only limitation relates to neglect, rejection, or indifference to Bible doctrine resulting in becoming a spiritual moron or reversionist.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #11

11 10/15/1972 Ephesians 1:13–14 Doc. indwelling of Holy Spirit; 5 meanings of "seal"

Verse 13 — "In whom" is a preposition, e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j. The antecedent is the Lord Jesus Christ.

"ye also" — the adjunctive use of kai plus the nominative plural of the pronoun su meaning all believers.

"after that" does not occur in the original, it is just a clumsy attempt to translate an aorist participle. "Having heard" is the correct translation of the aorist active participle of a)kouw. You can't get it without hearing it. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb is "you were sealed." They actually heard the gospel before they were saved. The phrase here, "after you heard the word of truth," refers to the expression of doctrine. "In whom also you all having the expression of doctrine." There are many expressions of doctrine. "Word of truth" means expression of doctrine and the one that is pertinent here is the gospel. They heard the gospel before they were sealed.

"the gospel of your salvation" is a reference to the fact that everyone in order to be saved, to have eternal life, must have information on which to make a decision. The information on which to make a decision is called the gospel. The word e)uaggelion means "good news." It is good news that Jesus Christ took our place and bore our sins in His own body on the tree. The word "salvation" here is the genitive of description. This is good news of salvation. So we should read, "In whom also you, having heard the expression of the doctrine, the good news of your salvation." The word in the genitive of description is swthria. This describes the type of good news that is being presented.

"in whom also after that" should be "in whom having believed" — the aorist active participle, this time of pisteuw, the point of salvation. But before, we had a)kouw. You hear the gospel first. You hear the gospel first and then you respond by believing. Pisteuw is non-meritorious reception of the gospel. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, the result of having heard. The active voice: mankind produces the action of the verb at the point of salvation, he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb is "ye were sealed."

Faith

Faith is a non-meritorious system of thinking. It is bona fide thinking, it is the first thinking that you ever do. You must accept words as vocabulary, words as representing something, before you can put them together and think. The original understanding of anything comes to you through a perceptive system called faith.

Since faith is non-meritorious thinking there must be an object of faith which has the merit. Faith in salvation: the object of faith is the Lord Jesus Christ — Acts 18:27; Romans 4:16. There is no merit in believing, whatever merit there is always occurs in the object of faith. Therefore to believe is a transitive verb. A transitive verb always has a subject and always has an object. The subject may be implied or stated the object may be implied or stated, but a transitive verb has both. In other words, it is the transition from the subject to the object. The subject is anyone in the human race, the object is the Lord Jesus Christ and only the Lord Jesus Christ. The subject never has any merit because the subject is producing the action. The object always has the merit because the object is the basis for the subject action. Salvation is accomplished by the object, the subject merely puts his faith in the object, and placing one's faith is thinking.

"ye were sealed" — the aorist passive indicative of sfragizw. The word means to be stamped with a seal. It is a culminative aorist. As a result of being saved we are stamped with a seal. The passive voice: the believer at the moment he is saved doesn't earn or deserve or work for this. The indicative mood is used to indicate both the reality and the main verb for all the aorist participles.

The isagogics of a seal

1. In the ancient world a seal was a guarantee of transaction. Whenever a transaction was to be solemnised the individuals involved wearing rings with their crests or their signatures would put wax in the bottom of the scroll and then stamp the soft wax with the signet ring. Sealing is used for stamping a signature on something with a ring. That indicates eternal security. God the Holy Spirit does the stamping and that indicates that we have salvation forever.

2. It refers to identification of ownership. Seals were often put on things to indicate who owned it. God the Holy Spirit seals us at the moment of faith in Christ to indicate that God owns that believer forever.

3. Sealing is used for the authentication of invoices, contracts, laws, directives, and orders. This is analogous to the doctrine of divine decrees or the plan of God formulated for us in eternity past.

4. The preservation of tombs, libraries and treasuries was handled by the sealing of a king or someone who had great power. Again, this connotes the preservation of doctrine in the right lobe in the ECS.

5. The ratification of treaties. The sealing ministry of God the Holy Spirit is related to the super-grace life which is the expression between the believer and God. There is perfect peace because of His provision in salvation.

"with that holy Spirit of promise" — incorrect. It is "by means of the Spirit of promise." Then we have "by means of the Holy Spirit" in the text, or "by means of the Spirit of promise, by means of the holy one." This is the literal translation.

Translation: "In whom [Christ] you also having heard the expression of the doctrine, the good news of your salvation: in whom having believed, you have been stamped with a seal by means of the Spirit of promise, by means of the holy one [Spirit]."

Verse 14 — presents the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the believer's life. This is a part of the proqesij of God the Father. "Which is" is the relative pronoun o(j referring to the Holy Spirit. Since pneuma is a neuter noun and it is used for the Holy Spirit the relative pronoun in also in the neuter, but since it refers the a person we translate it "who is." God the Holy Spirit is the antecedent of the relative pronoun.

"the earnest" — nominative singular from the noun a)rabbon. The word is derived from a Hebrew word, erabon, and it is used in three ways: first installment, deposit, down payment. In that sense it becomes a monetary pledge. So God the Holy Spirit is a down payment. There is no definite article. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the down payment. The Holy Spirit is the down payment for phase two and for phase three. He is the down payment for phase two because He indwells every believer. He is a down payment for phase three because He is the one who provides for us the regeneration which reaches its peak in the resurrection body. God the Holy Spirit has a ministry in the resurrection body. The money must be put in deposit and God the Holy Spirit is not only the one who seals us but He is also a down payment. Therefore the down payment on the plan of God is the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. This is the Father's pledge that we are in His plan.

The doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit

1. We have the fact of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church Age presented in Romans 8:9; Galatians 3:2; 4:6; 1Corinthians 6:19-20.

2. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is called both unction — 1John 2:20 — and anointing — 1John 2:27.

3. The prophecy of the indwelling of the Spirit in the Church Age is found in John 7:37-39; 14:16,17.

4. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit must be distinguished from the indwelling of Christ. In the Church Age every believer is indwelt by Jesus Christ, every believer is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. Christ indwells the believer for the purpose of fellowship — Romans 8:10; 2Corinthians 13:5. The Holy Spirit indwells the believer for the purpose of function. He makes the Christian life function in the believer's life. Maximum fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ comes through the ECS and the super-grace life — Ephesians 3:17.

5. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit must be distinguished from the filling of the Spirit. The indwelling occurs at the point of salvation and never changes. Filling is commanded — Ephesians 5:18, and lost through carnality — Ephesians 4:30. But whether the believer loses the filling of the Spirit or not he never loses the indwelling.

6. The function of the Holy Spirit under GAP is found in John 14:26; 16:12-15; 1Corinthians 2:9-16; 1John 2:27. This is the comprehension of doctrine, exhaling of doctrine, the cycling of doctrine, building the ECS with doctrine, the believer functioning under the super-grace life in doctrine.

7. The universal indwelling of the Spirit is necessary because of the intensification of the angelic conflict — John 7:37-39.

"of our inheritance" — the genitive singular from klhronomia. This is a genitive of possession. Therefore since God the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, regardless of the status on indwelling, the believer has an inheritance from God forever.

"until the redemption" is incorrect. It is e)ij plus the accusative a)polutrwsij which means the completed job of ransoming or payment and it should be translated "because of redemption." This refers to phase three.Redemption of the body is receiving a resurrection body. This is actually the believer receiving a resurrection body in phase three. Redemption of the soul occurs at the point of believing.

"of the purchased possession" — or, "the redemption of the property." The word is peripoihsij and it refers to property here — "because of the redemption of the property." The believer is God's property. And this is going to result in something …

"unto the praise" — e)ij plus the accusative, and this time it is directional, "toward the praise," e)painoj which is super praise actually.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #12

12 11/14/1972 Ephesians 1:15–17 Relaxed mental attitude around other believers; doc/glory

Verse 15 — the first of two apostolic prayers. This apostolic prayer is for the dynamics of the proqesij. Here we have the good news from Asia. Paul has been teaching now for about 25 years and every now and then he hears about someone profiting from his ministry.

"Wherefore" is dia plus the accusative of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj which refers to something which has immediately preceded. It should be translated "Because of this." That is, because of the function of the Trinity in the proqesij — which means a predesigned plan.

"I also" — kai plus e)gw. E)gw is the first person singular personal pronoun and with kai it is put together as kagw. Paul doesn't apologise for using the word "I." He knows that he is alive!

"after" is not found in the original, it is a clumsy attempt to translate an aorist participle. The modern usage always uses the word "having" to translate the aorist participle.

"I heard" is an aorist active participle of a)kouw — "having heard." The aorist tense is a constative aorist. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb is "cease not."

"of your faith" — the preposition kata plus the accusative of pistij means "about your faith." Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ indicates they are trusting the Lord for blessing, for everything in life.

"and love" — the accusative singular of a)gaph which means a relaxed mental attitude, and this means that the believers in the Roman province of Asia have started to construct the ECS. Because of this and because there are so many of them it has become a source of great encouragement to Paul.

"unto all the saints" — should be "toward all the saints." This in itself is a source of great encouragement: the thought that all kinds of personalities can live in the same geographical area and have a relaxed mental attitude toward each other. What Paul is describing is something that is a fantastic blessing, it is a place where anyone would want to be regardless of the weather or any other set of circumstances, the place where RMAs exist.

What does he mean, "love toward all the saints"? A)gaph is a mental attitude love. It is directed in this case toward other believers called "saints." It means no mental attitude sins toward other believers in their periphery. It also means recognition of privacy of other believers. It means, when necessary, friendliness toward other believers, courtesy, and + doctrine — constant intake. It also means respect for other people, and that means that you do not have to agree or disagree, that you have to make any kind of an overt showing. It means that you give other people the benefit of the doubt at all times.

The word for "all" is the accusative plural of paj plus a(gioj. The preposition e)ij is directional. It means that inevitably when a local church comes together people are going to be together. And being together means that in order for everyone to be blessed and for everyone to focus on the proper issue there must be courtesy, privacy, respect, etc. There must be a completely relaxed atmosphere so that people can take in Bible doctrine. God has provided equipment whereby no matter how different the personality the people are still saints.

Translation: "Because of this, I also when I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and the love toward all the saints."

Verse 16 — here we have our main verb. Here is the proqesij takes cognisance of prayer and we have a stimulation to prayer.

"Cease not" — the present middle indicative of pauw which, plus the negative, means "I do not cease."

"to give thanks" — this is the present active participle of e)uxaristew. It means to make a matter of thanksgiving.

"for you" is the preposition u(per plus the pronoun, and should be translated "on behalf of."

"making mention" — the present middle participle from poiew which means to do, to produce, to work. The present tense is iterative present. When he thinks of them he prays for them. The middle voice emphasises the agent. Paul. doing the work. Plus the accusative singular of mneia. It means "producing memory." The words "of you" are not found in the original.

"in my prayers" — the preposition e)pi plus the genitive plural of proseuxh means "by my prayers." The preposition e)pi plus the genitive always emphasises contact. You can contact people who are thousands of miles away by prayer. Making memory under these conditions is prayer. What do you pray for when you love someone? Paul prayed that they would keep on GAPing. They can only be benefited by the daily function of GAP.

Verse 17 — "That" is i(na plus the optative, a most unusual purpose clause. I(na for a purpose clause always takes the subjunctive mood, but here it is i(na plus the optative because it is a prayer.

"the God" — o( qeoj refers to God the Father who is the author of the proqesij, the predesigned plan. In his prayer he recognises each phase of the Father's plan. Phase one: "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ" referring to Jesus Christ as the executor of phase one of the plan of God. This is the way by which all of us enter the plan of God, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. "Lord" is deity; "Jesus: in humanity; "Christ" is divine commission. Christ merely means "anointed" and in the ancient world they didn't give you a commission on paper, they put oil on your head.

"the Father of glory" — o( pathr thj dochj. The genitive of possession of doca. This indicates the purpose of phase two — glory.

The doctrine of glory

1. Glory is used for the essence of God. Many times when glory appears in the scripture it refers to who and what God is. Romans 3:23 — sin is failure to measure up to the character of God; Ephesians 1:17; Deuteronomy 5:24; Psalm 21:5.

2. Glory is also used for the edification complex of the soul [ECS] — Ephesians 3:21; Colossians 1:27; 1Peter 1:8; 2Thessalonians 2:14.

3. The right woman is the glory of the right man — 1Corinthians 11:7, 15.

4. The grace of God is described as glory — Ephesians 1:6.

5. The provision of God's grace is called "the riches of glory" — Ephesians 3:16; 1:18; Philippians 4:19.

6. Heaven and eternal life are described as glory in 1Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 2:10; 1Peter 5:10; 2Peter 1:3.

7. Human glamour is described as glory in 1Peter 1:24; Philippians 3:19.

8. Glory is used to describe the wonders of the universe — 1Corinthians 15:40,41.

9 Glory is used to describe the resurrection body of the believer — 1Corinthians 15:43; 2Thessalonians 2:14.

10. Glory is related to the angelic conflict. It is associated with operation footstool and the presentation of the Church as the bride of Christ at the second advent — Hebrews 2:10.

"may give" — the petition for GAP, the aorist active optative from the common verb for giving, didomi. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action in its entirety, it takes an appearance and regardless of the extent or the duration gathers it into a single whole. GAPing it today, the next, the next, the next.… The active voice: the Father of glory in His matchless grace provides all of the ingredients for the function of GAP, the transfer of GAP from the mind of Christ to the page of the canon to the soul of the believer. The optative mood: it is the mood of strong contingency, the mood of possibility. It is used here to indicate the prayer. Generally the optative contains no anticipation of realisation but only presents an action as conceivable as desirable. It is one step further removed from reality than the subjunctive is and this is called the voluntative optative which is used to express a desire in prayer.

"unto you" — dative plural of advantage; "the spirit" — referring here to the human spirit; "of wisdom" — the possessive genitive of sofia. This refers to the accumulation of e)pignwsij Bible doctrine in the human spirit under the daily function of GAP. That is when doctrine begins to be usable. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the noun rather than its identity. The quality here is Bible doctrine in the soul.

"and revelation" — the ascensive use of kai plus the ablative singular of a)pokaluyij which means "from the source of the revelation."

"in the knowledge" — e)n plus the instrumental of e)pignwsij which is "by means of e)pignwsij.

"of him" — the ablative singular of a)utoj means "from the source of him [God the Father]."

Translation: "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of the glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom, even from the source of revelation by means of [e)pignwsij] knowledge from the source of him."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #13

13 11/21/1972 Ephesians 1:18 Doctrines of inheritance (heirship); GAP

Verse 18 — The word "eyes," o)fqalmoj, is an accusative which introduces an anacoluthon in this prayer. An anacoluthon is a grammatical change of construction in the middle of a sentence. This sentence is a prayer, the eyes here are used in the sense of perception.

"of your understanding" — the Greek says "the eyes of your heart," thj kardiaj u(mwn. Kardia here refers to the right lobe. The objective of Bible doctrine is to reach your right lobe; "being enlightened," the perfect passive participle of fwtizw which means to be enlightened. In other words, to have doctrine photographed in your soul. The perfect tense emphasises the permanent results of having doctrine in your frame of reference, in your memory centre, in your vocabulary and categorical area, in your norms and standards, and in your launching pad. The passive voice: the subject, the believer, receives the action of the verb. The eyes of the right lobe receive doctrine through the function of GAP. The participle sets up a permanent law of God whereby doctrine recorded permanently in the scriptures is transferred into your right lobe through the function of GAP — "having become enlightened."

"that ye may know" — e)ij plus the perfect active infinitive of o)ida, "for the purpose that you all may have permanent knowledge." Permanent knowledge means that this doctrine is permanent which is permanent becomes permanent when it is in the right lobe. The only way doctrine can be permanent in your right lobe is for you to enter the super-grace bracket and stay there.

"knowing what is the hope" — 'what is' is the interrogative pronoun tij plus the present active of e)imi, what keeps on being. The interrogative pronoun indicates the content of the plan of God for your life; 'the hope,' o( elpij, refers to all doctrine in phase three. Hope is a bad translation due to the fact that hope has come to mean uncertainty. E)lpij in the Greek does not connote any uncertainty at all — "what is the confidence."

"of his calling" — klhsij indicates the plan of God for phase three. You have two futures in your life. When you accept Christ as saviour you enter phase two of the plan of God, the believer in time. Phase one is salvation, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Phase two starts one second after you are saved and continues until you die, or the Rapture, whichever occurs first in your life. Your immediate future is the time you have left in phase two. For the moment we go to a technical word, e)lpij, which refers to your distant future, the future beyond the moment that you leave this world. The word means to have complete confidence beyond the grave. The confidence comes from understanding the doctrine of phase three now, not when we get to heaven. If you are ever going to have confidence in time it must be anchored to something which is infinite, something that is absolute, where there are no shades of grey, no basis for rationalisation. It is an absolute fact that your distant future includes perfect happiness, perfect environment, perfect conditions forever and ever. It is also a fact that the unbeliever's distant future is one of the most excruciating agonies perpetuated forever without cessation. "The confidence of his calling." It is His calling, not yours."

"and what the riches of the glory" — the word 'and' is not there. We have instead "riches from the source of the glory," an ablative of source, doca.

"of his inheritance" — genitive of description, klhronomia is the noun. Riches indicates unlimited resources.

The doctrine of inheritance (heirship)

1. As the victor in the angelic conflict and as a part of the doctrine of divine decrees Jesus Christ is the heir of all things — Hebrews 1:2.

2. Heirship is based on sonship. This is why Christ is called the Son of God. His title indicates that He is the heir of God the Father, as well as the focal point of the doctrine of divine decrees. John 1:12; Romans 8:16,17; Galatians 3:26. This is why to be heirs of God we have to become sons of God.

3. Heirship is also based on the death of another — Romans 5:8; 1Corinthians 15:3,4.

4. To inherit from God one must also possess the life of God — Titus 3:7; 1John 5:11,12.

5. Therefore salvation is the qualification for joint inheritance — Colossians 1:12.

6. Heirship is related to the doctrine of divine decrees in the sense of sharing the destiny of Christ — Ephesians 1:11.

7. Heirship is also related to the doctrine of election since the joint heirs share the election of Christ — Hebrews 9:15.

8. The principle of our inheritance is related to the eternal security of the believer — 1Peter 1:4,5.

9. Our heritage is provided on the basis if grace — Galatians 3:29.

10. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our heritage — Ephesians 1:14.

11. Our heritage is located in the sphere of sainthood — Ephesians 1:18.

"in the saints" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of a(gioj, 'in the sphere of the saints.' In other words, you cannot be an heir unless you are a saint. You can't be a saint unless you believe in Christ. The word 'saint' means set apart. You become a saint the moment you believe in Christ and the word saint applies to all believers.

Translation: "The eyes of your right lobe having been enlightened for the purpose that you all may have permanent knowledge; knowing what is the hope of his calling, what is the riches from the source of the glory of his inheritance in the sphere of the saints."

The doctrine of GAP

1. GAP means grace apparatus for perception. Perception means to understand, to know, to be cognisant of doctrine. This is a system of grace inculcation. Therefore we must first of all recognise a fact: no two of us have the same amount of perspicacity, humanly speaking. Spiritual; IQ is the amount of Bible doctrine stored in the human spirit and in the right lobe. It's stored under the noun in the Hebrew, chakmah, and by the Greek word e)pignwsij. The distinction between human and spiritual IQ is the subject of 1Corinthians chapter two.

2. Human IQ is never a factor in the function of GAP — other wise God would be unfair. In other words, low IQ is never a handicap in learning doctrine. For this reason every believer in the Church Age has received all the grace help necessary: a) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit; b) The activation of the human spirit at the point of salvation; c) A right pastor-teacher to communicate Bible doctrine.

3. The perceptive lobe, the left lobe, is called the mentality of the soul — nouj. It is generally translated "mind." The left lobe is the process area for all types of knowledge, whether it is doctrine or any form of human knowledge. In our study of GAP it is the staging area for Bible doctrine. It is also area for all types of knowledge. This lobe is where you first hear doctrine. Remember that gnwsij means to understand or to record in your left lobe what is taught. It doesn't mean you agree or disagree. It doesn't mean anything except objective understanding. It is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to take what is taught and make it objective information in your left lobe. You don't have to agree or disagree, you simply understand it. The danger is to let it hang there. Any doctrine that you understand and hangs in your left lobe can never be applied. Doctrine must be on the launching pad and the question is, how does it get there?

Volition must go into action with regard to this doctrine. Getting doctrine from the left to the right lobe is accomplished by positive volition [pistij, faith] which transfers that doctrine out of the left lobe and into the human spirit as e)pignwsij. But there must be doctrine in the frame of reference, and the doctrine in the frame of reference acts as a vacuum and sucks doctrine from the human spirit into the right lobe. The vacuum pump is constructed on the basis of doctrine. You build doctrine on doctrine, that is why you have to learn basic doctrines first. Once you get basic doctrine in the right lobe then the primer starts the vacuum pump, and the vacuum pump pulls the e)pignwsij into the right lobe. It only pulls up into the right lobe that for which you have a frame of reference. Once it does that, then it goes into your vocabulary. Then from vocabulary you begin to get concepts or categories, and your norms and standards begin to change and they comply with divine norms and standards. All of these feed into the launching pad and that is where you become a doer of the Word. A doer of the Word isn't a worker, a doer of the Word is a believer with doctrine in the launching pad.

4. Therefore the grace provision for learning Bible doctrine.

a) The formation and the preservation of the canon of scripture. That takes up the doctrine of canonicity and the doctrine of inspiration.

b) A classroom for learning doctrine. The classroom is called the local church. The local church was not designed for raising money, strawberry festivals, and fellowship. The local church was designed to be a classroom, with one teacher and with students without portfolio.

c) The spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. This is a divinely authorised communicator, and there never was and there never will be a pastor who earned or deserved the right to speak. This gift is sovereignly bestowed to many different types of males. No woman ever had the gift and never will have, the pulpit belongs to certain born-again males.

d) The priesthood of the believer for privacy and reception. If you are really going to take in doctrine on an objective basis you must have privacy of the priesthood to do it.

e) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit for the function of GAP — 1Corinthians 2:9-16; 1John 2:27. However, the believer must be filled with the Spirit for this to occur — Ephesians 5:18.

f) Grace provision for the filling of the Spirit through the rebound technique.

g) The human spirit as the first target for GAP — Job 32:8; 1Corinthians 2:12.

h) The provision of the divine laws of establishment whereby the nation protects the freedom and the privacy of the local church.

i) The anatomy of grace whereby certain non-meritorious functions of the body make it possible to think and to concentrate.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #14

14 12/19/1972 Ephesians 1:19–20 Doctrine of resurrection

Verse 19 — "And" is a continuative kai, plus the interrogative pronoun ti, translated "what.""the exceeding greatness" — present active participle of u(perballw which means here, "surpassing." Every now and then the apostle Paul shows us that he had a phenomenal education. It is fitting that the greatest super-grace believer of all time in the field of Bible doctrine should have one of the most extensive and unusual vocabularies of anyone who has ever lived. What he lacked in vocabulary he coined words. Many words demonstrate a phenomenal academic background. The word for "greatness" is an Attic Greek word an entirely different language, the language of the fifth century BC — megeqoj which means "magnitude." It is not meant here in the sense of size or stature, it is used in the sense of greatness in quality. "And what the surpassing magnitude." Magnitude is speaking about God. We are talking about God's plan.

"of his power" — the genitive of dunamij referring to the inherent power of God. The plan of God depends upon His inherent power, upon the character of God. The plan of God can be no greater than the character of God. Since the character of God is perfect the plan of God is perfect. Since the power of God is of unlimited magnitude the potentialities in the plan of God where your life is concerned are totally unlimited. The omnipotence is God's ability to provide unlimited grace. Unlimited grace takes the believer into the realm of super-grace where God can give him all of the things that He desires to give him.

"to us-ward" — the prepositional phrase indicates this applies to you. God has a purpose for our lives. God wants to share His happiness, He wants to give to us. Grace demands that God does the giving and that we do the receiving. However, we are poor receivers until we reach super-grace. We have to have capacity to be a receiver. We have the preposition e)ij plus the accusative plural of the preposition e)gw.

"who" is not found in the original manuscript. Instead there is a present active participle from pisteuw which should be translated "the believing ones." If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are in the plan of God. The accusative plural of the participle is in apposition to the object of the preposition. Literally we have, "And what the surpassing magnitude of his inherent power upon us the believing ones." If we have not experienced what is related in this stage of the proqesij of God the reason for it is quite simple: rejection, indifference to Bible doctrine. "according to the working" is incorrect. Kata plus the accusative of e)nergeia the second word for power in this passage means "according to the operational power." God not only conceived of the plan but God has the ability to put the plan into operation. In the plan of God the operational power is generally associated with the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit. He is the one who makes GAP function whereby we have the capacity to receive things from God.

"of his mighty power" — the genitive singular of kratoj which means "controlling power, ruling power." But that doesn't handle the word "power" in this phrase, the genitive singular of i)sxuj means "endowed power" or power as a faculty. Kratoj refers to doctrine in the canon of scripture. The Bible is the ruler. I)sxuj refers to doctrine in the right lobe. Doctrine is the function of the super-grace life.

Summary

There are four words for power in this passage.

a) Dunamij which refers to the inherent power of God. It refers to the ability of God as it existed in eternity past as a part of His plan.

b) E)nergeia refers to the operational power of God. God has the ability to put His plan into operation, excluding your ability, your talent, your thoughts, your plans, your strength, whatever it may be. E)nergeia is totally opposed to any form of legalism.

c) Kratoj is ruling power, Bible doctrine resident in the canon of scripture. It must be transferred and become endowed power.

d) I)sxuj is endowed power, Bible doctrine in the soul of the believer.

Translation: "And what the surpassing magnitude of his omnipotence [inherent power] upon us, the believing ones, according to the norm of the operational power of the ruling power of his inner power."

This type of verse is a verse of great assurance. It says a number of things: a) That all believers are in the plan of God; b) God's plan is not something cooked up for the moment, it has existed in eternity past. Not only has God's plan existed but the provision existed in eternity past.

Verse 20 — "Which" is a relative pronoun, o(j, and the antecedent refers to operational power — e)nergeia. "he wrought" — perfect active indicative of the verb e)nergew, "had been operational." The perfect tense: had been operational in eternity past. The active voice: the power was operational. The indicative mood is the reality of this operational power always existing.

"in Christ" is a locative plus the definite article and should be translated "in the Christ." The whole plan of God centres in the person of Christ. The Father planned it, the Son executed it, the Spirit provides the energy for it.

"when" is not found in the original manuscript. It is really an old-time device for translating an aorist participle, a bad one. Aorist participles should be translated by the word "having." So "when he raised" should be translated "having raised him." The aorist active participle is from e)geirw and it refers to that which was absolutely necessary historically for the plan of God to reach its present operational function. E)geirw refers to the resurrection. Were it not for the resurrection of Jesus Christ we would not have the blessings of super-grace tomorrow. There would be no plan of God had there not been at one point in history the resurrection.

"from the dead" — e)k plus the ablative of nekroj, "is out from the source of the dead." Nekroj indicates that Jesus Christ truly died. No resurrection, no super-grace blessing.

The doctrine of resurrection

1. The fact of resurrection is based upon the existence of the empty tomb, the competency of the witnesses. They knew Jesus Christ well and could not be deceived. They would die rather than change their testimony about the resurrection. This is historical accuracy and competency of witnesses. The subsequent change in the disciples after the resurrection also indicates the validity of the resurrection. Before His death they were afraid, despondent, and after His death the same thing continued. But after His resurrection they were joyous and fearless. The existence of the day of Pentecost and the first sermon ever preached in the Church Age was a sermon on resurrection. The observation of the first day of the week, called the Lord's day, the resurrection day. The very existence of the Christian church logically depends upon the resurrection.

2. The nature of the resurrection. Jesus Christ in His resurrection body still had the scars from the nail prints in His hands and feet — Psalm 22:16; Zechariah 12:10; John 20:25-29. He also retained the scars of the wound in His side — John 20:25-29. Christ was recognised by His disciples as the one who died and rose again. This was attested in 17 different appearances. Christ after resurrection, however, could eat — Luke 24:42.23 — although He did not depend upon food to sustain Him. Christ had a true body which could be felt — Matthew 28:9; Luke 24:39; John 20:17. His resurrection body could breathe — John 20:22. His resurrection body possessed flesh and bones — Luke 24:39,40. His resurrection body could walk through an open door but could also walk through a closed door — Luke 24:36; John 20:19. Jesus Christ appeared to His disciples many times during the short time he was on the earth after the resurrection. He also disappeared at will — Luke 24:17. His body could move horizontally or vertically.

3. The doctrine of the two resurrections is pertinent and important to us. There are two resurrections, not one — John 5:24-29; Daniel 12:2; Revelation 20:6,13. The first resurrection involves the Lord Jesus Christ and believers only. Confusion seems to come from the fact that the first resurrection is divided into four parts. This is comparable to a battalion review in 1Corinthians 15 — "every man in his own battalion":

a) The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the firstfruits. He is resurrected and seated at the right hand of the Father — 1Corinthians 15:23; Romans 1:4; 1Thessalonians 1:10; 2Thessalonians 2:8; 1Peter 1:3.

b) Baker company is the Rapture of the Church — 1Corinthians 15:51-57; 1Thessalonians 4:16-18.

c) Charlie company is the Old Testament saints and Tribulational martyrs. They are resurrected at the end of the Tribulation — Daniel 12:13; Isaiah 26:19,20; Revelation 20:4.

d) Dog company is made up of the Millennial saints and those who survive the Tribulation to enter the Millennium in physical bodies.

This is the general first resurrection.

The second resurrection all occurs at one time — John 5:28,29; Revelation 20:12-15; 2Peter 3:9; Matthew 25:41 — at the end of the Millennium.

4. Living illustrations of the resurrection.

a) Abraham in a tent — Hebrews 11:9,10,13. To live in a tent in Abraham's day was to invite disaster, it was not safe. The secret to Abraham's tent life came from the fact that he trusted in the Lord. he had trusted in Christ for salvation, he had trusted the promises of God, but he also believed in the doctrine of God. Therefore he died in a tent knowing that God who had promised him a city would deliver that city. he knew that he would receive in resurrection. So the resurrection was vitally important to Abraham. The resurrection was a doctrine on which he built his whole life. Abraham was just as safe in a tent as you are in the greatest fortified system which ever existed. Abraham's protection was Bible doctrine, specifically resurrection. The reason he died in a tent is because he said "God has promised me a city, so I will live in a tent until God gives me the city which he promised me." The city that God promised Abraham will come, it is the new Jerusalem. He died in the tent without seeing the promise fulfilled in this life — Hebrews 11:13 — but he knew that in resurrection he would have his city — Revelation 21:2,10.

b) Isaac understood the concept of resurrection — Hebrews 11:17-19. Isaac was the fulfillment of the promise of Genesis 12:2. In Isaac Abraham's seed was to be multiplied into a great nation. Yet, in Genesis 22 God ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But Abraham, again, had faith in resurrection and in Hebrews 11:17-19 he put Isaac on an altar and was going to sacrifice him knowing that God would raise Isaac from the dead. Isaac hadn't found his right woman yet, he didn't have a family. Therefore when Abraham put his son on the altar he knew that God would raise him right up again. To Abraham the most vital doctrine in the world was resurrection.

c) The same thing was true of Job — "I know that my redeemer liveth, and he shall stand in the latter day [resurrection]… yet in my flesh [resurrection] I shall see God."

d) Joseph was a super-grace believer — Hebrews 11:22. The life of Joseph was filled with many acts of faith-rest, he demonstrated the function of super-grace. God prospered Joseph under the super-grace principle. Yet, when Joseph came to the time to die he did something greater than he had done in all of his lifetime. He commanded that he not be buried in Egypt but that his coffin be taken in the future and when the Jews returned to the land they must take the coffin with them. They must take Joseph's bones because of the doctrine of resurrection. When Joseph was risen from the dead he wanted to be standing by his great grandfather Abraham, by his grandfather Isaac, by his father Jacob. And in the resurrection he will stand with them because he refused to be buried in Egypt. But that isn't all. The Jews were slaves for 400 years and during those 400 years their hope of getting out of slavery was the coffin of JosEphesians Joseph therefore demonstrates the importance of the resurrection as a doctrine to the super-grace believer. The coffin of Joseph — Genesis 50:24-26; Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32.

e) There are two boys who died and both were brought to life by Elijah. They represent the beautiful illustration. The son of the widow of Zerapheth — 1 Kings 17:17-23; the son of the Shunammite woman — 2 Kings 4:18-36. These two incidents are exactly parallel. In each case a boy died. In each case a prophet — first Elijah, second Elisha — identified himself with the boy by stretching himself out over the dead person. Why? These prophets understood the doctrine of resurrection. To demonstrate their faith in the God of resurrection that He would also resuscitate these prophets did exactly the same thing. They stretched themselves out over the corpse and in each case the corpse came back to life. This again gives a picture of resurrection in the principle of identification or association.

"and set him" — the aorist active participle of kaqizw is "and having seated." This refers to ascension of Jesus Christ and His session at the right hand.

"in the heavenly places" — literally "in the heavenlies."

Translation: "Which [power] had been operational in Christ, having raised him up from the dead, and having seated him at his own right hand in the heavenlies."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #15

15 03/13/1973 Ephesians 1:21 Doctrine of the angelic conflict (pt.1–11 amplified)

Verse 21 — "Far above" is an adverbial preposition, u(peranw which with the ablative of comparison, paj, means "Over above." It should be translated "Over above all." The word "ablative" itself is taken from the Latin. It means "separated." Here is the ablative of comparison which implies separation in degree. When it says that Jesus Christ is over above all and you have the ablative used it refers to some category which Jesus Christ is separate from and totally superior to. It refers to all categories of fallen angels. This is the story of Hebrews chapters one and two. So by using an adverbial preposition, u(peranw, and having the ablative of paj as the object of the preposition it means that Jesus Christ is separated and totally superior to all fallen angels.

"principalities" — the ablative of comparison from a)rxh. It refers here to the super demons or the leaders among the fallen angels. There is no equality in the angelic realm even as there is no equality in the human realm. The humanity of Christ at the right hand of the Father, as per the previous verse, is superior to all super demon leaders. In other words, the next two verses of this chapter say in effect that the proqesij, the plan of God the Father, takes congisance of the angelic conflict; and God the Father planned it, the Son executed it. Jesus Christ as a member of the human race seated at the right hand of the Father in His resurrection body is superior to all the fallen angels put together, and not only superior to them but separate in every way.

"and power" — the ablative of e)cousia which refers to the commissioned officers among the demons. This will be used in that sense once again in Ephesians 6:12.

"and might" also describes fallen angels — the ablative of dunamij refers to the inherent power in angels. The inherent power of demons means that they have fantastic abilities which are greater than anything in the human race.

"and dominion" — the ablative of kuriothj, used here for a special class of fallen angels or demons who are distinguished by exercising great authority. These are probably the demons who indwell the world rulers and influence their decisions and thinking with regard to Satanic strategy.

"and every name" — the ablative singular of paj plus the ablative singular of o)noma which generally means personality, here it refers to the rank and file demons.

"Over above all super demons, and commissioned demons, and gifted demons, and ruling demons, and all rank and file demons."

"that is named" is the present passive participle of o)nomazw which means here to have a reputation — "who has a reputation." Every demon who has a reputation of any kind. The present passive participle means during the course of angelic history they have received a reputation.

"not only in this world" is correctly translated "not only in this age," the Church Age.

"but also in the one about to come," literally, which is the Millennium. It refers actually to the Tribulation, second advent and the revolution at the end of the Millennium.

Literal translation: "Over above all principality, and authority, and power, and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one about to come."

But the interpretive translation is: "Over above all super demons, and commissioned demons, and gifted demons, and ruling demons, and all rank and file demons who have a reputation, not only in this Church Age but also in the dispensation about to come."

In other words, in verse 21 the proqesij or plan of God takes cognisance of the intensification of the angelic conflict, beginning in the Church Age. The angelic conflict takes a very strange turn in the Tribulation. The intensification of the angelic conflict begins in the Church Age, continues into the Tribulation, reaches its climax in the second advent and operation footstool, and terminates with an anticlimax, a demon revolution at the end of the Millennium.

The doctrine of the angelic conflict

1. Many of the problems which disturb believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, many problems which appear to have no answer, are actually related to the angelic conflict. Many things which cannot be explained in terms of human activity are actually related to angelic activity. For example, the question is often asked: Why are we here? Why is man created? Why does man live on the earth? The reason we are here is to resolve the angelic conflict. That is a part of glorifying God. The angelic conflict is a revolt against God, and God is going to win it. The way He is going to win it is to create something lower than angels, weaker than angels, dumber than angels, and use that to win it. The fact that they do exist is verified by Psalm 8:4,5; Hebrews 2:6,7; 2Peter 2:11. They are created beings — Psalm 148:2-5.

There are two general categories of these unseen creatures: a) Saved or elect. They are called "holy" in Mark 8:38, and "elect" in 1Timothy 5:21. They are a category of angels who will live with God forever, they aresaved and they will never get into the lake of fire; b) The unsaved angels which fall into two categories. One category is in prison right now because they were all involved in the Genesis 6:1-9 fiasco, as explained by 2Peter 2:4; Jude 6. They are now in what is called Tartarus and there they are going to stay for a long time. The other category are the operative angels, i.e. demons — Mark 5; 1Corinthians 10:20,21. Their doctrines are mentioned in 1Timothy 4:1.

2. The point that is most important in the angelic conflict is the fact that all unsaved angels are sentence to the lake of fire forever and ever — Matthew 25:41 tells us that the lake if fire was created for this crowd.

3. During the course of human history we have the sentence under appeal. In eternity past God sentenced all angels to the lake of fire. However, Satan appealed the case and the course of human history is the period when the case is under appeal. The case will receive its final decision at the end of human history. So no angels at the present time are in the lake of fire. Except for the ones incarcerated the demons are all loose to day and they are definitely permitted under God to make certain attacks upon the human race because it is the volition of the human race that actually resolves the angelic conflict. It shows that Satan's appeal is not valid.

Satan, as the chief of the unsaved angels, appealed the case at the time of the sentence to the lake of fire. In objecting to the sentence Satan made his appeal by impugning the character of God. He said the judge, God, was not fair. He said that the judge was inconsistent, and he also indicated that the judge was supposed to be love, and how can a loving God throw His creatures into the lake of fire? So in every way he impugned the character of God.

We know that Satan is the lawyer for the appeal because his Greek name is diaboloj. It means adversary, enemy, or slanderer. It also means a lawyer who takes the case. The same thing is true of Shatan (Hebrew) which means devil, enemy, adversary, so devil means a lawyer who has appealed the case. He is the enemy of God.

It is simple to see how all this worked out, it is a simple deduction based on elapse of time between the passing of the sentence before human history and the execution of the sentence at the end of human history.

The answer to this objection by Satan is found in the character of God in His essence box. God is not just love. God is sovereignty, absolute righteousness and justice; His love must be consistent with these. God cannot ignore the other characteristics, He is immutable. God has to be consistent. He .loves His creature but just because he loves them He still has to be fair, He has to be righteous and He has to be just. Because all of the fallen angels went along with Satan righteousness demands that God separate from them; justice demands that he sentence them. So the fallen angels are all talking about the love of God and ignoring the righteousness and justice of God. They are looking for God to be unfair for the first time and of God is unfair even once in all of human history, since human history is the appeal of the case, then Satan has won his case. But God throughout all of human history, and in dealing with billions and billions of people, has never been unfair even once, and having been consistent and being consistent throughout the entire course of human history the fallen angels are going to end up in the lake of fire. This is because God has never been unfair, unrighteous, unjust; He has always been consistent.

In order to demonstrate His fairness and His consistency in the human race there must be an issue — a big issue and a lot of subsidiary issues. The big issue is salvation, and from this come the subsidiary issues like after salvation, super-grace versus reversionism, carnality versus spirituality.

4. The pattern of angelic negative volition is expressed in two ways. Satan's original sin of negative volition really gives the pattern. Isaiah 14:12-14. The angels also who took his side also reject God's plan, whatever God's plan called for.

5. The creation of man resolves the angelic conflict and answers Satan's appeal. To resolve the angelic conflict an inferior creature, mankind, is placed on one planet possessing one thing in common with these superior creatures: free will, the bona fide function of a creature volition — Psalm 8:3-5; Hebrews 2:7.

6. Human volition is tested in exactly the same pattern as angelic volition. Angels began in innocence; mankind began in innocence. Angels sinned — negative volition of Satan and those who followed him; mankind sins — negative volition of Adam. God provided salvation or some way for angels to remain intact, so that they didn't have to go with Satan. Many didn't which is why there are the elect angels. God provided salvation for mankind. So they angels are divided into two categories: elect and fallen; mankind is divided into two categories — John 3:18,16, 36. The ones who believe in Christ are eternally saved. The ones who reject Christ are lost.

7. Two tests are instituted for man's volition just as the same two types of status existed in angelic history — pre-human history. a) Innocence; b) Sinfulness. Innocence existed with free will but no sin nature. For the free will to be functioning and to have a test mankind is prohibited the use of one tree. That was the volitional test — Genesis 2:17. In the status of innocence man could only sin in one way — negative volition: eat of the forbidden tree. The penalty for going negative and eating of the forbidden truth was said to be death, but not physical death. In innocence there is no physical death — perfect environment. Man understood death as a penalty, as a condemnation, a judgment, and he understood it in its right context — separation from God. Adam died immediately when he ate of the forbidden fruit, but he was still alive and still breathing. Obviously it wasn't physical death. He died spiritually. Christ died for our sins, but He didn't die physically for our sins, He died spiritually for our sins. Romans 5:12; 6:23; Genesis 2:17 — spiritual death. The test in the garden was to parallel the test in the angelic realm, so we can only conclude that there was a similar test with the angels. Eventually all the angels were divided.

Sinfulness: After the fall salvation is promises so that you can still have the issue. The devil thought he had won a round when man went negative and ate of the forbidden fruit, but immediately Christ come sin the garden, promises salvation through Himself and immediately volition faces an issue. And the first parents went positive and believed in Jesus Christ. Now the issue in the human race, from the time of Adam and Eve right down to the end of the Millennium, is "what think ye of Christ?" Salvation. Before Christ came historically He was portrayed in many ways: in animal sacrifices, etc. The issue right through is volition, the function of free will with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ.

8. Man's entrance into the plan of God through faith in Christ destroys the devil's appeal, it resolves the angelic conflict. The issue: Will man, inferior to angels, equipped with the same free will as angels, choose for or against the plan of God — operation grace. The solution: If even one member of the human race in all of human history believes in the Lord Jesus Christ the angelic conflict is resolved — Hebrews 1:4-14; chapter 2; Colossians 2;14,15. Therefore the principle of operation footstool in Psalm 110:1; 1Corinthians 15:54, 24 ,25. Also Hebrews 1:3 relates the work of Christ on the cross to man's expression of non-meritorious volition.

After the cross the next issue is this: Can God keep His character intact and bless you? There is the whole story of the super-grace life.

For this reason we have angelic observation. Why? Angels learn through the conversion of members of the human race that the free will of man does not necessarily choose against God as each demon did. The fallen angels before human history have already done this, now they see in the unbeliever a repetition of their own negative volition. This explains also the rejoicing of elect angels over one unbeliever who changes his attitude toward Christ — Luke 15:7,10. By comparing Colossians 2:15 in the Greek with Revelation 19:6-8; Zechariah 13:2; 1Thessalonians 3:13 it is concluded that the numbers of believers in the body of Christ will be equal to the number of demons operating under the command of Satan in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. That is why the Church Age is going to last a long time.

9. The results of the angelic conflict.

Phase one: salvation results. Regenerate mankind is positionally higher than angels because of his union with Christ — Hebrews 1:4-14.

Phase two: Through suffering, regenerate mankind uses doctrine to the point of celebrityship with Christ, occupation with Christ. The maximum use of the faith-rest technique in suffering produces occupation with Christ — Romans 5:2-4; 1Peter 1:7.8. Also in phase two the blessing of the super-grace believer demonstrates the same thing. That is why the life of any believer who is worth his salt has alternate suffering and blessing.

Phase three: Regenerate mankind is going to be physically superior to angels because he is going to possess a resurrection body like that of Christ. In the resurrection and ascension Christ demonstrated the superiority of His resurrection body. We will have one like Him — Philippians 3:21; 1John 3:1,2; 1Corinthians 15:51-57.

10. Through the fall of man Satan gained control of the world but not necessarily control of mankind. This is because God instituted some divine laws. The laws of divine establishment began with human freedom. Human volition or free will makes man a free agent, and as a free agent in the devil's world he can choose between the plan of God and the blessings that come from that plan or the plan of Satan and the things that Satan offers by way of bait. Salvation through faith in Christ frees mankind from Satan's control — Galatians 5:1. After salvation the believer who GAPs it to super-grace learns the reality of this freedom. Until the second advent Satan will be the ruler of this world — 2Corinthians 4:4; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Ephesians 2:2.

11. The doctrine of angelic observation. Angels are observing the human race. Angels observed the incarnate Christ during His incarnation — 1Timothy 3:16. Elect angels observe and rejoice over the conversion of any member of the human race — Luke 15:7. Fallen angels are organised under Satan's command to resist and oppose all believers — Job 1:6; 2:1,3; Ephesians 6:12. Angels are watching all the human race, and especially believers — 1Corinthians 4:9; 6:3; 7:10; Ephesians 3:10; 1Timothy 5:21; 1Peter 1:12.

12. The angelic conflict, then, answers some basic questions about life. If you really want to understand what life is all about you have to understand why we are here. We are here to resolve the angelic conflict. We are here because Satan went to court and appealed the sentence passed upon the fallen angels. The sentence was the lake of fire forever and ever.

Man has volition even as Satan had volition and the first question that is answered by the angelic conflict is, Why man? Man is here to glorify God. Inside of man's soul is volition and that volition can operate once and that resolves the angelic conflict. If just one person in the history of the human race has believed in Jesus Christ that would be all that was necessary to prove God's point. But over the course of human history millions and millions of people have believed in Christ. So the cross is the beginning of a series of victories whereby God demonstrates His point to the fallen angels. This reaches its peak under the super-grace concept. God keeps pouring and pouring, and this glorifies God.

Another question is, Why sin? Sin resolves the issue of phase one in the plan of God. Man's free will is the source of all sinfulness in the human race. Man was created without any sin. God is not the author of sin, God is not the creator of sin, God does not sponsor sin; but He did create in man something whereby man could choose to go into the hole deeper. Man did choose that and man becomes a sinner by an act of his own free will. Man's free will created the old sin nature. God did not create the old sin nature, man did. At the cross all human sin is poured out upon Jesus Christ and judged, this removes the barrier between man and God and, at the same time, resolves the angelic conflict. So the fact that man went deeper into the hole does not in any way deter the angelic conflict, it merely shifts gears and goes into a new area.

Suffering is another problem in the human race. The answer to the suffering problem is, again, God permits the believer to suffer for the purpose of blessing. That is why suffering is designed to catch the believer in super-grace, and while all the other blessings are being poured in the cup to pour in some suffering. And when that suffering is poured in the believer is still blessed. The only difference is his happiness isn't over on the ecstatic side.

The Church is also another question that often occurs. The Jewish Age is interrupted and we are now in the Church Age. The key to this is found in one of the angelic conflict passages — Colossians 2:10. Christ, the head of the Church, is absent from the earth as a part of operation footstool. So He has representation on the earth in the form of His body. Christ is the head of the Church, we are His body representing Him as ambassadors. We are a kingdom of priests, every believer is in full time Christian service and therefore the personal representative of Christ on the earth. So Christ appointed the Church as His full time representation.

Why chaos on the earth? Satan is the ruler of this world and he cannot improve his own kingdom. Divine laws of establishment keeps the human race from entering into this chaos. Therefore Satan is very frustrated trying to improve his kingdom and show God that he has a right to stay out of the lake of fire. But he never gets around to improving it. All of the improvements come from God and not from Satan. Therefore chaos is related to the angelic conflict.

There is the problem of spirituality, the filling of the Spirit. People often ask why it doesn't have the characteristics that it will have in the Millennium where it will be associated with ecstatics. But there is no ecstatics related to the filling of the Spirit now. Why? The filling of the Spirit must be compatible with the absence of Jesus Christ from the earth. This is the whole concept of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Church Age. Jesus Christ during the Church Age is at the right hand of the Father, and in His absence the ministry of God the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus Christ. In the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ the filling of the Holy Spirit does exactly that. It produces in the believer certain things which glorify Christ. Jesus Christ is absent; Jesus Christ must be glorified, therefore the whole ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bring doctrine from the page of the Word of God into the soul of the individual though GAP and for the individual to manifest some of the characteristics of Jesus Christ. Therefore neither emotion nor ecstatics are involved. The filling of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ and it is minus emotion, ecstatics. But in the millennium Jesus Christ is going to be present and the filling of the Spirit will change then to reflect that. Since Christ is present the objective is to worship Christ or to love Christ in the filling of the Spirit and therefore there will be emotion. In any case of true love there is always an emotional response to what you have by way of capacity for love in the right lobe. Joel 2:28,29. There will be an appreciation of Christ on the earth rather than glorifying the absent Christ.

13. Certain principles need to be applied from the angelic conflict. The angelic conflict explains the superiority of spirituality over the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law has an objective, i.e. to set up the laws of establishment, but spirituality has a higher objective to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why the Mosaic law was taught by elect angels in the days of Moses. Elect angels were most anxious for the winning of the angelic conflict and the Mosaic law is a summary of the laws of divine establishment. So angels taught the Exodus generation. Acts 7:38; Galatians 3:19; Psalm 68:7; Deuteronomy 33:2. Christ is superior to angels as He is resurrected and ascended, the believer is in union with Christ, and now we have a difference. Angels were the teachers of doctrine to the Old Testament saints, now angels are servants — Hebrews 1:13,14.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #16

16 04/10/1973 Ephesians 1:21–23 Doctrine of the angelic conflict (pt.12–13)

Verse 22 — the proqesij of God, the predesigned plan of God, takes cognisance of operation footstool and relates it to the Church Age. "And hath put" is the aorist active indicative of u(potassw which is a military word for subordination. The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist, it is an absolute. It is an absolute fact that all demons will be subordinated under a person who is the God-Man and they will be subordinated under His authority so that everything is reversed as a result of the incarnation. Because of the incarnation any member of the human race in a resurrection body will be superior to any and all angels. That is coming up in the future and the gnomic aorist recognises this as an eschatological absolute. In addition to that it is also a culminative aorist. The active voice refers to the proqesij of God the Father. The indicative mood is the reality of this fact. Once Jesus Christ in His humanity was seated at the right hand of the Father meant it was all over for the fallen angels and all angels are inferior to the resurrected Christ seated at the Father's right hand.

"under his feet" — u(po plus the accusative plural of pouj. The aorist tense anticipates the future here and it also recognises the results which come from it. This is where we have operation footstool.

"and gave him" — the aorist active indicative of didomi. This is God the Father giving God the Son who is also true humanity. It is actually giving the true humanity of Christ something that humanity has not had since Adam was created and placed in the garden. The aorist tense has the same concept. It is an eschatological gnomic aorist and is referring to a doctrine which is an absolute, a doctrine that will occur. The Lord Jesus Christ is now and will be forever the absolute sovereign over the Church. The active voice: God the Father produces the action as a part of the proqesij, the predesigned plan. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that God the Father did this in that moment when He said, "Sit down at my right hand."

"head" — kefalh is used for more than just the head. It means "head" sometimes but sometimes it means the absolute authority, the absolute sovereignty, and that is the meaning here.

"over all" — the preposition u(per which means over and above, "above all."

"to the church" — dative of reference of e)kklhsia, "with reference to the church." The dative of reference specifies not just advantage but it also sets the church aside as having a special mission. How is e)kklhsia used here? It refers to every believer, the church universal.

Verse 23 — the predesigned plan of God provides a bride for the last Adam. God provided a bride for the first Adam. The first Adam had his right woman. She was his rib. He fulfilled here; she completed him. God the Father said, "Not good that Adam should be alone." The last Adam is Jesus Christ Himself, emphasising His humanity. So if the first Adam had a right woman, so should the last Adam. The right woman of the last Adam is the Church. The rib is union with Christ.

"Which" — the nominative feminine singular qualitative relative pronoun. The English does not define all of the characteristics here. It is feminine, and if we are not responders to God we are going to be responders to something else — in the soul. The nominative case tells us it is connected with the subject. The antecedent is the church — "the church which." The singular indicates that the whole church is regarded as the bride of Christ. The feminine indicates the concept of the bride. The qualitative relative pronoun indicates that the bride has quality. So we have to translate this "Which is such a quality as to be his body."

"is" is the present active indicative of e)imi which means always is and always will be [His body].

"his body" — to swma a)utou, "the body of [belonging to] him." The first Adam was provided a woman by the Lord Jesus Christ. The last Adam is Jesus Christ and He was provided by God the Father a body. On the cross the last Adam was alone. The father says, "Not good that Adam should be alone." Therefore the proqesij of God calls for one celebrity, the last Adam, to have a body on the earth, a bride. Our saviour is our only celebrity.

"the fullness" — plhrwma means "fullness" and it means "fulfillment." The Greeks used this for a man fulfilling his right woman in sex. As he fulfilled here she completed him. So this word is now brought into a spiritual realm and becomes a part of the theology of the Church Age.

"of him" — definite article plus the genitive masculine singular of the relative pronoun, and it is translated "of the one." "The one" is a title for Jesus Christ as out only celebrity.

"that filleth" — the passive voice of plhrow (present passive participle). The present tense is the process of enfillment. The passive voice: Christ is being fulfilled. Every time a person in the Church Age believes in Jesus Christ, the baptism of the Spirit which occurs at the moment of salvation does the fulfilling. The participle emphasises the process, whereby when the body of Christ is completed it will be removed from this earth. The body of Christ will be completed when the believers in the Church Age are equal in number to the demons operating under Satan in the angelic conflict. This is discovered by comparing Zechariah 13:2 with Colossians 2:15, with 1Corinthians 15:24,25. So this should be translated "the fullness of the one being filled."

"The fullness of the one being filled"

1. Plhrow means to fill up a deficiency. The lack of a right woman for the last Adam is fulfilled by the Church. The whole purpose of the Church Age is to give the last Adam His right woman.

2. Plhrow means to fully possess. Jesus Christ as the right man fully possesses the Church which is His body, His bride.

3. Plhrow means to fully influence. Jesus Christ fully influences His body on earth through Bible doctrine. Jesus Christ makes love to the believer through Bible doctrine only. As a believer responds to doctrine he responds to the love of Jesus Christ.

4. Plhrow means to fill with a certain quality. Through Bible doctrine Christ fills the believer with the perfect quality of super-grace.

"all in all" — the accusative plural of paj is an accusative of reference. "All" means there are no exceptions among believers; plus e)n plus the instrumental plural of paj which means "by means of all [believers of the Church Age]." It takes all believers to make the body of Christ in the Church Age.

Translation: "Which is such a quality as to be his body, the fullness of the one being fulfilled with reference to all by means of all."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #17

17 04/24/1973 Ephesians 2:1 Doctrine of death (types)

Chapter 2

Outline of the chapter

Verses 1-10, the grace panorama.

Verses 11-17, grace and the barrier.

Verses 18-22, grace and the Church.

The subject of the first three verses is how grace found us: verse 1 — grace found us spiritually dead; verse 2 — grace found us under the control of Satan; verse 3 — grace found us under the control of the old sin nature.

Verse 1 — the first erroneous problem in this verse is that even in italics someone has put in "hath he quickened." They thought it was legitimate to let us know that is was a long sentence, and this verb does occur in this sentence but it doesn't occur just yet. It comes up a little later on in the passage — verse 5 which is still the same sentence.

"And" is the continuative use of the conjunction kai, and the continuative extends from the last two verses of the previous chapter. The concept of the church is picked up again in Ephesians 2:18 but we are not ready for it yet because to realise what a great thing it is to be a member of the body of Christ, to be a member of the universal church, to realise how really important it is, we need to stop and see what we were like before we joined the church. Joining the church is believing in Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is a synonym for the church, a synonym to indicate the church on the earth. There is also a synonym for the church in heaven — bride. Some day we will be a bride. In the meantime we are in the formation process and therefore a body. At the resurrection of the church we will become the bride of Christ. In this passage we are not dealing with the church local, we are dealing with the church universal, which began on the day of Pentecost in 30 AD and has continued under the grace of God to this hour. The church is any believer wherever he is found.

Since the proqesij of God is founded on grace and functions on grace it is inevitable that we have at this point a grace panorama.

"you" — the accusative plural of the personal pronoun su refers to every believer of the Church Age. The plural says here that what the principle is is for all of us, and when grace found us under these three concepts in these first three verses it found all of us the same way.

"hath he quickened" is not here in the original, it comes later.

"who were" — present active participle of e)imi. This is the ascriptive use of the participle; it ascribes some fact, some quality, or some characteristic directly to the pronoun. The quality, the characteristic, or the fact is death.

"dead" — is also in the accusative plural of nekroj because the pronoun is in the plural. The ascriptive use of the participle is used to link up the quality of death to each one of us. So when grace found us we were all dead, says the ascriptive participle plus the plural of the accusative of nekroj, plus the plural of su.

The doctrine of the classification of death

1. Spiritual death — Ephesians 2:1; Romans 5:12; 6:23; 1Corinthians 15:22. Spiritual death is a judgment on the human race at the point of birth. It is being born into the devil's kingdom as citizens. We are born spiritually dead and related to the devil's kingdom and we continue that way until we believe in Jesus Christ at which point this thing is broken. This means that when grace found us we belonged to Satan's kingdom because we were born with spiritual death. Therefore the participle in verse is not only ascriptive but it is linear aktionsart. It is a status that continues and can only be broken by a new birth, and therefore the necessity for the new birth. The new birth breaks spiritual death. Spiritual death is not only separation from God but it is the penalty of sin, and it is totally the penalty of sin. Physical death is not the penalty of sin and it does not have anything to do with the penalty of sin. The only way that physical death is related to the penalty of sin is that since we are born spiritually dead it is inevitable that eventually we will all die. The first use of spiritual death in the Bible is in Genesis 2:17.

2. Physical death — Matthew 8:22; 2Corinthians 5:1-8; Romans 8:38,39; Philippians 1:21. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body.

3. The second death is the perpetuation of spiritual death into eternity — Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:12-15. It refers to the final judgment of the unbeliever in which the unbeliever is cast into the lake of fire forever. So it follows the general concept of separation but it is the eternal lake of fire.

4. Operational death — James 2:26. "Faith without production is dead [non-operative]." This is a reference to the believer's failure to produce divine good, the failure of the believer to reach super-grace, the failure of the believer to GAP it consistently; it is the failure of the believer to get an accumulation of doctrine that leads to the ECS, occupation with Christ, super-grace capacity, super-grace blessing.

5. Positional death — Romans chapter 6 is the major passage of discussion. It is also found in Colossians 2:12, 20; 3:3. At salvation we are entered into union with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit has two aspects. We are in union with Christ as Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. We are also in union with Christ as Christ died on the cross — current and retroactive positional truth. Positional death is retroactive positional truth or identification with Christ in His death. We are identified with Christ in His death because at the cross Jesus Christ rejected human good. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree but He rejected human good. Retroactive positional truth is simply our rejection of human good through identification with Christ on the cross.

6. Temporal death — Romans 8:6,13; Ephesians 5:14; 1Timothy 5:6; James 1:15; Revelation 3:1; Luke 15:24,32. It refers to the believer out of fellowship through sin. It is simply carnality or the perpetuation of carnality in reversionism. Temporal death just means that death is used to show that when you and I sin we are out of fellowship, we are dead to God in the sense of being out of fellowship. The prodigal son was still a son but he was dead to his father — "This, my son, was dead but now is alive." He was out of fellowship, now he is back in fellowship.

7. Sexual death which is the inability to copulate — Romans 4:16-21; Hebrews 11:11.12.

There is no greater emphasis on God's grace than our spiritual condition prior to salvation — "And you all constantly being [spiritually] dead."

Next we have a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the locative of sphere, and we have two objects of the preposition — "in the sphere of."

"your transgressions" — paraptwma plus the definite article and a personal pronoun. The definite article classifies the sphere in which our spiritual death is manifest. We are spiritually dead but how do we demonstrate it? By transgressions. This means to violate divine law. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God — from the Westminster Confession. Sin is violation of something you know to be true as a part of divine law. But that is only half of it. The other half is found in the other half of the preposition, the word "sins," also the locative plural. This time the noun is a(martia, which means failure to hit the mark. It is correctly translated "sins."

Translation: "And you being spiritually dead in the sphere of your transgressions and sins."

Principle: Grace found every believer regulating his life and ordering his behaviour pattern in the sphere of deviations and missing the mark. Grace found each one of us not only a total zero but also a total sub-zero.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #18

18 04/30/1973 Ephesians 2:2 Devil's seven; doctrine of the old sin nature

Verse 2 — grace found us under the control of the ruler of this world. Spiritual death is your citizenship paper showing that you are member of the devil's kingdom.

"Wherein" is a prepositional phrase — e)n plus the locative plural of the relative pronoun o(j. It should be translated "in the sphere of which" or "in which sphere." It is referring to the sphere of transgressions and sins.

"in time past" — an enclitic particle of time, pote, and it means "formerly." It means before we were saved.

"ye walked" — aorist active indicative of the verb peripatew, used for lifestyle or life pattern. The aorist is a constative aorist, which always contemplates the action of a verb in its entirety. It takes an occurrence and regardless of the extent or the duration of that occurrence it gathers it into a single whole. The active voice: the unbeliever, which we all were formerly, produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that not only were we spiritually dead but we had a ruler who was totally obnoxious to the groom. The unbeliever is under the domination and the control of Satan.

A classification of verbs for walking

1. A)nastrefw is used for the pattern of social life — Ephesians 3:3

2. Stoixew refers to action along a particular line — Romans 4:12; Philippians 3:16. It means to follow a definite course of action, a course of action which is recognisable in the context.

3. Peripatew connotes personal or an individual life-pattern.

"according to the course" — the preposition kata plus the accusative singular of a)iwn which means an age or an era. It refers to a period of time and it should be translated "according to the era."

"of this world" — a genitive of description, kosmoj which represents the anti-God influence of the unbeliever in the status quo of spiritual death. The era of the kosmoj refers to the fact that not only does Satan rule the planet earth but that he has compiled a tremendous mass of thoughts, opinions, speculations, hopes, impulses, objectives, aspirations, trends, and panaceas which form the entire scope of Satanic doctrine for ruling. Communism is an extension of these things, as is the thinking of the French Revolution, as is liberalism. The evils of the world are brought about by Satan's inability to keep consistent. Satan does not have the ability to rule the world which he has taken from man at the fall.

"according to the prince" — the Greek word for prince is a)rxon for "highest ruler." It really means a ruler, a king, but it is someone who becomes a ruler without inheriting a throne. Notice that Satan is not called "king," he is called a)rxon because he didn't inherit the world, he seized it. The coup de tat of seizure was the fall of man. One thing Satan recognises is the importance of authority, so he is called the highest ruler …

"of the power" — a descriptive genitive of e)cousia which does not means power, it means authority.

"of the air" — a)er, the Greek word for the lower or dense atmosphere. The higher atmosphere is called ether. The atmosphere around the earth consists of the first heavens. Satan as the highest ruler is found controlling not only the planet earth but also the atmosphere around it.

Translation so far: "In which sphere you formerly walked according to the era of this kosmoj, according to the highest ruler of the authority of the atmosphere."

The seven points of the devil (The devil's seven)

1. The devil is an angelic personality. He is also a genius, smarter than any human being or creature who ever lived. He is also very attractive and has a beautiful voice. Isaiah 14:12-17; Ezekiel 28:11-19 gives us a total picture of Satan as a personality, a person of the highest possible mentality. Here and there other passages tell us other things about Satan. He is the biggest liar that God ever stuck a soul in. He is the father of lies — John 8:44. He is also a murderer — 1John 3:8. He is the highest ruler of the authority of the atmosphere.

2. The devil is the ruler of this world — Luke 4:5-7; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2.

3. As the ruler of this world Satan has strategy regarding the nations. Satan is anti-nationalism; he despises nationalism. Nationalism frustrates the function of his rulership. Nationalism is a part of the laws of divine establishment to preserve human freedom in the devil's kingdom — Revelation 12:9; 20:3,8. In order to rule the world Satan has to have strategy, he has to function on principles. For example, the two greatest enemies of Satan in ruling the world are Bible doctrine and the laws of divine establishment. So Satan counterattacks with religion. Religion is designed to neutralise doctrine. He counterattacks with revolution. Revolution is a Satanic device to neutralise the laws of divine establishment. That is why all revolutionists in their doctrine are internationalists and anti-nationalism. Nationalism frustrates Satan's function on the earth. Nationalism is a part of the laws of divine establishment and basically it includes: a) the military establishment to protect the freedom of the nation involved. This immediately knocks out the possibility of any Christian being a conscientious objector; b) law plus a police system. This is one of the most important foundations for the preservation of privacy, rights and freedoms; c) free enterprise, with no government interference.

Religion is man by man's efforts seeking to gain the approbation of God. It is working, man's plans, man's devices, superimposed upon God. The devil is the author of religion, the author of revolution, the author of internationalism; it is all a part of his strategy as the ruler of the world.

4. Since everyone is born into the world as an unbeliever and spiritually dead we are born citizens of Satan's kingdom. Spiritual death is the citizenship papers in cosmos diabolicus. Therefore the devil has to have strategy with regard to people. He has to do everything possible to keep people unbelievers. It is the devil's objective that no one believe in Jesus Christ. Luke 8:12; 2Corinthians 4:3,4; 2Thessalonians 2:9,10; Colossians 2:8.

5. Therefore when a person believes in Christ the devil doesn't give up on them. They are members of the family of God and in God's plan and totally separated from Satan's plan. So the devil has to have strategy regarding believers — 2Corinthians 2:1.

There are seven strategies:

a) The devil's strategy is to accuse believers. The devil is always embarrassed about sin. What he tries to do in his kingdom is what God produced in innocence. So one of his objectives is to ignore sin with all unbelievers and to make a great stir about the sins of believers. Satan makes an accusation about the sins of believers to God the Father. God the Son is seated at the right hand of the Father and at that point Jesus Christ takes on a new role, which is very closely related to His celebrityship. He acts as the believer's defense attorney immediately and presents the case that every sin that the devil mentions has already been judged. Law of double jeopardy: you can't be judged twice for the same offense. So Jesus Christ mentions that. God the Father as the judge throws the case out of court. Revelation 12:9,10; Job 1:6-11; Zechariah 3:1,2; 1John 2:1,2.

b) It is Satan's objective to sponsor reversionism. The devil has been working for a long time to get one whole generation of believers in reversionism. 1Corinthians 10:19-21. The devil has a communion table and it is designed to sponsor reversionism. This communion table is for reversionists. 2Corinthians 11:3,13-15. Illustration: 1Chronicles 21.

c) It is the strategy of the devil with regard to believers to frustrate the will of God in the believer's life. The will of God is categorised and classified in three ways: mental, operational, and geographical. Mental will of God: What does He want me to think? Operational will of God: What does he want me to do? Geographical will of God: Where does He want me to be? It is the Satanic objective to frustrate all three categories. The mental — Ephesians 4:14, he tries to frustrate divine viewpoint. Operational — James 4:7,8. Geographical — 1Thessalonians 2:18.

d) It is the strategy of the devil to neutralise the believer's soul through worry and anxiety — 1Peter 5:7-9.

e) It is Satan's objective to obscure the focus of the believer — occupation with Christ or the super-grace life. He does this in three ways: getting eyes on self — 1 Kings 19:10; getting eyes on people — Jeremiah17:5; getting eyes on things — Hebrew 13:5,6.

f) It is the Satanic objective to involve the believer in humanistic, temporal solutions to man's problems so that divine solutions are obscured and excluded, e.g. the so-called social gospel (social action).

g) To instill in believers a fear of death — Hebrews 2:14,15.

6. Religion as a Satanic system. The basic principle of religion is to counterfeit what God has done. There are nine different counterfeits in religion:

a) Counterfeit gospel — 2Corinthians 11:3,4.

b) Counterfeit ministers — 2Corinthians 11:13-15.

c) Counterfeit doctrine — 2Timothy 4:1.

d) Counterfeit communion table — 1Corinthians 10:19-21.

e) Counterfeit righteousness — Matthew 19:16-28.

f) Counterfeit modus vivendi — Matthew 23. (Whitewashed tombstones)

g) Counterfeit power — 2Thessalonians 2:8-10.

h) Counterfeit gods — 2Thessalonians 2:3,4.

7. False teachers and false teaching is a part of the devil's strategy.

a) False teachers always have a phony facade — Matthew 7:15; Romans 16:18. This facade is a kind of Maddison Avenue presentation to impress people.

b) False teachers court believers — Galatians 4:17,18; 2Timothy 3:5-7.

c) False teachers always appeal to human pride — 2Corinthians 10:12.

d) False teachers like to promote idolatry because it is a quick way to demon possession — Habakkuk 2:18,19.

e) False teachers often promote legalism — 1Timothy 1:7,8.

f) False teachers will continue throughout the cosmic era of Satan's rulership — 1John 4:1.

Next to the lie itself, the greatest delusion Satan imposes — reaching to all unsaved

and to a large proportion of Christians — is the supposition that only such things as society considers evil could originate with the devil — if, indeed, there be any devil to originate anything. It is not the reason of man, but the revelation of God, which points out that governments, morals, education, art, commercialism, vast enterprises and organisations, and much of religious activity are included in the cosmos diabolicus. That is, the system which Satan has constructed includes all the good which he can incorporate into it and be consistent in the thing he aims to accomplish. A serious question arises whether the presence of gross evil in the world is due to Satan's intention to have it so, or whether it indicates Satan's inability to execute all he has designed. The probability is great that Satan's ambition has led him to undertake more than any creature could ever administer. Revelation declares that the whole cosmos-system must be annihilated — not its evil alone, but all that is in it, both good and bad. God will incorporate nothing of Satan's failure into that kingdom which He will set up in the earth.

Lewis Sperry Chafer, "Systematic Theology", vol. 2 , PP 100-101

"the spirit" is a subjective genitive from a neuter noun, pneuma. While pneuma is a neuter noun it is used also for persons. It means breath or air or spirit. The word is also used for angels, for esprit decor, thought pattern. Here we have the definite article, which indicates the classification of the noun rather than calling attention to its quality. The noun in the genitive produces the action of the participle. A genitive noun produces the action of the participle. The noun refers to the state of mind of reversionistic believers. It refers to doctrine of demons entering the right lobe of believers who are negative toward doctrine. The word also refers to unbelievers' thinking as Satan has influenced them. The noun also refers to Satan who is the a)rxon and therefore a spirit.

"that now worketh" is the present active participle of e)nergew and it goes with the genitive because it, too, has the definite article. The word means to be operational or effective — "the spirit which is now operational." The definite article can be translated as a relative clause when included with the participle.

"in the children" — e)n plus the locative plural of u(ioj. This refers to negative volition toward the gospel as far as unbelievers are concerned, for the believer it refers to negative volition toward doctrine. The devil's propaganda works in the unbeliever to keep him from getting to the gospel, or putting him under strong delusion so that he will not accept the gospel. This is the principle of 2Corinthians 4:3,4. Satan has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. It also refers to reversionistic believers. Both could be classified as children of disobedience.

"of wrath" — the descriptive genitive of the noun a)peiqeia, used both here and in Hebrews 4:6 for the obstinacy or disobedience or negative volition of the reversionistic believer. It can be both a reversionist or an unbeliever.

Translation: "In which sphere you formerly walked according to the error of the cosmos, according to the supreme ruler of the authority of the atmosphere, the ruler of the spirit which now is operational in the sons of obstinacy."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #19

19 05/01/1973 Ephesians 2:3 Doctrine of divine essence: sovereignty and righteousness

Verse 3 — Grace also found us under the control of the old sin nature. "Among whom" is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j.

a) This refers to the unbeliever type reversionists specifically.

b) The unbeliever reversionist has rejected the gospel so that a vacuum is created in his soul.

c) Into this vacuum goes the doctrine of demons causing him to reject the laws of divine establishment.

d) Every believer was once among unbeliever type reversionists.

e) This is where grace found each one of us.

f) Now also grace finds this believer in this passage in a reversionistic state, controlled by the old sin nature.

"also" is the adjunctive use of kai; it is followed by the phrase "we all" — h(meij pantej, a pronoun and an adjective in the nominative plural and it refers to believers with retrospective exposition regarding their status as unbelievers or how grace found them.

"we all had our conversation" — an aorist passive indicative from the compound verb a)nastrefw [A)na = above or again; strefw = to turn one's course]. It connotes a pattern of social life, it means to live in the sense of practicing certain principles, to have a pattern of behaviour or conduct. This is a constative aorist, it gathers up into one entirety the pattern of our life when grace found us. The passive voice: The subject receives the action of the verb. The unbeliever receives the action of this verb and this is what we received up to the point of salvation. The indicative mood is the reality of our life pattern or life style as an unbeliever under the old sin nature.

"in times past" is an adverb, pote, and it means "formerly."

"in the lusts of our flesh" — this Greek phrase refers to the old sin nature's lust pattern. We have ep)iqumia and sarc as the two basic words. Sarc is sometimes human flesh but sometimes the old sin nature: generally in the epistles of the New Testament, the old sin nature.

The doctrine of the old sin nature

1. Definition. The old sin nature is that which was acquired originally by Adam's fall and subsequently acquired by us at the point of physical birth. It is the source of the soul's rebellion toward God.

2. The essence of the old sin nature is specified in the Greek of Romans 6:6. Basically it is fourfold. There is an area of weakness which produces all personal sins — Hebrews 12:1 specifies the principle. The doctrine of hamartiology classifies three types of personal sins — mental, verbal, and overt. Secondly, the old sin nature has an area of strength which produces human good in contrast to divine good. Human good is described in Isaiah 64:6 and the principle is mentioned in Romans 8:8. Thirdly, there is a lust pattern in the old sin nature — Romans 7:7; Ephesians 2:3. Approbation lust is the basic concept, the basic motivator of life and is why people seek to get attention from others. There is power lust, materialism lust, sex lust, and so on. Finally, the old sin nature has antithetical trends — trend toward lasciviousness, trend toward asceticism. One is as bad as the other, both are evil.

3. The biblical nomenclature for the old sin nature.

a) The flesh — Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 2:3.

b) Old man — Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9.

c) Carnal — Romans 7:14; 1Corinthians 3:1-3.

d) Sin (in the singular) — Romans 5:12; 7:14; 1Corinthians 15:56; 1John 1:8.

e) Heart, generally used for the right lobe, occasionally for the old sin nature's influence on the right lobe — Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 12:34,35; 15:19; Mark 7:21-23.

4. Principles of the old sin nature.

a) The old sin nature is a source of spiritual death in mankind — Romans 5:12; Ephesians 2:1,5.

b) The old sin nature is perpetuated in the human race through physical birth — Psalm 51:5; 1Timothy 2:13,14.

c) The believer continues to have an old sin nature after salvation. There is no such thing as sinless perfection — 1Corinthians 3:1; 1John 1:8.

d) The believer under the control of the old sin nature is designated carnal — Romans 7:14; 1Corinthians 3:1-3.

e) The old sin nature frustrates bona fide production in phase two — Romans 7:15.

f) The old sin nature is not found in the resurrection body of the believer — 1Corinthians 15:56; Philippians 3:21; Colossians 3:4; 1Thessalonians 5:23.

g) Divine judgment solves the problem of the old sin nature. Phase one judgment: Christ is judged for our sins on the cross — 2Corinthians 5:21; 1Peter 2:24. There is a phase two judgment: the believer's sins in time are judged by the rebound technique — 1Corinthians 11:31; 1John 1:9. There is also a phase three judgment where the believer's human good is judged.

Verse 3b — "fulfilling" is a present active participle of poiew which means "doing the desires of the flesh." The verb means to do and has nothing to do with fulfilling anything.

"the desires of the flesh" — the word for "desires" is the accusative plural of the noun qelhma. It means that people always do what they want to do. They are not always ready to take the consequences of that they do. Basically the lifestyle of all unbelievers is doing what they want to do. This simply proves once again that you have free will before salvation. Doing what God wills or doing what you want to do after salvation indicates the same factor. Angels observe unbelievers with this in mind. In this sense the unbelieving human race is spoiled and when grace finds us we have been doing what we wanted to do X number of years without achieving anything by it. We are neither happier nor better off in any way, we simply have put ourselves under total obligation to the cosmos, the "devil's seven." Being under this obligation means that anything we have in life that we enjoy we owe to the ruler of this world, and it's enjoyment in very short-lived because the ruler of this world does not have either the ability or the capacity to make either a promotion or any kind of prosperity system of happiness. Therefore our only hope in this field lies under the concept of grace. So grace found us totally enmeshed in using our own free will to make ourselves miserable while trying to make ourselves happy. "Continually doing" is present linear aktionsart, and this is how grace found us. Continually doing the desires of the flesh means that if you were a very good person before you were saved (and not the town sinner) you were still doing what you wanted to do. You wanted to be good, you wanted to be prissy, and you wanted to be better than everyone else. We are what we are by our own volition.

When grace found all of us we were doing what we wanted to do and it wasn't getting us anywhere. The issue is on volition and desires, and desires are what we will, what we want to do. With Bible doctrine you know what you want to do, you want to do the will of God. The will of God is for you to get doctrine inside the soul. The only way we can use our situation to improve the situation is non-meritorious. Non-meritorious volition GAPs it to super-grace, and then God does all the pouring.

"and of the mind" — the genitive plural from dianoia. All the do-gooders and all the bleeding hearts are always looking for something for which they can crusade. They want to be good in life, they want to do something good, they want to feel like they have put a little whitewash or a little patch on planet earth.

"and were" is the imperfect active indicative of e)imi — "we kept on being." This is the imperfect used as the past tense for the purpose of indicating what we were when grace found us.

"by nature" — the instrumental of fusij, which means by natural or by inherited endowment. We all inherited something. By inherited endowment we are …

"the children" — the nominative plural of teknon without the definite article.

1. The word means a child in relationship to its parents. That is, a child under authority of other members of the human race.

2. It also refers to descendants, to posterity, hence it refers here to the posterity of Adam.

3. The absence of the definite article emphasises the qualitative aspect of the noun. In this case the quality was bad. We were under authority but we were under the authority of wrath.

"of wrath" — o)rgh, descriptive genitive singular. It means anger, wrath, indignation, or punishment. In other words, we were being pulled irresistibly under Satan's authority, under the authority of the old sin nature, toward the lake of fire. Now here is the contrast: We were under this authority taking us to the lake of fire; now we are under authority taking us eventually to surpassing grace. In the meantime we have the privilege of super-grace, and our authority is the Word of God and the communicator of the Word, the classroom being the local church.

"even as others" — kai o(i loipoi is plural and means "also the rest [of the human race]."

Translation" "Among whom also formerly we all had our behaviour pattern in the lusts of our flesh [OSN], continually doing the desires of the flesh and the thoughts, and were continually by natural inherited endowment the posterity of wrath punishment, as also the rest of the human race was."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #20

20 05/02/1973 Ephesians 2:4a Doc/divine essence: justice, love, eternal life, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence

Verses 4-7 takes us a step further — how grace found us, how grace provided for us.

Verse 4 — "But" is an adversative particle, de, used as a conjunction of contrast. The contrast is between how Christ found us as the children of wrath and what God was like when He found us. In other words, this adversative conjunction is to set up a contrast. We were found as zeros, the one who found us was perfect.

"God" — o( qeoj refers to God the Father, and it is "the God." Now the purpose of the definite article is to define one person of the Godhead, the author of the plan.

"who is" should be "being" — the present active participle of e)imi: always being, there never was a time when he wasn't. "But the God being."

"rich" — the adjective plousioj. The word means money, but it also means to be rich in other things too.

The doctrine of divine essence — we must see who found us.

1. God is one in essence. The oneness of God's essence is the glory of God. Whenever the glory of God is found in the scripture it refers to the essence of God. All the characteristics of divine essence are resident in each member of the Godhead. However, all of the characteristics of God are not manifest at one time.

2. The relationship of essence to the Trinity. Each member of the Trinity or the Godhead is a separate person having the same essence as the other members. Even though a separate person He is still one in essence with the others. The fact that there is more than one person in the Godhead is taught in 1Peter 1:2; 2Corinthians 13:14; John 10:30 cf. Psalm 110:1; Isaiah 48:16.

3. Examples of how various characteristics are manifest include: a) Salvation, where you see God's love and eternal life; b) Judgment, God's righteousness and justice is seen; c) Faithfulness, you see immutability plus veracity; d) In God's plan is seen omniscience plus sovereignty. So each aspect of life brings out a different characteristic in the essence of God.

4. The sovereignty of God.

a) God is the supreme being of the universe — Deuteronomy 4:39; 1Samuel 2:6-18; 1Chronicles 29:11; 2Chronicles 20:6; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 45:5,6; Acts 17:24.

b) God is also said to be king of heaven and earth — Psalm 47:2; 93:1; Matthew 6:13b; Hebrews 8:1; Revelation 4:2,3,11.

c) God as sovereign is also eternal — Psalm 93:2; God is infinite — Psalm 8:1; Acts 5:39; Self-determining — Job 9:12; Psalm 115:3; 135:6; Proverbs 21:1; Daniel 4:35.

d) Expressions of divine volition — Isaiah 46:10b; Ephesians 1:5 — resulting in a plan for humanity — Psalm 24; Hebrews 6:17.

e) But as a part of the sovereignty of God, God is a gentleman. That means He will not coerce or violate the volition of any member of the human race. He will not use His absolute will against the volition He gave man — John 7:17; Revelation 22:17.

f) As far as the believer is concerned God has a will for our life. We can choose to go against that will of the intake of doctrine, GAPing it to super-grace. We can wind up in reversionistic revolt. The believer in reversionism repudiates God's will, God's person, and God's plan.

5. The righteousness of God.

a) God is righteous or absolute holiness — Leviticus 19:2b; 1Samuel 2:2; Psalm 22:3; 47:8; 111:9; Isaiah 6:3; John 17:11; Revelation 3:7; 4:8; 6:10. God's righteousness is absolute, it cannot be destroyed, contaminated, compromised.

b) There are passages which say that God is good, a goodness that stems from His righteousness — Psalm 25:8; 34:8; 86:5; 119:68; Luke 18:19.

c) God's righteousness is free from sin — 2Corinthians 5:21; 1John 1:5.

d) The righteousness of God is perfect, so that His character is perfect, so that His person is perfect. It is impossible to have perfect righteousness without having perfect character and a perfect personality. They key to personality is righteousness. Deuteronomy 32:4b; Psalm 7:9; 11:7; 97:6; 111:3; 119:137a; Jeremiah 23:6; John 17:25a; Romans 1:17; 10:3; 1John 2:29.

e) He is righteous in His attitudes and His actions — Deuteronomy 32:4; 2Samuel 22:31; Psalm 119:37; 145:17; Daniel 9:14; Revelation 19:2.

f) God's perfect righteousness rejects human standards of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness galls, but true righteousness in the believer is pleasing. That is why salvation cannot be attained by human righteousness — Titus 3:5. God regards our righteousness as filthy rags — Isaiah 64:6.

g) The righteousness of God is available to all who believer — Romans 3:22 for imputation of righteousness.

6. The concept of divine justice as a part of the essence of God .

a) God is fair, this is a part of His justice. In fact, it is impossible for God to be unfair. God's judgments are perfect and God is always fair, therefore God is eliminated as a patsy in anyone's life. It is impossible to make God the object of bitterness or any mental attitude sin. His fairness is total. His justice also operates in the field of punitive activity. God must express His love through His justice to His reversionistic believers. He is always just and as a part of His justice He is no respecter of persons. Therefore God has only two avenues through which He can express His love to believers. He expresses His love to super-grace believers through blessing; He expresses His love to reversionism through the function of divine justice and/or discipline. Justice administers the penalty which righteousness demands. Deuteronomy 32:4; 2Chronicles 19:7; Job 37:23; Psalm 19:9; 50:6; 58:11; 89:14; Isaiah 45:21; Jeremiah 50:7; Romans 3:26; Hebrews 10:30,31; Hebrews 12:23.

b) Justice not only is an expression of the fairness of God, not only an expression of the punitive operation of God, but justice means that God in vindicating any believer as a part of the angelic conflict cannot have a compromise to that characteristic. That is why we have the cross and that is where the doctrine of propitiation fits in. Were it not for the ministry of Jesus Christ on the cross, were it not for the doctrine of propitiation we would be in serious trouble because God would have to compromise His justice in order to save us; and God cannot compromise any part of His character. Immutability means that God's character remains inviolate, it cannot be compromised. The Lord Jesus Christ through His vicarious efficacious spiritual death on the cross (1Peter 2:24) transferred the guilt of the sinner (Romans 5:12) in Himself. This propitiated the justice of God the Father so that the Father is not only free to pardon and to justify each person who accepts Christ, but He is free with His justice to condemn forever those who reject Christ. So the work of Christ on the cross not only liberated the justice of the Father for total expression in eternity but also made it possible for the Father's justice to remain intact in the plan of God. His justice in the basis for the unbeliever going to the lake of fire.

7. Divine love.

God is eternal and therefore has unchangeable love in the same quantity as he had billions of years ago. The quantity of God's love and the quality of God's love remains the same — Jeremiah 31:3. Each member of the Godhead is somewhere related to love. For example, the Father's love is described in John 3:16; 1John 2:15; 3:1. The Son's love is described in Romans 8:35. The principle that the love of God will not permit separation, that no believer can be separated from the love of God, is found in Romans 8:38,39. No matter how a believer fails, no matter what he does, no matter who says what about him, no matter what he has actually done, he can never be separated from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This means that the Father has a love which is not in any way related to emotion. Emotion does not exist in any member of the Godhead. Emotion is not a part of the essence of God, it is strictly a human function in order to become an appreciator of what we have in the right lobe of the soul. In the function of the soul emotion is the responder to the various functions of the right lobe or the heart. God doesn't need an emotion to appreciate what He has in the mentality if His essence — omniscience, and God does not function on emotion as we do. Emotion is a prop so that what you have in your right lobe will be a source of stimulation to you. But God is not emotional. An occasional emotional type verb will be used as an anthropopathism merely to express a divine attitude but not to indicate a true condition of God's essence. So it is important to understand that God's love is infinitely superior to any human love because it needs no props. For example, one of the props in human love is to get a response. Very few people have the ability to love someone consistently when all they ever get from them is to be ignored or antagonism.

God's love is so great that no strings are involved. He will love us when we are in reversionism just as much as when we are heroes in super-grace.

It is possible for a member of the human race to love God. However, it must be regenerate mankind, a member of the family of God, first. Then the capacity for it is something totally unrelated to props. Doctrine is not related to props; doctrine is not emotional. We appreciate doctrine and emote often when we learn principles of doctrine. But doctrine in itself has not emotional content. Doctrine is designed to have a strictly mental content. God's love is a part of the ECS, in which case it becomes reality. 1John 2:5 tells us about God's love and the ECS. God's love is first a reality to us when we are controlled by the Spirit — Romans 5:5.

8. Eternal life. God is absolute existence — Exodus 3:14; John 8:58; Psalm 90:2. Jesus Christ is eternal life and has always existed with the Father — John 1:1-3. He is eternal life and shares His life with us at the point of salvation — 1John 5:11,12; John 10:28; 20:31. Always existent as eternal life is a characteristic of essence.

9. Omniscience. God is all-knowledge. It is related to eternal life in this way. God's knowledge is total and God's knowledge is not related to time. God's knowledge is outside of time because He is eternal life. 1Samuel 2:3; Job 26:6; Jeremiah 16:17; Psalm 139:1-6; Ezekiel 11:5; Matthew 10:29,30; Hebrews 4:13. God, therefore has infinite wisdom and understanding — 1Samuel 16:7; Psalm 44:21; 147:5; Proverbs 3:19; 5:21; 17:3; Isaiah 40:13,14; Jeremiah 17:10; 51:15; Nahum 1:7; Romans 11:33; 1John 3:20.

It is God's intention for each one of us as a believer to understand everything in the Bible — in time!

10. Omnipresence. God is ever present, He is not limited by space or time. This means He is both imminent and transcendent. Jeremiah 23:24; Acts 17:27. Heaven is His throne, the earth is His footstool — Deuteronomy 4:39; Isaiah 66:1. Furthermore, where His omnipresence is concerned the heavens cannot contain Him — 1 Kings 8:27; Acts 17:24b.

11. Omnipotence. God has a power totally devoid of human props. Omnipotence means not only strength as we understand it but ability as well. God has unlimited ability, unlimited strength — Genesis 17:1; 18:14; Job 26:7; 42:2; Psalm 24:8; 93:1; 147:5a; Isaiah 40:26; 50:2; Jeremiah 27:5; 32:27; Matthew 19:26; Mark 14:36; Luke 1:37. The only limitation God ever has on His strength is human negative volition — Revelation 4:8. God also has unlimited authority — Psalm 33:9; Romans 13:1; Hebrews 1:3; Revelation 19:6.

12. Immutability. God is also perfectly stable. Immutability is total stability. Immutability means unchangeability. God cannot change — Psalm 102:26,27; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 1:12. God is absolute stability — Isaiah 40:28; James 1:17. God's Word and God's works are unchanging. That is why through GAP God gives us one immutable thing — doctrine is immutable. God gives us something of Himself when he gives us Bible doctrine. When we have doctrine in the soul we have the only stabiliser in life. His words and His works are unchanging — Psalm 119:89; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Isaiah 40:8. From His stability comes His faithfulness. He is faithful in keeping His promises — Numbers 23"19; 1 Kings 8:56; 2Corinthians 1:20; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 10:23; 11:11. He is faithful to forgive — 1John 1:9. He doesn't forgive because we feel sorry for our sins, He forgives because Christ died for our sins. He is faithful in keeping us saved — 2Timothy 2:12,13. He is faithful to deliver us from and in pressure — 1Corinthians 10:13; 1Peter 4:19. He is faithful in stabilising the believer — 2Thessalonians 3:3. He is faithful in the administration of His plan — 1Corinthians 1:9. He is faithful in His provision — 1Thessalonians 5:24.

13. Veracity: truthfulness. He is absolute truth — Deuteronomy 32:4b. His veracity manifests itself in His ways; He has ways of communication — Psalm 25:10; 86:15; Revelation 15:3. His truth is manifest in His Word — 2Samuel 7:28; 1 Kings 17:24; Psalm 19:9; 119:142; 138:2, 150:1; John 8:45; 17:17; 2Corinthians 6:7.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #21

21 05/03/1973 Ephesians 2:4b Doc/divine essence: omnipotence, immutability, veracity; Stonewall Jackson a supergrace believer

Verse 4b — The word plousioj is an expression of the doctrine of divine essence.

"in mercy" — the manifestation of God's essence to the human race. It is e)n plus the locative of e)leoj which means grace in action. In other words, grace found us, that's verses 1-3. So if God is going to take us from mere zeros and He is going to take us to a hundred point zero He is going to have to have a way to do it. The way is GAP. Grace found us as zeros and God has the capability to do something about that. So "in the sphere of his mercy" means God did something about it. This glorifies God only. No member of the human race is glorified by entering the plan of God. The stability of God's grace emphasises His righteousness but the mercy of God's grace emphasises His love. Love goes into action on our behalf.

"for his great love" — dia plus the accusative singular of polluj plus the accusative of a)gaph. Polluj connotes greatness in magnitude and quantity. In quantity God has enough love for all of us. God's love is great in magnitude. It is perfect because God's character is perfect. So we translate not "for his great love" but — dia plus the accusative — "because of his great love."

Verse 4, translation: "But the God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loves us."

The doctrine of love

1. At the point of salvation every believer passes the point of propitiation, placing himself under maximum divine love. The principle is found in relationship to that love in 1John 2:2. Positional truth further guarantees that God the Father will love every believer with the same amount of love which He possesses for Jesus Christ — 1John 3:2.

2. Therefore God can love every believer with maximum love in spite of the believer's spiritual status in phase two.

3. There are three basic categories of love. As far as man is concerned category #1 is love toward God. Category #2 is love for a member of the opposite sex who is categorised as either right man or right woman. Category #3 is friendship. All of these categories are limited. Category #1 is limited to the three members of the Godhead. Category #2 is limited to one person of the opposite sex. Category #3 is also limited and will never include too many real friends. When it comes to the command to love the brethren (members of the family of God) that is strictly a mental attitude love produced first by the filling of the Spirit and also produced by growth and spiritual maturity. It is strictly a mental attitude, nothing more.

4. There is also a relationship-type love in the Bible. It comes from the Attic Greek noun storgh and it means love of parents for children, love of children for parents when they mature a little bit. There is another Attic Greek word which connotes an aspect of category #2 love, e)roj, which is called sex love. Relationship love does exist, except of course where Bible doctrine divides a family, as in Matthew 10:34-37; Luke 12:51-53.

5. In the New Testament vocabulary for love we have two verbs and two nouns. They are cognates within the framework of the two. We have a)gapaw which is the verb, and the cognate is a)gaph. We have filew, which is the verb, and the noun is filoj. A)gapaw and a)gaph is a special love, a limited type love because it refers only to the mentality of the soul. it is strictly a mental attitude and, by the way, excludes emotion. It means freedom from mental attitude sins, it means a relaxed mental attitude towards its object. The second category is a general type love and covers every facet of the soul. This type of love includes emotion and it is actually more mature. To be called the filoj of God like Abraham was is a very, very high honour. This type of love is more mature and expresses greater capacity for love, as illustrated by the indignation of Peter when Jesus said he didn't have filew or filoj — John 21:17.

6. Principle of documentation. It was Archbishop Trench who first observed the correct distinction between a)gapaw and filew. He observed this by going to a parallel and almost an exactly parallel language at the time of the Roman empire. At that time Latin was spoken in the western part of the empire and was the most dominant language. In the eastern part of the empire Koine Greek was the dominant language. At the time of the Roman empire Latin and the Koine Greek became exact equivalents. It was the study of these two languages at the time of the writing of the New Testament which brought Trench around to the conclusion that the verb in the Latin, diligo, is equivalent to a)gapaw; and that the Latin word amo is equivalent to filew. He cites the writings of Cicero and he finally concluded from these and other writings from which he took a lot of authors: "We conclude that amo which answers to filew is stronger than diligo which corresponds to a)gapaw" — page 41, The Synonyms of the New Testament, by Archbishop Richard C, Trench.

7. Summary of the distinctions. The noun a)gaph is strictly a mental attitude love which emphasises the actions of mental attitude sins. The noun filoj is stronger and connotes a more general soul love and a great capacity. It is mistakenly translated "friendship." The noun a)gaph is found in two areas: the filling of the Spirit produces it — Romans 5:5; Galatians 5:22. The third floor of the ECS produces it — 1John 2:5; Colossians 3:14. The noun filoj is the fourth floor of the ECS and it by far the highest concept in that area.

8. All believers are commanded a)gaph type love. Since a)gaph is produced by the filling of the Spirit it is only accomplished in this way — Romans 5:5 — and it produces the concept we have in 1Corinthians 13 where the word "charity" is a)gaph love. However, filoj type love demands maturity, it demands capacity, so there is a lot of GAPing before one gets this far.

9. In mankind a)gaph is limited only to the mentality of the soul while filoj extends to every facet of the soul and to the entire life as well as having something to do with the personality of the individual. This has to be remembered because people have very erroneously taught that a)gaph is divine love and filoj is human love.

10. The erroneous conclusion that a)gaph refers only to divine love because, for example, it is found in John 3:16. With the verb a)gapaw and the noun a)gaph it all depends on who is producing the action. For example, in John 3:19 men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. So you have evil men with a)gaph and the word is used in an entirely different way.

11. God must be the subject of the verb before any verb can be divine love. God is the subject of filew in John 16:27, just as God is the subject of a)gapaw in John 3:16.

12. God is the motivating factor of category #1 love — 1John 3:11; 4:19.

Verse 4b — "wherewith" is accusative feminine singular of the relative pronoun o(j should be translated "with which."

"he loved us" — the aorist active indicative of a)gapaw. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist, it states a present reality with the certitude of a past event and it is always translated like a present tense. Notice that "he loved us" is a past tense in our English translation, but it should be translated "with which he loves us." God still loves us, will always loves us, nothing can change to love of God for us. This is an idiomatic device in the Greek for emphasis. While God has always loved us we have just come to realise it through doctrine in the soul. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of God's past and present and future love for the believer. The dramatic aorist indicates something that always existed but is just now realised. The accusative plural of the personal pronoun e)gw [us] indicates all believers regardless of status.

Translation: "But the God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loves us."

God loves us whether we love Him or not — 1John 4:19, "We" refers to the super-grace believer only. Only the super-grace believer has what it takes to respond to the love of God.

Verse 19 — "Even" is the ascensive use of kai, translated "even " or "although."

"when we were" is the present active participle from e)imi, indicating a status quo. This is what we were before we were found by grace. This is a temporal participle and it is always translated by the past tense in the English. The temporal participle is technically an adverbial participle acting as an adverb to the noun and main verb of the sentence. The noun is "the God." The main verb is the dramatic aorist of a)gapaw. The temporal adverbial participle indicates the condition of each member of the human race when God loves us. The point is that we weren't worth loving. We were spiritually dead, under the influence of Satan, under the old sin nature.

"dead" is the masculine accusative plural from nekroj. The plural refers to spiritual death in every case, there are no exceptions.

"in sins" — We have the locative of sphere, also in the plural of paraptwma, meaning "in the sphere of our transgressions." So far this should be translated, "Although we were dead in the sphere of our transgressions." So we were totally unlovely to God.

"hath he quickened" — aorist active indicative of the triple-compound verb suzwpoiew [sun = with or along with; zw = life; poiew = to do or to make] which means to make alive together with or along with — "he has made us alive together with." The aorist tense is a culminative aorist. It is employed to view the action of the verb in its entirety but to emphasise the existing results. Along with a lot of other people since Adam was saved He has made us alive together with them. The culminative aorist emphasises the results. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that this is accomplished in the Church Age by positional sanctification whereby every believer is entered into union with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit.

"with Christ" is the instrumental of association plus the definite article — "in association with Christ." So this is positional truth, this is the same as 1John 5:11,12.

The doctrine of propitiation

1. Propitiation is taken from the Greek word i(lasthrion which actually means the mercy seat, the mercy seat over the ark of the covenant. Technically it should probably be translated "the place of the propitiation."

2. To understand the mercy seat one must first of all comprehend the ark of the covenant — Exodus 25:10-22; 37:1-9 declare the concept of the ark of the covenant.

3. In summary, the ark was a wooden box two and a half cubits long [45 inches] by one and one half cubits high [27 inches] by one and one half cubit wide [27 inches]. The wood was acacia wood and it was overlaid with gold. The gold represents the deity of Christ, the wood represents the humanity of Christ.

The gold in the box: Jesus Christ is God. He is sovereignty, absolute righteousness, justice, love, eternal life, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability, and veracity. But as God He cannot go to the cross. Sovereignty cannot become obedient to death, eternal life cannot die, omnipresence cannot reduce itself to one point — the cross, immutability cannot change these characteristics, righteousness will have nothing to do with sin [except through justice to condemn it]. There is no way that Christ as God can go to the cross. The wood in the ark speaks of the fact that Christ would become in the fullness of time true humanity, as He did. The wood represents the fact that Christ had a human body, that He had a human soul which possessed self-consciousness, mentality, emotion, volition, and conscience. He did not have an old sin nature — virgin birth. He also was born with and retained a human spirit. The ark of the covenant portrays the hypostatic union and the impeccability of Jesus Christ.

4. There are three verses of scripture in the Bible that tell us the content of the ark — Numbers 17:8, 10; Hebrews 9:4. There were three things in this box. There was the table of the law, which spoke of sin as transgression of God's perfect standard. There was Aaron's rod that budded which speaks of sin in terms of reversionism, revolution against God. There was the pot of manna, which speaks of sin, in rejection of the provision of God. So all three articles inside of the box picture sin. They picture Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the tree.

5. The content of the box therefore indicates the work of Christ on the cross. On the cross Jesus Christ was bearing our sins — 1Peter 2:24.

6. Over the top of the ark was a mercy seat, the i(lasthrion, the throne with a golden cherub on each side of the throne. This throne or seat was made of solid gold. There was a cherub on each end to represent the pertinent characteristics of the essence of God. One cherub represented +R, the other cherub represented the justice of God.

7. On the day of atonement the high priest took the blood of an animal sacrifice, entered the holy of holies and sprinkled the blood over the top of this golden throne. When righteousness looks at that blood righteousness is satisfied because that blood is a representative analogy of the work of Christ in bearing our sins. Righteousness is satisfied and justice is satisfied. Righteousness is satisfied because the animal sacrifice was without spot and blemish representing the impeccability, the perfection of Jesus Christ. Justice is satisfied because Jesus Christ bore our sins in his own body on the tree. This is what is meant in the English by propitiation. Propitiation means satisfaction.

8. The mercy seat represents the doctrine of propitiation or satisfaction.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #22

22 05/04/1973 Ephesians 2:4–5 Doctrines of love, propitiation, grace

In verse 5 we now have a parenthesis: "by grace" is the instrumental singular of xarij. It is the instrumental of means, it indicates the principle of God's grace, that God found a way to love us, even though He is perfect and the total sum of perfection, and we are the total of everything that is imperfect.

"ye are saved" is a periphrastic, a perfect periphrastic. A periphrastic is composed of two verb forms. The first is a present active indicative of the verb e)imi, the verb to be. With this is a perfect passive participle of the verb swzw which means to save or deliver. We have in this case the intensive perfect which emphasises the fact that the work of salvation is completed and the results are perpetuated forever. The passive voice of the participle: mankind at the point of faith in Christ receives the action of the verb, which is a permanent salvation. The participle indicates the permanence of the periphrastic. "By means of grace you have been permanently saved."

The doctrine of grace

1. Grace is all that God is free to do for man on the basis of the cross, on the basis of propitiation. God is actually freed from the confinements of His own perfect character to do something for us. So grace is God's freedom to express His love to mankind without jeopardising any part of His essence. The cross freed God to save us and to save us permanently. Therefore grace is the plan of God, grace is the work of God, the expression of God's perfection. Grace means very simply that God does all the work and man does all of the benefiting without work. Grace is a plan, a policy, a function, a mechanic of divine modus operandi.

2. Grace depends upon the essence or the character of God. Therefore grace depends on who and what God is. Grace is what God can do for man and be consistent with His own character or essence. This is why propitiation is so important.

3. The issue. The believer must sort out the different between grace and legalism. Legalism is man's ability, man's works, man's actions intruding into the plan of God. Anything that man throws into the plan is no good. If is was accepted it would neutralise or destroy grace. The plan of God, however, is not destroyed or neutralised because grace rejects our talent, our ability, our plans, our concepts, anything that we have and regard as beneficial. Man's plans and God's plans cannot coexist. This immediately sets up in the soul a great conflict.

4. Grace, sanctification, and the angelic conflict all meet. The principle is that under grace the greatest things that God can do for any believer is to make that believer like His Son who is the only celebrity of the Church Age, as well as the head of the Church. Man was created to resolve the angelic conflict, therefore when the first Adam blew it through his free will and sin [the Fall] Jesus Christ as the last Adam became human — not an angel, as per Hebrews 2:14-16. The first Adam lost the victory through the Fall and the last Adam wins the victory through the cross and then operation footstool — Colossians 2:14; Hebrews 2:14. So grace found a way to take man, created inferior to angels and in fallen condition, and make him superior to all angelic creatures. This is accomplished in three stages of sanctification.

Stage one: By means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit whereby every believer is entered into union with Christ every believer became positionally higher than angels — Hebrews chapters 1 & 2.

Stage two: Because of this it is possible under the construction of the ECS and the entrance into the super-grace life to become experientially higher than angels. There is nothing that tears the devil up more than for some believer to reach super-grace because positionally the devil can't do anything about what happened in a second. But he can try to head off building a cup in the soul because one the believer has a cup God starts pouring, and He pours, and He pours. Once the ECS has been constructed and once the believer enters into super-grace and maintains it then he is under what is known as experiential sanctification. At this point God is able to so benefit in the devils world human beings to a greater extent than the devil's own original crowd, angels, are benefited. Demons are miserable, that's why they are always trying to possess a body. When God through grace can start pouring in your cup and benefit you way above the demons it just tears them all apart. While God is blessing you God is glorified. The other side of the picture is that the demons are weeping and wailing. It tortures them to have you blessed under super-grace. The biggest issue in your life is super-grace blessing.

Stage three: That is when the Church receives their resurrection body and becomes the bride of Christ. When Church Age believers receive the resurrection body at the Rapture this is ultimate sanctification, and at that point the believer in Jesus Christ is physically superior to the angels.

5. The entrance factor into grace. Every believer has entered the grace of God. That means he has tasted grace at least once, the moment he believed in Jesus Christ — Hebrews 6:4; 1Peter 2:3. At the moment of salvation every believer receives 36 things and hey are irrevocable, they are just as immutable as God Himself. This grace package at salvation cannot be cancelled or destroyed either by God or by angels or by human beings. At the same time God is freed to love you regardless of your experiential status of this life. Maximum love frees God to pour out maximum grace, but grace can only find a place to lodge where there is capacity for grace, and that is the super-grace life. Therefore God in grace has provided super-grace in order that this might be demonstrated to us, to angels, to the entire heavenly convocation. By the way, grace never goes where grace is not wanted. The issue here is Bible doctrine. God found a way through doctrine, through GAP, to put this into operation.

6. The occupational hazard of believers in the field of grace: ignorance, lack of cognisance with regard to the concept of grace, therefore leading to disorientation of grace, leading to the field of reversionism — Galatians 5:4; Hebrews 12:15. Reversionism is the greatest enemy, the greatest antagonist to the whole plan of God in operation phase two.

7. The divine attitude: God is constantly waiting to pour grace into the cup of the soul — Isaiah 30:18,19. When a believer reaches super-grace he has super-grace capacity and God pours.

8. Grace in phase one is documented from the following passages: Psalm 103:8-12; Romans 3:23,24; 4:4; 5:20; Ephesians 2:8,9; Hebrews 2:9.

9. Grace in phase two sees the believer in time and every aspect of our life is related somehow to grace, like prayer in the super-grace life — Hebrews 4:16; in the field of suffering — 2Corinthians 12:9,10; growth through the function of GAP — 2Peter 3:18; stability — 1Peter 5:12; Hebrews 13:9; modus vivendi — 2Corinthians 1:2; Hebrews 12:28; the production of divine good — 1Corinthians 15:10; 2Corinthians 6:1.

10. Grace and giving. The best part of giving comes when maximum materialistic blessing meets maximum doctrine in the normal function of the super-grace life. Giving becomes meaningful as an act of priestly worship — 2Corinthians chapters 8 & 9; Philippians 4:14-18.

11. The axioms of grace:

a) God is perfect, therefore His plan is perfect.

b) A perfect plan can only originate and function from a perfect God.

c) If man can do anything meritorious in the plan of God it is no longer perfect, and obviously not longer grace.

d) A plan is no stronger than its weakest link. For this reason grace excludes human merit and human ability. Grace also excludes human good. Do-gooders never make it under the plan of God.

e) Legalism and human good are the enemies of grace.

f) Therefore works of human righteousness have no place in the plan of God.

g) All human good is associated with the great mental attitude sin of pride. Pride seems to be the expansion of the self-consciousness of the soul in reversionism to the point of total disorientation to the grace of God.

12. Four areas in which pride rejects God's grace.

a) The pride of the believer who rejects the doctrine of eternal security. To reject eternal security you have to be very proud because inevitable the person who does thinks that his sins are greater than the plan of God. He is more impressed with his sins than he is with what God has done for him.

b) The pride of the believer who succumbs to pressure and adversity and who thinks that his sufferings are greater than the grace provision of God — 2Corinthians 12:7-10.

c) The pride of pseudo spirituality: the believer who thinks that his human systems are greater than the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in his life. The systems may be anything from personality imitation, observation of taboos, confusion of means and results, the concept of relativity (my sins are more refined than your sins, therefore I am spiritual), the speaking in tongues, the ecstatics, the asceticism, the programs, the ritualism, all are involved in that type of pride.

d) The pride of the believer in emotional revolt of the soul. he assumes that his feelings, his emotions, his experiences, and his areas of reaction — disillusion, boredom, discouragement, self-pity, loneliness, frustration, jealousy, bitterness, being jilted or phased out. These are reactors that lead to the frantic search for happiness which triggers emotional revolt and which comes back and intensifies the ones involved. So there is an intensification of reactors through emotional revolt.

13. Grace is always related to divine assets — John 1:14,16,17; 1Corinthians 1:4,5; Ephesians 1:6,7.

14. The principle of super-grace — James 4:6, "greater grace/super-grace." Super-grace in the life of Jesus Christ is described in John 1:14-17; in the life of the believer in phase two is described in chapters like Philippians 4; James 4; Ephesians 3:19-21; 2Corinthians 12:8,10.

15. The concept of the pursuit of grace — Ephesians 1:6. The pursuit of grace is the perpetuation of super-grace in the believer's life. God is glorified when we are blessed under super-grace.

16. Under grace [super-grace] the believer reaps what God sows — Psalm 13:5; under reversionism the believer reaps what the believer sows — Psalm 13:5.

Verse 5 — "Although we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive in association with the Christ, (by means of grace you have been permanently saved)."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #23

23 05/14/1973 Ephesians 2:6–7 Doctrines of baptism of Holy Spirit, the heavenlies, surpassing grace. "Stonewall Jackson" by Col. Henderson quoted

Verse 6 — we see now what happened at the beginning of the Church Age and why the Church Age had to be. Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, and because in His humanity He ascended as a member of the human race into the presence of God the Father, as a man He is now superior to all angels. And now that the Age of Israel is interrupted the Church Age begins, and the Church Age is the age of the intensification of the angelic conflict , not the Tribulation. The Tribulation is one of the most awful periods in human history and it is a continuation of the Age of Israel, but the Church Age is the age of the intensification of the angelic conflict because Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Throughout the Old Testament dispensations Christ was the target of Satan but once Christ was glorified at the right hand of the Father He can no longer be the target, and therefore the Church, the body of Christ — some day to be the bride of Christ — becomes the target. Because the Church is the target the angelic conflictshifts gears and it now in its intensified stage.

In order that we might be properly entered into the intensified stage of the angelic conflict verse 6 tells us that we have been raised up together with Jesus Christ and made to sit with Him.

"And" is the continuative use of the conjunction kai for the resumption of a sentence on the other side of a parenthesis.

"hath raised us up together" — aorist active indicative from the compound verb sunegeirw [sun = along with; e)geirw = to raise up]. The word has several connotations. It has to do with the fact that somehow we are identified with Jesus Christ in His resurrection. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it regards this phase of current positional truth from the standpoint of its existing results. Christ died on the cross, He was buried and raised and then ascended into heaven. This is the culminative aorist which sees the results of the entire glorification of Jesus Christ. The active voice: God the Holy Spirit actually produces the action of raising us up together with Christ through the ministry of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit

1. It did not occur in the Old Testament or in any previous dispensation.

2. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is first mentioned as a prophecy from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ — John 14:20; Acts 1:5.

3. The mechanics of the baptism of the Spirit are also an explanation of it, or description — 1Corinthians 12:13. God the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Church Age took those who were already saved in one locale only, Jerusalem, and entered them into union with Christ. Now, wherever we are in the Church Age, the moment a person believes he enters into union with Christ, he is identified with Him forever and it is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to enter him into union with Christ. Baptism means identification. All believers are entered into union with Christ and this is the basis of unity in the entire Church Age. This unity is expressed by a command to love the brethren, other member of the family of God, but the love which is used is a)gaph or a)gapaw and this means simply a relaxed mental attitude toward other members of the body of Christ.

4. The unification of believers is achieved by the baptism of the Spirit — Ephesians 4:5 which has nothing to do with water baptism.

5. The implications of the baptism of the Spirit provide equality not existent in physical birth. We are not born equal, the only equality we will ever know is when we are born again and that equality comes through the baptism of the Spirit — Galatians 3:26-28.

6. The basis for retroactive positional truth is the baptism of the Spirit — Romans 6:3,4; Colossians 2:12. We are not only identified with Christ but we are also identified with Him in His death, the principle being that Jesus Christ rejected human good when He was bearing our sins and therefore we are identified with Christ because that is our position. Our position in Christ is that of rejection of human good.

7. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is also the basis for current positional truth — Ephesians 1:3-6; Colossians 2:10.

8. The baptism of the Spirit begins the dispensation of the Church — Matthew 16:18; Acts 1:5. It was fulfilled in Acts 2:3, however there is no reference in Acts 2:3 to the baptism of the Spirit but Acts 11:15-17 explains the fact that Acts 1:5 was fulfilled in Acts 2:3.

9. The baptism of the Spirit is not an experience of any kind. It is not ecstatics, it is not speaking in tongues. The aorist tense of 1Corinthians 12:13 plus "we all" includes all believers and does not include experience.

10. The baptism of the Spirit occurs at the moment that we believe in Jesus Christ — Colossians 2:12.

"And has raised us up together" is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. The indicative mood of this verb is the reality of current positional truth identifying us with Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. The implications of this indicative mood are found in Hebrews 1:13,14.

"and has made us sit together" — the aorist active indicative of sunkaqizw [sun = along with; kaqizw = to sit]. This is also a culminative aorist, it regards this phrase of current positional truth from the standpoint of its existing results. The active voice: God the Holy Spirit produces the action on the baptising ministry. The indicative mood is the reality that God the Holy Spirit enters each one of us into union with Christ as at the point of salvation.

"in heavenly places" — the preposition e)n plus the locative plural of e)pouranioj, and it should be translated "in the heavenlies." The prepositional phrase refers to the sphere of the believer's position in Christ. The sphere is the place of victory in the angelic conflict and in effect it is our identification with the strategical victory of the cross. At the cross Christ bore our sins. Three days later He was resurrected. Then He ascended and was seated at the right hand of the Father and this is the strategical victory of the angelic conflict. The strategical victory has its continuation at the second advent. In the meantime during the Church Age we have tactical victories when a believer reaches super-grace. We have part in glorifying God in the Church Age in tactical victory. There can be no tactical victory without some strategical victory first. The strategic victory is the fact that God the Holy Spirit unites each one of us into union with Christ at the point of salvation. Strategic victory leads to tactical victory.

The doctrine of the heavenlies

1. The heavenlies is the sphere of divine blessing, including super-grace blessings, because it is the place of strategical victory in the angelic conflict. Christ seated at the right hand of the Father is the strategical victory — Ephesians 1:3.

2. The heavenlies is the sphere of Christ's victory in the angelic conflict and therefore the key to the Church's position — Ephesians 1:20.

3. "In the heavenlies" is the sphere of the believer's current position in Christ, making it possible for super-grace blessing to be a part of the tactical victory in our lives — Ephesians 2:6.

4. "In the heavenlies" is also the sphere of angelic activity — Ephesians 3:10. This is why elect angels are rejoicing and are observing very closely our activities.

5. It is also the sphere of the angelic conflict in the Church Age — Ephesians 6:12.

"in Christ Jesus" — the prepositional phrase e)n plus the locative of Jesus Christ. The absence of the definite article in this phrase calls attention to the quality of the proper noun. Jesus Christ is unique, He is the only celebrity for the Church Age.

Translation: "And has both raised us up together, and has seated us together with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus."

Verse 7 — there is a reason for all of this. In verse 6 the implication is that positional truth is designed to make it possible for tactical victory. The Church Age is the time of tactical victories. The tactical victory is always the same, the believer GAPs it to super-grace. Under super-grace he has the cup in his soul and God pours. It is the pouring of God that is the tactical victory. God is glorified by giving the believer super-grace blessings. Notice: the strategical victory is positional truth; the tactical victory is the super-grace experience. One is related to the other.

"That" is the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive and it introduces a purpose clause.

"in the ages to come" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of a)iwn plus the definite article should be translated "that in the approaching ages." The approaching ages refer to phase three. The word "to come" is the locative plural present active participle of e)perxomai and should be translated here "approaching." Here is a participle used as a noun.

"he might shew" — the aorist middle subjunctive of e)ndeiknumi which means to demonstrate. In the middle voice it means to manifest. Here we have the culminative aorist, which views everything from the standpoint of its results. God's plan inevitably results in eternity. We have gone through a time when there have been tactical victories but there is coming a time when there is going to be strategic victory and it is called "surpassing grace." The middle voice describes the subject as participating in the results of the action. We are going to have everything associated with happiness forever. This is also the indirect middle, which emphasises the agent producing the action, and the agent producing the action is God. This is sometimes known as the intensive middle. The subjunctive mood goes with the purpose clause. There is no question about what God is going to do, so the subjunctive is not potential here but a purpose clause.

"the exceeding riches of his grace" — the word "exceeding is a present active participle of u(perballw which means to throw beyond or throw over. It comes to mean surpassing; "riches" is ploutoj, which includes materialistic things, things that have always been associated with happiness; "of his grace" — the descriptive genitive and also the genitive of possession of xarij, and because it is in the genitive case it can be translated "grace riches." The genitive of possession, indicates that he has all the wealth and whether we like it or not He is going to give it to us forever and ever and ever.

"in his kindness" — e)n plus xrhstothj should never be translated "kindness," it means generosity.

"toward us" is literally, "upon us in Christ Jesus," not "through Christ Jesus."

Translation: "That in the approaching ages he might demonstrate his surpassing grace riches in generosity toward us in Christ Jesus."

Summary

1. Note that verse 7 deals with phase three grace and that phase three grace is literally "surpassing grace."

2. In phase two the believer has grace and super-grace.

3. In phase three the believer has surpassing grace.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #24

24 05/15/1973 Ephesians 2:8–10 Doctrines of eternal security, human good, divine good, walking

Verse 8 — "For" is the explanatory use of the conjunctive particle gar. This now gives us a concept of the strategical victory that we might have a better understanding of our relationship to our life on this earth. The strategic victory occurred at the cross, resurrection, ascension and session. And because Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and we are entered into union with Christ we share in the strategic victory, and being sharers in the strategic victory the objective in phase two is to enter into the tactical victory of the super-grace life. This is only possible as we utilise the grace of God available to us. There are four different kinds of grace available. First of all, phase one grace which is the pattern for all grace, and at the same time it is related to volition. Positive volition to phase one grace enters the believer into the strategical victory of the angelic conflict. Then there is a phase two grace which has nothing to do with volition except that phase two grace is designed to keep us alive a certain amount of time in the devil's world. But there is a super-grace in phase two which again is related to positive volition. The issue in phase one is Christ, the issue in phase two is doctrine, which results in tactical victory in the angelic conflict. Finally there is surpassing grace or phase three grace which is the inheritance and the portion of every believer forever and ever, and is not related to volition.

"by grace" — the instrumental singular of xarij plus the definite article should be translated "by the grace." The grace refers to the plan of God as emanating from the character of God. The definite article denotes a previous reference to grace which was mentioned in verse 5. The definite article may be used to point out an object the identity of which is defined by some previous reference made to it in context. Grace is the operating principle of God's plan; grace is the way in which God can provide all things for us which He designed to provide for us in eternity past without ever compromising His character and at the same time glorifying Himself. So grace is the only principle to the plan of God because grace means that God is responsible, God does the work, God does the providing. But to keep His plan perfect God must do all of the work and all of the thinking, and take all the credit. Therefore the exclusion of man's works in the plan.

"are ye saved" — this is a perfect periphrastic and is erroneously translated. A periphrastic is always made up of a participle plus the indicative mood. In this case we have the present active indicative of the verb e)imi. Then with that is the perfect passive participle of swzw. The two of them together form a perfect periphrastic. The perfect tense is the intensive perfect which emphasises the results of a finished product. The passive voice: mankind is the beneficiary, mankind receives the action of the verb. The participle indicates the permanence of the periphrastic.

The first word, gar, should be translated not "for" but "now you see." "Now you see by the grace you have been permanently saved."

Next, the means of appropriation is emphasised as a non-meritorious function: "through faith" — dia plus the genitive singular of pistij. There is no definite article here. The absence of the definite article gives great emphasis to the noun "faith." It emphasises the qualitative aspect of the noun rather than its identity. The quality of faith is non-meritorious and yet totally efficacious because of the object of faith. The definite article with the noun emphasises the identity but there is no definite article here so faith is then emphasised as a non-meritorious system of perception, a system whereby we can never receive any credit at any time.

"and that" is not correct. We have the ascensive use of kai, which should be translated "even." Then we have the demonstrative pronoun, the nominative neuter of o(utoj. The neuter gender is the problem here because "faith" is in the masculine gender, and "grace." But here we have a neuter gender and it should be translated "even this," not "and that." The demonstrative pronoun calls attention with special emphasis to the designated object, and the demonstrative pronoun is used for something relatively near in the context. But in this neuter gender this demonstrative pronoun excludes the possibility of anything in the context because they are feminine gender, not neuter. So here is a hanging demonstrative pronoun to indicate the entire plan of God. The demonstrative pronoun emphasises the importance of the planner rather than the mechanics of the plan. The mechanics of the plan are outlined but they are not nearly as important as the planner.

"not" — the negative particle o)uk. This word is spelled three different ways [o)uk, o)u, and o)ux]. Each spelling of this negative depends upon how it is used in the sentence. O)uk is used before words beginning with vowels. O)u is used before words beginning with consonants. Then the o)ux is used before words beginning with vowels which have a rough breathing. But it is always the same negative. So it is " … even this definitely not."

"of yourselves" — the preposition e)k plus the ablative plural of su. This means "not out from the source of you all."

Then the true source is given: "it is the gift of God." This is the ablative of source from qeoj which should be translated "from God," plus the word for "gift" here which denotes a gift which could never be earned or deserved, dwron. In the Koine Greek when it is desired to apply the sense of an abstract noun in some special and distinct way it is again preceded by the definite article, as here. It is an abstract noun which has a distinct meaning — "the gift," a gift that God can never retract.

Translation: "Now you see by the grace you have been permanently saved through faith; even this [salvation] not out from the source of you: the free gift is from the source of God."

Verse 9 — "Not" is the negative o)uk again to deny the reality of an alleged statement; "of works" — e)k plus the ablative plural of e)rgon, and it means "not out from the source of works."

That brings up the categories of works that are generally associated with salvation. First of all there are verbal works — things like coming forward and acknowledging Christ publicly, "repenting," confessing, or begging God to save you, inviting Christ into your heart. These are verbal works. The second category would be ritual works, like circumcision or baptism. The third are psychological works, like raising the hand, walking the aisles, doing something to make an ass out of yourself. In other words, jumping through a psychological hoop. The fourth are corporate works, works related to the church — join the church, tithe, give money, work around the church for salvation. The fifth: religious works — keeping the law, doing penance, or "recognising the Lordship of Christ." The sixth type is behaviour improvement works, changing of behaviour patterns from immoral to moral, or giving up something in the taboo class. Then, seventh, the emotional works such as ecstatics or the tongues crowd, or anything where you get the rosy glow simultaneously with some type of a confession of Christ. These are all the negative side and they are all included in this phrase, "not out from the source of works."

"lest" is i(na mh which introduces a negative final clause. Mh is the subjective type negative, it is not quite as strong.

"any man" — the indefinite pronoun tij which represents a category of humanity that is those who seek to be saved by their own works with the result that they can boast. "Lest anyone" is a better translation.

"should boast" — aorist middle subjunctive of kauxaomai. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist in which the event is viewed from the standpoint of its entirety but emphasised from the viewpoint of its existing results. The result is that when everyone and anyone gets to heaven there will be no boasting. This is the whole concept of salvation as well as everything else thereafter. In the plan of God there is no place for human boasting. The middle voice: the subject acts with a view toward participating in the outcome. This is called a direct middle or a reflexive middle — not from the source of works that no one himself" really. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive which is used to indicate a final clause in the Greek.

Translation: "Not from the source of works, that no one should boast."

The doctrine of human good

1. Human good is dead to God's plan, therefore it is called "dead works" in Hebrews 6:1.

2. Human good is not acceptable to God at any time — Isaiah 64:6.

3. Therefore human good has no place in the plan of God — 2Timothy 1:9.

4. However, a distinction should be made between human good and morality — Romans 13:4,5.

5. Human good will not save mankind — Titus 3:5.

6. The believer's human good is revealed and destroyed at the judgment seat of Christ — 1Corinthians 3:11-16.

7. Human good is the basis for the unbeliever's indictment at the last judgment — Revelation 20:12-15.

8. Human good has as its logical outlet boasting — Ephesians 2:9.

Verse 10 — "For" is again the explanatory use of gar, which means "for you see" or "now you see."

"we are" — present active indicative of e)imi, "we keep on being." This is linear aktionsart, also a dramatic present.

"his workmanship" — genitive masculine singular from the intensive pronoun a)utoj for "his." It is used here as a possessive pronoun. The demonstrative force of the pronoun is intensified to emphasise the believer's identity. The point of this intensive pronoun is to tell you that you have a very definite place in the plan of God. This is so strong in the Greek that it should be brought in first — "His, you see, we are his." This is a proleptic use of the intensive pronoun. Then comes the word "workmanship," the noun poihma, taken from poiew. Poihma is a perfect illustration of the suffixes of the noun in the Greek. It is taken from the verb poiew, which means to do. The noun is manufactured by dropping the suffix of the verb and adding a noun suffix. Ma is the passive suffix in the Greek, so poihma means what is made. Therefore handiwork, workmanship are good translations, as long as it is understood to mean what is manufactured. In other words, we are His product. We are something God makes. "For you see we are his production." God does the producing and He does it by creating something that is brand new.

"created" — aorist passive participle of ktizw. Ktizw actually has three pertinent meanings. It means to create in the sense of reducing from a state of disorder, and this is pertinent. The disorder was stated in the first part of this chapter — grace found us spiritually dead and under the control of Satan. And the old sin nature. That is disorder. All we inherited from Adam causes us disorder, our unregenerate state is a state of chaos and we have gone from being a chaotic unregenerate to a production by God, regenerate. Ktizw also has a second meaning which is pertinent. It means to call into being. This definition emphasises the new birth aspect of salvation plus the potential of phase two. There is a being in this earth, in the devil's world, which is a person who belongs to God, called into being as God's citizenship rather than Satan's. The third meaning of ktizw is to invest with a spiritual frame, and this emphasises positional truth, the same concept that we have in 2Corinthians 5:17. All of these meanings are pertinent. There is a principle that goes with this: God's plan and God's grace begins at the cross, and what God does for us at the cross is perfect. It does not reflect itself in our lives unless there is doctrine in the soul subsequently but what God does is perfect at salvation. We are new creatures at the moment of salvation because of what God does — positional truth. The objective of super-grace is to dramatise our position and to have a tactical victory from our strategic victory. God has placed us in this world under the principle of strategic victory, and when you exist under the principle of strategic victory it should follow that there is tactical victory. Strategic victory merely places you in the right position; tactical victory causes you to annihilate the enemy. That is the concept here, that God at the point of salvation placed us under the concept of strategic victory so that tactical victory can be ours, and that is why we are left alive. He keeps us alive to pour out super-grace blessings upon us as a part of the tactical victory of the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. Therefore in salvation we have to be His workmanship and only His workmanship. If we are our own workmanship to any degree then we are still under chaos. God can only build on His own foundation. Positional truth, therefore, wipes out every foundation and every achievement of human life in the devil's world. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which is employed to emphasise the results. The results toward which this passage is looking are super-grace. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb at salvation. In other words, the fact that you're saved is a guarantee that God has super-grace blessings for you. Whether you get them or not depends on your attitude toward doctrine, but they are available. The aorist participle: the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb is "we are."

"in Christ Jesus" emphasises positional truth. We were created in Christ Jesus and then became His production. Positional truth is the basis for our strategic victory being related to the tactical victory of super-grace blessing.

"unto good works" is not quite correct — the preposition e)pi plus the instrumental of a)gaqoj and e)rgon. This should be translated "for the purpose of good works," e)pi plus the instrumental means purpose.

The doctrine of divine good

1. There are three sources of divine good: from the Holy Spirit, the filling of the Spirit; from the human spirit, doctrine applied to the right lobe; from the soul, the ECS resulting in super-grace.

2. Divine good resolves the angelic conflict, it is the tactical victory — Romans 12:21.

3. GAP is the means for the production of divine good in the grace perspective — Colossians 1:9,10; 2Timothy 2:21; 3:17; Titus 2:7.

4. The believer in phase two is the recipient of grace in time for the production of divine good as a manifestation of the tactical victory — 2Thessalonians 2:17.

5. The grace principle of divine good is found in 2Corinthians 9:8; 1Corinthians 15:10. Divine good is really a normal part of the function of the priesthood at the point of super-grace.

6. Divine good will be rewarded under 2Corinthians 5:10 as a part of the reward for super-grace — living super-grace and receiving the blessings of super-grace.

"which" — the relative pronoun o(j in the instrumental plural. The antecedent of this relative pronoun is "good works."

"God" is literally "the God" — o( qeoj, referring to God the Father as the author of the plan.

"hath before ordained" — aorist active indicative of proetoimazw [pro = before; etoimazw = to make ready], which means that God has prefabricated every blessing that we will ever have, and a lot we may not reach because of failure to GAP. This means that God has pre-decreed or prefabricated. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist, which states a present reality with the certitude of a past event. The active voice: God produces the action in eternity past when He prepared super-grace blessings and divine good production for you and for me. The indicative mood is the reality of the preparation of super-grace blessings in eternity past.

"that" introduces a purpose clause: i(na plus the subjunctive; "we should walk" is an aorist active subjunctive of peripatew which means here to have a pattern of life — "that we may pattern our life," literally. This is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence regardless of its extent or duration and gathers it into a single whole. This single whole is patterning our life in super-grace. The active voice: the believer orders his pattern of life in the sphere of super-grace. The subjunctive mood indicates the potentiality of super-grace and resultant production of divine good.

"in them" is e)n plus the locative and should be translated "in the sphere of them."

Translation: "For you see we are his production, having been created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good production, which the God has prefabricated that in the sphere of them we may pattern our life."

The doctrine of walking

1. The verb peripatew always describes pattern of life. It is used usually for modus vivendi and in Ephesians 2:10 it refers to the modus vivendi of the super-grace life.

2. This word is so used because the believer lives one day at a time just as walking involves putting one foot down at a time. The concept is related in Romans 14:5,6; Ephesians 5:16-18; James 4:13-15.

3. The second concept of walking involves recovery of balance. There is a moment in walking when we are off balance. The believer is off balance living in the devil's world but is stabilised by the grace provision of God. Therefore walking is identified with grace orientation and grace provision.

4. Walking is used to depict the modus operandi of the reversionistic believer — Philippians 3:18.

5. Walking is also used to describe the function of the ECS of the believer — Philippians 3:7; Colossians 2:6.

6. There are three spheres of the believer's walk; a) In the Holy Spirit — Galatians 5:16; b) In faith — 2Corinthians 5:7; c) In doctrine — 3 John 3.

7. Walking therefore depicts the Spirit-filled life in certain passages, such as Galatians 5:16; Romans 8:2-4; Ephesians 5:2,18.

8. Walking also describes the function of GAP to the point of super-grace — Ephesians 5:15.

9. Walking therefore results in the ECS and the super-grace life. The super-grace life is then described as "walking in the light" — 1John 1:7; "in newness of life" — Romans 6:4; "worthy of the vocation" — Ephesians 4:11; "worthy of the Lord" — Colossians 1:10; "honestly as in the day" — Romans 13:13; "in good works" — Colossians 1:10; Ephesians 2:10.

Summary translation of verses 8-10:

Verse 8 — "For you see by the grace you have been completely and permanently saved through faith; even this salvation not out from the source of you: the free gift is from the source of God:

Verse 9 — "Not from the source of works, that no one should boast.

Verse 10 — "Of him, for you see we are his production, having been created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good production, which the God has prefabricated that in the sphere of them we may pattern our life."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #25

25 05/28/1973 Ephesians 2:11 Doctrine of circumcision (Jewish culture)

Verse 11 — "Wherefore," or "for this reason," in view of the first ten verses. "Wherefore" is a compound inferential conjunction composed of the preposition dia plus the relative pronoun o( — dio. "For this reason," that is because of the panorama of grace in the previous paragraph now comes the application. The application takes us back to a facet of salvation. In verses 11-17 we have the concept of grace and the barrier. Once you understand grace and the barrier there is no excuse for not making the application to every facet of your life on this earth. The real blackout with most people is the fact that they are not aware that God intends for you to be blessed to the ultimate in time, in the devil's world, while the angelic conflict is going on. In eternity there will be no angelic conflict, neither will there be any sorrow, pain, tears, death, or anything that is uncomfortable or miserable or construed as adversity. This next paragraph orients us to what God intends without it being stated at this point. We are given here a grace basis for orientation. In verses 11 and 12 we have the true and the false barrier. In verse 11 is the false barrier, and "for this reason" it is time for us to apply grace.

"remember" — capacity for life is related to memory. We have the present active imperative of mnhmoneuw. What you have in your soul by way of memories can never be taken from you. The present tense of this verb is a tendencial present, it is used of an action which is purposed though has not actually taken place. It represents the idea of what is intended. Whatever you have in your right lobe becomes the basis for orienting to difficulties that are beyond your control or understanding. Whatever you have in your frame of reference memory centre picks that up and makes the application. If you are at the point of occupation with Christ, if Christ is the only celebrity in your life, the celebrityship of Jesus Christ will take up the slack for any adversity in life and any blessing. That is why Jesus said, "Keep on doing this in remembrance of me." But the normal function of the communion table comes with super-grace. It is your memory centre that pulls out the things that are important to meet any given situation. It should be your objective if you are taking in doctrine to pull doctrine, or to pull pleasant experiences, to pull something wonderful out of your life to utilise. The tendencial present plus the imperative mood demands that we apply grace principles, that we apply occupation with Christ, that we apply category #1 love, that we apply wonderful things in our lives when the chips are down, when things are difficult. The active voice: this is a command to all believers. We are to recall what grace did, for example, to eliminate the true and false barriers for that is the recall in this passage.

Summary

1. "For this reason remember." This command to remember the false and superficial distinctions on the wrong side of the barrier acts as a reminder to avoid making such distinctions of a superficial nature on the right side of the barrier.

2. Believers have a tendency to establish a false criterion for the evaluation of other believers.

3. This results in judging, maligning, gossiping and criticising other believers. This is false application.

4. The sins of the tongue in turn produce self-induced misery.

"that" — the conjunction o(ti is used after verbs of thinking or recalling for content. it is set up to who the content of what should be remembered; "ye" is a nominative plural pronoun, su, therefore it applies to each one of us.

"in time past" — this is not a preposition, it is an enclitic particle used for an adverb meaning "formerly." It is an adverb of the past, pote — "at one time." It means all of us before we were saved, all of us had a superficial system of evaluation of life and the people in it. This must be shed.

"Gentiles" — the nominative plural of e)qnoj plus the definite article — "the Gentiles." This is addressed to former Gentiles.

Summary

1. "Gentiles" [e)qnoj] is not usually used as a term of reproach except by the Jews.

2. These former Gentiles were the objects of Jewish scorn and snobbishness. The Jews, because of their fantastic background from God in grace, regarded all heathen with some form of scorn.

3. Such a critical attitude either came from the religious and legalistic Jewish unbeliever or the reversionistic believers also. (Reversionism causes you to keep the same standards that you had on the wrong side of the barrier — Galatians 2:11)

4. Religious snobbery caused the legalistic Jew to hold dogmatically to the opinion that he was closer to God because of the ritual of circumcision.

5. In reality the ritual of circumcision did not more to save the Jew than lack of ritual did to condemn the Gentile — Romans 9:30-33.

6. Circumcision had become a status symbol, which gave the Jews a false confidence based on ritual.

7. Relativity on the wrong side of the barrier does not save, does not give anyone a relationship with God.

"the Gentiles in the flesh" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of sarc refers to the matter of physical birth.

"who are called" is a present passive participle of legw plus the definite article and should be translated "the ones being called."

"Uncircumcision" — a)krobustia. And the Jews said it with their nose in the air. This is still the wrong side of the barrier. This was the name of derision for the Gentiles by which the Jews sought to establish their superiority in the field of religion and culture. The Jews had a snobbishness in this field.

"by that which is called" — the preposition u(po plus the ablative of a participle, the present passive participle of legw again. It should be translated "by the ones being designated."

"Circumcision" — h( peritomh, "the circumcision." The ablative case denotes separation. This is called the ablative of comparison which implies separation in a degree. The degree of separation is the difference between circumcision and uncircumcision. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the noun, rather than defining it. Therefore the circumcised Jews regarded themselves infinitely superior to the uncircumcised Gentile. This was their sign.

"in the flesh" — e)n plus the locative of sarc; "made by hands" is a compound adjective in the ablative singular — xeiropoihtoj.

Translation: "For this reason remember that at one time you all, the Gentiles in the flesh, the ones being called uncircumcision by the ones being designated circumcision in the flesh accomplished by human hands."

Remember that circumcision is being distorted here. There is a true and real use of circumcision but this is the distortion here.

Summary

1. If man using his hands to perform the rite of circumcision can actually save another then salvation is by works.

2. However, man is incapable of saving man — Ephesians 2:9; Titus 3:5.

3. Man is imperfect. Man's plan, man's actions, man's thoughts, man's devices are imperfect.

4. But God is perfect; His plan is perfect. His plan includes salvation by grace. This is because God does all the planning, God does all the work, and God does all of the revealing. Therefore it is all grace.

5. However man by man's efforts cannot save man. Man's thoughts, man's functions on the wrong side of the barrier cannot save him, they are on the wrong side of the barrier.

6. Now that these Gentiles are saved the purpose of this verse is to remind them of false barriers which existed when they were unbelievers. There were barriers between them and the Jews.

7. These false barriers on the wrong side of the barrier made Gentiles the victims of Jewish religiosity, Jewish snobbishness. Gentiles were subjected to name-calling devices based on false standards.

8. Circumcision and uncircumcision are superficial and outward distinctions which in no way reveal the inner soul relationship to God. Cf Isaiah 55:7-9; 1Samuel 16:6,7.

9. Therefore believers are warned not to bring into the Christian life the false and superficial standards of pre-salvation days. These false standards victimise other believers as well as being contrary to divine standards of evaluation. Bible doctrine brings us divine standards of evaluation.

The doctrine of circumcision

1. Circumcision was designed by God as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant — Genesis 17:10-14. It was both an operation and at the same time a ritual. The ritual emphasised both the principle of establishment in the law plus the spiritual value of doctrine — Romans 2:25. Abraham was circumcised long after his salvation and after he was given the covenant — Romans 4:11. Moses almost died the sin unto death because he had failed to circumcise his younger son — Exodus 4:24-26. No Jew could partake of the Passover without first being circumcised — Exodus 12:48. The Jews were placed under the 5th cycle of discipline for lack of circumcision of the soul to accompany this ritual — Jeremiah 6:10; 9:25,26.

2. Circumcision consists of the operation of cutting away the foreskin of the male phallus. The ritual indicated dedication of the male sexual organ to the right woman and no one else. It was definitely set up in contrast to the phallic cult of the Gentiles — Leviticus 12:2,3.

3. The ritual of circumcision has no significance in the Church. It only intrudes as a false standard on the wrong side of the barrier — 1Corinthians 7:18,19; Galatians 5:2,3; Ephesians 2:11.

4. Circumcision became a rallying point for legalism, therefore — Acts 15:1, 24; Galatians 6:12,13.

5. Circumcision was used to designate the Jews by race and by nation — Galatians 2:8; Colossians 4:11; Titus 1:10; Ephesians 2:11. The ritual portrayed the laws of divine establishment found in the Mosaic code.

6. The ritual of circumcision is used as an illustration of retroactive positional truth in Colossians 2:11.

7. Circumcision is also used to illustrate or portray scar tissue of the soul, emotional revolt, and other aspects of reversionism — Jeremiah 6:10; 9:25,26; Ezekiel 44:7; Acts 7:51.

8. Circumcision is used to portray the function of GAP — Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4.

9. Circumcision is used to portray the ECS — Romans 2:28,29; Philippians 3:3. This is a spiritual connotation.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #26

26 05/29/1973 Ephesians 2:11b–12 Superiority of the Jews; South vs. Federal Government

Verse 12 — "That" is the conjunction o(ti, used after thinking or remembering. It's purpose is to show the content of memory. Again we have to use the word "remember," mnhmneuw, present active imperative, with o(ti because o(ti is like a quotation mark. This is what we are to remember — what we were. Now we have what God has done for us.

"at that time," before we accepted Christ, when we were on the wrong side of the barrier — to kariw e)keinw. We have the locative of kairoj, and kairoj refers to a period of time, the time before we were saved. Plus the locative of time from the demonstrative pronoun e)keinoj, used to refer back to the previously mentioned context. The believer previously being on the right side of the barrier had false standards. As unbelievers there are true standards as well. But Paul is saying once again that they were separated even from good standards.

"ye were" — we now have all the advantages that Israel had plus a lot more. This is the imperfect active subjunctive of e)imi, absolute status quo verb. The imperfect tense is a progressive imperfect, it denotes linear aktionsart in past time. This was what you always were and you never did improve until the day you accepted Christ as saviour and then grace provided things for you which you never had before. The active voice: the Ephesians believers formerly produced the action of the verb as unbelievers in the past. The subjunctive mood is called a deliberative subjunctive, it is used as a rhetorical device to which there is no answer. It is used here to say that this statement has no answer. There is no way a Gentile can contradict this principle. The Jews are a unique race, always have been.

Next follow five relatives on the wrong side of the barrier. These are true standards. The first standard has to do with salvation:

"without Christ" — xwrij Xristou. The adverb xwrij and Xristoj, the ablative for "Christ." It should be translated "separated from Christ" in the sense of no relationship. Here is the first true standard and the most universal standard for all people on the wrong side of the barrier. All unbelievers are separated from Christ. Circumcision, therefore, is a false issue; Christ is the real issue.

"being alienated from the commonwealth of Israel" — here is the superiority of Israel historically. "Being alienated" is a perfect passive participle from a)pallotriow [a)po = ultimate source; allotriow = alienate] which means to be alienated from the ultimate source. It should be translated "having been alienated from." This is the intensive perfect, something that has happened in the past and the results continue into the present time and onward. The passive voice means we receive this by being born Gentiles in the world. We also have here a circumstantial participle; "the commonwealth" is an old English word, the Greek is politeia. This is a word that was left over from the Attic Greek. It does not mean commonwealth, it means citizenship — "the citizenship of Israel."

"Israel" — It does have a definite article and it is in the genitive case, the genitive of description. The word "Israel" is an indeclinable noun. This is actually, with the definite article, a reference to the previous dispensation of Israel in which the citizenship with Israel was based on regeneration rather than physical birth. The pattern for the citizenship with Israel is found in Romans 4:2-25; 9:6-8. Only born again Jews were the true citizens of Israel. So this phrase once again emphasises lack of regeneration on the wrong side of the barrier. This phrase emphasises the fact that no matter what we had formerly when we walked over the barrier it was gone. God has stripped us of these things, He has stripped us of every superficiality.

"and strangers" — this is an adjective, the nominative plural of cenoj which means a foreigner. It also means to be estranged, unacquainted with, not operating under. In other words, here again we are an alien in the sense of no citizenship. All of this means that we were foreigners to what grace is all about.

"from the covenants" — the ablative plural of source of diaqhkh and it refers to the unconditional covenants of Israel. We were foreigners, we were outside of them. The unconditional covenants all involve eternal life. So once again it is always the same thing: we didn't have salvation so we didn't have anything. Until we believe in Jesus Christ we are nothing. This is the Abrahamic, Palestinian, and Davidic covenants. They are unconditional covenants, they are grace covenants, they have grace provision, they all have eternal life provision, they are all for the Jews.

"of promise" — a descriptive genitive e)paggelia. It is used for the divine promises, for a gracious gift. It is used for unconditional promises of grace and blessing.

"having no hope" — present active participle of e)xw plus the subjective negative mh, plus the accusative singular e)lpij and it means expectation here.

"without God in the world" — the nominative plural of a)qeoj which means "Godless," plus a prepositional phrase e)n plus the locative of kosmoj which is the devil's system of controlling the world.

Translation: "At that period of time you were separated from Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and aliens from the covenants of the promise, not having future expectation, Godless in the cosmos."

Beginning with verse 13 we have the means of reconciliation.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #27

27 06/11/1973 Ephesians 2:13 Doctrine of the blood

Verse 13 — "But" is the conjunctive particle de and it is used as an adversative particle, it sets up a contrast. The contrast is between the saved and unsaved state or the former state of those to whom this epistle is addressed. We have a contrast, then, between the wrong and the right side of the barrier.

This is followed by a temporal adverb, nun or nuni. The temporal adverb designates the immediate present as well as the extent of the immediate present. It is translated here "now," and it can be also translated "at the present time." This is now our status as believers.

"in Christ Jesus" — the preposition e)n plus the locative gives us positional truth and relates us to the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. We start at salvation with relationship to the strategic victory. This is "in Christ Jesus."

"ye" is a nominative plural pronoun which refers to believers who were formerly Gentile unbelievers: "ye were" is a present active participle of e)imi plus the definite article. This is a customary present tense and indicates a continuous situation.

"were" — the enclitic particle pote is used for the past; "far off" — the adverb of the extent of space, "far away," makran. This indicates that as an unbeliever on the wrong side of the barrier, no matter how you succeeded and no matter what you did, you were not brought any closer to God. So the adverb of the extent of time indicates no matter whom you are or what you are you can't be saved by what you do. No matter what you achieve it is not good enough.

"are made" — aorist passive indicative of ginomai which means to become. The aorist tense is the culminative aorist in which the event is viewed in its entirety but regarded from the standpoint of its existing results. This is a verb of process, that is, the removal of the barrier and/or reconciliation, and it denotes the attainment of the process. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb at the point that he believes in Jesus Christ. The indicative mood is the reality of reconciliation.

Then we have an adverb as the object of the state of being verb — e)gguj, "near." This is an adverb of space, which goes with the accusative of the extent of space. "Near" actually refers to the commonwealth or the citizenship of Israel, which we have previously studied. Note that the Gentile believers are not in the commonwealth of Israel but are near it in the sense of being born again. They cannot be in it because this is the Church Age, not the dispensation of Israel. This emphasises the fact that pseudo standards on the wrong side of the barrier do not exist, nor is there any cognisance taken of them, in God's plan.

"by the blood" — the preposition e)n plus the instrumental case of a(ima — "blood." The blood relates back to the Old Testament to the sacrifices that were made to portray the Lord Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of the blood

1. Blood is the basis for animal life. Animals do not have souls. A human being is not dead until the soul leaves the body but an animal dies because his blood leaves his body. Leviticus 17:10-14 is about animals only. A human being's life is in his soul. God selected animals to teach the Old Testament people about salvation. The cross had not occurred historically; the cross was going to occur historically, the cross was a part of the divine decrees. The cross is the key to the Father's plan of grace and the cross is the mechanics of salvation. God selected these animals to portray the ministry of Christ in salvation, the work of Christ on the cross. This is how the altar came into being. It was a raised platform so that everyone could see. The meaning of a word in the Bible is determined by its first usage, and the meaning of the word "blood" is determined by Genesis 3:20,21 and Leviticus chapters 1-6.

2. Therefore animal blood was used in Old Testament sacrifices to represent the spiritual death of Christ in the cross. Leviticus chapters 1-3. Therefore the blood of the animal becomes a representative analogy. This is not a direct or true analogy. A direct or true analogy would mean that Christ had to bleed to death on the cross. But Christ didn't bleed to death on the cross. A representative analogy takes something that happens literally to portray something that is spiritual. The something that is spiritual is the first of the two deaths of Christ on the cross.

When Christ died spiritually on the cross He did so in a way which is very clearly described in scripture. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. That means that all of the sins in the history of the human race were poured out upon Him. As our sins were poured out upon Christ God who had withheld judgment on these sins now judges them. This is what the animal was portraying on the altar. The animal died a physical death; the Lord Jesus died physically too, after salvation was finished. Tetelestai is the perfect tense of telew and it means it has already been finished in the past and the results go on forever. The animal blood was real and literal but it represents the spiritual death of Christ on the cross, which was real and literal. The term "blood of Christ" is talking about Christ being judged for our sins — Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 10:19; 13:20; 1Peter 1:2.

3. The doctrine of redemption was communicated to the Old Testament by means of animal sacrifices. Redemption is the classifying phrase for the blood of Christ, starting in Old Testament times — Hebrews 9:22.

4. Christ did not die on the cross by bleeding to death — John 19:30,33,34. The physical death of Christ on the cross occurred not by bleeding but by an act of His own volition: "Father, into thy hands I dismiss my spirit." He dismissed His spirit and departed from this life as an act of His own volition. John 10:18 also indicates that He did not die by bleeding to death. Cf. Luke 23:46; Matthew 27:50. When Christ died physically His blood was still inside His body — John 19:34.

5. Therefore the blood of Christ is part of the representative analogy between the physical death of animals in the Old Testament and the spiritual death of Christ on the cross bearing our sins. 2Corinthians 5:21; 1Peter 2:24.

6. The blood of Christ depicts four doctrines of soteriology: expiation (the paying of the penalty) — Revelation 1:5; redemption — Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; 1Peter 1:18,19; justification — Romans 5:9; sanctification — Hebrews 13:12.

7. The blood of Christ is expiation is also the basis for the rebound technique — Leviticus 4 & 5; 1John 1:7 cf. 1John 1:9.

The judgment of Christ on the cross means reconciliation. His judgment is related to the Levitical sacrifices by the use of the word a(ima or "blood."

This is the true condition of every unbeliever on the wrong side of the barrier and this removes all false standards set up by religion, legalism, and the reversionistic revolution.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #28

28 06/12/1973 Ephesians 2:14; Gal. 5:1 Freedom/soul in Christ. Wall of snobbery.

Verse 14 — the removal of the false standards of religion by reconciliation. Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship with God. Religion is man by man's efforts seeking to gain the approbation of God. Remember that in the angelic conflict Satan has two great counterattacks going. One counterattack is against Bible doctrine; the other is against the laws of divine establishment. The counterattack against doctrine is religion, the counterattack against the laws of divine establishment is revolution, and these two are constantly in operation during the course of human history since the fall of man.

"For" is the inferential conjunction gar which draws the inevitable conclusion. There are two types of inferential particle. The first is gar, the other real inferential conjunction is o)un. O)un is an inference which always occurs somewhere in the sentence, usually in between clauses. Gar begins a sentence, but both of them demand a conclusion. The conclusion demanded by gar is a very strong or a primary conclusion whereas the conclusion demanded by o)un is always a secondary conclusion somewhere in the context. From time to time this becomes very important. When it says "for" we are to understand a major conclusion is on its way.

"he" — incorrectly translated. This looks as though we have a simple personal pronoun, but we do not. We have an intensive demonstrative pronoun a)utoj, and with gar demanding a primary conclusion it should be translated "For he himself and only he himself." This immediately sets off the Lord Jesus Christ as being unique. It emphasises His celebrityship and it reminds us once again so that we never lose the perspective, the celebrityship of Christ is the first characteristic of entering into the super-grace life. There is nothing more important than reaching the super-grace life; it is place of the normal function of the priesthood. When a believer GAPs it all of the way to super-grace the first thing that characterises that condition is occupation with the person of Christ or maximum category # 1 love. The second characteristic has to do with super-grace capacity based on doctrine or the cup in the soul. The next factor is the fulfillment of Romans 8:28.

"is" — present active indicative of e)imi, absolute status quo. This is a customary progressive present, it continues — "keeps on being." It is an absolute.

"our peace" — h) e)irhnh h(mwn. E)irhnh means harmony, welfare, tranquillity, unity, blessing. It can also mean peace. Here the noun denotes harmony and distinction between Jew and Gentile. The word h(mwn is a descriptive genitive, it is "our" harmony, our tranquillity, our peace. This means that Jesus Christ as the strategic victor plays a major role in our lives at the point of super-grace, and we know it.

"who hath made" — there is no relative pronoun, this is simply the aorist active participle of poiew plus the definite article. The definite article is in the singular — "the one having made." The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it takes an entirety and emphasises the results which have come from a consistent action within the entirety. This is the result of that so great salvation and the result of the strategic victory. The culminative aorist, then, takes note of the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus Christ when he broke the back of Satan on the cross, as per Colossians 2:14,15; Hebrews 2:14,15. The active voice: Christ produces the action of the verb through the function of reconciliation. The participle has antecedent action.

"both" — the accusative plural of a)mfoteroj. Both Jew and Gentile entering the body of Christ, crossing the barrier, as per John 10:16; "one" — the accusative from e(ij, the numeral. All distinctions are removed at the point of salvation.

"and hath broken down" — aorist active participle from luw which means to abolish, to annihilate, to destroy. This is a culminative aorist. The active voice: Christ did the work. Basically the word means to destroy.

"the middle wall of partition" — this is one of the best-attested records from the ancient world of class distinction, of racial distinction. It is actually a wall that the Jews built around the temple. Gentiles could be around the outer court but never past the middle wall. Why the middle wall? Because the temple had walls, an outer wall and then a wall in between called the middle wall because the middle wall was that through which the Jews could go but the Gentiles could not. The penalty for any Gentile going past the middle wall was death. But Jesus Christ broke it down. When you accept Christ as saviour and you are related by the baptism of the Spirit and are entered positionally into union with Christ, at that moment in principle the middle wall of partition is broken down. And if you do to the tactical victory you will literally be without a middle wall in your soul. So the strategic victory always comes before the tactical victory.

Translation: "For he himself being our harmony [blessing], the one having made both [Jew and Gentile] one, and having abolished the dividing wall of the barrier."

Summary

1. The distinction between Jew and gentile emphasised by religious Jews and Judaisers is obliterated in the Church Age.

2. Circumcision has no spiritual advantage over uncircumcision.

3. Because of reconciliation and positional truth all pseudo standards are removed and replaced by position in Christ.

4. Both Jew and Gentile have the same position in Christ.

5. Jesus Christ makes two kinds of peace or harmony: a) Harmony that removes the wall between Jew and Gentile, harmony that destroys all of those distinctions of the soul that are false and based upon the prejudice and the pattern of life and thinking when we were on the wrong side of the barrier; b) The harmony or peace that joins Jew and Gentile to God, removing the enmity between God and the believer and establishing a relationship between the believer and the strategic victory of Jesus Christ.

6. Reconciliation removes bona fide barriers between God and man, as well as false barriers between man and man.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #29

29 06/13/1973 Ephesians 2:15 Doctrine of hypostatic union

Verse 15 — "Having abolished" is the aorist active participle of the compound verb katargew. The aorist tense here is a gnomic aorist which means an absolute. Whatever is stated by the participle is to be regarded as an absolute point of doctrine. The active voice: the Lord Jesus Christ produces the action. It is produced on the cross and produced under the category of the doctrine of reconciliation. The participle is one of those antecedent type actions. The action of the aorist participle ordinarily would precede the action of the main verb. In this case this is a matter almost of logic because they are coterminous and yet one must occur before the other logically. This should be translated "Having cancelled" or "Having wiped out."

"in his flesh" — the Lord Jesus Christ provided for us the strategic victory of the angelic conflict by becoming a member of the human race. It became obvious at the time of creation that the human race was created and brought on to planet earth to resolve the angelic conflict. It also was obvious that the failure of the first Adam necessitated the second Adam coming into the world without a sin nature, without an act of personal sin, without the imputation of Adam's sin, so that He might actually resolve the angelic conflict. Passages like Colossians 2:14 make it very clear that Satan's back was broken at the cross. This is the strategic victory which is so important to us and to which we are related by positional truth. Every believer is in union with Christ as Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. This is the place of operation footstool. Retroactive and current positional truth put us in strategic victory.

We have the preposition e)n plus the locative of sarc. Sarc means old sin nature most of the time in scripture. Here it means the human body only. It can be used either way, depending upon the context. Here it refers to the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. The primary objective in the humanity of Christ is to win the strategic victory of the angelic conflict and to provide at the same time for us eternal salvation.

"the enmity" — the accusative singular of e)xqra which means total alienation, state of enmity. This state of enmity or alienation is the barrier between God and man. The barrier is made up of a) sin — "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." But that is only personal sin. By birth we are born with an old sin nature and with the imputation of Adam's sin; b) The penalty of sin which is death — Romans 6:23; c) The problem of physical birth — physically alive and spiritually dead; d) The problem of relative righteousness, -R cannot have fellowship with +R; e) The problem of the character of God. His character is perfect and therefore there is no way He can have fellowship with us; f) All members of the human race have a position in Adam — "In Adam all die," spiritual death. This is our e)xqra in the passage, it refers to the fat that there is a barrier between man and God, a barrier which man cannot move around or over, a barrier which is non-removable and therefore a barrier which God Himself must handle. In the handling of this barrier notice that Christ came in the flesh. "Having wiped out in his flesh the state of enmity [the barrier]."

The doctrine of the hypostatic union

1. By way of definition, in the person of Jesus Christ are two natures inseparably united, without mixture or loss of separate identity, without loss or transfer of properties or attributes, the union being personal and eternal.

2. The two natures involve the deity of Christ. He is coequal with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, both of whom have identical characteristics. When the Bible says God is one it is always referring to essence. Jesus Christ is also different from the other members of the Trinity in that he is a man having a body, a soul, and a human spirit. So He has two natures, God and Man in one person forever. John 1:1-14; Romans 1:2-5; (Philippians 2:5-11; 1Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 2:14.

3. The incarnate person of Christ includes His deity. Jesus Christ is God, coequal and co-eternal with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. His incarnation does not diminish His deity and therefore He is undiminished deity even though He is in hypostatic union. There is no change in the deity of Christ.

4. The incarnate person of Christ is true humanity. He is a bona fide member of the human race with a body, a soul, and a human spirit, minus the old sin nature. Because of the virgin birth Jesus Christ came into the world without a sin nature and without the imputation of Adam's sin. He was without both of those and so He was born in the same status as Adam came into the world — without sin.

5. The two natures are united without transfer of attributes. The attributes adhere to their corresponding natures. That means that the divine attributes are always the divine attributes and the human attributes are always the human attributes and there is no "leak" back and forth. The essence of deity cannot be changed — doctrine of immutability; the infinite cannot be transferred to the finite. If you rob God of one attribute of His essence then you destroy His deity. To rob Jesus Christ of His humanity or one single attribute of His humanity would destroy humanity. But it must be remembered that from the virgin birth Jesus Christ has been and always will be truly God and truly man in one person forever.

6. No attribute of essence or deity was changed by the incarnation. In fulfilling the purpose of the first advent certain attributes of deity were not used. But this does not imply that they were either surrendered or destroyed. They were merely held in check in keeping with the plan of the Father for the first advent. The plan of the Father for the first advent was to provide a strategic victory, which would once and for all break the back of Satan. This strategic victory calls for the humiliation of Christ, bearing our sins on the cross. The problem of the old sin nature has to be solved in the cosmos. All of the sins of the old sin nature are poured out and judged and all human good is rejected at the cross. Then, because Jesus Christ is a priest and because the offering of Himself was only the first function of His priesthood He must remain alive. In death He is eliminated as a priest, but three days later His resurrection, ascension and session puts Him in the driver's seat to make intercession for us, as per Hebrews 7:25. Therefore the priesthood of Christ is perpetuated by resurrection; therefore He had to be resurrected. Then, furthermore, the priesthood of Christ was perpetuated by His ascension. Whereas the high priest in Israel could only enter the holy of holies once a year our high priest has entered the reality. The holy of holies is merely a type of heaven. Our high priest has actually entered heaven and now represents us at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us.

The true doctrine of Kenosis: Jesus Christ, during His time on this earth, voluntarily restricted the independent use of certain divine attributes in keeping with the plan of the Father during the first advent. This did not in any way eliminate them from His essence.

7. Therefore the union of divine essence and human nature in the incarnation of Christ is hypostatic and personal. "Hypostatic" refers to the whole person of Christ as distinguished from His two natures, divine and human. "Personal" refers to the emergence of a unique person. The hypostatic union is personal in the sense that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, of course superior to all mankind.

8. There is a false interpretation, which occasionally breaks out during the course of church history. Many of the great controversies in church history have occurred over this very fact. The false interpretation is that deity possessed humanity, or that the deity of Christ indwelt His humanity, or that the union was simply harmony or sympathy. These are the major heresies in the field. But, once again, the hypostatic union is personal, the divine and human natures have been combined into one person, once essence, forever.

9. Therefore Jesus Christ, the God-Man has one hypostasis or one essence forever. The attributes of the divine and human nature belong to the person of Christ. The characteristics of one nature are never attributed to the other and this means that during the first advent Jesus Christ would be simultaneously omnipotent and weak, omniscient and ignorant. However, the ignorance of His humanity was quickly overcome by the daily function of GAP — Luke 2:40,52; John 1:14.

10. The necessity for the humanity of Christ. There are four reasons why Christ had to become a member of the human race.

a) The first reason is because as God he can't save us. Deity can plan it but deity can't execute the plan. It takes humanity to execute the plan. Every characteristic of deity is immutable and unchangeable. What happened to the deity of Christ on the cross? It remained in the hypostasis but it remained without change. Philippians 2:7,8; Hebrews 2:14,15.

b) To be a mediator. A mediator must be equal with both parties in the mediation. A mediator is defined for us in Job. He pulls two parties together by being equal with both parties — Job 9:2, 32-33; 1Timothy 2:5,6.

c) Priesthood — emphasises in Hebrews 7:4,5,14,28; 10:5,10-14. A priest is a man; he must be a member of the human race.

d) God cannot lie. Veracity is one of the characteristics of His essence. When God makes a promise He must keep the promise. In this case God promised David that no matter whether he failed or succeeded he would have a son in his line who would rule forever, and that David's dynasty would be the one dynasty in all of history that would be perpetuated into eternity. 2Samuel 7:8-16; Psalm 89:20-37. There is no way that this could be fulfilled except one, and that is for Jesus Christ to come in the line of David.

11. Everything verbally communicated by Christ during the incarnation came from one of three sources: His deity — John 8:58; His humanity — John 19:28; His hypostatic union — His calls for salvation, like Matthew 11:28.

12. Categories of attributes as related to the person of Jesus Christ.

a) Attributes true of His whole person, the God-Man, include redeemer or saviour. Both divine and human natures are essential to the function of Christ as saviour.

b) Attributes true only of His deity but the whole person [God-Man] is the subject. John 8:58.

c) Attributes true only of His humanity but the whole person is the subject — John 19:28.

d) The person of Christ is described according to the divine nature but predicate of the human nature — Revelation 1:12-18. In other words, Christ is described as the one who was dead but now is alive. The deity of Christ is in evidence but death is only possible to the humanity of Christ.

e) The person is described according to the human nature but the predicate of the divine nature — John 6:62. The Son of man belongs to the human nature. The Son of man ascending up where He was before applies only to the divine nature.

f) The person of Christ described according to His divine nature but predicate of both natures — John 5:25-27. Here we have Christ as the Son of God who spoke to those who were spiritually dead and those who heard, having positive volition, lived. But in the future Christ will execute judgment as the Son of man — His human nature. So the person of Christ is described according to His divine nature but the predicate of both natures.

g) The person of Christ is described according to His human nature but the predicate of both natures — Matthew 27:46. Here Christ was speaking from the viewpoint of His human nature but the pronoun "me" has reference to both natures.

The state of enmity is now described in two phrases, which gives us an outline for reconciliation.

"the law of commandments" — ton nomon twn e)ntolwn, all in the accusative. Ton nomon refers to the Mosaic Law, but only one part of it. The law refers to the whole law, Codex #1, #2, and #3. But here we have a qualifying phrase in the genitive, "of the commandments." The commandments is an Old Testament technical term for Codex #1 only. It refers to what is sometimes called the decalogue but includes a great deal more, the moral commandments. The decalogue really is the basis for human freedom and every prohibition in the ten commandments is directly related to some phase of human freedom, as divine institution #1 and as the springboard for the laws of divine establishment. However, there is another purpose in the many, many commandments in addition to the decalogue that are found. All of these commandments under Codex #1 actually prove that man is a sinner and needs a saviour — 1Timothy 1:9,10; Galatians 3:15-29; Romans 3:20 or establishing the fact that the status of man is hopeless and he needs to go outside of himself for eternal salvation.

"in ordinances" — e)n plus the instrumental of dogma which means decrees or ordinances. Technically here it refers to ordinances and it refers to Codex #2 of the Mosaic Law, which is a complete Christology and soteriology. It includes everything from the Levitical offerings, the holy days, the tabernacle, the modus operandi of the priesthood, and it all adds up to the ministry of Jesus Christ dying for our sins. So Codex #2 in the Mosaic Law was a complete Christology by which any person who heard it read, even once, or saw it in operation under the Levitical priesthood could understand salvation, understand the gospel, and respond by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

"for to make" — "For" is a conjunction i(na and should be translated "that," plus the aorist active subjunctive of ktizw and it means to create. It should be translated, "that he might create." The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist, an absolute. It is an absolute fact that as of the moment of salvation one of the 36 things the believers receives is being made a new creature by being entered into the strategic victory in Christ.

"in himself" — e)n plus the locative of the intensive pronoun a)utoj. This refers to positional truth by which every believer is made a new creature at the moment of salvation.

"of twain" — the accusative definite article plus the indeclinable numeral duo. This all should be translated "that in himself he might create the two."

"one" — the preposition e)ij plus numeral in the accusative singular for e(ij which is into one or resulting in one.

"new" is the accusative singular of kainoj which means new in species; "man" — a)nqrwpoj, the generic term for the category of mankind. It is a brand new category once you accept Christ as saviour.

"making" — present active participle of poiew. This is in the static present which represents a condition perpetually existing. This means eternal security, blessing by getting into doctrine. The active voice: Christ produces the action on the cross through the doctrine of reconciliation. The participle is a causal participle, He causes this.

"peace" — e)irhnh which means harmony, blessing. It causes harmony and the removal of the barrier between the Jew and the Gentile, which occurs when Jew and Gentile accept Christ, now they are both the same.

Translation: "Having wiped out in his flesh the state of enmity, the law of the commandments by means of the ordinances; that he might create in himself the two resulting in one [Jew and Gentile] new species man, causing peace."

Reconciliation removes all false standards and pseudo barriers between the members of the human race and all believers are new creatures in Christ.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #30

30 06/14/1973 Ephesians 2:16 Doctrine of reconciliation (amplified, revised)

Verse 16 — reconciliation removes all false standards and pseudo barriers between the members of the human race. All believers are a brand new species on this earth. As a brand new species you are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. That means you are related to the strategic victory.

"And that" — the continuative use of the conjunction kai. Like most conjunctions it unites clauses; "that" is inserted by the translator for the word does not occur at the beginning of the verse. It does occur in the middle. The word is i(na and when it occurs it will be related to a purpose concept.

"he might reconcile" — aorist active subjunctive of the compound verb a)pokatallassw [a)po = preposition of ultimate source, always used with the ablative; kata = norm or standard; allassw = to change or to alter something] which means to transform someone or something according to a norm or a standard from the ultimate source of someone else. To put all of this together in one English word is difficult. However, it might be translated "to restore to favour." The aorist tense is a constative aorist; it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes an occurrence, like reconciliation, and regardless of its extent or duration gathers it into a single whole. The active voice: Christ does the work of reconciliation on the cross. The subjunctive mood is used to indicate a continuation of the purpose clause from the middle of the previous verse. If we are a new species at the point of regeneration God had to do something to make it possible. God had to wipe out all of the contamination from the fall of Adam and being of the old species of a)nqrwpoj. Reconciliation is also potential, according to this subjunctive, depending upon whether the individual believes in the Lord Jesus Christ or not.

"both" is the accusative plural from a)mfoteroj plus the definite article and should be translated "the both." The definite article refers to the Jew and the Gentile on the wrong side of the barrier and it is used to show that the nouns have been previously defined. Therefore the qualitative aspect is not the issue, merely definition.

A)pokatallassw means in this context to transfer from a certain state [a bad one] to another state which is not only quite different but beneficial. Both Jew and Gentile are transferred from total condemnation to the grace plan of God.

"unto God" — dative of possession of qeoj plus the definite article indicates that anyone who crosses the line at the point of salvation he does possess God. He is in union with God the Son; he is related to the strategic victory of the angelic conflict.

"in one body" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of sarc which is "in one flesh." This emphasises the principle of no old species but a new one, which has meaning and purpose. Even though you look the same you are not the same because of the new spiritual definition in your life beginning at the point of salvation with the 36 things that you receive.

"by the cross" — dia plus the genitive of stauroj means "through the cross." The cross is the means of reconciliation, on the cross the barrier was removed between man and God; and by the work of Christ on the cross man is reconciled, God is propitiated, and there is no barrier. It was all accomplished through grace; it was planned in eternity past and executed in time.

"having slain" — the aorist active participle of a)pokteinw. It means having put to death. This is an antecedent aorist participle. That means that the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, and first of all "he put to death' — He destroyed the barrier, tore down the middle wall of partition — that he might reconcile. God tore down the wall between Himself and us, therefore God is the reconciler but we are reconciled. "Man is reconciled" is the correct statement of the doctrine. God is not reconciled to man; God is propitiated.

"the enmity" — the accusative singular of e)xqra which refers to the barrier between man and God, a barrier man cannot remove or get around in any possible way. "thereby" is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the instrumental of the intensive demonstrative pronoun a)utoj. It should be translated "by it."

Translation: "And that he might reconcile the both to the God in one body through the cross, by it [the cross] having put to death the enmity."

Principle of grace

1. God the Father planned the removal of the barrier — doctrine of divine decrees.

2. God the Son executed the removal of the barrier; He tore down the wall.

3. God the Holy Spirit reveals to the human race to step over the line.

So everything in reconciliation is accomplished by God and man is the beneficiary — "man is reconciled."

The doctrine of reconciliation

1. Reconciliation is the first work of God from which man benefits eternally.

2. The removal of this barrier between man and God is called reconciliation in Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:20,21; 2Corinthians 5:18.

3. The cross is the basis for such reconciliation — Colossians 1:20; Ephesians 2:16.

4. In reconciliation the unbeliever is regarded as the enemy of God, the barrier is called "enmity" — Romans 5:10; Colossians 1:21.

5. Believers of the Church Age, therefore, have a ministry of reconciliation — 2Corinthians 5:18-20.

6. Reconciliation connotes peace between man and God — Ephesians 2:14 cf. 2:16; Colossians 1:20.

7. The peace offering of the Levitical sacrifices portrays reconciliation — Leviticus chapters 3, 6:37,38; 8:15.

8. The mechanics of reconciliation.

a) Sin is removed from the barrier [unlimited atonement — 2Corinthians 5:14,15,19; 1Timothy 2:6; 4:10; Titus 2:11; Hebrews 2:9; 2Peter 2:1; 1John 2:2; redemption — John 8:31,36; Galatians 3:13; 1Peter 1:18,19; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14.

b) The penalty of sin is removed by expiation — Colossians 2:14. Expiation is Christ paying the penalty of sin — Psalm 22:1-6 where Christ is the worm being crushed on our behalf.

c) The problem of physical birth is removed from the barrier by the doctrine of regeneration — John 3:1-18; 1Peter 1:23; Titus 3:5. When anyone believes in Christ because of the work of the cross he is said to be born again.

d) Human good or relative righteousness is removed from the barrier by two doctrines: the doctrine of imputation and the doctrine of justification. They are entirely different doctrines though closely related because one depends upon the other. At the point of salvation, because of propitiation and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, God imputes to each person who believes His own righteousness [+R]. Once we have +R God then looks at us and says, "Vindicated" or "Justified." So the possession of +R means vindication at the point of salvation. Imputation — Romans 3:22; 9:30-10:10; Philippians 3:9; 2Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 10:14. Justification — Romans 4:1-5, 25; 5:1; 8:29,30; Titus 3:7; Galatians 2:16.

e) The problem of God's perfect character. This is removed from the barrier through propitiation — Romans 3:22-26; 1John 2:1,2.

f) Instead of position in Adam God the Holy Spirit through the baptism of the Spirit takes us at the moment of salvation and enters us into union with Christ so that this item of the barrier is removed. The problem s position in Adam is removed by positional sanctification — 1Corinthians 15:22; 2Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 1:3-6.

9. Reconciliation at the cross was prophesied in Isaiah 57:19.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #31

31 07/17/1973 Ephesians 2:17–22 Doctrines of intensification of the angelic conflict, reconciliation, baptism of the Holy Spirit

Verse 17 — the paraphrasing of Isaiah 57:19 which is Old Testament documentation to reconciliation. "And" is the adjunctive use of kai which introduces the paraphrase. The adjunctive use of kai is always translated "also." It is translated this way in order to indicate documentation.

"came" — (He came) This is the aorist active participle of e)rxomai used here for the coming of Christ at the first advent: His arrival at the cross and His fulfillment of reconciliation by the removal of the barrier between man and God. The aorist participle is not a part of the paraphrase; it introduces the subject of the paraphrase. The fulfillment of this participle comes in Isaiah 57:19 which refers to the first advent and the cross. The action of this aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, which is coming up — "preached." The aorist tense itself is a dramatic aorist; it states a present reality with the certitude of a past event. This Greek idiom is used for a situation which has already been realised, already been fulfilled. At the time that it was written it was a prophecy; now it has been fulfilled. This is true of many of the Old Testament prophecies; they were fulfilled by the first advent of Christ. Therefore the dramatic aorist is used to indicate that principle. The active voice indicates the one who has come, the Lord Jesus Christ. It should be translated "also having come." After this comes the paraphrase (put in a colon).

"and" is not found here; "he preached" — aorist middle indicative from e)uaggelizw which means to communicate information of good news or to communicate vitally important information. In this case what is communicated in the doctrine of reconciliation or the removal of the barrier between God and man by the work of Christ on the cross. The aorist tense of the verb is a culminative aorist. The communicating of the good news is the result of Christ coming into the world. The middle voice is an indirect middle emphasising the agent producing the action who is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. The indicative mood is declarative, it indicates that we have an absolute assertion, total and complete reality. This is a picture of communication of reconciliation on the fulfillment side as stated in Isaiah 57:19.

"peace" is the good news that He preached — the absence of the definite article with the accusative of e)irhnh. This is peace between God and man, a peace which describes reconciliation in this passage.

"to you which were afar off" — "to you" is a dative plural from the personal pronoun su; "which were" is not found in the original; we have simply an adverb, makran, in the dative plural plus the dative plural definite article. Adverbs do not take cases but there is one with this one to show advantage to the Gentiles. The far away ones have the advantage of being reconciled. The definite article in the plural with the adverb indicates it is to their advantage to have Christ come into the world and go to the cross.

"to them" — dative plural of advantage plus the definite article; "that were near" — this time the adverb is e)gguj and refers to the Jews.

Translation: "Also [Jesus] having come, he announced the good news [fulfillment of Isaiah 57:19] which is reconciliation to you [Gentiles], the far off ones, and reconciliation to you [the Jews] who were near."

Summary

1. The documentation of reconciliation is taken from the paraphrase of Isaiah 57:19.

2. When Jesus came to the earth in the incarnation He communicated the good news of reconciliation to both Jews and Gentiles, just as Isaiah 57:19 prophesied He would.

3. Therefore in the next and final section of this chapter, verses 18-22, Paul picks up the thread now of Ephesians 1:22,23 where the Church, the body of Christ, was last mentioned.

Verses 18-22, the principle of grace and the Church.

Verse 18 — the baptism of the Holy Spirit. "For" is a causal conjunction, o(ti, and it means "Because." It connects this with the previous paragraph — Because of reconciliation.

"through him" — the preposition dia plus the genitive of the intensive pronoun a)utoj.

"we both" — the nominative plural adjective a)mfoteroj, used for both Jew and Gentile; plus the definite article. It should be translated "we the both," referring to Jew and Gentile in this dispensation. The royal priesthood is recruited from both Jews and Gentiles, and always has been. Melchizedek was a Gentile: Jesus Christ was a Jew. This is the dispensation in which both Jew and Gentile become one in Christ and become members of that same royal priesthood.

"have" — present active indicative of e)xw. The present tense is a static present; it represents a condition as perpetually existing. The active voice: the believer, Jew or Gentile, produces the action of the verb as of the moment of salvation. The indicative mood is the reality of access or entry as of the moment of salvation.

"access" — the accusative singular from the noun prosagwgh. It means access or entry, it means admission into the presence of, entrance or freedom to enter, the ability to enter, the right to enter. The Greek word was used originally for obtaining an interview with a king or entering into the presence of a king to serve him. This is emphasised here. Our access is based upon our union with Christ; it therefore gives us the right to enter into His presence because we are under His priesthood.

"one Spirit" — e)n plus the instrumental of e)ij plus the instrumental of pneuma, referring to God the Holy Spirit, and it should be translated "by means of one Spirit." This refers to the baptism of the Spirit by which we are entered into the presence of the Father.

"unto the Father" — proj plus the accusative of pathr, and it means "face to face with the Father."

Translation: "Because through him [Jesus Christ] we the both [Jew and Gentile] keep having access by means of one Spirit face to face with the Father."

The doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit

1. The baptism of the Holy Spirit did not occur in Old Testament times or in any previous dispensation. It is peculiar to one dispensation only, the Church Age, the age in which we live. It qualifies each one of us as royal priests. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is that salvation ministry of the Spirit whereby he enters every believer into union with Jesus Christ our high priest and therefore appoints each one of us a royal priest forever.

2. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was prophesied by the Lord Jesus Christ while He was on earth. It was a part of teaching the whole principle of reconciliation. Reconciliation and the baptism of the Spirit occur simultaneously. John 14:20; Acts 1:5. It was essential the Lord the Lord Jesus Christ ascend and be seated at the right hand of the Father. That is analogous to the high priest entering the holy of holies. The holy of holies represents heaven. Jesus Christ enters into heaven as the royal high priest and our personal representative. We, in turn, represent Him as a kingdom of priests on this earth.

3. The mechanics of the baptism of the Spirit are described in 1Corinthians 12:13. God the Holy Spirit enters each one of us into union with Christ.

4. In this way at the point of salvation and totally apart from any experience God the Holy Spirit brings perfect unity to the body of Christ. Regardless of its experiential status there is perfect unity kin the body of Christ for all believers are entered into union with Christ. Ephesians 4:5.

5. The implications of the baptism of the Spirit provide equality nonexistent in physical birth — Galatians 3:26-28.

6. The basis for retroactive positional truth is the baptism of the Spirit since we are not only entered into union with Christ at the right hand of the Father but we are also identified with Him in His death, as per Romans 6:3,4; Colossians 2:12.

7. It is also the basis for current positional truth — Ephesians 1:3-6; Colossians 2:10. In current positional truth we share everything that Christ has.

8. The baptism of the Holy Spirit begins the dispensation of the Church — Matthew 16:18; Acts 1:5, plus Acts 2:3 which doesn't mention the baptism of the Spirit, but it explains that what happened there is the baptism of the Spirit by the explanation in Acts 11:15-17.

9. The baptism of the Spirit is not an experience of any kind; it is something that happens to every believer at the point of salvation.

10. The baptism of the Spirit occurs at the moment that we believe in Jesus Christ —Colossians 1:12.

Verse 19 — an application to former Gentiles. "Now" is an inferential illative particle a)ra which means "consequently."

"Therefore" is another inferential particle, o)un, which denotes that which is introduced as an inference from something else — from the baptism of the Spirit. Translation: "Consequently therefore [as a result of the baptism of the Spirit]."

"Ye are" — present active indicative of e)imi. This is a static present, an absolute thing that will always be true.

"No more" — a negative compound adverb, o)uketi, which means "no longer." It is a reference to Gentiles who in the previous dispensation of Israel were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.

"Strangers" — the predicate nominative plural of cenoj, mean, "aliens."

"And foreigners" — paroikoj, meaning those who live beside us but were not of us.

"But" — the adversative conjunction a)lla sets up a contrast between the saved and the unsaved Gentiles of the Church Age.

"Fellow citizens" — predicate nominative plural sumpolithj; "with the saints" — the genitive plural of description from a(gioj which is "of the saints." This is also a genitive of possession to indicate that all believers, Jew or Gentile, at the point of salvation actually possess sainthood.

"And of the household of God" — the word "household" here simply means a dispensation, administration, brought about by God; and we have the ablative of source, He is the source of that dispensation — members of the family of God or an administration from the source of God. The household is often used for a dispensation. It is used to designate the dispensation of the Church in Hebrews 3:6; 1Peter 2:5.

Translation: "Consequently therefore you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the family of God [or, members of the dispensation from God]."

Verse 20 — "And are built" — there is no word "and." We have the aorist passive participle of e)poikodomew, which means to build upon. — "Having been built." This is a culminative aorist. The Church is still being built by the baptism of the Spirit. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb at salvation. Again we have antecedent action to the main verb, the main verb is "you have become and keep on being fellow citizens."

"Upon the foundation of the apostles" — this is the historical foundation of the Church. E)pi plus the locative of qemelioj which means "upon the foundation." It refers to the local church in contrast to the entire body of Christ. The historical foundation was the local church and its leadership of the apostolic age.

"Apostles and prophets" are descriptive genitives and they apply to the leadership that existed before the canon. There are neither prophets nor apostles today because the canon is closed. The real foundation is given next for the universal church in contrast to the local church…

"Jesus Christ himself" … this is another genitive absolute. When a noun and a participle in the genitive case are not grammatically connected with the rest of the sentence they are called a genitive absolute, and "Jesus Christ himself" is put in the genitive absolute to show the uniqueness of what we now have and what we are a part of.

"Being" is the present active participle [e)imi] in the genitive case and it completes the absolute and indicates the uniqueness of what we have.

"The chief corner stone" is one word in the Greek, a) krogwniaioj. It means the corner foundation stone. The concept is found in many scriptures — Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118:22; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; 1Peter 2:5-7; Isaiah 28:16. The corner foundation stone is the stone by which the architect fixes the standard for the bearing of the walls. This is the way he trues everything. This stones actually forms the corner or the angle of the wall and that is the concept here. Jesus Christ is the chief corner stone. One wall is Israel and the other wall is the Church. Israel trues up on Jesus Christ and the Church trues up on Jesus Christ. This stone is often laid by a formal inauguration after the erection of a building and becomes the stone on which the information and dedication, name of the building, and other such information is found.

Translation: "Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself the corner foundation stone."

In this passage the corner foundation stone is the stone, which is built into the corner of the foundation of the building and actually trues up the wall. The two walls are the Jewish Age and the Church Age. Today Jew and Gentile are united by the baptism of the Spirit.

Verse 21 — the construction of the Church. "In whom" is e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j, referring to the Lord Jesus Christ — "In the sphere of whom."

"All the building" — refers to the Church; "fitly framed together" — present passive participle sunarmologew which means to be in the process of being framed together in a perfectly compact manner. The Lord doesn't build anything in a sloppy manner; this is no hit-or-miss operation. The present tense is a pictorial present; it depicts an event in the process of occurrence. The building isn't finished yet. One of the words in this participle is a)rmoj which means a joint; sun means all together; logew means it has been thought out perfectly and it has been put together perfectly. The passive voice indicates that the building of the Church is in the process of being constructed by the baptism of the Spirit. When it is finished the Rapture of the Church will occur. The participle is circumstantial.

"groweth" — present active indicative of a)ucanw, a retroactive progressive present denoting what has begun in the past and continues into the present time, and hasn't stopped yet. The active voice: the Church or the body of Christ continues to grow during the course of this dispensation. The indicative mood is the reality of continual growth of the body of Christ during this age in spite of everything; "resulting in a holy temple in the Lord."

Translation: "In whom an entire building in the process of being perfectly constructed continues to grow, resulting in a holy temple is the Lord."

Summary

1. The Church continues to grow during the present dispensation in spire of all Satanic efforts to hinder it. Satan has never been able to stunt the growth of the Church.

2. On earth the Church is called the body of Christ in anticipation of phase three. When the body is completed the holy temple will be called the bride of Christ — phase three.

3. The building of the temple is also used as an analogy in this paragraph. Each person saved during the Church Age is one more brick, one more board in the building, and each brick or board is perfect in itself because it is said to be holy. Our holiness is based upon not only the baptism of the Spirit but the fact that the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Christ and He stays.

4. When the number of believers in the body of Christ is equal to the number of fallen angels or demons operating under Satan the last board will be in.

5. This is the completion of the building and/or the removal of the Church in preparation for operation footstool: the fact that we will be a part of operation footstool, the second strategic phase and the second strategic victory of Jesus Christ. Colossians 2:15; Revelation 19:6,8; Zechariah 13:2; 1Thessalonians 3:13

6. A new concept emerges. In the Old Testament Christ was the target of Satan, but with the glorification of Christ and the change of dispensation the Church is the target of Satan.

7. This leads to the intensification of the angelic conflict in the Church Age.

Verse 22 — the positional sanctification of the Church.

"In whom" — e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j, again referring to Jesus Christ: "In the sphere of whom."

"ye also" — all believers' "are builded together" — present passive indicative of sunoikodomew — "In whom you are being constructed together." The construction of the Church goes on. The present tense is the retroactive progressive present, it indicates that which was begun in the past and continues right up to the present time, and will continue until the Rapture of the Church. The passive voice: the Church is in the process of being constructed. The indicative mood is declarative which says in effect that this is an absolute assertion.

"for an habitation of God" is not quite correct. It should be translated "resulting in a permanent dwelling for God." We have the preposition e)ij plus the accusative. The word for "dwelling" is katoikhsij which means permanent type dwelling; "of God" is genitive of possession: "of the God." God owns the building.

"through the Spirit" is e)n plus the instrumental of pneuma which is "by means of the Spirit." This is a second reference to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Translation: "In whom you also are being constructed together, resulting in a permanent dwelling place of the God by means of the Spirit."

The intensification of the angelic conflict

1. In the Old Testament dispensation Christ was always the target of Satan. But once Christ came in the flesh, went to the cross, was glorified through resurrection, ascension and session he is no longer a target and can no longer be a target. He is now at the right hand of the Father.

2. The Church therefore, the representation of Christ on the earth, has become that target. Every believer is a royal priest, every believer is an ambassador, and therefore we are His representatives, we are the targets.

3. Since the Church is composed of numerous believers on earth at any given time in history the conflict has shifted gears and intensified, making each believer on this earth a target.

4. Therefore each believer in this dispensation, being the devil's target, also is fortified and strengthened. For each board in the building will remain in the building, it cannot be removed. For this reason special and unique divine provision is ours in this age of the Church.

a) Union with Christ or positional truth, relationship to God in the strategic victory of the cross.

b) The indwelling of Christ as long as we are growing.

c) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

None of these things ever occurred before the Church Age historically.

d) The completion of the canon of scripture.

e) The universal royal priesthood of the believer.

f) The universal ambassadorship of the believer.

g) A supernatural way of life with a supernatural tactical objective — the super-grace life.

5. Grace provision did not exist did not exist in the Old Testament dispensations. These things have been added to meet the needs and the pressures of the intensified angelic conflict.

6. Different epistles emphasise different aspects of this intensified conflict. Hebrews emphasises the priesthood; Ephesians emphasises the grace plan; James emphasises the experiential activity.

7. Twice in this chapter — verses 18-22— God the Holy Spirit is mentioned in relationship to the unique ministry of the Church.

8. The baptism of the Holy Spirit multiplies the targets of Satan and causes him to go on an all-out offensive to destroy the Church. This he has been trying for nearly 2000 years and has not succeeded.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #32

32 08/14/1973 Ephesians 3:1–2 Docs/dispensations, intercalation. Contrast of Church Age to Age of Israel

Chapter 3

The road to super-grace has four basic doctrines which are found in this passage. The first is the doctrine of the mystery which is given to us in the first six verses. Secondly, we have the doctrine of the ministry in verses 7-13. The third doctrine in this chapter is the doctrine of GAP in verses 14-18. The fourth is the doctrine of the super-grace life in verses 19-21. The subject of this chapter is "the road to super-grace," it is paved with four doctrines.

We must remember that the Church Age is an interruption of the Jewish dispensation, the Age of Israel. The Age of Israel has not been completed, it is interrupted. The interruption caused trauma in Israel.

a) Israel was a period of a specialised priesthood. By way of contrast the Church Age has a universal priesthood. The specialised priesthood was from a non-royal line but the universal priesthood under the Church is strictly a royal priesthood.

b) Then we have a contrast in the field of Christology. In the Age of Israel we have shadow Christology because the cross had not occurred, it was anticipated. There were many ways in which Christology was revealed — the tabernacle, all of the articles of furniture in the tabernacle, the structure of the tabernacle, the function of the Levitical priesthood, the actual uniform of the Levitical priesthood, the holy days, the Levitical offerings. All of these were shadows. Now, in the New Testament we have an historical Christology which is retrospective.

c) The unconditional covenants to Israel formed their positional truth. The position of the Jew was not union with Christ, that is the Church. The Jews, when they were born again, entered into the provision of the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New covenants, all of which were unconditional covenants. This made the unconditional covenants the position of the born again Jew (in the previous dispensation) the custodian of the Word and the missionary representing the Lord. In the Church Age the Church is the custodian of the Word and missionary representative.

d) In the previous dispensation there was no indwelling of the Holy Spirit and no indwelling of Christ. Instead of the indwelling of the Spirit they had the Spirit with them, i.e. enduement. Instead of the indwelling of Christ there was Christ coming in the angel of Jehovah. On the other hand, in the Church Age every believer is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit and every believer starts out by being indwelt by the person of Christ, and as long as he is on the road to super-grace he continues to be indwelt by Christ. You cannot lose the indwelling of the Spirit but reversionists lose the indwelling of Christ.

e) Spirituality in the Age of Israel was basically the faith-rest technique, whereas in this dispensation spirituality is God the Holy Spirit controlling the life. He indwells every believer but does not necessarily control every believer. The control is called the filling of the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, and so on.

These differences are enough to make us realise that we must be oriented time-wise. If we are going to continue on the road to super-grace we must understand what has transpired in the past in human history and what is going to occur in the future in human history, and where we are located in this picture of human history. This is called the doctrine of the mystery. The first six verses deal with this doctrine.

Verse 1 — begins with an idiom which is not understood at all — Toutou xarin. Xarin is the accusative singular of xarij, the noun for grace. Toutou is the genitive singular of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. Toutou means "of this"; xarin means grace as the object of some kind of a verb. It is in the accusative. In this particular idiom xarij doesn't even mean grace at all. All this is is an idiom which means "for this reason." The genitive singular of o(utoj, the accusative singular of xarij. O(utoj is used with reference to what precedes; xarij is used as a preposition, and the preposition follows this object in this idiom. It means "For this reason." This is an idiom to show that there is a relationship between the content at the last half of the second chapter and what is coming up. In other words, verses 18-22 of the previous chapter are definitely related and this is an advance on that subject. If you have mastered the contents of verse 18-22 you are now ready to make a further advance in doctrine. Why is it necessary to explain this? Because doctrine is built upon doctrine. Advanced doctrine cannot be understood until you understand basic doctrine.

Because the Church is an interruption dispensation we now have an interrupting doctrine before prayer. This is what the idiom brings up. We took up in verses 19 through 22 especially the fact that the Age of Israel was putting along and then it was interrupted ten days after Jesus Christ ascended. All of a sudden the dispensation of Israel comes to a crashing halt. On the other side the Church Age picked up and went right on.

Now Paul is about to pray. Paul was about to start the greatest of all apostolic prayers of which there are three, one in Colossians and two in Ephesians. Just as he is about to start he is going to interrupt himself with doctrine and that doctrine is going to take 13 verses, and it is going to cover the doctrine of the mystery and the doctrine of the ministry, both of which must be explained before he can offer his prayer for GAP and super-grace. He can't offer a prayer for these until they understand that there are two ways that you get there. There must be doctrine and there must be a communicator of doctrine. Because Israel is an interrupted dispensation we now have with it an interrupted prayer. And what Paul does in his genius is that he shows the interrupted dispensation by interrupting his prayer, and when he starts his prayer he will also tell the purpose of this dispensation. Paul is about the begin a prayer for the Church but he interrupts it for two doctrines which teach the interruption. So he says "For this reason," and he will repeat this idiom in verse 14 when he begins his prayer. He started to bow his knees at this point but he can't, something must be taught first.

"I Paul" — e)gw Pauloj. E)gw is simply the first person singular pronoun but it is also something else, it represents the self-consciousness of the soul. E)gw is not ego in the sense of pride. Pride is a sin; ego is self-consciousness. Ego can have confidence, poise, it can know where the individual is going and be oriented to life, and give the impression of pride without having one ounce of pride. Application: Don't judge people who have confidence, don't judge people who are dogmatic, don't judge believers with good posture, who looked scrubbed and clean, etc. as proud. If you do you only intensify your own discipline as well as add to your own confusion. Pride has nothing to do with confidence, dogmatism, good posture.

And from this comes a divine viewpoint concept, a very simple one: Paul is not a complainer because he has enough doctrine to know that complaining is useless. If ever a person could say E)gw Pauloj and then go right into how terrible things were, he was the prisoner of Nero, etc., it was Paul. But he doesn't say that. He says "I Paul, the prisoner."

"the prisoner" — desmioj which refers to Paul's status in Rome. He is under house arrest awaiting trial.

"of Jesus Christ" — tou Xristou I)hsou. All of these genitives are genitives of relationship, genitive of possession. Both are true here. Paul is related to Christ through positional truth, therefore he possesses the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has believed in Christ and Christ is now his royal high priest, therefore he has a relationship with Christ. This is an expression of his relationship with Christ which he is able to do only because he is in super-grace. No man can express his relationship to Christ unless he is in super-grace. So the principle is that you can lead people to super-grace if you haven't been there yourself. You can't lead people where you haven't been when it comes to spiritual leadership.

"for you Gentiles" — u(per plus the ablative of e)qnoj, "on behalf of you the Gentiles," literally.

Translation: "For this reason I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you the Gentiles."

In verse 1 we meet the human writer, we meet the communicator of doctrine, we meet the man with authority, we meet the one who is already there; he is in super-grace as he writes. And he tells us something else. In the trauma of the interrupted dispensation there is a need not only to square away Israel with regard to the change in dispensation but to read the Gentiles into the picture, to explain to them the plan. Therefore the greatest Jew who ever lived is a minister to the Gentiles. Because he is a minister to the Gentiles and because he must explain the dramatic interruption of the dispensation of Israel, he at the same time brings in a dramatic interruption to his own prayer.

Note that the prayer which should have been begun in verse 1 is postponed to verse 14 where we again have totou xarin. Principle: Only doctrine can postpone a prayer in order to make that prayer more effective. Second principle: The effectiveness of prayer is based upon doctrine residing in the soul. While Paul is ready to pray those to whom he addresses this epistle are not ready to hear his prayer. He is going to write down his prayer, but why write it down if they are not ready for it? There is no sense in seeing his prayer until they can understand it. So the prayer is interrupted just as the dispensation of Israel is interrupted. The prayer will begin in verse 14 and the prayer is a prayer for believers throughout the Church Age to move down the road to super-grace. In the meantime two doctrines explain the interruption.

Verse 2 — we meet the new dispensation head on. "If" is a conditional particle e)i used as a conjunction to introduce a first class condition, plus the indicative plus the verb, first class condition. Paul assumes that they have heard before. He assumes correctly because he has taught in Ephesus and in many of the local churches in the Roman province of Asia. They have heard dispensational teaching. The verb is the aorist active indicative of a)kouw — "If you have heard." The indicative also helps us to identify the first class condition. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the teaching of the dispensation of grace, the Church Age, to these believers and it gathers it up into a single entirety. In other words, he assumes that they have heard, heard, heard, and heard; they have GAPed it in the field of dispensations and the assumption is correct, first class condition. The active voice: the royal priests of the Roman province of Asia to which this letter was directed produce the action of the verb by the function of GAP. But by the function of GAP first of all they have heard this because they came to a classroom, the e)kklhsia. It is a classroom to worship God. Worshipping God comes through learning Bible doctrine. The intake of the Word of God is the ultimate in worship. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. It is used for the first class condition.

"of the dispensation" — the accusative singular from o)ikonomia which means "management, administration." It means the arrangement of a plan, stewardship in the sense of administration. The word was first used in the Attic Greek by Plato and Xenephon where it indicated providing for an army or administering for an organisation. So the word "dispensation" means administration.

"of the grace of God" — "of the grace" is the descriptive genitive singular of the noun xarij; plus the possessive genitive of qeoj, plus the definite article, which means God owns the dispensations.

"which is given" — aorist passive participle of didomi, plus the definite article: "having been given me to you-ward" — the aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results. In other words, as a result of learning these things himself Paul is now in the process of communicating them under his spiritual gift of apostleship. The event in its entirety is the dispensation being communicated to Paul. Then Paul as a result teaches it to others. (Don't teach what you don't know) Paul is teaching what he knows, it has been given to him. The culminative aorist indicates the result. He learned it, now he teaches. This is the story of the life of any pastor. The passive voice: Paul receives the action of the verb which is the divine communication of dispensational doctrine from God to Paul. The participle has antecedent action to the main verb. The main verb: "ye have heard." In other words, they didn't hear it until Paul learned it and taught it. Paul could not teach what he did not know.

"me" is a dative singular from e)gw. It is the dative of indirect object which indicates the one in whose interest the communication of doctrine is. It is also a dative of advantage.

"to you-ward" — the preposition e)ij plus the accusative plural of the personal pronoun su.

Translation: "If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of the God having been given to me for you."

Notice God's way. God doesn't give it directly to you. In every dispensation God has chosen to use the same system, to use intermediaries as communicators. That's grace and God's sense of humour.

The doctrine of dispensations

1. Definition.

a) A dispensation is a period of human history expressed in terms of divine revelation.

b) Therefore dispensations are the divine outline of human history as well as divine categories of human history.

c) At the same time the dispensations become the divine interpretation of history. Therefore God's plan for man is related to time.

d) The believer's orientation to time and history is vitally necessary for understanding God's plan and reaching the objective of the super-grace life.

e) In every dispensation God administers His plan through specific agencies or stewards. For example, in the Age of the Gentiles the progeny of Seth; in the Jewish Age, the patriarchs and under the nation the prophets; in the Church Age, first the apostles in the pre-Canon period, then the pastor-teachers in the post-Canon period.

f) While salvation is always the same in each dispensation (faith in Christ), the tactical objective of reaching the super-grace life is also the same. Each dispensation, however defines the function and the ministry of the believer in terms of divine revelation pertinent to that period of history.

2. The vocabulary of dispensations: Xronoj, kairoj, and a)ion.

a) Xronoj is sometimes used for dispensations, it means time as a succession of events, one following the other. This is where we get our English word "chronology." It is used to portray the chronological history of Israel in their administration.

b) Kairoj connotes time as an epoch or an era and it emphasises the character of the time which follows one event after another in chronological order. Kairoj categorises the chronological events.

Both of these words are used together for dispensations in 1Thessalonians 5:1 where we have the translation "times and seasons."

c) A)ion refers to a dispensation as an age or a period of time. It basically means "age." Therefore, a)ion is usually used in the sense of a divine category of human history and it is often and correctly translated "age." Ephesians 3:2; Colossians 1:25 are illustrations.

d) O)ikonomia refers to the management or the administration of an estate or business. It also connotes policy administration which is a part of God's function in this area.

3. The Age of the Gentiles.

a) Scripture: Genesis chapters 1-11.

b) Outline:

i) The period of positive volition which is known theologically as innocence.

ii) The period of negative volition, the period of the fall and conscience.

iii) The period of divine establishment, the beginning of human government.

c) The general characteristics of this age are seven: One language, one race (Gentiles only), a special angelic attack upon establishment (free will: Genesis 3; marriage and the family: Genesis 6; nationalism: Genesis 11:1-9)

d) The scope of this dispensation is from creation to the tower of Babel, the first united nations building. God expresses His attitude toward it by destroying that building.

e) During this dispensation there was no written canon of scripture. God communicated His doctrine in other ways.

f) There was no specific missionary agency.

g) Salvation was by faith in Jesus Christ as He was revealed in that dispensation.

4. The Age of the Jews (Israel).

a) Scripture: Most of the Old Testament minus the Millennial passages, and the Gospels minus John chapters 13-17.

b) Outline: The period of the patriarchs, the period of the new race from Abraham to Moses; the period of the nation from Moses to Christ; the period of the Tribulation.

c) Characteristics: i) There are many languages; ii) Many races; iii) The development of Israel from a race to a nation; Israel becomes the custodian of the written Canon as well as the missionary agency representing God.

d) Security for Israel was given through the unconditional covenants — the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New covenants to Israel which acted as both spiritual and eternal security.

e) National security, prosperity, and blessing came through the establishment teaching of the Mosaic law.

f) National discipline was given to this nation under five cycles — Leviticus 26.

g) Salvation was by faith in Jesus Christ.

h) Spirituality was the faith-rest technique. This is demonstrated in the New Testament in Hebrews 11 & Romans 4:17-21.

5. The doctrine of intercalation: The Church Age.

a) Intercalation means basically "insertion." The Jewish dispensation was interrupted by the strategical victory of Christ. Intercalation is the insertion of doctrine not previously known so that people can orient in this age — the Church Age. Whatever there was for this age we had to know about it, so we have the epistles of the New Testament as the concept of intercalation.

b) A new dispensation was brought about: the Church Age.

c) Intercalation or the insertion of information goes with the dispensation. Intercalation is the intensified stage of the angelic conflict.

d) Intercalation is expressed in another way: mystery. The Church Age is a mystery in the Greek sense of the word musthrion. It was something hidden in the past but known to others. The Church Age is a mystery not known to the Old Testament writers.

e) Doctrines pertaining to the Church Age were not found in the Old Testament. Where Church Age information would have occurred the Old Testament simply skipped over it. The Old Testament would talk about the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and then it would stop, it would move over to the Tribulation and talk about the second advent and the Millennium. But it would never talk about anything between the ascension of Christ and the beginning of the Tribulation. So now we must have intercalation, the insertion of doctrine were before there was a complete blank.

f) Doctrine pertinent to the Church Age is therefore intercalated, inserted, by the New Testament epistles.

g) We have a large number of the great parenthesis passages. The great parenthesis occurs between Daniel 2:40 and 41; between 7:23 and 24; between 8:22 and 23; between 11:35 and 36; between Hosea 3:4 and 5; between 5:15 and 6:1; between Psalm 22:22 and 23; between Isaiah 61:2a and 2b.

6. The Church Age.

a) The scripture: John chapters 14-17 and the New Testament epistles.

b) The outline: Broken down into two parts, the pre-Canon period which is the book of Acts and the post-Canon period which is the New Testament epistles.

Characteristics:

a) The baptism of the Holy Spirit produced union with Jesus Christ and/or positional sanctification.

b) The universal royal priesthood of all believers.

c) The universal indwelling of Christ — but you can lose the indwelling of Christ by reversionism and regain it by repentance in the area of reversionism, which is what Revelation 3:20 is all about. Christ is on the outside in reversionism and is knocking on the door. He comes back in when the believer repents and recovers.

d) The universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit which never occurred before.

e) The completed Canon of scripture. All divine revelation is now reduced to writing, there is no extra-biblical revelation such as dreams, trances, visions, voices, and so on.

f) Every believers is in full time Christian service; every believer is an ambassador representing the Lord Jesus Christ on earth in the devil's world.

g) The intensification of the devil's world in the angelic conflict is a characteristic of this dispensation.

h) Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ.

i) All believers are commanded to GAP it to super-grace as the means of glorifying God.

7. The Age of Christ.

Scripture: Isaiah 11, 35,62,65; Psalm 72; Revelation 20.

Outline: The second advent of Christ, Armageddon where Jesus Christ breaks His record in killing the enemy, the baptism of fire, 1000 years of perfect environment, the second advent of Satan and the Gog revolution, the destruction of the universe and the great white throne or final judgement.

Characteristics:

a) We have perfect environment because Satan is bound. Demons are removed from the earth. There is no religion in Christ's kingdom. Revelation 20:1-3. However, in this perfect environment people are still saved the same way by faith in Christ and the objective is still to go to super-grace in this dispensation — super-grace giving the capacity to enjoy the environment as well as the blessings.

b) Optimum spirituality will exist among believers during that dispensation — Isaiah 65:24; Joel 2>28,29; Zechariah 14:16,17.

c) Israel will be restored as a nation — Isaiah 5:26-30; 10:19-23; 11:11-16; 65:19; Joel 2:16ff; Zechariah 8:20-23; 10:6-12.

d) There will the fulfillment of the unconditional covenants to Israel — Daniel 9:24.

e) The nations of the earth enjoy perfect environment under the reign of Christ. This includes: For the first time in history there will be universal peace — Psalm 46:9; Isaiah 2:4; Hosea 2:18; Micah 4:3. There will be universal prosperity — Psalm 72:7,16. There will be a perfect world government under Christ — Isaiah 11:1,2; Zechariah 14:9. There will be a universal knowledge of God — Isaiah 11:9. There will be perfect environment which is reflected in longevity. People will live a thousand years easily — Isaiah 65:20.

f) There will be perfect objectivity in the administration of justice. Therefore there will be no crime — Isaiah 11:3-5; Psalm 72:12-14.

g) Perfect environment will exist in nature. This means creation will be released from the bondage of sin — Romans 8:19-22. Plant life will abound — Isaiah 35:1,2,7. Animals will lose their ferocity — Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:25.

h) The human population in the Millennium. The baptism of fire removes all unbelievers from the earth so the population begins with believers only — Ezekiel 20:34-38; Matthew 25:31-46. As the Millennium continues with perfect environment and there will be a population explosion. This will result in a population of believers and unbelievers, and the unbelievers will be involved in the Gog revolution at the end of the Millennium.

i) The Gog revolution terminates the Millennium — Revelation 20:7-10. It starts with the second advent of Satan and terminates with the great white throne judgement. The Gog revolution indicates once again that perfect environment is not the solution to man's problems.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #33

33 08/15/1973 Ephesians 3:3–4 Doctrines of dispensations, the mystery

Verse 3 — "How that" is simply the conjunction o(ti used to denote a system of perception transferred from God the Holy Spirit to the apostle Paul. As usual, o(ti is translated "that." I(na is translated "in order that" because it introduces a final clause. Here o(ti is translated not "How that" but "that," and i(na introduces with the subjunctive a final clause, the final clause denotes a purpose, an aim, or an objective and therefore should be translated "In order that." In this way you can actually tell in the English what is going on in the Greek.

"by revelation" is the preposition kata plus the accusative of a)pokaluyij which actually means here "disclosure." "Revelation" is all right if you understand that revelation means enlightenment from God to man. Kata plus the accusative can also mean "from," and that is what it means here — "that from disclosure." That is, divine disclosure.

"he made known" should be "it was made known" — the aorist passive indicative of gnwrizw which means to make known or to be revealed. Paul is about to tell how he got clued in on this dispensation so that he could reveal the doctrine of the mystery to us so that we will have the first increment on the road to super-grace well firmed up in the soul. "That from divine disclosure it [the doctrine of the mystery] was revealed to me." The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of God's revealing of mystery doctrine — doctrine which is peculiar to the Church Age only — in its entirety. The passive voice: Paul receives the disclosure of doctrine from God the Holy Spirit. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.

"unto me" — the dative singular of e)gw, and in three verses we have e)gw three times. This is a dative of advantage, it is to Paul's advantage to have this information so that from the area of the self-consciousness of the soul he can actually communicate these things.

"the mystery" — the nominative singular of murthrion. This is the subject of gnwrizw. The verse thus far should read, "That from divine disclosure the mystery was revealed to me."

The doctrine of the mystery

1. The Greek word musthrion is derived from an Attic noun (the Classical Greek of the age of Pericles) musthj. This is a person who has been initiated into a fraternity in the ancient world. These fraternities had doctrines and policies, and these policies are called doctrines or mysteries. Once a person had memorised these things and has passed all the tests he is then a musthj, a member of the fraternity. It is also derived from a verb in the Classical Greek, muew, which means to initiate, to instruct in the doctrines of the fraternity. Therefore the doctrines of the fraternity were only instructed to those who were in. The people on the outside never knew what was taught, the doctrines of the fraternity were kept secret and they were called musthrion — hidden from the outside but known to the members of the fraternity. Jesus used this meaning with the disciples in Matthew 13:11 and Mark 4:10,11. The word "mystery" in the Bible is simply a series of doctrines hidden from the Old Testament.

2. In the epistles of the New Testament the word "mystery" refers to Church Age doctrine, either all of it or some specific part of it — Ephesians 3:2-6.

3. Mystery doctrine of the Church Age was not revealed to the Old Testament prophets — Romans 16:25,26; Colossians 1:26,27.

4. Part of the mystery doctrine includes the blindness or hardness of Israel during the Church Age. It also includes part of the 5th cycle of discipline to Israel — Romans 11:25.

5. The mystery as Church Age doctrine was a part of the divine decrees in eternity past — 1Corinthians 2:7.

6. The pastor or minister is responsible for communicating Church Age doctrine as his stewardship of the mysteries — 1Corinthians 4:1. That means that he must be able to teach everything from the baptism of the Spirit, to positional truth, to every detail of the road to super-grace, what the super-grace life is all about, all about the Rapture of the Church and how it isn't in the Tribulation, what happens after the Rapture and what time the Church becomes the body of Christ and the bride of Christ at another time, and what the analogy is all about.

7. The Rapture of the Church is part of the mystery doctrine — 1Corinthians 15:51.

8. The mystery doctrine is always related to the dispensation of the Church — Ephesians 1:9; 3:2.

9. Mystery doctrine is understood through the function of GAP — Colossians 2:2; 1Timothy 3:9.

"as" usually used as an adverb of comparison, kaqwj, but here it is a causal conjunction. "insofar as" is a better translation.

"I wrote afore in few words" — should be "I have previously written in brief." The aorist active indicative of prografw [grafw = to write; pro = before] which means to write before. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist used for a result which has just been accomplished or is on the point of being accomplished, that is, the clarification of the doctrine of the mystery. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb by teaching what he has learned about the doctrine of the mystery. And again, you can't teach what you don't know. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative which represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. Since the epistle is addressed to the Roman province of Asia it indicates that Paul has been teaching this before in Colossians 1:25,26. Colossians, therefore, had to be written before Ephesians; "in few words" is e)n plus the locative of o)ligoj, an idiom for "in brief."

Translation: "That from divine disclosure the mystery was revealed to me; (just as I have previously written in brief."

Verse 4 — the knowledge of the mystery. "Whereby" — the prepositional phrase proj plus the accusative singular of o(j, which means "Face to face with which." The relative pronoun o(j refers to the doctrine of the mystery. The issue is: you cannot reach super-grace without understanding the main principles in the doctrine of the mystery. The main principles begin with the baptism of the Spirit and they go all the way to doctrines we will see in this chapter and in the remainder of the epistle.

"when ye read" — the present active participle of a)naginwskw which doesn't mean to read. It was used in the Classical Greek for public reading or speaking — reading aloud, in other words. Actually, the word means to gather exact knowledge of some passage and then teach it. So we will simply use the technical word "exegesis." The present tense is a customary present used to denote that which is expected to occur. When this epistle is read and studied by pastor-teachers it is exegeted and communicated. The active voice: the epistle will be studied by many pastors throughout history. The participle is a temporal participle used in the sense of a temporal clause. Since a)naginwskw means to exegete the verb here connotes analysis and teaching. The phrase says literally, "Face to face with which [doctrine of the mystery] when you study and teach."

"ye may understand" — two verbs here: "you may" is the present active indicative of dunamai which means "you may be able." The present tense is a tendencial present used for an action which is purposed or attempted but not actually taking place at the moment. The active voice: the local pastors of congregations in the Roman province of Asia will have the ability to GAP this chapter and to communicate it to their congregations. People get the idea that the letter was read to the entire congregation. Not at all. The pastor reads it and studies it and explains it. The indicative mood is a potential indicative, it is associated with three ideas: the idea of contingency in the areas of obligation, impulse, and condition. Here we have a potential indicative expressing obligation. In the future, pastors of local churches will have the obligation of communicating this, therefore this is translated, "you ought to be able." The second verb, "understand," is in the infinitive form, the aorist active infinitive of noew. Generally the word means to think, sometimes it means to imagine. Here it means to think. It actually means here thinking in the sense of concentration, to concentrate or direct one's mind to a subject. In this case the subject is the doctrine of the mystery and the verb comes to mean to perceive, to understand through concentration. The doctrine of the mystery and its importance is understood through concentration. The aorist tense is an ingressive aorist used to contemplate the action of the verb from the standpoint of its beginning. The active voice: when the pastor-teacher communicates this the congregation will understand it. The infinitive denotes a purpose.

"my knowledge" — the accusative singular from sunesij which means categorical knowledge. It means to understand technical information in its categories.

"in the mystery" — e)n plus the locative of musthrion, "in the sphere of the mystery."

"of Christ" — the genitive singular of Xristoj plus the definite article which is translated "of the Christ." This is a possessive genitive which denotes ownership. The mystery doctrine is owned by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is what this dispensation is all about. His strategic victory caused this dispensation to dramatically interrupt the Age of Israel. So Jesus Christ owns Church Age doctrine.

Translation: "Face to face with which [doctrine of the mystery] when you exegete you ought to be able to begin to understand my categorical knowledge in the sphere of the mystery of the Christ)."

Principle: You cannot teach what you do not understand.

Principle: Paul had the doctrine of the mystery in his frame of reference, in his memory centre; it was a part of his own vocabulary, he had completely categorised it in his right lobe before he attempted to communicate any part of it. In other words, he had a complete saturation.

Now it becomes a case of face to face teaching, necessary for this doctrine to be communicated to the royal priesthood.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #34

34 08/16/1973 Ephesians 3:5 Doctrines of apostleship, inspiration

Verse 5 — the doctrine of the mystery. "Which" is the nominative neuter singular of the relative pronoun o(j which has as its antecedent the doctrine of the mystery.

"in other ages" — the locative plural of the adjective e(teroj means other of a different kind. This adjective indicates that the Church Age is a dramatic and very traumatic interruption of the Age of Israel. The Age of the Gentiles came to a close with the destruction of the first United Nations building. Internationalism is a part of the Satanic conspiracy in this stage of the angelic conflict, as well as in every dispensation. With the destruction of the first UN building (Babel) we have the beginning of the Age of Israel, starting with the age of the patriarchs (from Abraham to Moses), the period in which the race is developed. Then we have the race becoming a nation in the period of the law. This was interrupted by the tactical victory of the Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross and bearing our sins, resurrection and ascension and session. Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father waiting for the second stage of the strategic victory which is operation footstool. In the meantime, ten days after the ascension and session of Christ, the Church Age interrupts the Age of Israel. The Church Age will be complete before the Age of Israel is completed. The Church Age takes precedence over Israel, it is the age of the intensification of the angelic conflict. Christ was always the target from the seed of the woman passage in Genesis 3:15 until His ascension. Once He is ascended the target now moves to every member of the royal priesthood. Therefore the Church Age is an intensification of the angelic conflict and the special type of super-grace life which is provided by God in the divine decrees is every important. The word "ages" indicates that there were at least two dispensations before the Church Age.

"was not made known" — the aorist passive indicative of gnwrizw, which in the passive voice actually means to be revealed. "Was not revealed" is the correct translation. The strong negative o)uk here indicates that there was no leak anywhere. The aorist tense here is a constative aorist, it takes the revelation of the doctrine of the mystery and gathers it up into a single entirety. The passive voice plus the negative o)uk indicates there was no revelation prior to the Church Age. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative which represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is an unqualified assertion of fact, no doctrine of the Church Age was ever revealed before apostolic times.

"unto the sons of men" — the dative plural of u(ioj is a dative of reference and takes the interest concept out of the dative and reduces it to a mere idea of reference. There is no concept here of advantage. With it is a descriptive genitive, a)nqrwpoj, which refers to believers in the human race. "Uioj indicates positional truth. So those members of the human race who have accepted Jesus Christ as saviour in the Church Age receive immediately 36 things. In one of them they are entered into union with Christ and never get out. Here the sons of men simply indicates that now in the human race there is a category of individuals who can understand these doctrines. "Men" is strictly the human race, but u(ioj in the human race indicates those who have personally believed in Jesus Christ as saviour with emphasis on positional sanctification. "[The doctrine of the mystery] which in other periods of time [dispensations] was not revealed to the sons of men."

The negative o)uk becomes very important at this point because we have the word "as." In the Greek this is generally a comparative particle. The comparative particle is o(j. It also has some special uses, as here. It is used, for example, as a conjunction denoting comparison. It is used to introduce the character, the quality or the aspect of an action, a thing, or a person. It is used of an actual quality or a quality which exists in someone's imagination, or sometimes even for a quality wrongly claimed. It is used of a temporal conjunction, "when," but it is also used as a final particle denoting some kind of a purpose, and here we have exactly that concept — "so that now" rather than "as it is now." God has a purpose, as it were, in keeping Church Age doctrine under wraps. There are many purposes actually but the one which is important to us is the fact that something neither Moses nor any of the great prophets, like Isaiah or Jeremiah, ever even had a clue existed now is known to every member of the royal priesthood.

"it is now revealed" should be "it has been revealed" — the aorist passive indicative of a)pokaluptw. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, employed to regard the action of the verb in its entirety but emphasise the existing results. Here is the constant revelation of the doctrine of the mystery to Paul, that is the constative aorist. As a result of that he has learned it and it is a culminative aorist. The passive voice: the doctrine of the mystery or Church Age doctrine is now received revelation to the Church through first the apostles and then pastor-teachers. The indicative mood is a declarative indicative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality and certainty. It is unqualified assertion of a fact.

"unto his holy apostles" — this is for the writing, for the purpose of getting it recorded in the canon of scripture. Now it is the job of the pastor-teacher to dig this out and teach it. But at this point we are talking about the apostles. This is a dative plural toij a(gioij a)postoloij which is a dative of indirect object. The dative of indirect object indicates the one in whose interest the revelation of the mystery doctrine is performed. First of all it is in the interest of the apostles. Then it is recorded in the Word of God as we now see it, under the doctrine of inspiration. Once the canon of scripture is completed it becomes a matter of the gift of pastor-teacher studying and teaching it. The word "and" is the ascensive use of kai and it is incorrectly translated in the King James version. The ascensive use of kai should be translated "even." The reason we know this is ascensive is that we have one article for both nouns. It indicates here that the word "apostles" and the word "apostles" here are synonymous. In other words, "prophets" is in apposition to "apostles." Why is it important? Prophets aren't usually emphasised in the Church Age but prophets are emphasised in the formation of the Old Testament canon. All those who wrote the Old Testament canon were called prophets and it must be understood that in the formation of the New Testament the writers had a special gift called apostle. Therefore, to show that we are talking here not just about any apostles but the apostles who wrote the New Testament we have the ascensive use of kai and link it with the Old Testament gift, and therefore it should be translated "the holy apostles, even prophets."

"by the Spirit" — e)n plus the instrumental of pneuma. This refers to God the Holy Spirit.

Translation: "Which in other periods of time [dispensations] was not revealed to the sons of men, so that now it has been revealed to his holy apostles [the doctrine of mystery must be entered into the canon of scripture before pastors can teach it] by means of the Spirit."

The doctrine of apostleship

1. Apostleship is the highest spiritual gift sovereignly bestowed by the Holy Spirit to recipients of salvation or those who were already saved at the beginning of the Church Age — 1Corinthians 12:11,28; Ephesians 4:11. This gift stopped in 96 AD but while it lasted the apostle was the only communicator of doctrine, either by writing or verbally, who had control of more than one local church. A pastor-teacher does not have authority over all the churches. The idea today of archbishops, bishops, and other types of people controlling a lot of churches is strictly erroneous. It is non-biblical and even blasphemous in the way it is carried out. It inevitably to destroying Bible doctrine or to the introduction of false doctrine. For example, there was a time when the pastor-teacher (250 years after the apostles were gone) in Ephesus, a lot of them in Jerusalem, and there was one in Rome who became very prominent. His name was Gregory and he decided he was going to be "poppa" over all the churches so he called himself "poppa." He would sit down in his chair and make some pronouncements. Some church out on the periphery would say it was not doctrinal, it doesn't line up with the Bible. But "poppa" would say, "When I sit down on my throne it is just like God speaking to you, so shape up!" And he either shaped up or he shaped out. This is the way abuses began. Inevitably, as soon as someone controls a group of churches he makes policy for a group of churches, and sooner or later he is going to get in trouble with his policy and it is going to get non-biblical. Then when someone calls it to his attention he establishes himself by putting them down and saying, "I speak excathedra." There is no such thing as a clergyman who speaks excathedra for God. God has spoken to us in this dispensation through His Word, and the highest authority left today is a pastor-teacher and he has the absolute authority over one local church only. A pastor-teacher who gets off-base with regard to doctrine can be removed from that congregation and the heresy doesn't spread all over the world. So denominations are abominations!

2. Apostleship is a temporary gift. A temporary gift is designed to carry the church until the canon of scripture was completed. There were a lot of temporary gifts, some were cut off earlier than others. The least of all temporary gifts was the gift of tongues and it was the first one to be cut off. It was only designed to warn Israel of the coming of the fifth cycle of discipline. The Jews were evangelised in Gentile languages, that was the gift of tongues. In August of 70 AD Jerusalem fell and no one ever spoke in tongues again. There were other gifts but the last one to go was apostleship. This was apostleship was necessary to complete the canon of scripture.

3. The time of appointment. The apostles were not appointed until after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the completion of His strategic victory — Ephesians 4:8,11. Therefore the apostles must be distinguished from another group of peoples called apostles, the apostles to Israel — Matthew 10:2-4. The problem is that in the Age of Israel, at the end of the age before the Church, Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry appointed apostles to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It just so happens that 11 of them also became apostles to the Church.

4. The extent of the gift. This spiritual gift exercised authority over all local churches until the canon was completed. Then the gift was removed. Today, all local churches should be autonomous with authority vested in the canon and the local pastor-teacher.

5. Qualification for the apostles. The apostles had to be eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Christ. This qualified the eleven, and Paul was also qualified by seeing Christ on the Damascus road — Acts 1:22; 1Corinthians 9:1; 1Corinthians 15:8,9.

6. The authority of apostleship was established by possession of certain additional temporary gifts. There were three gifts which were used to establish the authority of an apostle before he was well known. They were the gifts of miracles, healing, and tongues — Acts 5:15; 19:16-18; 28:8,9. Once the authority was established the gift was removed.

7. The roster of apostles was 12, the eleven minus Judas Iscariot. Matthias was elected but not an apostle. Paul was the twelfth apostle to replace Judas Iscariot — 1Corinthians 15:7-10.

8. Others were given delegated authority and therefore occasionally had apostolic authority without having the gift. For example, Barnabas — Acts 14:14; Galatians 2;9. James, the Lord's half brother — 1Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19. James was not an apostle but he was given the authority of an apostle to write the book of James. Apollos — 1Corinthians 4:6,9. Sylvanus and Timothy — 2Thessalonians 1:1; 2:6. Actually, there were only twelve apostles to the Church just as there were twelve apostles to Israel. Mark was not an apostle, he was writing for Peter. Mark's Gospel is the gospel as Peter saw it. He had the temporary authority of an apostle. The same was true of James and Jude, the half brothers of Jesus Christ. They carried the authority of an apostle in writing the book of James and the book of Jude.

The job of the apostles in the Old Testament was carried on by the apostles in the New testament. Since the prophets who wrote the Old Testament were called prophets when we get to the apostles who wrote the New Testament they are called apostles and prophets to indicate their relationship and to indicate that the Old Testament is not the completion of the canon of scripture, but the New Testament is.

The doctrine of inspiration

1. The principle of inspiration is found in a Greek noun, qeopneutoj. It means "God-breathed." 2Timothy 3:16 should be translated, "All scripture is God-breathed ..." Breathing involves two factors: inhale and exhale. The inhale is God the Holy Spirit communicating to human authors, like Paul and the other apostles, God's complete and coherent message under the doctrine of the mysteries. In the case of the Old Testament of the Holy Spirit communicated to the prophets His complete and coherent message, exactly what he wanted them to communicate. The passages that deal with the inhale concept, from the Holy Spirit to the human writers — 2Samuel 23:2,3; Isaiah 59:21; Jeremiah 1:9; Matthew 22:42,43; Mark 12:36; Acts 4:24,25; 28:25. The exhale: the human writers took the information, the doctrine, and they comunicated it in writing. They thought in a language, they wrote in that language. The human writers of scripture so wrote that without waiving their human intelligence, their vocabulary, their personality, their individuality, their personal feelings, God's complete message to man was permanently recorded in writing with perfect accuracy in the original languages of scripture.

2. The origin of scripture is not human viewpoint but God the Holy Spirit using human agency and human language — 2Peter 1:20,21.

3. Remember that the Bible as we have it is the mind of Christ. Therefore the Bible is an absolute criterion for believers. Psalm 138:2; 1Corinthians 2:16.

4. Consequently, the Bible as the mind of Christ existed in eternity past prior to its being reduced to writing — Proverbs chapter eight.

5. Pre-canon revelation from God occurred through the Holy Spirit. Before Moses there was no Bible, so God the Holy Spirit and God the Son communicated directly with people. For example, the Lord Jesus Christ communicated with Adam and the woman in the garden — Bible class every evening. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared in theophanies to communicate. Angels were used to communicate. 2Samuel 23:2; Ezekiel 2:2; 8:3; 11:1,24; Micah 3:8; Hebrews 3:7.

6. There are four categories of Old Testament revelation. a) The spoken word: "Thus saith the Lord." These we might classify as dictation directly from God; b) Dreams. God revealed Himself in dreams in Genesis 15:12; 31:10-13; Numbers 12:6; Daniel 10:9. However, it must be pointed out that once the canon is completed there are no more dreams for divine revelation; c) Visions — Isaiah 1:1; 6:1; 1 Kings 22:19; d) Angelic teaching — Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalm 68:17; Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19. Eventually there was also writing.

7. The extent of inspiration in the canon.

a) The unknown past. The Bible portrays past history and details unknown to man, unconfirmed by human records. E.g. the first eleven chapters of Genesis. God the Holy Spirit provided this information to Moses so that we have what God intends for us to have about early history.

b) Ancient history. The Bible is not an historical textbook but it does mention portions of history. So the Bible contains historical citations which are accurate and form the basis and the background for communication of certain doctrines. We call this principle in hermeneutics the principle of isagogics, the principle of interpreting scripture from its historical background.

c) Objective-type law. The Bible contains many laws for individual, social and national life. These laws perfectly express the essence of God. They contain His will for the people to whom they are given. Repetition of these laws and subsequent recording of them demonstrates application to other generations.

d) Dictation. Some portions of the scriptures contain direct quotation from God. Genesis 2:17. The doctrine of inspiration guarantees that such commands or quotations are recorded exactly as they were heard by the individual to whom they were recorded.

e) Devotional literature — like the Psalms, Song of Solomon. God uses the problems, the pressures, the prosperity, the failures, the successes of certain individuals to reveal principles of grace and His divine provision for life.

f) We have a lot of things that are false in the Bible: statements and things that are not true. Certain parts of Ecclesiastes are not true, they simply represent what Solomon was thinking in reversionism. But inspiration does not guarantee that something that is not true is true because it is found in the Bible, it simply guarantees that this is what he thought, this is the wrong thinking that he had, this is the lie that he spoke. Inspiration guarantees the accuracy of the lie, the accuracy of pseudo thinking.

g) Prophecy. Inspiration involves both the selection of prophetic materials and their complete accuracy. Some of these things in the Old Testament have been fulfilled, other will not be fulfilled until the Tribulation, second advent, or the Millennium.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #35

35 08/17/1973 Ephesians 3:6–7a Doctrines of positional truth, the ministry

Verse 6 — "That" is no conjunction. Generally the word "that" is used to translate i(na plus the subjunctive mood. However that is not the case here and occasionally the translators used "that" to indicate that they are taking an infinitive and transferring it into a purpose clause of a final clause. This is a legitimate function, however it is used primarily to smooth out the translation and doesn't always work out. Here it works out pretty well.

"the Gentiles" — the accusative plural from the noun e)qnoj. This accusative plural is the subject of the infinitive under the accusative of general reference. Under the accusative of general reference we actually have the accusative describing the persons connected with the action of the infinitive, but it is easier to say subject of the infinitive. Because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the resultant positional sanctification every Gentile believer in the Church Age is in union with Christ and coequal with all Jewish believers. The dramatic and traumatic interruption of the Jewish Age by the insertion of the Church Age came as a great shock to Israel. The shock finally dwindled down in the first 40 years of the Church Age to the fifth cycle of discipline to Israel. That knocked them out completely. Paul already, before that period begins, is the apostle to the Gentiles and what he points out to the Gentile believers of that day applies right now. Your life as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has meaning, purpose, and definition. You are not only a priest, you are a royal priest; your objective is to reach the super-grace life. You will know when you are there because of three characteristics. First of all, super-grace is characterised by occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. Secondly, super-grace is characterised by having super-grace capacity which is doctrine in the soul. Thirdly, God pours. God has your name in the paragraph of the super-grace blessing part of the divine decrees, and it is the objective of God to pour, He wants to pour, He is waiting to pour. And it is your objective to stay with Bible doctrine, to be consistent, to GAP it until you reach the super-grace life.

The Gentiles were hanging back in this thing because they felt that they still were suffering from the effects of the Jewish Age. The Gentiles immediately upon accepting Christ as saviour saw the validity of the Old Testament scriptures but it sort of gave them a little bit of a personal setback when they realised that Jews had all of these responsibilities for many centuries. Therefore they had a tendency to look at the Jewish believers as still possessing the monopolies of the previous dispensation. But that dispensation is over and now Jew and Gentile are one in Christ. Now Jew and Gentile are priests, and that means that every believer, whatever he does in this life, is in full time Christian service. His full time Christian service in his job, his business, his profession, his activities in life; and as a member of the royal priesthood it is God's objective to bless him in these activities and to utilise these activities for his promotion, his happiness, and for his success in life. Since this is the objective and since the only way to reach it is by the intake of Bible doctrine every believer must have a right pastor to communicate the doctrine of the mystery which is the doctrine pertaining to the Church Age.

"That the Gentiles." These Gentiles include yourself as members of the body of Christ and as members of a congregation. In the accusative of general reference they are connected with the infinitive, given next.

"should be" — present active indicative of the verb e)imi, the absolute status quo verb. In the present tense we have the static present which represents a condition perpetually existing in the Church, and as a matter of fact forever, with regard to believers of the royal priesthood. There is no question how the royal priesthood will live in phase three. We are going to have blessings that are beyond description but it is God's objective to give us those blessings now, we do not have to wait for eternity. The active voice: Gentile believers of the Church Age produce the action of the verb by moving toward super-grace. The infinitive is used for both purpose and a part of the accusative of general reference.

We now have the threefold description of Gentile believers in the Church Age. They have the same rights and privileges as Jewish believers and, as a matter of fact, God has provided for all believers super-grace blessings.

"fellowheirs" — the accusative plural from sunklhronomoj which means to have the same opportunity as anyone else who is in this particular group called the royal priesthood.

"and of the same body" — the word for "body" here, swma, is used to describe the church on earth during this dispensation. With it is the accusative plural of susswmoj [sus = the same]. The first Adam was provided by Jesus Christ with a right woman. At the same time Jesus Christ said, "Not good that Adam should be alone." The same principle applies to the last Adam, Jesus Christ. So God the Father provided for the last Adam, the Lord Jesus, a body, a right woman. The Church is the right woman. Who is this last Adam? First of all by physical birth He is the son of David, the royal line of Israel. Secondly He is promised by God in the divine decrees that He will reign forever, the Millennium being only the first 1000 years. Thirdly, if He is, as it were, single and does not have a right woman, whoever becomes His right woman becomes royalty. And so we are the body of Christ and therefore we are royalty. We will reign with Him forever as royalty, but we are royalty by grace and royalty by grace demands the accouterments of royalty. These are found in the super-grace life. So we have "of the same body," this is an advance on the doctrine of royalty. We are fellowheirs, which means we are heirs of royalty, but we are of the same body, we are members of the royal family.

"and partakers of his promise in Christ" — the word "partakers" is a little misleading. It is the word summetoxoj which really means joint possessors. This means every one of us has a joint account with God. This means that we can draw on Him for anything and everything, and also it means He has unlimited resources. The joint account of His promise means that we as believers should have in time happiness, God's happiness, blessings, prosperity, success, promotion. This is the normal Christian life, whatever you are doing in life. The word e)paggelia means promise of blessing.

"in Christ" — this is where we entered into the royal family, e)n plus the locative of Xristoj. This refers to positional truth, union with the Lord Jesus Christ. The word "Jesus" is added in the Greek.

"by the gospel" is how we entered into the royal family. Good news started it, there is good news afterwards. The good news is that once we have accepted Jesus Christ as saviour the next objective is the super-grace life. This is dia plus the genitive of e)uaggelion and should be translated "through the gospel."

Translation: "That the Gentiles are joint heirs, and fellow members of the body, and joint possessors of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel."

Summary

1. Not only is the gospel the information by which every believer enters the plan of God but in this Church dispensation it is the means of providing equal spiritual privileges for both Jews and Gentiles who are believers. This was never true in the Old Testament.

2. The content of the gospel is the same in every dispensation, but response to it in different dispensations results in different modus operandi and different privilege. Certainly the Jews in the Old Testament had the greatest of spiritual privileges but there is a setup even greater than that. In this dispensation we have something that the average Jewish believer did not have. We have royalty, we are members of the royal family. We have the same objective. For every Jewish believer there was the objective of reaching super-grace. Again, we have that same objective right now. The privileges now are greater than they have ever been but, of course, the battle is greater, we live in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict.

3. This means that in previous dispensations when anyone believed in Christ he did not have the baptism of the Spirit which immediately enters him into union with Christ. He had spiritual privileges but the spiritual privileges of this dispensation are absolutely unique.

4. Furthermore, in the dispensation of Israel Jewish believers had privileges and responsibilities that contemporary Gentile believers did not have. That was the Age of Israel, the age of spiritual monopoly of Israel. This no longer exists.

One more thing should be noted. All of this royalty starts with positional truth — "in Christ Jesus."

The doctrine of positional truth

1. Positional truth starts with the baptism of the Spirit, one of five things that God the Holy Spirit does for every believer in this dispensation only. We have spiritual privilege in this dispensation which is different from any other. The five things are:

a) Regeneration — John 3:1-16; Titus 3:5. However, God the Holy Spirit did this for all of the Old Testament saints from the time of Adam and Eve. At the point that any person believes God the Holy Spirit regenerates them. He is the agent of regeneration. So this first one is not unique, it is something the Holy Spirit has always done at any time in any dispensation when a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

b) The sealing of the Holy Spirit — 2Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30. This is unique. The purpose of the sealing of the Holy Spirit is to guarantee your royalty forever. You are royalty forever, regardless of how you live. This is the security of the royal priesthood.

c) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit — John 7:37-39; Romans 8:9; 1Corinthians 3:16; 6:19,20; Galatians 3:2; 4:6. This is God the Holy Spirit making your body His temple. This guarantees that you are going to remain royalty in time; you are protected by the indwelling of the Spirit.

d) The baptism of the Spirit is how we enter the royal family — 1Corinthians 12:13. We enter the family of God by being born again but we enter as a royal family by the baptism of the Spirit.

e) He provides a spiritual gift for every believer. He never did this before, He does it for every one of us because we are members of the royal family. Not only are we members of the royal family, royal priests, but God the Holy Spirit gave us at the point of salvation a spiritual gift — 1Corinthians 12:11.

2. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the mechanics of positional sanctification — Acts 1:5; 1Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 4:5.

3. Positional truth belongs to the carnal as well as the spiritual believer, it belongs to the reversionist as well as the super-grace believer. In other words, positional truth belongs to every believer — 1Corinthians 1:2,30.

4. Positional truth guarantees no judgement for the believer in eternity — Romans 8:1.

5. Positional truth qualifies the believer to live with God forever. If we are going to live with God forever we must have forgiveness of all sins. This was accomplished at the cross when Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree. But we have to have more than that, we have to be as good as God is good because remember it is His righteousness which was propitiated by the cross. But if we are going to live with God forever we cannot get there with our -R, that has to be changed to +R. The moment we believe He credits to our account His righteousness, and therefore He looks at us and says, "Justified." Then, God is eternal life. All these things are received by union with Christ. We have to have the same life that God has, we have eternal life — 1John 5:11,12. We receive the imputation of divine righteousness in union with Christ — 2Corinthians 5:21.

6. Positional truth is the key to both election and predestination — Ephesians 1:3-6.

7. Positional truth creates a new creature, something that has never existed before on the earth, a royal spirituality — 2Corinthians 5:17. The new creature concept is based on who and what Christ is, therefore what grace accomplishes is the issue, not what we accomplish. All changes that are bona fide in the Christian life are wrought by doctrine in the soul, not by giving up things.

8. Positional truth guarantees the eternal security of the believer — Romans 8:38,39.

9. Positional truth is classified under two categories: retroactive and current. Retroactive is identification with Christ in His death, this is our rejection of human good. When Christ was on the cross our sins were poured out upon Him and judged but human good was rejected. When we believe in Christ we are identified with Christ in His death, therefore positionally we have rejected human good. Then there is current positional truth which is identification with Christ at the point of His strategic victory. Current positional truth: we are in union with Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father.

10. The implications of current positional truth are nine-fold:

a) When we enter into union with Christ we enter the life of Christ. Jesus Christ has eternal life; we share His life — 1John 5:11,12.

b) We share His righteousness — 2Corinthians 5:21.

c) We share His election — Ephesians 1:4. Christ was elected in eternity past, we now share His election by union with Him.

d) We share His destiny — Ephesians 1:5.

e) We share His sonship — 2Timothy 2:1.

f) We share His heirship — Romans 8:16,17.

g) We share His sanctification — 1Corinthians 1:2,30.

h) We share His kingdom (our royalty) — 2Peter 1:11.

i) We share His priesthood — Hebrews 10:10-14.

11. Some general characteristics of positional truth:

a) It is not an experience, it is neither emotional nor ecstatic.

b) It is not progressive. Positional truth which we receive at salvation can never be improved, it is perfect at the point of salvation.

c) It is not related to human merit, human ability, human good, or human activity of any kind.

d) It is eternal in nature. Positional truth will last forever, it cannot be changed by God, by angels, or by any combination of powers in the human race.

e) Positional truth is known only by the Word of God.

f) Positional truth is obtained in total at the moment of salvation. This is accomplished by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is one of those 36 things we receive at salvation.

Verse 7 — the doctrine of the ministry. "Whereof" is the genitive singular from the relative pronoun o(j and should be translated in this case "Of which." The antecedent is the gospel of the previous verse. The genitive case of the relative pronoun is possessive.

"I was made" — the aorist passive indicative from ginomai which really means to become: "Of which I have become." The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist. A gnomic aorist is one in which the truth is regarded as so absolute, so axiomatic in its character, that it is described by the aorist tense. It is very similar to the culminative aorist and can also be regarded as one. The culminative aorist indicates the fact that Paul, like many who have this gift, had become something. This is the appointment by God the Holy Spirit, that is constative. The culminative point is the result that Paul is now functioning in the ministry. The passive voice: Paul receives the action of the verb at salvation through receiving the gift. The indicative mood is declarative, the mood of unqualified assertion, the mood of dogmatism. The mood represents the verbal idea from the standpoint of absolute certainty.

"a minister" — diakonoj. This word is used in many ways.

The doctrine of the ministry

1. Greek synonyms of service.

a) Douleuw which means to serve as a slave.

b) Qerapeuw, which means to serve in a medical sense, medical practice. This is where we get the word "therapy."

c) Latreuw, which means to serve for wages. A bona fide system of service.

d) Leitourgew, which refers to public service — police, military, government administration, etc.

e) U(perterew, means to be helpful to someone.

f) Diakonew, the verb. The noun is diakonia. One other is diakonoj. Sometimes this word is transliterated "deacon." Sometimes it is translated "minister" and that is a good translation.

2. The usage of diakonoj and diakonia. There are five different uses in the Bible:

a) The political use. This is for the head of a state in Romans 13:14. The word diakonoj is used once in the Bible for those who are in charge of a country.

b) A general use. It is the universal ministry of every believer in the Church Age as a royal priest — 2Corinthians 3:6; 4:1; 6:3,18.

c) It is used of church administrators or deacons — Philippians 1:1; 1Timothy 3:8-13. Deacons administer the activities of the church, so it connotes administration.

d) It is used in a specialised way for the pastor-teacher of the local church. It is used in the sense of his authority, his communication of the Word of God, and his policy-making — 1Corinthians 3:5; Ephesians 3:7; Colossians 1:7, 23; 4:7; 1Thessalonians 3:2; 1Timothy 1:12; Hebrews 6:10; Acts 6:4.

e) There is also an evil usage of the word in 2Corinthians 11:15 where it is used for Satan's ministers. This is a counterfeit of the local church concept and Satan uses his ministers in religion.

3. There are other words which identify the pastor-teacher or the minister of the local church. The function of the pastor-teacher is not religious, he is the teacher of the Word of God. It is his objective to so communicate doctrine that the royal priesthood under his jurisdiction in the local church will move to super-grace status which is the normal function of the priesthood and at which point the believer becomes spiritually self-sustaining.

So we have three different words in addition. These three Bible words all indicate something different in the pastor-teacher.

a) The first is the authority of his person. The Greek word is presbuteroj, often translated "elder." It is found in 1Timothy 5:17,19; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1Peter 5:1. It always refers to the pastor, it does not refer to a church officer in the Bible. The distortion of this is to utilise this for a church officer. There is only one elder in a local church. The word means originally, "old man," not in the sense of age but in the sense of title. It is a title of authority, it means the one in command of the local church. So this is the authority of his person.

b) The authority of his policy. The Greek word for this is e)piskopoj. Unfortunately this is translated "bishop." The reason for that is because of the Church of England and the translators being related to the Church of England who saw fit to translate this word (which means "inspector") "bishop." But actually it refers to the one who is an overseer, the one who has charge of observing what is going on, the one who sets up the policy for the workers on the plantation. So it comes to means the authority of his policy. Philippians 1:1; 1Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:7.

c) The authority of his message is found in two words: pastor-teacher of Ephesians 4:11. The first word, poimhn, means shepherd. So shepherd-teacher would be a better translation. This had the connotation that the sheep need feeding and need to be led properly and the shepherd has to find food for them. This is the first part of it. Secondly, we have his function, didaskaloj which means to teach a group. This means that a pastor doesn't have to run around and personally spend time with members of his congregation.

4. We also have some synonymous identification with these words. In Acts 20:17,28 we discover that all of these words are synonymous, referring to one person. In verse 17 the elders of Ephesus are called pastors in Acts 20:28. In this same context we have presbuteroj, e)piskopoj, and poimainw; they are told to feed the sheep, and all three of them are words used in the previous point.

5. The appointment of the pastor is described in 1Corinthians 12:11,28. God the Holy Spirit sovereignly bestows this gift on the pastor-teacher apart from human merit. The appointment of the pastor has nothing to do with the people. No congregation makes a pastor, a pastor makes a congregation. A pastor makes a great congregation by sticking to his job of teaching the Word of God and not allowing any portion or any individual in the congregation to run over him. Ephesians 4:11 — the gift of the pastor-teacher is strictly a gift of the Holy Spirit, not of the individual involved.

6. The principle of the right pastor-teacher, right congregation is taught in 1Peter 5:2. Every believer has a right pastor. Geography is usually the issue but there has to be a right pastor, your right pastor, the one who gets to you with doctrine, the one who causes you to be occupied with the person of Christ because you see who and what He is.

7. The authority of the right pastor is given in Hebrews 13:7,17; 1Thessalonians 5:12. His authority is absolute.

8. The concept of the pastor as the total product of God's grace is taught in 1Corinthians 15:10; Ephesians 3:7; 1Timothy 1:12-16.

9. The reward of the pastor — Hebrews 6:10; 1Peter 5:4.

10. The biblical documentation for the existence of pastors: Colossians 1:23-29; 1Timothy 2:24-26; 3:1-9; Titus 1:6-9; Ephesians 3:7-13.

A minister is a male believer in a local congregation. As he grows spiritually he becomes aware of the existence inside of him of the residence of a spiritual gift. The spiritual gift was received at salvation. His awareness of the gift is based upon his daily intake of doctrine, the daily function of GAP causes him to become aware of this gift. It is not an emotional thing although certainly he has the right to get emotional about it if he is enjoying what he is doing in life.

"according to the gift" — the preposition kata plus the accusative singular of dwrea which means free gift. Kata is the preposition of norm or standard, so "according to the norm or standard of the gift from the grace of the God." The gift of pastor-teacher, like all spiritual gifts, is a sovereign gift from the Holy Spirit. As a result it is often like other spiritual gifts. In the Church Age every believer is said to be born again at the moment of salvation and is entered into union with Christ. So not only are we born again spiritually but we are born into the royal family. We are members of the royal priesthood now, we are also members of the royal family and at the return of Jesus Christ we will rule with Him. That is why the Church is called in the Bible the body of Christ here on earth and the bride of Christ in heaven.

"of the grace of God" — the ablative of source of xarij and should be translated "from the grace." The source of this gift is the source of every blessing to the believer — grace. Plus the genitive of possession of qeoj plus the definite article. This means that God owns grace.

No one ever reaches super-grace status in the Church Age apart from the ministry of the pastor-teacher. The appointment of the pastor-teacher is a grace gift and no male believer has ever earned or deserved this gift. Ministers are not a profession of spiritual giants, they are not supermen, they are recipients of God's grace like everyone else. So there is no secret to the minister's success apart from God's grace and apart from doing his job properly which is study and teach. While the royal priesthood is made up of believer priests in full time Christian service there are relatively few who have the gift of pastor-teacher. God the Holy Spirit only distributes enough to keep people in doctrine in every generation. Because some generations are so negative there are often pastor-teachers who are really not functioning as such. But this is not their fault, it is the fault of negative volition in their particular generation. God makes other provisions for those people.

"given" — the aorist passive participle of didomi. This is the normal word for giving and this is a culminative aorist, it views the events in entirety but emphasises the existing results. The aorist participle usually has antecedent action and here we have antecedent action to the main verb, "I have become a minister." First of all came the spiritual gift, then he became a minister. The gift precedes the ministry. The gift is the commission for the ministry. No commission, no ministry.

"unto me" — dative singular of the personal pronoun e)gw. E)gw is used for a personal pronoun, it is also used for self-consciousness of the soul. This is the dative of indirect object which indicates the one in whose interest the action of the verb is performed. It is in the interest of Paul that before he ever tried to communicate doctrine he had the gift of pastor-teacher. This is also a dative of possession in that Paul possesses the spiritual gift.

"by the effectual working" is a prepositional phrase, kata plus e)nergeia — "according to the operational function."

"of his power" — genitive singular from dunamij and it refers to inherent power. It actually refers to the omniscience of God.

Translation: "Of which I have become a minister, according to the gift from God's grace having been given to me according to the operational function of his omnipotence."

The first thing we notice of importance in this passage is the gift from God's grace. All the way through Ephesians we have noticed the concept of grace.

The doctrine of grace

1. Definition. Grace is all that God is free to do for man on the basis of the cross. Grace is God's freedom to express His love to mankind without jeopardising His essence. Grace is both God's plan and God's policy for mankind.

2. The concept of grace. Grace depends upon the essence or the character of God, therefore grace depends always on who and what God is and never who and what man is. Grace is what God can do for man and be consistent with His own essence. God can save man and be consistent with His own essence, that is propitiation. Once the person has believed in Christ God can do more than that — super-grace. Under super-grace God's objective is to keep you in time in order the bless you to the maximum.

3. The issue. The believer must sort out the difference between grace and legalism. Legalism is man's ability and works intruding into the plan of God. Anything man throws into the plan, if it was accepted by God, would destroy the plan because grace depends on who and what God is. However, the plan of God is neither destroyed nor neutralised by grace because under the concept of grace God is doing the working and grace rejects human energy, human ability, human genius, human talent, human viewpoint ideas of any kind. Man's works cannot coexist with God's works and they are therefore mutually exclusive. Man's plans and God's plans cannot coexist and the issue is: In your life since you have accepted Christ as saviour, since you have come under the plan called grace, which way are you going? Are you going the way of human works and human ability? Are you going the way of God's plan? Doctrine in the soul is the only way you can go with God's plan.

4. Grace, sanctification and the angelic conflict are all related. The greatest thing God can do for a believer is to make him exactly like His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only celebrity of the Church Age. Man was created to resolve the angelic conflict and therefore when the first Adam sinned he sinned through free will. He sinned by the use of his own negative volition. Therefore Jesus Christ, not an angel, had to come to bail him out — Hebrews 2:14-16. In other words, the first Adam lost the victory through the fall and the last Adam won the victory through the cross — Colossians 2:14; Hebrews 2:14. Grace found a way to take man created inferior to angels and make him superior. He does this in three stages of sanctification. Stage one: Positional sanctification. The believer enters into union with Christ after His strategic victory. Believers are in union with Christ, therefore believers are positionally higher than angels — Hebrews 1 & 2. Stage two: The tactical victory which is to GAP it to construct an edification complex and then to enter into the super-grace life. This is called experiential sanctification and the objective is the super-grace life. This is impossible apart from the filling of the Spirit and apart from the communication of Bible doctrine. Stage three: The body of Christ becomes the bride of Christ at the Rapture or the resurrection of the Church. When this takes place the believer will have a resurrection body exactly like that of the Son of God, minus the old sin nature, minus all human good. Therefore we have the third stage when we are exactly like the Son of God and, as members of the royal family, live with Him forever.

5. The entrance factor. Every believer has tasted the grace of God at least once — Hebrews 6:4; 1Peter 2:3. Tasting is a picture of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The moment of salvation occurs at the point you believe. At that moment God gives you 36 things and you have them forever. This grace package of salvation cannot be canceled either by God or by you. Maximum love frees God to pour out maximum grace, but grace can only find a place to lodge where there is capacity for grace. This capacity comes from the super-grace life. The filling of the Spirit gives the new believer minimal capacity for grace but GAPing it on a daily basis brings him around to maximum. The construction of the ECS further increases capacity for grace but ultimately capacity for grace is tied into the super-grace life. Grace never goes, however, where grace is not wanted. Some will never know the wonderful things that God has for them because they are negative toward Bible doctrine.

6. The occupational hazard. Disorientation to grace in the field of reversionism is the believers greatest occupational hazard — Galatians 5:4; Hebrews 12:15. Reversionism is the great danger to entering into the super-grace life.

7. There is a divine attitude, therefore, in grace. God is constantly waiting to pour out His grace on every believer — Isaiah 30:18,19.

8. The various phases of grace. Grace is divided into phases. Phase one is salvation, it takes a second, long enough to believe in Jesus Christ at which point you receive 36 things from God which you have forever. Phase two is the believer in time. This is where we move to the road of super-grace, the tactical objective. Phase three is eternity, absent from the body, face to face with the Lord. Phase one: Ephesians 2:8,9. Phase two: Grace in prayer — Hebrews 4:16; grace in suffering — 2Corinthians 12:9,10; grace in growth — 2Peter 3:18; grace in stability — 1Peter 5:12; Hebrews 13:9; grace in modus vivendi — the super-grace life, 2Corinthians 1:12; Hebrews 12:28; grace in the production of divine good — 1Corinthians 15:10; 2Corinthians 6:1.

9. The concept of grace and giving — 2Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 4:14-18. Grace orientation is the bona fide motivation and the thought pattern for giving in the Church Age.

10. Grace in suffering — 2Corinthians 12:7-10.

11. The axioms of grace.

a) God is perfect, therefore His plan is perfect.

b) A perfect plan can only originate and function from a perfect God.

c) If man can do anything meritorious in the plan of God it is no longer perfect.

d) A plan is no stronger than its weakest link. For this reason grace excludes all human merit and all human ability. Grace also excludes human good.

e) Legalism and human good is the enemy of grace always.

f) Therefore works of human righteousness have no place in the plan of God.

g) All human good is associated with the greatest of the mental attitude sin of pride.

12. There are three areas of pride which reject grace. This explains Satan's pride; this explains human pride. This explains why pride is the worst and the most devastating mental attitude sin when it comes to relationship with God.

a) Pride of the believer who rejects the doctrine of eternal security.

b) Pride of the believer who succumbs to pressure in adversity. He thinks his sufferings are greater than God's grace provision. The answer to him is found in 2Corinthians 12:8-10.

c) Pride of pseudo spirituality, the believer who thinks his human systems are God's ministry of grace.

13. Grace is related to divine assets — John 1:14,16,17; 1Corinthians 1:4,5; Ephesians 1:6,7.

14. The principle of super-grace is found in James 4:6 where the comparative translated "more grace" is really "greater grace." He has given us greater grace. Under that concept the humanity of Jesus Christ reached the super-grace life — John 1:14-17. Super-grace believers in phase two are encouraged to move in that direction — Philippians 4, James 4, Ephesians 3, 2Corinthians 12:8-10.

15. The pursuit of grace is our objective. This objective is stated from a corrected translation of Ephesians 1:6 — "Resulting in recognition of glory from the source of his grace, from which he has pursued us with grace in the beloved."

16. Under super-grace the believer reaps what God sows.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #36

36 08/19/1973 Ephesians 3:7 Doctrine of the ministry (cont.); doctrine of grace

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #37

37 08/19/1973 Ephesians 3:8 Doctrine of supergrace

Verse 8 — "Unto me" is the dative singular from the personal pronoun e)gw. It is the dative of indirect object which indicates the one for whom or in whose interest the action is performed. Very close is the dative of advantage. It is to our advantage to have a pastor-teacher who communicates Bible doctrine so that we can assimilate and reach the super-grace life. Every pastor even has been taught by someone else. There is no such thing in this time as a self-taught pastor, and that means that everyone who reaches super-grace will get there because of a pastor-teacher communicating the Word of God. There is no other way to get there. So this is both dative of indirect object and dative of advantage.

"who am less" — dative of a comparative word e)laxistoteroj which means the very least, less than the least. It describes the apostle Paul perfectly, he is also described as the chief of sinners, the worst man who ever lived before salvation. He is here also described as less than the least even though humanly speaking he was a genius.

"is this grace — h( xarij a)uth, a technical reference here to his super-grace. It refers to every type of grace he received. First of all, the spiritual gift of apostleship. Secondly, he was actually the twelfth apostle. "Super-grace" would be a better translation here.

"has been given" — the aorist passive indicative of didomi indicates the fact that the apostle Paul first of all reached super-grace before he tried to lead anyone in that direction. Didomi is in the aorist tense, it is a culminative aorist which views an event such as super-grace in its entirety. It views every time that Paul studied the Word, took in doctrine, until he himself reached super-grace. No pastor can lead people to super-grace unless he is there himself. The passive voice: Paul is the recipient of super-grace blessings in the realm of doctrine. The indicate mood is declarative which represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is the mood of unqualified assertion. The verb is compatible with the principle of grace. Paul cannot earn or deserve anything, he has arrived at his objective, super-grace, before he tries to lead anyone in that direction.

"that" — used here to express an infinitive of purpose. Once he himself has assimilated enough doctrine to teach the super-grace life then he makes an issue out of it.

"I should preach" — aorist active infinitive of e)uaggelizw, translated many times "preach" but there is no such word actually. It means to communicate information which is of the best possible news. In other words, the super-grace life is good news for every member of the royal priesthood. You are a member of royalty, you are in the royal family because you live in the dispensation of the Church. The objective of your life is to live like royalty and the blessings of heaven are yours in time. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes Paul's teaching ministry and regardless of extent or duration gathers it up into one entirety. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb by communicating doctrine. The infinitive is a telic infinitive, it denotes a purpose. It is Paul's job to communicate the super-grace life.

"among the Gentiles" — the locative plural of sphere of the noun e)qnoj.

"the unsearchable" — Bible doctrine can never be classified as unsearchable. This is a compound adjective, a)necxanistoj. This word means inexhaustable, incalculable, unlimited. It is a reference to the super-grace life. This means that there is something ahead for each believer. First of all, it is inexhaustable — spiritual blessing; incalculable — materialistic blessing; unlimited — there is no end to what God can do for a super-grace believer.

The doctrine of the super-grace life

1. Definition. Super-grace is the final stage of spiritual growth in the Christian life. It is the stage beyond the construction of the ECS. It is the ultimate in spiritual achievement and it is the normal area for the function of the royal priesthood. The nomenclature for this term "super-grace" is taken from James 4:6 where the word "more grace" is really "greater grace."

2. Characteristics. The super-grace life is characterised by the analogy of a cup running over — Psalm 23:5,6; 16:5. The cup is super-grace capacity. There are actually three basic characteristics: occupation with the person of Christ which comes from the construction of the ECS; the super-grace capacity which is doctrine in the soul; the pouring of super-grace blessing. The cup is super-grace capacity through Bible doctrine taken in the soul, the pouring is God providing the super-grace blessings. The believer reaps what God sows in eternity past.

3. The related categories of grace — four:

a) Salvation grace (phase one) — everything the Trinity has done to save man. There is non-meritorious involvement by the believer, it is faith in Jesus Christ which is the way of salvation. The salvation grace involves the strategic victory in the angelic conflict as well — Hebrews 2:14; Colossians 2:14,15.

b) Living grace (phase two) — everything that God does to keep you alive as a believer to give the opportunity of going to the super-grace life. There is no involvement by the believer since this is a matter of the sovereignty of God.

c) Super-grace — maximum growth resulting in occupation with Christ and God providing certain blessings. The involvement: non-meritorious volition expressed by the daily function of GAP, positive volition toward Bible doctrine. This time it is an attitude toward the written Word.

d) Surpassing grace (phase three) — called "the exceeding riches of his grace" in Ephesians 2:7. This is all that God will do for us in eternity. No volition is involved since the angelic conflict by that time has been terminated.

4. Illustrations of the super-grace life.

Abraham had super-grace, which means he had wealth, success, spiritual blessings. But there is one key in each illustration — super-grace sexual prosperity from which came a new race and many Gentile nations in the case of Abraham.

Joseph is a picture of super-grace promotion and prosperity with emphasis on ruling and blessing a Gentile empire which received its peak blessing under the administration of Joseph as Prime Minister. The key in Joseph's case was a phenomenal administrative ability over an empire.

Moses is a picture of super-grace leadership making him the father of the Jewish nation.

David was so blessed of God in so many way that it would be hard to select a key were it not for the fact that up to this moment David is the greatest king who ever lived, and will be until the Lord Jesus Christ returns to break that record. So again, David had super-grace leadership but he also had everything else, the whole realm of super-grace blessings.

Isaiah in the realm of Bible doctrine represents the greatest information and knowledge over more subjects of doctrine of anyone in the Old Testament. Isaiah comes closer to representing the whole realm of doctrine as the apostle Paul does in the New Testament. He was the greatest prophet and greatest Bible teacher during the time of Israel's kingdom.

Jeremiah is little different. He did not have all of the super-grace blessings that the others had. He represents super-grace blessings when one is in old age, super-grace blessings in time of national disaster, greatness under pressure.

Daniel represents super-grace blessing and promotion outside of the land.

5. The promotion of super-grace. Super-grace always means promotion — Psalm 84. The super-grace believer is God's man for the crisis — 1Samuel 17. Promotion comes at the point of super-grace.

6. The love problem in super-grace.

a) God loves every believer with a maximum love because of propitiation.

b) However, the believer does not love God until he knows Him.

c) No believer gets to know God apart from the consistent intake of Bible doctrine.

d) This means that the believer's love varies according to the amount of doctrine in his soul.

e) The super-grace believer does love God. He has the capacity to love God, the ability to love God, from doctrine in the soul. Romans 8:28; Ephesians 3:19; 1John 4:19.

7. The role of happiness in super-grace.

a) The key to super-grace is happiness or God's +H given to the believer at that point.

b) Therefore the super-grace life is characterised by the happiness spectrum — all realms of happiness are found between ecstatics and tranquillity.

c) The same doctrine which provides +H provides the super-grace life.

d) The top floor of the ECS is the beginning of the super-grace life — Philippians 4:4; 1Thessalonians 5:16.

e) The fulfillment of +H through doctrine is the entrance into the super-grace life — 1John 1:4.

8. The reality of the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. Remember that super-grace is so wonderful because for the first time the believer is occupied with the person of Jesus Christ. He understands who and what Christ is.

9. Areas of super-grace capacity.

a) Capacity for freedom. This comes from Bible doctrine — Romans 8:21; 2Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:1; James 1:25-2:12.

b) Capacity for life — 1Samuel 17:47.

c) Capacity for love: Category #1, toward God — Deuteronomy 6:6; 30:20; Category #2, — Song of Solomon 8:7; Category #3 — 2Samuel 1:26.

d) Capacity for happiness — Psalm 9:1,2; 21:1; 31:7; 43:4; 97:12; John 17:13; 1John 1:4.

e) Capacity for suffering. This means we are always on top of any suffering that comes our way when we are in the super-grace life — 2Corinthians 12:7-10.

"riches of Christ" — the word "riches" is the noun ploutoj. It means not simply financial wealth, it means wealth of other types — wealth in land, wealth in possession materialistic things as well as money. It is used for the fact that God owns all the money trees, provides all of the promotion, provides all of the wealth, all of the materialistic things of life for the believer; plus the genitive singular of possession of Xristoj. In other words, this belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is super-grace benefit. Also with it is the definite article which indicates that Jesus Christ is the key because it is what Jesus Christ thinks that is the Bible doctrine of the mystery found in the New Testament epistles.

Translation: "To me, the very least of all the saints, this super-grace blessing has been given to communicate to the Gentiles the inexhaustible [incalculable, unlimited, infinite] riches of the Christ."

Summary

1. Here is the sum total of super-grace blessing provided in eternity past for every believer. God provides for every believer super-grace blessings.

2. This blessing can only be acquired through Bible doctrine in the soul. That means the function of GAP, that means you have to have a right pastor, that means you have to be under the ministry of that right pastor consistently.

3. It is impossible to love Jesus Christ unless you know Him.

4. It is one thing to be saved by believing in Christ but it is an entirely different matter to love the one who saved you.

5. This love for Christ comes the same way as super-grace blessing — through the daily intake of Bible doctrine through GAP.

6. Paul has been blessed with super-grace status — reached through doctrine.

7. Therefore it is his responsibility ( having a spiritual gift compatible) to communicate this doctrine to the royal priesthood so that they, too, can reach the inexhaustible riches of Christ.

8. The function of Paul's ministry is to teach doctrine so that believers of the royal priesthood can reach super-grace status.

We move now to the dispensational orientation of the ministry.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #38

38 08/20/1973 Ephesians 3:9–10 Doctrine of the heavenlies

Verse 9 — "And" is a transitional or continuative use of the conjunction kai. The second purpose is now given for the ministry, the first being to bring the believer to the super-grace status and the normal function of the royal priesthood. The second purpose is to orient the believer to the uniqueness of the Church Age and the resultant intensification of the angelic conflict. The two purposes are related but they are separated in the context.

"all men" is not found in the original. It simply says "And to make see," the aorist active infinitive of fwtizw. This word means to bring to light or to make known. We translate this, "And to shed light on." The aorist tense of fwtizw is a constative aorist which contemplates Paul's teaching of the dispensations in its entirety. It gathers all the teaching of dispensations into one whole. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb through teaching and bringing to light the various facets of the mystery dispensation which is the Church Age, which is the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. The infinitive expresses Paul's purpose in teaching.

"that" — the interrogative pronoun of direct inquiry is often translated "what is."

"the fellowship" — incorrect. The word "fellowship" is o)ikonomia which means the dispensation, not fellowship.

"of the mystery" — the descriptive genitive singular from mustherion used to describe doctrine of the Church Age. The dispensation of the mystery is a reference to the Church Age with emphasis on the fact that Church Age truth was not previously revealed to the Old Testament prophets or to the Old Testament saints. Next to doctrine which leads to super-grace status the teaching of dispensations is most important. It helps to orient us to the time in which we live, the circumstances under which we live as members of the royal family on this earth.

"hath been hid" — this is an appositional genitive perfect passive participle of the verb a)pokruptw. The appositional genitive simply indicates that the mystery having been hid is a part of the description of it in the past. The perfect tense is a consummative perfect. This denotes a completed action. Here the action is not on the existing results as we often think of the perfect tense, but simply on the fact that the action has been completed. Therefore the consummative perfect does not emphasise the existing state, it emphasises the process by which the state was completed. Here the process is emphasised, and the process means that up until the time of the Church Age this doctrine was completely hidden from all members of the human race. This doctrine was only known for the first time when it was announced by the Lord Jesus Christ during the upper room discourse where He merely outlined what was to come. The detailed announcement was given by the apostle Paul. The doctrine of the mystery in past dispensations was concealed so that no one even had a clue as to what it was all about, and furthermore the Church Age is the only dispensation that comes in as an interruption. The passive voice: the mystery doctrine of the Church Age receives the action of the verb. This is a telic participle which indicates God's purpose to hide Church Age doctrine until the Church Age interrupts the Age of Israel. It is translated "having been hidden" or "having been concealed."

"from the beginning of the world" — a)po followed by the ablative plural of a)iwn means "from the ages." This is the ablative of separation. In other words, the mystery doctrine was separated from all dispensations. We live in the most unique time in all of human history. Uniqueness is normal in the dispensation in which we find ourselves.

"in God" is incorrectly translated. This is not e)n plus the locative, it is e)n plus the instrumental of qeoj. There is also a definite article and it should be translated "by the God." It is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the creator of all things, according to John 1:3; Hebrews 1:10; Colossians 1:16,17.

"who created" is an aorist active participle. The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist which states an absolute fact of dogmatic doctrine which is axiomatic. Jesus Christ is the creator of everything in the universe that has ever been created. Jesus Christ ordered the concealment of Church Age doctrine until His own incarnation and until as the God-Man in His humanity He Himself revealed this information. In hypostatic union Christ made the first declaration of Church Age doctrine in John chapters 14-17. The active voice: Christ produced the action of the verb which is the creation of all things. The creator of all things is the initial revealer of Church Age doctrine. The participle has antecedent action as an aorist participle, it is antecedent to the main verb which is found in verse 8 — "is given."

"by Jesus Christ" is not found in the original.

Translation: "And to shed light on what is the dispensation of the mystery, having been hidden from the ages [previous dispensations] by the God, having created the all things."

Verse 10 — orientation to the angelic conflict. It is the responsibility of the pastor-teacher to orient his right congregation with regard to the angelic conflict.

"To the intent that" — one word in the Greek, the conjunction i(na which introduces a final clause. A final clause always denotes a purpose, an aim, or a goal. It is used with the subjunctive to denote that goal. "In order that" is a better translation.

"now" — the adverb nun indicates the role of the Church Age in the angelic conflict. It is to orient the Church with regard to the angelic conflict.

"unto the principalities and powers" — this does not occur next in the sentence. The verb follows the adverb. We will take up principalities and powers at the point at which they occur. They do not occur at this point.

"might be known" — should be translated "might be made known." We have an aorist passive subjunctive of gnwrizw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of God's wisdom being made known to the fallen angels in its entirety. The passive voice: fallen angels receive the knowledge of God's wisdom by means of the Church. The subjunctive mood is the potential subjunctive, with i(na, to indicate the aim or goal of hiding Church Age doctrine or mystery doctrine until the church Age began.

Notice: "in order that now might be made known" — there is the omission of any subject. The verb must have a subject. The subject of the verb is found at the end of the verse. It was placed at the end of the verse out of place for emphasis. So whatever the subject that might be made known it is right down at the end of the verse: "the manifold wisdom of God."

"manifold" is polupoikiloj, a compound adjective [polu = much or many; poikiloj = diversified, variegated].

"wisdom" is the noun sofia which often refers to insight into spiritual things. God is omniscient, He has insight into everything. So this is the total sum of everything that omniscience knows or ever has known or ever will know. Omniscience doesn't learn anything new.

So far we have: "In order that now the manifold wisdom of the God might be made known." It has been made known to us through doctrine, but angels are learning it too.

"unto the principalities and powers" — throughout Ephesians this refers to angels. "Principalities" is the dative plural from a)rxh, used for highest rank. It has a number of meanings — "beginning, eternity past which was not a beginning, the greatest eminence or highest authority." Here it is used of the highest authority in connection with fallen angels. It refers to demon general officers. The dative plural of "powers" from the word e)cousia means "authority." It is used for commissioned officers. The two categories together constitute the entire demon leadership under the command of Satan. Both are datives of disadvantage. The demon generals and commissioned officers are on the losing side in the angelic conflict.

"in heavenly places" is e)n plus the locative of e)pouranioj which means "heavenlies" and it should be translated "in the heavenlies."

The doctrine of the heavenlies

1. "The heavenlies" — e)pouranioj — refers to the third heaven, the abode of God; the courtroom of heaven, the place of trying the case called the angelic conflict. Satan's case was tried in heaven. The third heaven is the place of angelic convocation and that means that the angelic conflict not only occurs on this earth — this is the battleground — but it also occurs in heaven as well.

2. The use of "heavenlies" in Ephesians.

a) It is the sphere of divine blessing — Ephesians 1:3.

b) It is the sphere of strategic victory of Christ in the angelic conflict — Ephesians 1:20.

c) It is the sphere of positional victory for the believer — Ephesians 2:6

d) It is the sphere of angelic judgement — Ephesians 3:10.

e) It is the sphere of the angelic conflict — Ephesians 6:12.

"by the church" — dia plus the genitive singular of e)kklhsia should be translated "through the church."

Translation: "In order that now [Church Age] the manifold wisdom of the God might be known to demon rulers and authorities in the heavenlies by means of the church."

Summary

1. Part of the mystery doctrine is the fact that the Church Age with its royal priesthood is the means of resolving the angelic conflict.

2. The Church is used to make known to fallen angels the validity of divine judgement on Satan and his adherents in the angelic realm.

3. The angels learn through the Church that God's wisdom has many sides.

4. The Church is also an integral part of operation footstool.

5. The Church teaches fallen angels in the future that it will remove them under operation footstool.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #39

39 08/21/1973 Ephesians 3:11–13 Doctrine of glory

Verse 11 — the emphasis of the ministry. "According to the eternal purpose is a prepositional phrase," kata plus the accusative of proqesij. Proqesij is with the descriptive genitive of a)iwn and altogether this should be translated, "According to a predetermined plan of the ages." The decrees of God are constructed around dispensations, that is why we have proqesij with the descriptive genitive of a)iwn for the ages or dispensations. The emphasis of the ministry is that God has a plan for your life but you will never understand that plan for your life unless you understand the dispensation in which you live, and unless you understand the doctrine of the mystery you are never going to understand that this is the only dispensation that is an interrupted dispensation. This dispensation broke right in on another dispensation and stopped it. The Age of Israel is an interrupted dispensation. The predetermined plan of God contains all the grace provision for the human race.

"which" — the accusative feminine singular of the relative pronoun o(j. This refers back to proqesij, the predetermined plan.

"he purposed" — aorist active indicative from poiew. Poiew means to do but it has many similar type meanings. For example, it means to accomplish and it means to execute. Here it means to carry out — "he has carried out." The aorist tense is the culminative aorist, it views the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of the existing results. God has carried out the plan. The doctrine of the mystery actually presents the principles and the mechanics by which the plan is carried out or executed. Grace means God carries out the plan, our part is always a grace response. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb. God the Father is the author of operation grace. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.

"in Christ Jesus our Lord" — this is how it is accomplished. One thing is added in salvation that was never given in the salvation of any Old Testament saint, nor will it occur in the Tribulation or the Millennium, and that is the baptism of the Spirit.

Translation: "According to a predetermined plan of the ages which he has carried out in the Lord Jesus Christ."

Principle

1. Because of positional sanctification accomplished through the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation every believer is a member of the royal family. This was never true before the day of Pentecost and will never be true after the Rapture.

2. The Lordship of Christ is positional, not experiential. And it is the Lordship of Christ which we have as members of a spiritual nobility that will never die out.

3. Under the Lordship of Christ all believers of this dispensation are in the plan of God.

4. This means that in the eternal decrees there is a super-grace paragraph with your name on it, and it is for time, not for eternity.

5. Therefore at this point all believers are encouraged to go on to super-grace.

Verse 12 — the life of the ministry. This means that the communicator, also being a member of the royal priesthood, having a different spiritual gift, also has a life to live. The principle here is that he is in for more pressure than most.

"In whom" — reference to union with Christ, e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j which refers to the Lord Jesus Christ.

"we have" — present active indicative of e)xw which means to have and to hold. The static present represents a condition which is assumed as perpetually existing. We always have this status. The active voice: the believer in union with Christ produces the action of the verb. This is for the royal family only. The royal family has access to the palace. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.

"boldness" — the accusative singular plus the definite article from the noun parrhsia. Parrhsia means outspokenness, frankness, plainness of speech, freedom of speech, courage, confidence, boldness. These meanings are all in relationship to those who have to communicate doctrine. In relationship to God the noun also means happy, confidence or assurance. It should be translated here, "In whom we keep having the confident assurance." Positional truth provides confident assurance for every royal priest of the Church Age.

"and access" — the accusative singular from prosagwgh [proj = face to face; agwgh = to be led in] which is used for royalty permitted into the presence of the king. To be led in face to face comes to mean access, admission into the presence of the ruler, of royalty. Here it means we have admission into the presence of God. The noun only occurs three times in the New Testament — Romans 5:2; Ephesians 2:18; 3:12. It is used primarily for having an audience with the king or being in the presence of the king. It can also be translated "entree."

"with confidence" is e)n plus the locative of pepoiqhsij. This is built upon the perfect tense of poiew. Poiew in the perfect tense means to have confidence, so the noun means confidence. It should be translated "in confidence." Confidence is a characteristic of royalty — not confidence in the sense if ignorance but confidence in the sense of a strange situation.

"by the faith of him" — dia plus the genitive of pistij which means doctrine here, what is believed. It should be translated "though his doctrine."

Translation: "In whom [Christ] we have confident assurance and entree in confidence through his doctrine."

Summary

1. The life of the ministry is Bible doctrine.

2. The purpose of the pastor-teacher is to exegete, analyse, interpret and communicate. In this way the whole realm of doctrine is extracted by analysis from the scripture, put into the soul of the pastor-teacher, so that he is familiar with the palace and then starts to communicate. The faithful teaching of Bible doctrine leads to fulfilling the goal of the ministry. The goal of the ministry is to lead through teaching believers, members of the royal priesthood, to super-grace status.

Verse 13 — "Wherefore" is an inferential conjunction, dio. It should be translated "therefore" or "for this reason." The inference is derived from the life of the ministry which is communication of Bible doctrine. Doctrinal communication on a consistent basis means a great deal of pressure to the pastor Just communicating doctrine becomes a source of great pressure.

"I desire" — the present middle indicative of a)itew means to ask, to make a request. He asked them something. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present which denotes that which was begun in the past and continues into the present time. Paul has been studying and teaching and it is still going on. Also, this is called the present tense of duration. This could also be construed as an iterate present describing what recurs at consistent successive intervals. The middle voice is an indirect middle which lays stress on the agent as producing the action. In other words, it is like Paul saying, "I myself personally ask you." The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.

"that you faint not" — the present active infinitive of e)gkakew. The present tense is an iterative present, it describes that which recurs at successive and consistent intervals, it is the present tense of repeated action. The active voice: believers of the Roman province of Asia were very fond of Paul. This doesn't have to be but they did love Paul. The infinitive here is an imperative infinitive. He commands them not to be despondent or discouraged, or to despair over his pressures.

"at my tribulations" — this is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the instrumental of the noun qlipyij. The preposition e)n plus the instrumental means "because of."

The pressures of a communicator are both normal and abnormal. They range from self-induced misery to the specialised function of the pastor-teacher in the angelic conflict. Normal pressures centre around the concept of constant study and teaching regardless of anything else. The abnormal pressures are related to the fact that the pastor receives double discipline for being out of line. And by virtue of his spiritual gift he is heavily involved in the angelic conflict and therefore there is the principle of double discipline as well.

"for you" — the preposition u(per plus the ablative of the personal pronoun su. It means "on your behalf." In other words, the pressure Paul is mentioning here is limited to the communicating type. It is dealing with the fact that they are very concerned about the fact that Paul is apparently having a great deal of pressure, having difficulty in study and teaching and continuing a consistent communicating ministry. In the Greek this type of phraseology is idiomatic for Don't feel sorry for me, don't have adverse or painful attitudes in your soul because I am undergoing pressure.

"which" is a nominative singular from a qualitative relative pronoun, o(stij; "is" is the present active indicative of e)imi and should be "keep on being." This is a static present and it represents a quality of pressure which by its very nature is taken for granted as a fact, and Paul lives with it constantly. The active voice: normal and continuous pressures derived from the function of constantly studying and teaching produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative.

"your glory" — doca. By that he means they are going to super-grace glory.

Translation: "Therefore I personally ask you not to despair because of my pressures on your behalf, which by their very nature keep on being your glory."

The doctrine of glory

1. The noun doca means brightness, radiance, splendour, glory, magnificence, fame, renown, honour. In the plural — docai — it is used for both angels and illustrious persons. There is also a verb, docazw, which means to praise, to honour, to glorify, to magnify.

2. The usage of doca.

a) It is used for the essence of God — Deuteronomy 5:24; Psalm 21:5; Romans 3:23; Ephesians 1:17.

b) It is used for the super-grace status of the believer. We have "the glory of his grace" — Ephesians 1:6; "the riches of his glory" — Ephesians 1:18; 3:16; 4:19; Colossians 1:27, referring to the super-grace life; "full of glory" — 1Peter 1:8.

c) It is used in the right man, right woman relationship. It is used of the right woman, she is the glory of her right man — 1Corinthians 11:7,15.

d) It is used for the indwelling of Jesus Christ and is related to the super-grace life because Christ indwells all super-grace believers — Colossians 1:17.

e) It is used to describe the wonders of the universe — 1Corinthians 15:40,41.

f) It is used to describe the believer's resurrection body — 1Corinthians 15:43; 2Thessalonians 2:14.

g) It is used to describe heaven and eternal life — 1Timothy 3:16; 1Peter 5:10; 2Peter 1:3.

h) It is used to describe the strategic victory of operation footstool — Hebrews 2:10.

i) It is used for a description of human glamour — 1Peter 1:24; Philippians 3:19.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #40

40 08/22/1973 Ephesians 3:14–15 Doctrine and concept of prayer, intercession

Verses 14 and 15 indicate that we are actually beginning an apostolic prayer.

Verse 14 — "For this cause" is a repetition of the Greek idiom which we saw in the first verse, Toutou xarin, and idiom which means "For this reason." Since the idiom was first used in verse one when Paul was about to begin his apostolic prayer it actually becomes an idiom of interruption, and idiom of postponement. In verse 1 Paul postponed his prayer to brief us on the doctrine of the mystery and the doctrine of the ministry. The digression has been completed, the subject now resumes. The postponed prayer of verse 1 now begins.

"I bow" — present active indicative of kamptw. The word means to bow and should be, as it were, the posture of the priesthood. One of the functions of the priesthood is the proper use of prayer. Bowing represents the concept of prayer. The concept of prayer is true principle of humility. Humility is an objective recognition of the greatness of someone outside of one's self and a true orientation to that greatness. One of the most basic principles of prayer is the principle of humility. God is everything, we are nothing. We address prayers to Him because He is totally capable and we are incapable. This is the iterative present tense, it describes what recurs at successive intervals. It is known as the present tense of repeated action. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb as his second apostolic prayer. The principle is important. Many people think you have to get on your knees to pray but that is ridiculous. You do not have to get on your knees. Prayer requires concentration. Posture is not important.

"unto the Father" — proj plus the accusative of pathr should be translated "face to face with the Father" because prayer puts you face to face with the Father. The posture is not necessary for effective prayer. Paul really here is not writing with his knees bowed, he is dramatising the importance of doctrine in effective prayer function. God the Father is the only recipient of prayer from the royal priesthood. The phrase "of our Lord Jesus Christ" is not found in the original.

Verse 15 — "Of whom" is the preposition e)k plus the ablative of o(j, whose antecedent is God the Father. It should be translated "From whom."

"the whole family" — the nominative singular of paj plus the nominative singular of patria. The whole family refers to the royal family, it does not refer to the family of God in previous dispensations. This should be "the entire royal family."

The paronomasia

1. A paronomasia is a literary word for a pun. This paronomasia is developed from two words. In the previous verse, "Face to face with the Father [pathr]." Then the word "family [patria]."

2. This is the paronomasia of spiritual descent based upon regeneration. However, our spiritual descent is royalty. This is the only dispensation in which there is royalty in the family of God. 3. We are the patria; the first person of the Trinity is the pathr.

4. The entire human race is not the family of God, only those who are born again, and in this dispensation, royal family.

5. To be born again one must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the only saviour — John 3:1-18, 36; Galatians 3:26; John 20:31.

6. We are also distinguished from other members of the family of God in that we are royalty.

7. Pathr communicates to patria through Bible doctrine; we communicate with Him through prayer.

8. Our daily relationship with Pathr is based upon the daily function of GAP, not on prayer. Prayer is a result of the relationship. The daily function of GAP makes prayer, witnessing, and all other production effective. We must know Him before we try to communicate with Him. You must know the person with whom you are communicating before you seek to communicate with Him in prayer.

"in heaven" — the preposition e)n plus the locative plural of o)uranoj. There is no definite article. This emphasises th qualitative aspect of the noun. In other words, heaven is a marvellous, perfect place.

"and earth" — it should be "and on the earth" because there is a preposition after "and," e)pi plus the genitive of gh. It refers to the royal priesthood still alive on planet earth, the devil's world. It is only the ones on earth that He communicates with through doctrine.

"is name" — the present passive indicative of o)namazw means to derive a name. The present tense is retroactive progressive present denoting that which was begun in the past and continues into the present. The passive voice indicates the derivation of the name. The first person of the Trinity is Pathr and He gives His name [patria] to the royal family only. The indicative mood is a declarative indicative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality and certainty.

Translation: "Our from the source of whom the entire family in heaven and on earth derives its name."

The doctrine of prayer

1. There are three categories of prayer received by God the Father:

a) Prayer from the high priest. The royal high priest is Jesus Christ, and right now at the right hand of the Father he offers prayer — Hebrews 7:25.

b) Prayer is from God the Holy Spirit. This is the age of the royal priesthood, the royal family. We are members of the body of Christ, Christ is royalty, we are one with Him, we are royalty spiritually. Therefore God the Holy Spirit does something in this dispensation He has never done before and will never do again, He offers prayer on our behalf. Romans 8:26,27.

c) Prayer is always addressed to God the Father.

2. Prayer approach for the royal priesthood.

a) All prayer is addressed to the Father — Matthew 6:9; Ephesians 3:14; 1Peter 1:17.b) The channel of approach is through the high priest — John 14:13,14.

c) The power of approach is the filling of the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 6:18.

3. Extrapolation of prayer promises.

Prayer is related to the faith-rest technique — Matthew 18:19; 21:22; Mark 11:24. Prayer promises are to give you confidence as you approach the Father in the name of the Son in the power of the Spirit. OT promises — Psalm 116:1,2; Isaiah 65:24; Jeremiah 33:3. NT promises — Matthew 7:7,8; John 14:13,14; 15:7; Ephesians 6:18; Philippians 4:6; 1Thessalonians 5:17; Hebrews 4:16.

4. There are eight basic principles of prayer.

a) Prayer effectiveness depends on the consistent function of GAP and resultant Bible doctrine in the soul. John 15:7; Ephesians 3:16-19.

b) Prayer is an extension of the faith-rest technique. It is actually a faith-rest exhale toward God — Matthew 21:22.

c) Prayer demands cognisance of the will of God and therefore demands maximum doctrine in the soul through GAP — 1John 5:14.

d) Generally prayer must be offered in the spiritual status of the filling of the Spirit — Ephesians 6:18. The exception is a rebound prayer for a carnal believer or a repentance prayer for a reversionist.

d) Mental attitude sins result from both carnality and reversionism and these destroy the effectiveness of prayer — Psalm 66:18.

e) Efficacious prayer exists to the extent that the believer is grace oriented. Therefore the believer begins to be effective when he begins the construction of the ECS.

f) The eternal decrees took cognisance of all effective prayer in time.

g) Prayer effectiveness reaches its zenith at the time of super-grace status — Psalm 116:1,2.

5. The agenda for private prayer. Confession of sin or rebound — 1John 1:9; 1Corinthians 11:31; Thanksgiving — Ephesians 5:20; 1Thessalonians 5:18; Intercession — Ephesians 6:18; Petition — Hebrews 4:16.

6. The doctrine of intercession.

a) The dynamics of intercessory prayer is taught in passages like 1 Kings 18:42-46, the principle being found in James 5:16-18.

b) The power of prevailing prayer — Acts 12.

c) The prayer for the unbeliever — Romans 10:1. (You cannot pray for something that will coerce their volition, so you pray that the gospel message will be made clear to them, will be revealed to them)

d) Prayer for an unknown believer — Colossians 1:3-11.

e) Prayer for the known believer — Ephesians 1:15-23.

g) The Lord's prayer — John 17.

7. There are four categories for petition in prayer.

a) 1Samuel 8:5-9, 19,20. The prayer petition was a simple one, they wanted a king. That was their desire. The petition was answered but the desire to be like other nations was not, they were in a jamb all the time.

b) The petition is not answered but the desire is — Genesis 17:18; 18:23-33; 2Corinthians 12:17-10.

c) The ideal one where the petition is answered and the desire is answered — 1 Kings 18:36,37; Judges 16:28; Luke 23:42,43: John 11:41,42,45.

8. Nine reasons why prayer is not answered.

a) Carnality or reversionism, or both, causing failure to be controlled by the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 6:18.

b) Mental attitude sins caused by either carnality or reversionism — Psalm 66:18.

c) A specific Satanic sin of pride and a resultant self-righteous state — Job 35:12,13.

d) A lust type selfishness — James 4:2-4.

e) Malfunction or failure of faith-rest — Mark 11:24.

f) A general lack of obedience or subordination to God's will — 1John 3:22.

g) Insubordination to the known will of God — 1John 5:14.

h) Malfunction of marriage, lack of domestic tranquillity — 1Peter 3:7.

i) Reversionistic lack of compassion and grace orientation — Proverbs 21:13.

9. Principles of grace in prayer

a) Principle — Hebrews 4:16; 1Peter 1:7.

b) Prayer is the privilege of the royal priesthood. Since grace is the basis of prayer no believer can come to God in prayer and expect to be heard on the basis of human merit, human ability, human function, human ingenuity.

c) Every believer approaches God in prayer on the basis of the merit of Jesus Christ, or the Father is propitiated with Christ but is no respecter of persons as far as believers are concerned.

d) In other words, God does not hear and answer prayer because I am good, moral, benevolent, sincere or religious.

e) God hears and answers prayer on the basis of who and what Christ is. Every believer is in union with Christ and gets through to the throne of grace on the basis of approach through the high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of GAP

1. GAP stands for grace apparatus for perception. it is a grace system whereby God has made it possible for all believers to learn doctrine and advance tactically to the super-grace status. Consequently it is the divine provision for spiritual growth and advancement. God has found a way for every believer regardless of his IQ, his educational background or his natural perspicacity, to understand and assimilate Bible doctrine. So GAP stands for learning doctrine, knowledge of doctrine, the assimilation of doctrine into the soul.

2. There is a distinction between the human and the spiritual IQ. Spiritual IQ is determined by the amount of doctrine, the amount of e)pignwsij, stored in the human spirit and in the right lobe — Colossians 1:9.

3. The exclusion of human IQ from GAP — 1Corinthians 1:9-2:16.

a) Human IQ has often been considered a factor in learning doctrine.

b) This is a false statement, it would imply that a low IQ believer is handicapped in the perception of God's Word. God never allows under grace human handicaps to keep a person from learning the Word.

c) However, in eternity past God found a way through grace for every believer, regardless of human ability of human handicap, to learn doctrine.

d) For this reason every believer receives at salvation the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and a human spirit is attached to his soul. The Holy Spirit is given primarily to indicate royalty in the family of God. The food of royalty is Bible doctrine, the sign of royalty is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the means of royalty is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

4. Receptive comprehension.

a) The believer's soul possesses mentality. Mentality is divided into two frontal lobes.b) The left lobe is called nouj. It is designed to assimilate objective information. Knowledge or objective information in the nouj is called gnwsij.

c) However gnwsij cannot be applied to experience. This means that the left lobe is a staging area in learning doctrine.

d) The residence of doctrine in the perceptive lobe makes the believer a hearer of the Word but not a doer of the Word — James 1:21-25.

e) The thinking of the left lobe is called noew, the simple verb for thinking.

f) There are two kinds of thinking in the left lobe. When doctrine goes into the mind it is called gnwsij. There is firstly objective type thinking which is called fronew. Sometimes we have subjective thinking which is dokew.

g) All of this is receptive comprehension — understanding different types of data.

h) Receptive comprehension involves the following factors: a) attendance at a local church (which is a classroom when it functions properly); b) the ministry of God the Holy Spirit converting the content of what is communicated into receptive comprehension. As the pastor communicates the information goes into the left lobe, the vouj, and if you are filled with the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit converts this to gnwsij. If you start to think about this gnwsij you are going to come up with either frwnew or dokew — are you going to think about it objectively or subjectively. If you think about it subjectively it dies right there. If you think about it objectively you are now in a position to move it on into the staging area of the human spirit. The residence of doctrinal data in the left lobe is only s staging area.

i) It must be remembered that gnwsij can exist to a large degree in the left lobe of any believer without spiritual benefit. Remembering that this is a staging area it must be moved on to be beneficial. Doctrine in the left lobe is not beneficial if it stays there.

j) However, gnwsij has no spiritual benefit nor application of divine viewpoint to this life.

5. Grace provision for learning doctrine.

a) The first grace provision is the formation and preservation of the canon of scripture.

b) We have divine authorisation of the local church as the classroom for learning that doctrine. All worship is centered around learning doctrine. The believer assembled in the local church is a student without portfolio under strict academic discipline under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

c) The spiritual gift of pastor-teacher is also a grace provision. This spiritual gift has both authority and ability to communicate doctrine in the local church. God sovereignly bestows this gift at the point of salvation. The gift is restricted to males only and the function of the gift in communication is by monologue.

d) The royal priesthood of the believer makes each believer a member of the royal family and therefore he has extreme privacy and freedom to receive and reject doctrine, and privacy and freedom if he is positive to take it in without interference. The royalty of the priesthood demands that the believer through doctrine also achieve the status of royalty which is the super-grace life.

e) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit for the function of GAP. GAP runs on the ministry of God the Holy Spirit — 1Corinthians 2:9-16.

f) However the believer must be filled with the Spirit for GAP to be effective. Therefore the grace provision of the rebound technique.

g) The provision of the human spirit as the second target of GAP. The first target is the left lobe, the second in the human spirit — Job 32:8; 1Corinthians 2:12.

h) The provision of the laws of establishment whereby a nation's freedom and privacy is protected by these divine laws.

i) The anatomy of grace whereby certain non-meritorious functions of the human body provide the ability to think and concentrate; they are strictly grace provision.

6. The mechanics of GAP.

Stage one is operation ICE. I is for isagogics; C is for categories; E is for exegesis. The pastor communicates doctrine to the local church under the concept of the Greek verb didaskw. It means one person is communicating to a group. The system is monologue, no dialogue. We also have the word khrussw which means to announce something of great importance as the heralds of the king. Didaskw means to teach doctrine, one person teaching to a group.

The content is where we get ICE. First of all is isagogics which means the interpretation of the Bible within the framework of its historical setting. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. For that reason isagogics demand that we reproduced the historical backgrounds and customs of the people, and these can be determined of etymology and extant literature, and so on.

Secondly, the categorical teaching is based upon a hermeneutical principle of comparing scripture with scripture to determine the classification of doctrine. Categories simply take a doctrine which is located in a passage and relate it to all the other passages dealing with the same doctrine. Exegesis is the analysis of each verse in its context, emphasising its grammar, its syntax, the etymology of the words in the original languages.

Stage two occurs simultaneously if and when believers concentrate on what is being taught. This is operation gnwsij. It is, in effect, the same as receptive comprehension. Based on objective perception of doctrine by listening we have doctrine coming into the left lobe and it is assimilated under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Prerequisites include positive volition toward doctrine, recognition of the authority of the pastor-teacher, good manners when in the assembly, poise, concentration and alertness. All of these must be accomplished through the filling of the Spirit plus certain other factors. Receptive comprehension does not mean that you agree or disagree with what is taught, it means you merely understand it.

Stage three is operation e)pignwsij. This is the important part of the assimilation of doctrine. This is where doctrine becomes usable. Under operation e)pignwsij doctrine is converted from gnwsij and it goes down into the human spirit. Volition comes into action. Volition is non-meritorious, so volition is really faith-rest. You actually believe what is residing in the nouj and the moment you believe it you transfer it down into the human spirit where it become e)pignwsij. The converter is non-meritorious. Doctrine is not applicable or usable to you personally until you convert it from gnwsij to e)pignwsij, and this is accomplished in compatibility with the concept of grace and that means you convert it by means of faith-rest. Negative volition locks it up in the left lobe. Positive volition transfers it to the human spirit where it is usable.

The moment that e)pignwsij hits the human spirit it begins to go into action. First of all there is the heart or the right lobe, the second lobe in the mentality of the soul. A vacuum comes out of the frame of reference into the human spirit and sucks e)pignwsij up into the frame of reference. E)pignowsij also begins to become building material for the construction of the ECS. So there aretwo actions of e)pignwsij. Immediately it is sucked into the right lobe and it begins to work on the ECS.

Stage four is operation heart.

a) The heart is the right lobe made up of a frame of reference, a memory centre, an area for vocabulary storage, an area for categorical storage, the conscience of the soul [norms and standards], and it has a launching pad. The right lobe is called kardia or heart. In the Bible kardia is never used for the physiological part of the body called the heart that circulates the blood, it is always used for the right lobe.

b) The essence of the right lobe. The frame of reference has in it a vacuum pump and that pulls e)pignwsij up from the human spirit into the frame of reference. Now it starts to be processed. The memory centre does the processing. It immediately sends anything off to vocabulary that must go there which isn't there already. To learn doctrine you must have a technical vocabulary. The vocabulary will eventually become paragraphs and paragraphs will become chapters and chapters will become books. So there must also be categories. As you are able to put together the technicalities of theological vocabulary and to categories them your norms and standards begin to change and begin to comply with divine norms and standards. All of these have lines going out to the launching pad and every correct application you make in all of your life you will make on the basis of the frame of reference, on the basis of recalling from your categories, from your conscience, information. And doctrine on the launching pad is the dynamics of the Christian way of life. In other words, what you think is what counts. As a man thinketh in his right lobe, so he is. The real you is what goes on in your right lobe.

c) The heart or kardia is the dominant lobe of the soul. It is also the right man as far as the emotion is concerned. The emotion is designed to respond to what is in the right lobe — what is in the frame of reference, what is out on the launching pad, the vocabulary, the categories, every part of the right lobe. So the heart becomes the right man, the emotion becomes the right woman. In effect, emotion does not think, it responds to what you think in your right lobe. When emotion dominates the soul you stop thinking.

d) The storage of doctrine in the right lobe is called sofia or wisdom. When you utilise sofia that is distributed to the memory centre it is called sunhsij which is often correctly translated "discernment."

e) The heart is the right man of the soul.

f) The emotion is the right woman of the soul designed to respond to what resides in the heart, it does not thinking.

g) Once again the word "heart" must never be confused with emotion. The heart is the thinking part of the soul in the Bible.

7. The function of the frame of reference.

a) It is the basis for comprehension of more advanced doctrine when such doctrine is taught.

b) It establishes a new conscience which is compatible with God's norms and standards.

c) It forms divine viewpoint dynamics (the same as bringing every though into captivity for Christ).

d) It deals with problems of the subconscious and handles the guilt complex.

e) It provides an alarm system to detect and protect false doctrine and false teaching.

f) It provides soul capacity and discernment to detect right man or right woman.

g) It provides the furniture of the soul whereby God is able to share His happiness with the believer.

h) It provides the basis for the production of divine good.

i) It causes the proper function of the priesthood until the believer reaches super-grace, and then continues to cause the proper function of the priesthood.

8. The results of GAP.

a) GAP removes scar tissue from the soul and makes it possible for reversion recovery.

b) It is the basis for construction of the ECS which is necessary for super-grace.

c) It provides attainment of super-grace status which produces occupation with the person of Christ, super-grace capacity, and super-grace blessings.

d) It provides the basis for maximum production of divine good.

e) It glorifies God in this stage of the angelic conflict.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #41

41 08/23/1973 Ephesians 3:16 Doctrine of GAP (Grace Apparatus for Perception)

Verse 16 — the purpose of GAP. "That" is the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive which introduces a final clause. A final clause denotes either a purpose, aim, or goal. It should be translated "In order that."

"he would grant" — aorist active subjunctive of didomi which means to give, "grant" is simply an old English word for giving in the past tense. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results. The existing result of GAPing it consistently is the super-grace status. The active voice: God the Father gives us super-grace status as a result of the intake of doctrine on a grace basis. The subjunctive mood is potential, it implies a future reference qualified by the element of contingency. The element of contingency is the daily function of GAP. If you don't take it in daily you will never reach super-grace, you will never know the super-grace blessing.

"you" is the dative plural from the personal pronoun su. The dative of indirect object indicates the one in whose interest the action of the verb is performed and it also becomes a dative of advantage. In other words, "In order that he might give you" — it is for your benefit, for your advantage, that God has provided in eternity past a super-grace paragraph with super-grace listed for you. Again, the subjunctive is very important. God does not give what is here apart from the daily function of GAP.

"according to the riches of his glory" — the preposition kata plus the accusative of ploutoj. Ploutoj is something that most believers cannot understand. It is very simple. Ploutoj means that the source of all money and wealth and materialistic things is God, that God has limitless supplies that He is trying to give away but there is no place for it to go in the royal family. This is because the only members of the royal family who receive theses things are those who have capacity. Super-grace capacity is preceded by occupation with the person of Christ. Ploutoj does not have any spiritual connotation. The super-grace life is filled with spiritual blessings. A super-grace believer is going to have prosperity in those things which are related to time, those things in the devil's world that are considered to be a blessing. It includes wealth and promotion and success and materialistic things. In other words, the principle here is that God has these things to give and He does so as a part of the tactical victory of the angelic conflict. It is related to the spiritual conflict and it is related to spiritual victory when God can actually pour into someone's cup these things. Ploutoj refers to the materialistic blessings. The point is that God wants to bless you with materialistic things in time. But these materialistic things would be meaningless without the capacity to enjoy them and the capacity to enjoy them is the spiritual factor of super-grace. The spiritual factor in super-grace has to do with occupation with the person of Jesus Christ, with the capacity for life. These are related to Bible doctrine. The more doctrine you take in the greater becomes your capacity for life and the greater your capacity for life the more God is going to pour. God is glorified in pouring. "In order that he might give you according to the standard of his riches."

"of his glory" is a descriptive genitive singular of doca. It refers here to the essence of God. God by His essence is perfect, eternal. Everything in the essence of God smacks of wealth, success, prosperity, royalty, greatness. There is nothing in the essence of God that talks of poverty, being down at the heels, running around in rags, begging, whining, complaining. And we are members of the royal family and God does not intend for us to act like peons. We are not here to imitate the kooks! There is suffering, but suffering in super-grace is a breeze. But we are living today with the fact that most believers are living with a defeatist attitude, human viewpoint attitude, that somehow it is spiritual to be down at the heels, to be without fun, to be broke all the time. It is going to happen from time to time but that is not the normal function of the super-grace life. The super-grace life is related to great spiritual assets followed by materialistic assets. With whom can God trust with materialistic blessings? Those who have the spiritual capacity for them — and He does. God is glorified, by the way, when God pours; and so the word "glory" here refers to the fact that the capacity in the soul is super-grace capacity which is maximum doctrine. So God starts pouring and the one who pours gets the glory. It is the host who gets the credit, not the one standing there with the cup in his hand.

Summary

1. The standard for providing super-grace blessings is the attainment of the super-grace status.

2. This is accomplished through a consistent daily intake of doctrine through GAP.

3. Therefore the purpose of GAP is to advance the believer to the tactical victory of the super-grace life.

4. God has provided the grace apparatus for maximum provision of grace benefits in the devil's world.

5. Doctrine in the soul provides the capacity for super-grace blessings.

6. Super-grace blessings could never be enjoyed apart from occupation with the person of Christ and doctrinal capacity of the soul. These blessings include wealth, success, promotion, prosperity, happiness, and they are not generally associated with spiritual things or spiritual phenomena. But in the super-grace frame of reference these things are the result of spiritual phenomena. While they do not have a connotation of spiritual phenomena they are related to spiritual phenomena through the consistent intake of Bible doctrine.

7. Since the devil's world does not give a frame of reference for the enjoyment of these things God provides a frame of reference in the heart or the right lobe of the soul.

8. This frame of reference filled to the maximum with doctrine provides capacity for every category of super-grace blessing.

9. "In order that He might give you according to the riches of His glory" — the "riches of His glory" is also found in Ephesians 1:18; Philippians 4:19; Colossians 1:27. The standard for divine giving to the believer is the highest possible norm — super-grace. This, by the way, is giving in time.

"to be strengthened" — aorist passive infinitive of krataiow. It actually means to become strong. On the basis of Luke 1:80 and 2:40 it denotes growth in childhood, especially from the standpoint of mental independence. In this passage in Ephesians it denotes spiritual growth to the point of super-grace status. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it regards the function of GAP in its entirety but emphasises the results of GAP in attaining the super-grace status. The passive voice: the believer through consistent function of GAP receives super-grace status. The infinitive denotes God's purpose in setting up GAP — so the believers might receive super-grace blessing on a super-grace basis. "with might" — the instrumental singular from the noun dunamij. It refers to inner or inherent power and is consequently a reference to Bible doctrine in both the human spiritual and the heart or right lobe. The instrumental should be translated "by means of power." Power here is doctrine in the soul.

"by his Spirit" — dia plus the genitive of pneuma. It should be translated "through his Spirit." There is also an intensive pronoun a)utoj here.

"in the inner man" — the location. Here is the sign of royalty and the means of achieving super-grace all in one phrase. We have the preposition e)ij plus the adverb e)sw plus the accusative of a)nqrwpoj — "with reference to the inner man," literally.

Translation: "In order that he might give you, according to the riches of his glory, to become strong [advance to super-grace] by means of power [doctrine in the soul] through his Spirit [Holy Spirit] with reference to the inner man."

God the Holy Spirit indwells the believer to overcome all human IQ handicaps. Human IQ is not the issue. So we must therefore include that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is to provide GAPability. In addition to that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is to provide nobility.

The doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit

1. The reason for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. (It never happened before. God the Holy Spirit empowered believers in other dispensations prior to the Church Age. We call that indument, empowering. But now the Holy Spirit actually indwells every believer) The universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church Age is characteristic of this age only. It is necessary because of the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus Christ — His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session. The strategic victory is followed by the intensification of the angelic conflict.

Two things happen simultaneously. In heaven and in the angelic realm the session of Christ seated at the right hand of the Father causes intensification, the angelic conflict is intensified. Simultaneously the Age of Israel is interrupted; we now have the Church Age. When the Rapture of the Church occurs the intensification is over. The angelic conflict intensifies in the heavenlies as well as on the earth. That is not true in the Tribulation. The intensification of the angelic conflict and the Church Age started at the same time. The Age of Israel is actually interrupted to be continued again after the Rapture. The intensification of the angelic conflict causes the insertion of another dispensation — the Church Age. Up to this time no one in all of history was ever at the point of regeneration indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. But in the Church Age we have something new. On the day of Pentecost for the first time we have the baptism of the Holy Spirit whereby the believer enters into union with Jesus Christ. This causes the person to be born into the royal family. Abraham was born again, Moses was born again. Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, these people were all born again. But they are different from the royalty we have here, none of them were taken by the Holy Spirit and entered into union with Christ. We call this the baptism of the Holy Spirit and it is this that makes each one of us royalty. We are royalty as of the moment we are born again. It is the baptism of the Spirit that is the distinctive feature of the Church Age. It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that puts us in union with Jesus Christ and makes us a part of the royal family. Jesus Christ is royalty in His deity, royalty in His humanity — descended from the line of David. Jesus Christ is royalty without being born again, He didn't have to be born again. He was born physically into royalty and that's it. What is the badge of royalty? Royalty always has a badge. A coat of arms has often been one of the badges of royalty, carrying some kind of a sceptre, the right to carry a certain type of sword, etc. We have a badge of royalty forever — the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit makes us royalty; the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the badge of royalty, the sign of nobility.

Why suddenly is every believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Not only is it a sign of royalty but it is related to the King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus Christ has a double royalty, that is why He is called King of kings. The first time we have King it refers to His deity; He is sovereignty and deity. "Of kings" refers to the fact that he is in His humanity a king. And there must be a relationship to the royal family. Jesus Christ on earth was indwelt by the Holy Spirit and John 7:37-39 says that the Spirit was not yet given to believers because Christ was not yet glorified. Therefore we begin to glorify Jesus Christ at the point of salvation because we are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. No matter how we may fail in the materialistic realm or in the humanistic realm or in any way we are still royalty and the badge of royalty can never be removed.

2. The documentation for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit: Romans 8:9; 1Corinthians 3:16; 6:19,20; Galatians 3:2; 4:6; John 7:37-39; 14:16,17. We also have the anointing of the Spirit which merely indicates the indwelling of the Spirit relating Him to royalty. Anointing of the Spirit is synonymous with the indwelling of the Spirit in Acts 4:27; 10:38; 2Corinthians 1:21; 1John 2:20, 27.

3. The distinction between salvation and the post-salvation ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit. There is a difference between His ministry at salvation and His post-salvation ministry.

God the Holy Spirit does five things for every believer at the point of salvation: baptism [how we enter the royal family], regeneration [how we enter the family of God], sealing [the security of our royalty], indwelling [the sign of our royalty], the provision of a spiritual gift. The first gift to royalty is a spiritual gift.

In the post-salvation ministry of the Holy is Spirit we have His inner control in order that we might assimilate doctrine and fulfill the purpose for remaining on the earth. What is that purpose? The blessings of the super-grace life, to reach the tactical objective of super-grace and to enjoy the blessings of it. Both carnality and reversionism result in the loss of the filling of the Spirit but never the indwelling of the Spirit. When a believer is out of fellowship he is said to be grieving the Spirit — Ephesians 4:30. That is equivalent to sinning. He is said to be quenching the Spirit — 1Thessalonians 5:19. That is equivalent to producing human good.

4. Other nomenclature for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In 1John 2:20, "unction." In 1John 2:27, "anointing." These both refer to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit but they emphasise the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a sign of being a member of the royal family. Just as royalty wear the overt accouterments of nobility, so we wear inner accouterments of nobility. The believer in the Church Age is in the palace by means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the sign of royalty.

5. The prophecy of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ the King of kings, as a prophet, declared it in John 7:37-39; 14:16,17.

6. The distinction between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of Jesus Christ. The most obvious fact is that Jesus Christ is the second member of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. As members of the Trinity they are coequal and co-eternal but they are different persons. They have the same essence but they are different in person. Christ indwells the believer for the purpose of fellowship on the road to super-grace. The Holy Spirit indwells the believer as a sign of royalty, a sign that we are members of the royal family of God. This means that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is permanent. We are royalty forever. However, the indwelling of Christ is not permanent. We can lose the indwelling of Christ by reversionism for the purpose of the indwelling of Christ is for fellowship on the road to super-grace. If we are on the road to reversionism then the Lord Jesus Christ removes Himself from us and instead knocks on the door of the soul as a warning that we are on the wrong road. And when we start to get back on the right road we open the door and let Him in, as per Revelation 3:20.

7. The primary functional objective of the Holy Spirit's indwelling is the function of GAP — John 14:26; 16:12-15; 1Corinthians 2:9-16; 1John 2:27. The universal priesthood of the believer demands the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit for the achievement of the objective of the super-grace life.

8. It is also the objective of the indwelling Holy Spirit to suppress, to control, and to neutralise the function of the old sin nature — Galatians 5:17.

9. Illustrations of the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. One is taken from the Word of God — Elijah in the cave of 1 Kings 19:9-18; the second is taken from the picture of oil as anointing of the Holy Spirit. So oil becomes an illustration of the functions and ministries of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

a) For example, oil lubricates. Friction ruins machines. One of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is to remove friction among believers so that we function as a team as well as a royal family.

b) Oil heals. This was true in the ancient world where there was an extensive use of oil in healing. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit heals the sorrows, the sufferings, the pressures that come our way.

c) Oil was used as a system for lighting, just as the Holy Spirit illuminates the Word under the function of GAP.

d) Oil also propels. We learn this from diesel engines both on land and on sea. This illustrates the walking in the Spirit, moving toward our tactical objective.

e) Oil invigorates. For this reason athletes in the ancient world were anointed with oil before they entered their contest. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit invigorates the life of the believer.

f) Oil warms. Oil was used for heating fuel. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit warms the categories of love through His ministry indwelling.

g) Oil adorns. Oil has been used since time immemorial for grooming. The Holy Spirit produces the grooming of the soul through His indwelling.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #42

42 08/24/1973 Ephesians 3:16 Doctrine of the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #43

43 08/26/1973 Ephesians 3:17–18a Doctrine of the indwelling of Jesus Christ

Verse 17 — the purpose of the indwelling of Christ. The word "That" does not occur in the original Greek manuscript, it is used here as a translational device for the purpose of translating an infinitive. "Christ" is the first word, it is the accusative singular of Xristoj plus the definite article, so that we actually have "the Christ." It is found in the accusative case and the reason for this is because we have an accusative of general reference, which is a relationship between an accusative and an infinitive in the Greek. The accusative is really not the subject of an infinitive, though it is often translated that way, it rather describes the person connected with the action of the infinitive. The person related to the action of the infinitive is the Lord Jesus Christ, called in this passage "the Christ." "may dwell" — the aorist active infinitive of katoikew which is the type of a verb which has been under dispute for a long time. It is generally translated, as here, to "dwell." However, it means a great deal more than simply to dwell or to settle down. The meaning can be understood only as we go back into the Greek language and find its use in others areas. There is an old Greek proverb which says: "The wise man dwells in the perceptible body like an alien resident in a foreign land (In other words, you live in this body now, you will not be here for long and you will be removed by death), but in spiritual virtue he dwells at home [katoikew] like a native in his own country." So katoikew means both indwelling and to be at home. It means indwelling, however it means indwelling under very relaxed conditions. Therefore it means to be at home, it means to inhabit; it is used here for the indwelling of the person of Jesus Christ — not in the body as per the Holy Spirit but in the heart. The Lord Jesus Christ is said to indwell and the residence is said to be …

"in your hearts" — e)n plus the locative plural of kardia. E)n plus the locative means "in the sphere of" or "inside." Kardia refers to the right lobe. Doctrine is distributed in the right lobe and it is here that the Lord Jesus Christ indwells. In other words, the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ has to do with fellowship until we reach the point of super-grace. So fellowship on the road to super-grace is the objective. It is significant that the Holy Spirit is said to indwell our bodies, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. But Christ is said to indwell the mentality of the soul, specifically the heart. This is said to be accomplished …

"by faith" — the preposition dia plus the genitive of pistij. Ordinarily pistij can be translated "faith." However, it is Arndt and Gingrich which brings out the fact that there is an objectivising of pistij and it means that which is believed or the body of faith or doctrine. So it comes to means doctrine. Dia plus the genitive means "through," so we have "through doctrine" or through what is believed. This, therefore, helps us to understand that the ministry of the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ is related to the intake of Bible doctrine.

Katoikew is in the aorist tense here — going back to the verb for the indwelling of Christ. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ and regardless of its duration gathers it up into a single whole. The Lord Jesus Christ indwells as the individual believer is GAPing it to super-grace. This is the concept of the aorist tense. The active voice: Christ produces the action of the verb by indwelling the heart or right lobe of the believer. The infinitive expresses God's purpose which is, of course, the purpose of the indwelling of Christ — fellowship with the believer on the road to super-grace. So far the verse says "That the Christ may be at home in your hearts [right lobes] through the doctrine."

The doctrine of the indwelling of Jesus Christ

1. The prophecy of the indwelling of Christ — John 14:20,21. The prophecy of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is found in John 14:16,17. The prophecy anticipates that the Jewish Age would be interrupted and that the dispensation of the Church would begin, there would be the royal bride prepared for the Lord Jesus Christ, on earth the body of Christ, the royal priesthood, and that this royalty would also live during the intensified stage of the angelic conflict.

2. A distinction must be made between the indwelling of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This distinction is brought out in the context of Romans 8:9-11. The Holy Spirit indwells every believer permanently — for functional reasons now, but the reason for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is that we will always be royalty. The moment we were born again we were born spiritually into a type of royalty, a type of nobility which has never existed in human history, a totally and completely spiritual nobility, a spiritual nobility based upon spiritual principles and spiritual origin, a nobility which began at the point of salvation. At the point of salvation, in order that we might have and carry forever the sign of nobility we have the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit — 1Corinthians 3:16; 6:19,20. However, Christ indwells the believer for the purpose of fellowship. The objective of this life is not to run around and pray, to run around and be religious, to be concerned, to be a bleeding heart, to be socially involved in the social reform of the world, that is like trying to whitewash the devil's world. Our objective is to reach the super-grace life, the point where Christ can be glorified. Therefore, in order that we might have fellowship and encouragement on the road to super-grace we are indwelt by the Lord Jesus Christ.

3. The fellowship concept of the indwelling of Jesus Christ is found in two passages, Romans 8:10 and Galatians 2:20.

4. The indwelling of Christ is the confidence of reaching super-grace — Colossians 1:27. Glory in that passage refers to the super-grace life. The confidence of reaching super-grace glory is based upon the indwelling of Christ.

5. Therefore the purpose of the indwelling of Christ. Christ indwells every believer for the purpose of encouragement to super-grace, for the purpose of fellowship on the road to super-grace — Ephesians 3:17. This is accomplished through the consistent intake of Bible doctrine — Ephesians 3:18; Colossians 1:17 cf. Colossians 3:16.

6. The indwelling of Christ is temporary, depending upon attitude toward doctrine. Therefore, the reason for the departure of the indwelling Christ. Why does Christ cease to indwell believers? The answer is found in 2Corinthians 13:5 — "Be testing yourselves, if you are in the doctrine [are you interested in doctrine or not?]; be testing yourselves for approval [GAP it daily]. Be perceiving yourselves that Christ is in you, unless you are a reversionist." Christ is in you unless you are a reversionist.

7. The recovery of the indwelling Christ. Once Christ leaves you He is knocking on the door, and so you can recover the indwelling of Christ — Revelation 3:20 is Jesus Christ standing at the door warning the believer that he is in reversionism. Knocking on the door is the first stage of discipline on the road to reversionism. It is the warning stage. The recovery of the indwelling of Christ is through reversion recovery. It occurs when the reversionistic believer repents or opens the door, as per Revelation 3:20. The fellowship which follows — "I will sup with him" — is involved in reversion recovery through the consistent function of GAP.

"that" is not found in the original manuscript. The rest of the verse says literally, "in love having been rooted, and the foundation having been laid." So this second part of the verse begins, e)n a)gaph which is literally "in love" — e)n plus the locative of a)gaph is "in the sphere of love." A)gaph means two things. a) It refers to the filling of God the Holy Spirit — Romans 5:5. The Holy Spirit spreads abroad in the soul a)gaph love. b) A)gaph means a relaxed mental attitude. It is not an overt type love, it is a love in the soul where you are totally free from mental attitude sins. It is a relaxed mental attitude toward the human race.

"being rooted" — this has to do with doctrine being in the right lobe. We have a perfect passive participle of the verb rizow. The perfect tense is an intensive perfect, it means the action of the verb has been completed with results going on. The completion of the action here is that the individual has consistently been GAPing it so that he has gnwsij in his left lobe, has transferred it to where it becomes e)pignwsij. It has then been siphoned up into the right lobe so that he has e)pignwsij in the right lobe — in the frame of reference, in the memory centre, in his vocabulary area, in his categorical storage, and on the launching pad, the conscience, and so on. So this is an intensive perfect, the results go on. The result is reaching the super-grace life. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb through the daily intake of Bible doctrine. This is a temporal participle and it should be translated "after having been rooted." The participle actually emphasises e)pignwsij in the right lobe, this is the roots for the tactical victory of the super-grace life. This participle emphasises doctrine in the right lobe while the next one emphasises doctrine in the human spirit.

"and grounded" — the perfect passive participle of the verb qemeliow. It means to lay a foundation. The foundation for everything is in the human spirit. The imperfect tense is the intensive perfect indicating that the action of the verb is completed and the results are going on. Having a foundation means that e)pignwsij is not only siphoned into the right lobe or the heart but it is becoming building material. Now we begin the construction of the edification complex of the soul [ECS]. The first floor in the building in the soul is grace orientation. No soul except the soul of the believer, based upon Bible doctrine, can have this edifice, the ECS. The second floor is mastery of the details of life. The third floor is relaxed mental attitude. The fourth floor is capacity for love — category #1 toward God; category #2 right man, right woman; category #3 friendship. The top floor is +H where we begin to enter into the super-grace life. So here is a structure that does not exist in the soul except through Bible doctrine in the human spirit. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb through the daily function of GAP and the conversion of gnwsij into e)pignwsij. Again we have a temporal participle.

Translation: "That the Christ may indwell [be at home in] your hearts [right lobes] through doctrine; in the sphere of love [filling of the Spirit], after having been rooted and after having received the foundation."

The roots are in the right lobe, the foundation is in the human spirit.

Verse 18 — the purpose of the human spirit. This verse actually begins with the word "that." This is the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive used to introduce a purpose clause.

"you may be able" is the aorist active subjunctive (also the second person plural, "that you all may be able") of e)cisxuw which means to be strong, to be fully able, to have complete ability, to have unusual strength or to have a total ability in some field. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence and regardless of its extent or duration gathers it into a single whole. Actually, the constative aorist here which gives us the ability is the intake of doctrine today, tomorrow, the next day and the next, and so on. Ability here is GAP-ability. The more you function under GAP the more you develop this ability which takes you to the super-grace life. The active voice: because of grace provision in the field of doctrinal perspicacity the believer produces the action of the verb actually completing and understanding doctrine in his soul. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive which indicates that the function of GAP is dependent upon your volition. You have free will. True positive volition here is the consistent intake of doctrine on a daily basis.

"to comprehend" — aorist middle infinitive which goes with the verb, katalambanw which means to seize, to grasp, to light upon, to truly understand, to overtake, to attain a definite goal, to seize something and make it your own. These are all meanings for the active or passive voice and our infinitive is in the middle voice where it means to grasp mentally and to so grasp it as to make it your own. In other words, total comprehension. Again, we have a culminative aorist which emphasises the results. The result of GAPing it daily it total comprehension of doctrine. The middle voice is the direct middle, it refers the results of the action directly to the agent with reflexive force, and that means to comprehend in contrast to the active voice which simply means to seize or to grasp. The infinitive of result. The result of possessing doctrine is super-grace life.

"with all saints" — sun plus paj plus a(gioj. Sun plus a(gioj means "in the company of." This refers to assembly of believers. This means that this comprehension does not take place apart from a local church situation where you have privacy for your priesthood. It should be translated "in the company of all saints" — sun plus the instrumental. This emphasises the principle of assembly.

Summary

1. "In the company of all saints" emphasises the conditions under which Bible doctrine must be taught.

2. Believers, saints, are all royalty in this age. They are assembled together under the authority of one pastor-teacher per congregation.

3. In this assembly of the local church the purpose is worship. The purpose of worship is having a classroom where a variety of IQs ranging from moron to genius all assemble.

4. All believers have the same opportunity and the same ability of comprehension in the field of Bible doctrine and spiritual phenomena. Why? Because it doesn't depend on your IQ, it depends upon the grace apparatus God has provided. So GAP does not depend upon human IQ.

5. The genius does not have any advantage over the moron and the moron is not handicapped by his low IQ. 6. All believers have the same grace ability or full ability.

7. A believer can be one degree above a moron and understand the most profound doctrines by the use of GAP, while a genius using human IQ cannot understand even the simplest forms of doctrine.

8. Therefore, cognisance of Bible doctrine does not depend upon human perspicacity or academic background.

9. God's grace is communicated through a system compatible with grace.

10. Grace found a way, therefore, for any believer to comprehend Bible doctrine.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #44

44 08/26/1973 Ephesians 3:18b–19a Doc. of the human spirit; occupation with Jesus Christ

Verse 18b — the word "what" is a nominative neuter singular of the interrogative pronoun tij. The nominative indicates that it is the subject of the content following, the singular indicates that it is one subject dealing with the human spirit rather than a list of subjects because there are four categories of the one subject. The neuter indicates that this is doctrine rather than dealing with some person. So what introduces the subject of categorical storage for the human spirit.

The doctrine of the human spirit

1. The human spirit is the immaterial part of man designed by God to convert, to store, and utilise spiritual phenomena or doctrine. The human spirit is designed to take gnwsij and convert it to e)pignwsisj. E)pignwsij activates doctrine. In the original creation of man it was received along with the human soul — Genesis 2:7, where we have the "breath of lives," soul and spirit. The human spirit is not the same as the soul and the Bible distinguishes between them in Hebrews 4:12.

2. The variations of the status of mankind based upon the fact that man does not have the human spirit at the point of physical birth.

a) Original man was trichotomous — Genesis 2:7. He had a body, a soul, and a spirit. The body is material, visible, and soul and spirit are invisible and immaterial. All are real.

b) At the time of the fall — Genesis 3:6 — Adam and the woman suffered immediate spiritual death — Romans 5:12. Under spiritual death two things happened to them, namely the loss of the human spirit plus the acquisition of the old sin nature. Therefore when Jesus Christ came in the garden at the time for Bible class the man and the woman had to hide themselves in their fig leaves because they were incapable of learning doctrine, incapable of having fellowship with Jesus Christ as a member of the Godhead.

c) The unbeliever is born in the line of Adam, receives the imputation of Adam's sin directly, and receives the old sin nature. So the unbeliever, then, is dichotomous — 1Corinthians 2:14; Jude 19.

d) On the other hand the believer is said to be trichotomous — 1Thessalonians 5:23. Since the unbeliever does not have a human spirit and the believer has a human spirit it is obvious that the human spirit is acquired at the point of salvation and is one of the 36 things we receive at the moment of salvation.

e) Therefore the believer receives the human spirit at the point of salvation. At the same time that he receives the indwelling Holy Spirit, the sign of royalty and the means of GAP. The human spirit is a staging area, a converter under the concept of GAP. The two spirits, God the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, are the keys to the assimilation of Bible doctrine in the Church Age.

3. Perception through the two spirits is taught in 1Corinthians 2:12-16. Doctrine in the human spirit cannot be evaluated by human viewpoint or by human IQ.

4. Therefore the reality of spiritual phenomena resides in the two spirits of Romans 8:16 — "The Spirit reaches our spirit." In other words, the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of Bible doctrine — John 14:26; 16:12-16; 1John 2:27; 1Corinthians 2:9-16. The human spirit is the target for doctrine and actually is the converter of gnwsij into e)pignwsij, as well as the dispenser of doctrine into the right lobe and the constructor of materials which go into the ECS — Ephesians 4:2-24.

5. The storage of doctrine in the human spirit. It is stored in the human spirit as the area of refreshment — 2Corinthians 7:13. Doctrine is not meaningful in the left lobe. It is stored in the human spirit as the basis for all grace orientation. Grace orientation does not come from having doctrine in the left lobe. This is emphasised by James 1— "Be not hearers but doers of the Word." A doer of the Word is simply a believer converting his gnwsij into e)pignwsij. Cf. Philemon 25. Spiritual IQ is related to doctrine stored in the human spirit — Job 32:8; Romans 8:16. 6. The human spirit is designed to store and distribute categorical doctrines — Ephesians 3:18,19.

7. Since the unbeliever does not possess a human spirit God the Holy Spirit must act like a human spirit for the comprehension of the gospel — Genesis 6:3; John 16:8-11; 1Corinthians 2:14,15.

"what is" — now we have the categorical storage of the human spirit; "the breadth" — platoj, which refers to the storage of all doctrine pertaining to the plan of God which relates to the royal believer priest in the Church Age. A whole new realm of doctrine has to come into existence with the advent of the Church Age and the "breadth" is where we get the baptism of the Holy Spirit which the means of becoming royal family, the indwelling of the Spirit which is the sign or badge of royalty, the sealing of the Spirit which is the security for royalty.

"length" is the Greek noun mhkoj and it refers to all time categories stored in the human spirit; not only dispensations but the biblical interpretations of history with regard to historical eras, the biblical interpretation of civilisations, cycles of discipline, and any other category of doctrine where the time factor is involved.

"depth" is the Greek word baqoj which refers to all doctrines stored in the human spirit relating to the angelic conflict, to Satan, fallen angels, cosmos diabolicus, religion, revolution, and so on. It includes also the depths of Satan, as in Revelation 2:24. It also includes the deep things of God — 1Corinthians 2:10. For this reason the angelic conflict is stored in this particular area. It also deals with the strategic and tactical implications of the angelic conflict.

"height" — u(yoj stores categories of doctrine pertaining to God, to essence, the Trinity, divine decrees, Christology and pneumatology as they are general subjects in the Bible (not the mystery aspects).

Translation: "In order that you all [believers in the royal priesthood] might have a complete grace ability to comprehend in the company of all saints [assembled in the local church] what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height."

This indicates that whatever doctrine you have accumulated in the left lobe is converted and placed in these areas where it becomes activated and utilised.

Verses 19-21 — the road to super-grace.

Verse 19 — the attainment of super-grace. It starts with an unusual enclitic particle te. There are many different particles that could have been used here but this unusual word connects a clause where a close relationship exists and when one depends upon the other. It is a very rare particle. It is translated "And."

"to know" — the believer's job is to learn "in the company of all saints." This the aorist active infinitive of ginwskw which means to know, to come to know, to learn, to ascertain by concentration, to comprehend, to perceive, and to realise. It can be gathered from that that the original meaning was intelligent comprehension of an object, of the matter. In other words, it means the mind reaches out and grabs certain things, taking them in. This is an ingressive aorist, it looks at the entire action of the verb from the standpoint of its beginning. It is generally translated "to begin to know" or "to come to know." The active voice: the royal priest produces the action of the verb. The infinitive sets up a purpose. It is God's purpose for royalty to learn how to be royalty. You and I were born into the family of God regenerated by the Holy Spirit. At the same time God the Holy Spirit put us into the palace. We are in the royal family. As never before in history, as in no other dispensation, every believer is left here to learn, learn, learn Bible doctrine. Why? Because royalty lives in a palace, royalty has materialistic things, royalty possesses wealth, royalty has leadership, royalty has the best of whatever you want. That is exactly what God intended for you. So the infinitive of purpose reminds us that God has kept us here to learn doctrine. Everything else is secondary and everything else we do in life depends on learning doctrine.

"the love" — No one knows how to love! Everyone has to learn how to love. No one is a natural lover. True love depends upon the capacity of the soul and you have to learn to love. What kind of love starts you on the road to learning? The accusative singular of a)gaph minus the definite article. The absence of the definite article points attention to the quality of the verb. Furthermore, the definite article is not needed when the phrase is put back into its Greek order, after the participle and the noun. After "and to come to know" we have a participle, "the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ." A)gaph is a very specialised type of love. It is knowing how to love before you ever express it, knowing how to do a thing before you do it. Before you do it you know how to do it. Knowing how to love is a)gaph. It is freedom from mental attitude sins because you can't love and have mental attitude sins in the soul at the same time. That is the concept of a)gaph here.

Notice it is "the love of the Christ" — this is a possessive genitive. We possess Jesus Christ as the high priest. Therefore we have the definite article. But the definite article indicates our high priest is perfect and that if we are ever going to get into the picture as to fulfilling the reason why we are here we are going to have to know how to love Him as he love us.

The present active participle of u(poballw [u(per = over; ballw = to throw] is translated "surpassing." The word means to overthrow or that which is beyond that. The present tense is a static present used for a condition perpetually existing. The active voice: the love of Christ produces the action of the verb. The participle is ascriptive, it ascribes a characteristic to the substantive, hence the participle is used as an adjective. When you take a present active participle and use it as an adjective there is a problem: "to come to know the surpassing knowledge." In other words, the word "knowledge" is the substantive or the noun, "surpassing" is an ascriptive participle, and ascriptive participles are used as adjectives. So the word "knowledge" [gnwsij] is important. Gnwsij can be imagination [noew], it can be objective thinking [fronew], it can be subjective thinking [dokew]. But none of these things are any good in the Christian way of life. To get beyond these you have to learn, learn, learn — ginwskw. The phrase "God is love" is no good in the left lobe, it must be over in the frame of reference, then "God is love" links up with a lot of other things — "God is just, God is righteous, God is fair, God is true," etc., all of the other things that are true in the love of God. Putting those in with it means God's love becomes meaningful. So you must come to know the "surpassing knowledge love [gnwsij] of the Christ." You have to get past gnwsij before you understand how much God loves you and before you can love God. You have to get beyond the gnwsij stage.

The doctrine of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ

1. Occupation with Christ is the maximum expression of category #1 love toward God, as per Deuteronomy 6:5; Hebrews 12:2. Since Christ is the manifest person of the Godhead it becomes maximum category #1 love toward the second person of the Trinity.

2. Occupation with Christ is related to GAP.

a) Capacity for occupation with Christ depends upon the intake of Bible doctrine in the soul through the consistent function of GAP — Jeremiah 9:24; Ephesians 3:18,19; 4:20; Colossians 3:1,2; Philippians 3:7,8.

b) The function of GAP is the believer priest responding to the love of Christ — James 1:21,22.

c) Occupation with Christ is the motivator of the pastor-teacher in leading others through GAP to the super-grace life and the normal function of the royal priesthood — Hebrews 6:10.

3. Illustration of occupation with Christ: Right man, right woman — 1Corinthians 11:7; Ephesians 5:25-32.

4. Relationship to the strategical victory of the angelic conflict. Occupation with Christ is related to the strategic victory of Christ's ascension and session — Colossians 3:1,2. It is also related to the strategic victory of the cross — Hebrews 12:2.

5. The permanence of category #1 love. The sealing of the Holy Spirit not only secures the royalty of the believer in the Church Age but it guarantees the eternal love relationship between Jesus Christ and the royal priest — Ephesians 1:11-14.

6. The title of occupation with Christ. We have a believer in the New Testament called filoj qeou — "lover of God" — James 2:22,23, used of Abraham in super-grace.

7. Characteristics of occupation with the person of Christ.

a) Occupation with Christ is the basis for super-grace believers contributing to national blessing — Deuteronomy 30:16,20.

b) Occupation with Christ provides courage and victory in battle — Joshua 23:10,11.

c) Occupation with Christ leads to both preservation and prosperity of super-grace — Psalm 31:23,24.

d) Occupation with Christ is associated with great stability plus great happiness — Psalm 16:8,9.

e) Occupation with Christ results in super-grace blessings, as per Psalm 37:4,5.

f) Occupation with Christ is the basis of blessing in suffering. Reversionism intensifies suffering; occupation with Christ minimises suffering — Psalm 77; 2Corinthians 12:7-10.

8. Occupation with Christ glorifies Christ — Ephesians 3:21.

9. Occupation with Christ begins at the believers entrance into the super-grace life — Colossians 3:16,17; Hebrews 3:1,6.

"that" is the conjunction i(na used in a final clause which expresses a purpose, aim, or goal, and it is usually translated "in order that."

"ye might be filled" — is the aorist passive subjunctive of the verb plhrow. The word means to fill up a deficiency. After salvation the believer has a deficiency, namely blessing, prosperity, promotion, wealth, success, and the capacity for these things. The deficiency is filled up by the super-grace life. The verb also means to fully possess, and the believer fully possesses super-grace blessings in the devil's world glorifying God. It means to fully influence. The believer with the cup of super-grace blessings overflowing becomes a blessing to others, and therefore the overflow of blessing. The verb also means to fill of a certain quality. The super-grace believer is filled with the highest quality of things — wealth, success, prosperity, promotion, materialistic things of all sorts.

By way of morphology, the aorist tense is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the super-grace blessings in entirety. It takes the occurrence of the super-grace life, gathers all of the blessings during the duration of it, and gathers them into one single whole so that all super-grace blessings are contemplated in their entirety. The passive voice: the believer receives super-grace blessing through the daily function of GAP and occupation with Christ. The subjunctive mood is the potential subjunctive, it indicates the fact that the super-grace life is potential, it depends upon the believer's attitude toward doctrine.

The doctrine of plhrow has nine different uses

a) Plhrow is used for the function of GAP, the erection of the ECS leading to the entrance into the super-grace life for the Lord Jesus Christ — Luke 2:40. Also for the Church Age believer — Ephesians 3:19; 4;10; Colossians 1:9.

b) It is used for the believer controlled by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 5:18.

c) It is used for the fulfillment of the law through the filling of the Spirit — Romans 8:4; Galatians 5:14.

d) It is used for the analogy of right man, right woman, for the body of Christ being fulfilled in Christ — Colossians 2:10; Ephesians 1:23.

e) It is used for the pastor communicating doctrine to his right congregation — Colossians 1:25.

f) It is used for the believer priest giving whereby the pastor's financial security is established through his own congregation, thus freeing him to study and to teach doctrine — Philippians 4:18.

g) It is used for the production of divine good from super-grace — Philippians 1:11; Revelation 3:2.

h) It is used for the top floor of the ECS leading to the super-grace life — 1John 1:4 cf. Philippians 4:4.

i) It is used for receiving super-grace blessings from God, as per Ephesians 3:19.

"with all fulness" uses the cognate of the verb. We have the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of paj, plus the accusative of plhrwma. Plhrwma means fulness, and with e)ij it means "to all the fulness."

"of God" — the ablative of source qeoj plus the definite article. So it should be translated "to all the fulness from the God." This is a reference to the super-grace blessings, the sum total of superabundant blessings which completes the royal priesthood. This refers to the perfect happiness, the wealth, the success, the promotion, the prosperity, the blessing from God the Father provided for every believer as a part of the royal family. The provision was made in the divine decrees in eternity past. Every believer has a super-grace paragraph with his name on it.

Translation: "And to come to know the surpassing knowledge love of the Christ [occupation with Christ], that you might be filled up to all the fulness [super-grace blessings] from the God."

The doctrine of super-grace

1. Definition: Super-grace is the final stage of spiritual growth beyond the construction of the ECS. It is the ultimate in spiritual achievement in phase two, the basis for the normal function of the royal priesthood. It is the area of fulfillment of Romans 8:28 plus reaping what God sows. The nomenclature is derived from James 4:6 where the words "more grace" are literally "greater grace." Super-grace is characterised by occupation with Christ, super-grace capacity, plus super-grace blessings. The super-grace blessings are all of a materialistic nature as well as spiritual. The spiritual side is not emphasised because it is the material type blessing that is a part of the tactical victory in the angelic conflict. Living in the devil's world and having the things that are important and associated with happiness is a part of the concept.

2. The characteristics. The super-grace life is characterised by the analogy of a cup running over — Psalm 23:5,6. The pursuit of grace. The cup is the super-grace capacity through Bible doctrine in the soul. Pouring into the cup is God providing the super-grace blessings. The believer reaps what God sows in eternity past. Therefore we have three basic characteristics: i. Occupation with the person of Christ; ii. Super-grace capacity; iii. Super-grace blessing.

3. The super-grace life related to the categories of grace.

a) Salvation grace, all the Trinity has accomplished to save man. It involves the strategic victory of the angelic conflict, the planning of the Father, the work of the Son on the cross, the ministry of then Holy Spirit in revealing this. On the involvement side you have non-meritorious volition expressed by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ or faith in the living Word.

b) Living grace, everything God has to do to keep us alive in the devil's world. No volition is involved since this is a matter of the sovereignty of God and, of course, the plan of God.

c) Super-grace or more grace of James 4:6. This is maximum growth resulting in occupation with the person of Christ. On the involvement side there is non-meritorious volition expressed by the daily function of GAP. This time we have the positive attitude toward the written Word in contrast to the living Word, Jesus Christ.

d) Surpassing grace or "the exceeding riches of his grace" in Ephesians 2:7. This is all that the Trinity will do for the believer in eternity. No volition is involved since the angelic conflict has been completed.

4. Illustrations of super-grace.

a) Abraham. His was super-grace sexual prosperity and he became the source of a new race and many Gentile nations.

b) Joseph who had super-grace promotion and prosperity with emphasis on ruling and blessing a gentile empire.

c) Moses — super-grace leadership making him the father of the Jewish nation.

d) David — super-grace leadership making David the greatest king of Israel until Christ returns at the second advent.

e) Isaiah — the super-grace blessing in the realm of Bible doctrine. He is the greatest prophet and Bible teacher during the kingdom.

f) Jeremiah — super-grace blessing in time of national disaster. He holds the record for super-grace blessings in old age.

g) Daniel — super-grace blessing and promotion outside of the land when the fifth cycle of discipline was in the process of administration.

h) Paul — super-grace blessing of a Jew in time of Israel's dispersion or the interruption of the Jewish Age. His super-grace blessing is related to the doctrine of the mystery which he knew better, and more of it, than anyone in history.

5. The promotion of super-grace — Psalm 84. The super-grace believer is God's man for the crisis, and the principle which comes out of this is that if God doesn't promote you, you are not promoted. So all promotion is related to the intake of Bible doctrine.

6. The love problem in super-grace.

a) God loves every believer with maximum love because of propitiation.

b) However, the believer does not love God until he comes to know Him. We are saved without loving God. The requirement for salvation is not loving God but believing in Jesus Christ.

c) No believer gets to know God apart from consistent intake of Bible doctrine.

d) This means that the believer's love for God varies according to the amount of doctrine he has taken into the soul.

e) Super-grace believers love God, as per Romans 8:28, Ephesians 3:19; 1John 4:19.

f) God expresses His love in different ways: to the super-grace believers through blessing; to the reversionistic believer through divine discipline, as per Hebrews 12:6.

7. The role of happiness in the super-grace life.

a) The key to super-grace is happiness or the sharing of God's +H.

b) Therefore the super-grace life is characterised by the happiness spectrum which ranges from tranquillity to ecstatics.

c) The same doctrine which provides +H (God's happiness) also provides the super-grace status.

d) The top floor of the ECS is actually the beginning of the super-grace life. This is the tranquillity phase of +H.

e) The fulfillment of +H through doctrine is the entrance to the super-grace life — Philippians 4:4 cf. 1John 1:4.

8. The reality of the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. Occupation with Christ is category #1 love, and occupation with Christ in category #1 love is the first characteristic of the super-grace life. The first thing that happens is a spiritual factor, occupation with Christ or having a genuine soul love capacity to love Jesus Christ. The super-grace believer has maximum love and appreciation for the person of Christ — Lamentations 3:22-25; Hebrews 12:2; Colossians 3:1,2. Category #1 love is tested in the assembly through the communion table.

9. The area of super-grace capacity includes: a) Freedom and the scripture; b) The capacity for life and the scripture; c) Capacity for love in all three categories and scripture; d) Capacity for happiness and scripture; e) Capacity for suffering and scripture.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #45

45 08/27/1973 Ephesians 3:19b–21 Doctrine of PLEROO; supergrace (review)

Verse 20 — the divine authority is related to the super-grace blessing.

"Now" is the connective particle de used as a transitional particle without any contrast intended here.

"unto him that is able" — this is a definite article in the dative case used as a pronoun. With it also is a dative case, present middle participle of dunamai. The definite article is often used with the participle and when it is it becomes a personal pronoun. It can be translated "Now to the one being able" or "Now to him being able." The dative case is the dative of indirect object both in the definite article and in the participle. The dative of indirect object indicates the one in whose interest the act is performed. God's omnipotence acts in His own interest to provide super-grace blessings for the believer. In other words, dunamai with a definite article in the dative case plus the dative case in the participle tells us that it is to God's interest to have the ability to give us anything in super-grace. He has that ability and has all of the assets necessary. There is no limitation to divine assets. The present tense of the participle is a static present representing a condition which perpetually exists representing a dogmatic factor in our lives. The middle voice is the indirect middle, it lays stress on the agent (God) producing the action rather than participating in its results. Therefore it should read, "Now to the one himself being able." The participle is ascriptive, it ascribes to God the total ability to provide super-grace blessings for any and every believer to infinite amounts and quantities.

"to do" — the aorist active infinitive of the verb poiew. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the super-grace life in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The active voice: God the Father produces the action of the verb by providing super-grace blessings. The infinitive denotes God's purpose in the super-grace status, i.e. to provide for each one of us super-grace blessings.

Next we have a double compound adverb. It is translated "exceedingly abundantly" — u(perekperissou. It means "infinitely more than." In the Greek text there are some words in between, a prepositional phrase, u(per plus the accusative neuter plural of paj, called "above all." The neuter gender is important here because it means "beyond all things."

Putting everything in its correct place in the Greek sentence it should read: "Now to the one himself being able, far beyond all things, to do infinitely more than."

"that" should be translated "that which" because it is a genitive plural from the relative pronoun o(j.

"we ask" — present middle indicative of a)itew. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present which indicates that that which was begun in the past continues into the present time. We keep on asking. All of our lives there are things that we want. We might ask for them verbally, we may think them only in our souls, but people keep on asking. So the retroactive progressive present indicates the fact that all of our lives there are things that are targets for happiness as far as we are concerned. The middle voice is an indirect middle which emphasises the agent as producing the action. This type of middle plus the indicative mood is a potential indicative. The potential indicative is generally associated with three ideas: obligation, impulse, or condition. All three ideas are found in those things which we have wanted all of our lives. With the indirect middle and the potential indicative this should be translated "we could ask," taking into account there are a lot of things we haven't thought we would ask for, we thought they were in reach but haven't even thought about them. "or think" — noew here means to imagine. It refers to thinking in the left lobe in the field of imagination. The present tense is an iterative present which describes that which recurs at successive intervals, the present tense of repeated action. The active voice: The believer produces the action of the verb which here connotes imagination. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative which views the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. It should be translated "or be imagining."

"according to the power" is kata plus dunamij. This is used for inherent power. Two inherent powers are found in the royal priesthood: the filling of the Holy Spirit and doctrine in the soul. So the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the function of GAP equals the super-grace life.

"that worketh" — present middle participle e)nergew, meaning to be effective. This is a static present, it represents a state of spiritual growth is phase two (super-grace) which is taken for granted as a fact. The middle is that use of the verb which describes the subject as participating in the results of the action. We as believers participate in the results of being blessed by God. It becomes effective in our lives. Thus you have both the Holy Spirit and Bible doctrine participating in the results of the action which is entrance into the super-grace life. This is called the direct middle. The participle is circumstantial to describe entrance into the super-grace life.

"in us" is e)n plus the locative plural the pronoun e)gw, referring to all believers who reach super-grace.

Translation: "Now to the one himself being able far beyond all things to do infinitely more than that which we could ask or be imagining, according to the power being itself effective in us."

Verse 21 — the divine glorification related to the super-grace blessing.

"unto him" is a dative singular from the intensive pronoun a)utoj. This emphasises the subject already mentioned, namely God the Father. He is the author of the divine plan. He is the one who authorised in the divine decrees the royal priesthood. He is the one who decided what each one of us would receive by way of super-grace blessings. This is also a dative of indirect object indicating that God the Father is the one in whose interest super-grace is provided. It is our blessing but it is God's glory.

"be glory" — h( doca is literally "the glory."

"in the church" — e)n plus the locative of e)kklhsia. It refers here to the local classroom. God is glorified by the assembly of believers being taught doctrine. God is glorified when you assemble and learn doctrine. This glorifies God in a small way, the result glorifies God in a great way. It is the tactical victory of the angelic conflict. Not found in the English text but in the Greek we have kai. So we have "in the church and."

"by Christ Jesus" — positional truth, e)n plus the locative of Xristou I)hsou is "in Christ Jesus." This means you also glorify Him strategically by being in union with Christ.

"throughout all ages" is not quite correct. It is simply, "with reference to all generations" — every generation in the Church Age. Every generation must do it the same way, it hasn't changed since the day of Pentecost and the so-called apostolic period. The principle is true through all generations: the filling of the Spirit plus the consistent function of GAP equals entrance into the super-grace life. This is the tactical victory of the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. Therefore two things are necessary by way of residence: union with Christ occurs at the point of salvation, and residence in the classroom, the assembly of the local church. We reside in Christ forever. It is the amount of time we log in residing in the classroom learning that determines how quickly we reach super-grace.

"world without end" — tou a)iwnoj twn a)iwnwn means "forever and ever" really: "of the ages of the ages" is idiomatic for forever and ever. The phrase refers to the glory which God the Father receives from giving us super-grace blessings.

"Amen" is the end of the second apostolic prayer in Ephesians. It also means "I believe it."

Summary

1. Only through the classroom of the local church can the Father be glorified in this dispensation.

2. The Father is also glorified at the moment God the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Jesus Christ. This identifies us with the strategic victory of the angelic conflict and it also enters us into the royal family of God.

3. It is the baptism of the Spirit that enters us into union with Christ. This occurs at the moment of salvation, it makes the believer a member of a royal priesthood, royal family, living in the palace.

4. It is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is the sign or badge of royalty.

5. The sealing of the Spirit gives security to all members of the royal family.

6. All of this relates the believer to the royal family in Christ through positional sanctification. This means that every believer in the Church Age is in full time Christian service.

7. The function of the royal priesthood is going to class consistently, daily if possible.

8. Since the local church is the classroom Bible doctrine is the daily food. It is the function of the royal family to dine daily on spiritual food.

9. We glorify God the Father and Jesus Christ by assimilating doctrine in the classroom in the Church Age.

10. This classroom has one teacher, many students.

11. Matriculation is accomplished after salvation through positive volition toward Bible doctrine.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #46

46 09/18/1973 Ephesians 4:1 Doctrines of walking, election

First set of notes on Ephesians 4:

Chapter 4

What is the royal family?

1. The royal family refers to believers of the Church Age only.

2. Every believer in this dispensation as of the moment becomes a member of the royal family by virtue of the baptism of the Spirit. We are saved by grace, we are entered into the family of God by grace — Galatians 3:26. Regeneration makes us a member of the family of God; the baptism of the Spirit makes us a member of the royal family of God which is our status forever.

3. Christ is royalty, every believer is entered into union with Christ by the baptism of the Spirit, and therefore by association we are royal family in time and forever.

4. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is permanent because our royalty is permanent. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the badge of royalty. The indwelling of Christ is not permanent, it is only as we progress and stay on the road to super-grace.

Outline of this chapter: three basic concepts.

1. The royal family on the road to super-grace, verses 1-16.

2. The royal family on the road to reversionism, verses 17-19.

3. The royal family in reversion recovery, verses 20-32.

Verse 1 — "I" is the first person singular of the personal pronoun e)gw. It refers to Paul as the human writer of this epistle.

"therefore" is the inferential particle o)un which is correctly translated. This particular inferential particle is never found at the beginning of a Greek sentence. It denotes that which it introduces as inference from what has preceded. The previous chapter dealt with the road to super-grace, and now the conclusions from super-grace. The apostle identifies himself with his circumstances.

"the prisoner of the Lord" — o( desmioj e)n kuriw. O( desmioj means "the prisoner." He is a prisoner of Rome awaiting trial before the supreme court; e)n plus the locative of kurioj.

We have a contrast here. Desmioj tou Xristou was found in chapter 3 verse 1; now it is desmioj e)n kuriw here. What is the significance of the change? It has to do with the content of each chapter. In the previous chapter, chapter three, the emphasis is on the dynamics of mental attitude as a member of the royal family; therefore, "of Christ." Relationship is declared through the genitive case. Chapter four emphasises the stability of being a member of the royal family of God in super-grace status, therefore it is changed to emphasise the positional concept. All stability in the Christian life is based upon positional truth. "I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord." This is not complaining, it is an expression of Paul's super-grace self-consciousness, not his pride. Desmioj, used here for "prisoner," refers to Paul's experiential status. It is a true statement without complaining. Paul is in the Lord's hands, he is in super-grace status, divine dynamics prevail. What is in his soul is more real than the suffering of confinement of his body. The phrase also connotes the absence of reactor factors. There is no disillusion, no discouragement, no boredom, no self-pity. In this passage the apostle Paul can think with his soul. He can think divine viewpoint, divine dynamics. Therefore he has the glorious privilege while still in time to see his very own soul overcome and control his body. The body isn't going to last but while it does the soul is going to keep it in line.

"I beseech" — the present active indicative of parakalew. The word has two basic meanings. It means to either exhort or to encourage. When it is used in the sense of exhort it is just short of giving a direct order. When it is used for encouragement it is done in a very thoughtful, kindly way. There are people in the world who can respond to kindness. This doesn't mean liking the person who is kind but understanding what they are communicating and getting with it. Parakalew also means that, so it has antithetical meanings. And whenever you have antithetical meanings then the context becomes important. With the concept here of encouragement rather than exhortation the present tense is a retroactive progressive present which denotes that which has begun in the past, the first time Paul taught these people, and continues to the present time. The teaching of doctrine is designed to be an encouragement. It is also designed for exhortation and command but here encouragement is in view. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb. The declarative indicative views the action of the verb from the standpoint of reality. This chapter is designed to be an encouragement. "I continue to encourage you is the best translation."

"that" is not found in the original, it is used to translate an infinitive of purpose and it is legitimate to use it that way.

"ye walk" — aorist active infinitive of peripatew. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers up into a single whole and it indicates the function of the super-grace life. The active voice: the royal family produces the action of the verb.

The doctrine of walking

1. Definition. The verb peripatew is used to describe the pattern or function of life for the royal family in phase two (time). Walking is both the Christian modus operandi and modus vivendi. Outside the of book of Acts where you have narrative peripatew is always used for thought pattern, behaviour pattern, some function of the soul.

2. The mechanics of walking imply the concept of the Christian way of life — live one day at a time. You can only take one step at a time. The walking concept emphasises individuality — Romans 14:5,6; Ephesians 5:16-18; James 4:13-15.

3. The mechanics of walking are related to the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. In walking there is a moment when you are off-balance for just an instant. Then you recover balance by putting your foot forward. By recovering balance you continue locomotion. The believer is off-balance living in the devil's world during the intensified stage of the angelic conflict but he is stabilised by the constant and consistent use of the intake of doctrine — Romans 13:13.

4. There are three general spheres of the Christian walk. a) In the Holy Spirit — Galatians 5:16; b) Walk by faith — 2Corinthians 5:7; Colossians 2:6; c) Walking in doctrine — 3 John 3. Our spiritual walk is the divine viewpoint thinking, the doctrinal thinking of the soul.

5. Walking is used to depict the Spirit-filled life and there are variations of how it is declared. Galatians 5:16, "Walk in the Spirit.: Romans 8:2-4 mentions walking in the Spirit and not the flesh. Ephesians 5:2,18 relate to walking. 1John 1:7 says "Walk in the light," which, again, is walking in the Spirit.

6. Walking is also used to describe the daily function of GAP — Ephesians 5:15; Romans 13:13.

7. Walking is used to describe the modus operandi of the reversionistic believer — Philippians 3:18; Ephesians 4:17.

8. Walking describes the modus vivendi of the super-grace believer. Walking in newness of life — Romans 6:4; walking worthy of the vocation — Ephesians 4:11; walking worthy of the Lord — Colossians 1:10; walking in good works — Ephesians 2:10; Colossians 1:10.

9. Walking, then, describes the lifestyle of the reversionistic unbeliever — Ephesians 4:17.

"worthy" — a)ciwj, "in a manner worthy of." It describes the function of the super-grace believer. He walks in a manner worthy of his station in life. He is royalty, he lives in the palace, therefore he walks in a manner worthy of the royal priesthood if which he is a part forever.

"of the vocation" is a genitive of possession of the noun klhsij which refers to being a member of the royal family forever. Actually, klhsij means not so much vocation as station in life. The royal family must have the life which is compatible with the status and that is the super-grace life.

"wherewith" is anachronistic. It is the genitive singular of the relative pronoun o(j and in modern English it should be translated "into which."

"ye are called" — aorist passive indicative of the verb kalew. This is a gnomic aorist used for a doctrinal principle to be regarded as axiomatic. It is an absolute fact, dogmatic, without equivocation that you are elected. Every believer in the Church Age is elected into the plan of God. The passive voice: the royal family receives the action of the verb as a part of the baptism of the Spirit whereby the believer enters into union with Christ who was elected in eternity past — Isaiah 42:1; 1Peter 2:6.

The doctrine of election

1. Election is that doctrine which relates the believer to the plan of God as revealed in the divine decrees. Christ was elected in eternity past — Isaiah 42:1; 1Peter 2:6. Hence, election for the believer is peculiar to the Church Age whereby baptism of the Holy Spirit causes the believer to share both the election and the destiny of Christ. All members of the human race have been potentially elected into the plan of God by the doctrine of unlimited atonement — 2Timothy 2:10, but only those who believe are entered into the plan of God by election and by destiny.

2. The specific election of Jesus Christ. The election of Christ, mentioned in Isaiah 42:1 and 1Peter 2:4,6, occurs as a part of the doctrine of divine decrees — John 15:16; Ephesians 1:4-6; 2Thessalonians 2:13; 1Peter 1:2.

3. The election of the royal family believer. Since election is sharing the destiny of Christ, and since Christ was elected in eternity past, and since every believer is in union with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit, every believer is said to be called or elected — 1Corinthians 1:2,30; Romans 8:28-32; Ephesians 1:4. This election occurred at the moment of faith in Christ — 1Thessalonians 1:4; 2Thessalonians 2:13; 2Timothy 1:9. Election, then, is the present as well as the future possession of every believer — John 15:16; Colossians 3:12.

4. There is also an election of Jewish believers in the previous dispensation. When a Jew in the Age of Israel believed in Christ he had an election on the plan of God. But it is not a royal election, he is not in union with Christ; this is for the Church Age only. He is in the Age of Israel but instead he is entered into the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New covenants to Israel. So his election is related to the unconditional covenants of the dispensation of Israel. This is summarised as a doctrine in Romans 11:1-7.

5. Election is the basis of Church Age royalty. At the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit enters every believer into union with Christ — 1Corinthians 12:13. The baptism of the Spirit is the sole basis for entrance to the royal status — 2Thessalonians 2:13. Therefore, the importance of understanding the doctrine of election is stressed in 1Thessalonians 1:4.

6. Election has a purpose of encouragement: to encourage the believer to reach the tactical victory compatible with his royal status — the super-grace life. Ephesians 4:1; 2Timothy 1:9 cf. 13,14; Titus 1:1.

Translation: "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, continue to encourage you to walk in a manner worthy of you station in life into which you have been called [elected]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #47

47 09/19/1973 Ephesians 4:2 Doctrine of the royal family

Preview… Verse 2 —

1. This verse introduces the characteristics of the super-grace life which amplify and encourage the believer to fulfill verse 1. Verse 2 is, therefore, a simple application and amplification of the phrase, "walk in a manner worthy of your station in life." Having a station in life demands something from the individual. Leadership has responsibility. There is no such thing as leadership without responsibility. So first of all this verse is to amplify the responsibility that goes with being a member of the royal family and a part of a very great priesthood.

2. The preposition meta which is found under the word "with" connotes association or accompaniment.

3. Meta plus the genitive always means association and accompaniment whereas meta plus the accusative means "after."

4.The same preposition meta is used in the Koine Greek combined with verbs to form compound verbs.

Illustrations:

a) Metanoew. Meta with verbs always means a change or alteration. Noew means to think and so it means to change the mind.

b) Metatiqhmi. While tiqhmi means to place, meta with the verb means to change. So it means to transfer or change a place.

c) Metamorfow. Morfow means "form" and meta means to change, so it means to change form or to be transfigured.

So our little word meta which occurs at the beginning of this verse is used quite a few ways in the scripture, it is not always the same. You can never tell exactly what meta is going to mean unless you see it with a verb as a compound, and therefore change, or with the accusative — "after," or with the genitive which is accompaniment or association.

Here in verse 2 we have a prepositional phrase, "With all lowliness" — meta plus the genitive of paj plus the genitive of tapeinofrosunh. Meta is our genitive, followed by an adjective, paj, meaning "all." So, "Associated with all," and then this compound noun. It is composed of tapeinoj which means "humble," then the verb fronew which means to think objectively. All together it does not mean humility. If it does it simply connotes a mental attitude of objectivity, modesty which means orientation to grace or, as here, super-grace thinking. It means the normal mental attitude of the super-grace believer. It does not mean lowliness. Lowliness connotes hypocrisy and self-effacement. This should be translated "associated with all objective grace thinking," not meekness. Objective grace thinking is a monopoly of the super-grace life.

The preposition has another object in the genitive singular and it is in the English as "meekness" — the genitive singular of prauthj which does not mean meekness. It does mean gentleness, kindness, friendliness. It is the antithesis of anger or cruelty, arrogance, insubordination or disputation. Hence, it comes to mean courtesy and considerateness. Therefore it means true sensitivity. It should be translated "considerate sensitivity." Friendship is sharing the enthusiasms of others but courtesy is being thoughtful of others whether you know the or not, whether you like them or not, regardless of any other factor. The super-grace believer is objective and gracious in his thinking. He lives under the principle of live and let live. He respects the rights and privacy of others, is thoughtful of the feelings of others, giving respect where respect is due and courtesy wherever possible. This is the first prepositional phrase and it is the first phrase to indicate what is meant by "walking worthy of your station in life into which you have been called."

The second prepositional phrase also begins with meta and is also meta plus the genitive, this time the genitive of makroqumia. It is translated "longsuffering" in the KJV. Makroqumia means patience toward others. The super-grace believer is objective and gracious in his thinking, he lives under the concept of respecting the rights and the privacy and the property of others, but he also is patient with those who malign or judge or seek to hurt him or are in some other way are obnoxious.

"forbearing" — present active participle of a)nexomai which means to put up with things that are not pleasant, to take up the slack, to restrain yourself, or to endure. "Putting up with" is a better translation than forbearing. The present tense of this participle is an iterative present which describes that which recurs at successive intervals; the present tense of repeated action. In other words, you are not always going around putting up with someone but there are times when you are going to face antagonism, when you are going to face insensitivity where you are concerned, and when you do your calmness and relaxed mental attitude of the super-grace life will be a a fantastic thing. It is what is expected of you under the phrase, "walk in a manner worthy of your station in life into which you have been called." The active voice the super-grace believer produces the action of the verb, and only the super-grace believer. This verse is talking about super-grace action, this is not what happens on the way up, it is not a description of the immature believer. The participle is a temporal participle. It means when enduring or when putting up with "one another." This means it will not happen all the time but when it does then this is the attitude the super-grace believer has.

"one another " is the genitive plural a)llhlwn. The word comes from a)lloj, and it means another of the same kind. We are talking about members of the royal family.

"in love" — e)n plus the locative of a)gaph, "in the sphere of a relaxed mental attitude."

Translation: "Associated with objective grace thinking and courteous considerateness, associated with patience [toward the antagonistic], when putting up with one another of the same kind [royal family] in the sphere of love [as a relaxed mental attitude]."

The doctrine of the royal family

1. All believers of the Church Age belong to an unique system of royalty. This royalty is based on the spiritual concept of Bible doctrine, a specific doctrine, the doctrine of the mystery. Regeneration is no mystery, it occurred from Adam right down to this day. But with the interruption of the Age of Israel by the Church Age there are some additional things at the point of regeneration. God the Holy Spirit baptises every believer into union with Jesus Christ who is royalty forever. Being in union with Christ every believer is a royal member of the family of God and only the Church Age believer is in the royal family.

2. The basis of royalty in the Church Age is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Regeneration is the basis of salvation but baptism of the Spirit, unique to the Church Age, is the basis of royalty. No believer before the Church Age and no believer after the Rapture will ever have the baptism of the Spirit.

3. There is a precedent for royalty. It was set up by one man, Melchizedek. It should be noted that Melchizedek acquired royalty by becoming king of Salem. Jesus Christ was born royalty. Melchizedek, in other words, conquered and through conquest became royalty; he wasn't born royalty. Jesus Christ was born royalty. Melchizedek was king of Salem; Jesus Christ is King of kings. One acquired royalty; one was born into it. The royalty of the Church Age believer, however, comes not through physical birth and not through any ability in life but simply through grace at the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

4. The relationship to the King.

a) While Jesus Christ was alone on the cross God the Father had to provide for Him a body or a bride — a family. His aloneness had to be implemented as with the first Adam.

b) Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit every believer is entered into union with Christ and therefore becomes the body of Christ.

c) Union with Christ means body of Christ. Therefore believers in this dispensation are called the body of Christ.

d) being the body of Christ makes every believer in the Church Age personally related to the King of kings just as any member of the body is related to the head of the body — 1Corinthians 12.

e) Positional sanctification places every believer in the palace. Application: You are in the palace.

f) When the body of Christ is completed [Rapture of the Church] then the Church Age terminates and the body becomes the bride.

5) During the Tribulation the bride is no longer on earth but in heaven being prepared for operation footstool which is the second stage of our Lord's strategic victory.

5. The sign of royalty is the unprecedented universal indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. Never before in history has the third person of the Trinity indwelt every believer. The purpose of this indwelling is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ who is the King of kings — John 7:37-39.

6. The security of royalty. Both the sealing of the Holy Spirit and positional sanctification provide an eternal security for royalty. We have a double security, positional truth plus the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit.

7. The function of royalty is twofold. First, moving toward the objective of the super-grace life in which the believer receives the accouterments of royalty in super-grace as well as the tactical victory in the angelic conflict. The accouterments of royalty are the super-grace blessings which come to you. Secondly, the function of royalty is the modus operandi of the new royal priesthood.

8. The future of royalty. As members of the body of Christ and the royal priesthood all Church Age believers will return with Christ at the second advent. We will participate in the strategic victory, the overthrow of Satan plus the Millennial reign of Christ. After the Millennium the royal family will be with Christ forever in the new heavens, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem. Specifically, our abode in eternity is the new heavens. The new heavens belong to us as members of the royal family.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #48

48 09/20/1973 Ephesians 4:3–5 Doctrines of the Body of Christ, baptism of Holy Spirit (revised); characteristics of the royal family

Verse 3 — "Endeavouring" is a present active participle of spoudazw. The word actually means to hurry up, to be zealous, to be or have diligence. Here it means "Be diligent." It is translated this way because the present tense is the retroactive progressive present which denotes something begun in the past and continues to the present time. Diligence always marks the believer on the road to super-grace, the believer who stays with doctrine, who never gives up on doctrine in spite of all kinds of discouragements and pressures. The active voice: the believer with positive volition toward doctrine fulfills the diligence, and by so doing he guards the characteristics or the essence of the royal family of God. The participle is a very unusual one, it is the imperative use of the participle. It is very rare. The participle is sometimes used as an imperative mood and it is a peculiarity of Koine Greek only, it would never happen in Classical Greek. When it does occur it indicates that this is something to which daily attention must be given. Daily thought must be given to the attitude toward Bible doctrine. However, the participle itself can never be properly understood without some support, and the support is given in the form of an infinitive…

"to keep" is the present active infinitive of the verb terew which means to keep, to guard, often it means to guard or keep something that belongs to you personally. The present tense is a static present used for a condition which continually exists under the super-grace status. The super-grace believer is constantly guarding what already belongs to him, the essence of the royal family which will be listed starting in verse 4. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action of the verb. The infinitive is an infinitive of purpose and it is fulfilled through the daily function of GAP or diligence in positive volition, reaching the super-grace life. So literally, "Be diligent to preserve."

"the unity" — the accusative singular of direct object from the noun e)nothj. It means unity or oneness. It refers to the common essence or the characteristics which we have as members of the royal family of God. It means we have the same coat of arms. On this coat of arms there are seven things and this belongs to each one of us. E)nothj here such not mean brotherly love, let's fall over each other. It doesn't mean that we gush all over each other. It means we all have and carry forever seven things in common. We have, as it were, the same family escutcheon.

"of the Spirit" — or correctly, "from the Spirit." This is ablative of source from pneuma. Unity or the escutcheon or the coat of arms from the Spirit is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to every member of the royal family of God at the point of salvation.

Summary

1. God the Holy Spirit is the source of our royalty. He did five things for us at the point of salvation.

2. In addition it is God the Holy Spirit who is the agent of regeneration entering us into the family of God forever.

3. God the Father has given to us at the point of salvation, in response to this ministry of the Holy Spirit, a family coat of arms, a royal family escutcheon. This will be described in verses 4-6.

"in the bond" is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the locative of sundesmoj which refers to a bond. It means a holder together, a uniter, that which holds together or unites all the essence of the royal family. In other words, a coat of arms. We all have the same coat of arms.

"of peace" — e)irhnh has the definite article. This word can mean everything from tranquillity to harmony. It's basic sense historically is a state of mind which was desired by the Stoics, but in this particular sense it means the harmony which was established by grace totally apart from any other factor. Again, it means we all wear the same patch. The principle involved here is very important, for it will be noticed that we only do one thing so far in this verse. "Be diligent to preserve." To preserve is an infinitive of purpose, and the purpose of the infinitive is fulfilled by the daily function of GAP whereby the believer reaches super-grace, the status compatible with his royalty. So the only command here is to do something compatible with your royal status. In other words, honour the patch, honour the escutcheon, honour the coat of arms. Do not bring disgrace upon the family of God is a negative way of stating what is meant in this verse.

Translation: "Be diligent to preserve the unity [the coat of arms] from the Spirit in the bond of security."

We are held together is perfect security. The security which we possess comes from union with Christ, comes from being saved, and therefore since we have this eternal and temporal security lets us be sure to bring honour to the coat of arms.

Verse 4 begins the actual enucleation of these seven characteristics of the royal family, the essence of the royal family of the coat of arms. Of the royal family of God.

The first item: "one body" — e(n [one] swma [body]. This refers to the basic structure of the royal family. All believers in the dispensation of the Church are in the body of Christ. The body of Christ is the name of the royal family on the earth.

The doctrine of the body of Christ

1. The Trinity is related to the body. The Father, for example, placed Christ as the head of the body — Ephesians 1:22. Therefore Christ is the head of the body — Ephesians 1:22,23; 5:23,24; Colossians 1:18. The Holy Spirit forms the body of Christ — 1Corinthians 12:12-14. Furthermore, He sustains the body of Christ — 1Corinthians 6:15 cf. 6:19,20.

2. Christ is the saviour of the body — Ephesians 5:23,25, 30. Being the saviour of the body means that the body of Christ has eternal life, possesses it forever and ever.

3. Christ is also the sanctifier of the body — Hebrews 2:11; 13:12.

4. The body is related to the strategic victory of the angelic conflict — Ephesians 1:22,23.

5. The body includes Gentile believers of the Church Age as well as Jewish — Ephesians 3:6.

6. The body is the recipient of multifarious spiritual gifts — Romans 12:4,5; 1Corinthians 12:27,28.

7. The communication of doctrine gift [pastor-teacher] is for the purpose of edification and leading the royal priesthood to super-grace — Ephesians 3:6-8; 4:11,12.

8. Therefore the objective of the body of Christ in phase two is to reach the super-grace life — Ephesians 4:15,16.

The second item: "one Spirit" — e(n pneuma. This refers to the ministries which we received at salvation and which no believer prior to our dispensation, the Church, received. Regeneration is common to believers of all dispensations, but: a) baptism of the Spirit — entrance into the royal family; b) indwelling of the Spirit — the badge of royalty plus the function of royalty; c) the sealing of the Spirit — the security of the Spirit during the intensified stage of the angelic conflict; d) spiritual gifts — the recognition of royalty.

"even as" — the adverb kaqoj indicates comparison. This is comparison with our election.

"ye are called" — aorist passive indicative of kalew which relates to the doctrine of election. The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist used for a doctrine which must be regarded as axiomatic. Every believer is elected into the plan of God, therefore the life of every believer has meaning and purpose and definition. This election was accomplished at the same time and by the same means as entrance into the royal family, namely the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The passive voice: the royal family receives the action of the verb. Election and entrance into full time Christian service. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic and unqualified assertion of doctrine.

The third item: "in one hope" — e)n plus the locative of e(ij plus the locative of e)lpij, which really means expectation, prospect, or confidence. It should be translated, "in one prospect [expectation]." It is a reference to what we have coming up as members of the royal family in phase three.

"of your calling" is a descriptive genitive of klhsij which means station in life, station in life being spiritual royalty.

Translation: "One body, and one Spirit, just as you have been elected into one prospect of your station in life."

Verse 5 — The fourth item: "One Lord" is e(ij kurioj. This refers to the fact that all of us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have the same Lord. He is the Lord of all as of salvation. He is the Lord of all through the baptism of the Spirit and resultant positional sanctification. This also refers to the fact that all members of the body of Christ have one saviour, Jesus Christ, who is the only celebrity in the royal family.

The fifth item: "one faith" — the nominative feminine singular of e(ij which is mia pistij. This is the manner in which we are saved. Faith is totally without merit in the subject. The merit in faith is always in the object, the object in faith in salvation is Jesus Christ and all of us were saved in exactly the same way, by believing in Christ.

The sixth item: "one baptism" — the baptism by which we enter into the royal family is the baptism of the Holy Spirit: e)n baptisma. E)n is nominative neuter of e(ij. [E(ij is the vocabulary form; mia is feminine gender; e)n is neuter gender; the use depends on the noun]

The doctrine of the baptism of the Spirit

1. The uniqueness of the baptism of the Spirit.

a) Prior to the Church Age God the Holy Spirit was always the agent of regeneration for those who believe in Christ. He still is and always will be so that regeneration is something that occurs in every dispensation when a person believes in Christ.

b) Now the Holy Spirit not only regenerates the Church Age believer but he performs certain other functions at the point of salvation: baptism — entrance into the royal family; indwelling — sign of royalty; sealing — security of royalty; spiritual gift — guarantee of provision for royalty.

c) Therefore the baptism of the Holy Spirit is peculiar to the Church Age. It did not exist before the Church Age began, it will never occur again after the Church Age is terminated with the Rapture or resurrection.

d) No Old Testament saint had the baptism of the Spirit.

e) Reason: Only the body of Christ is royalty and the baptism of the Spirit is a special salvation ministry to create royalty.

f) The baptism of the Spirit is designed to take the Church Age believer, make him a member of the royal family, enter him in the palace of God forever. So the uniqueness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is related to the fact that in this dispensation every believer is royalty forever.

2. The prophecy of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was given by the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry just before the dispensation of Israel was interrupted — John 14:20; Acts 1:5.

3. Definition and mechanics. Baptism is the salvation ministry of God the Holy Spirit whereby he enters the believer into union with Christ making him a member of the royal family forever. All members of the royal family have the same baptism — e(n baptisma. It provides equality in the royal family, an equality which does not exist through human birth and is not acquired through human ability. Galatians 3:26-28.

4. The baptism of the Spirit is related therefore to positional sanctification. Since there are two kinds of positional sanctification it must be related to each type. First of all, it is the basis for retroactive positional truth by which the royal family is separated from human good. Secondly, it is the basis for current positional truth by which the royal family has a permanent relationship with the King of kings and lives in the royal palace forever — Ephesians 1:3-6; Colossians 2:10.

5. The baptism of the Spirit occurs at the moment of salvation — Colossians 2:12. Therefore the baptism is not an experience of any kind. This includes any form of ecstatics or speaking in tongues, or any of the other flaky experiences which have infiltrated fundamentalism at the present time. 1Corinthians 12:13.

6. The baptism of the Spirit interrupts the Jewish dispensation and begins the Church Age — Matthew 16:18 tells us the Church Age was not in existence during the time that Jesus was on the earth. Acts 1:5 indicates it was still future at the time of His ascension. Acts 2:3 cf. Acts 11:15-17 tells us the baptism of the Spirit occurred for the first time on the day of Pentecost.

7. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is one of seven Bible baptisms — Hebrews 6:2, "baptisms" plural. There are four real baptisms — actual identifications: baptism of Moses — 1Corinthians 10:2; the baptism of the cross — Matthew 20:22; the baptism of the Spirit — 1Corinthians 12:13; baptism of fire — Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16; ritual baptisms — representative identifications, water is used as the representing agent: the baptism of John — Matthew 3:1-10; John 1:25-33; the baptism of Jesus — Matthew 3:13-17; Christian baptism — Acts 8:36-38; 16:33.

Translation: "One Lord [Jesus Christ], one faith, one baptism."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #49

49 09/21/1973 Ephesians 4:6–8 Doctrines of ascension, spiritual gifts

Verse 6 — "One God" is e(ij qeoj. This does not refer to being one member in the Godhead but it actually refers to the fact that in the Godhead there are three, but only one who is called God the Father. This refers to God the Father, the Son and the Spirit have been previously mentioned.

"and Father" — kai is the ascensive conjunction and is translated "even Father." There is no definite article with pathr and the absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the noun. The anthropomorphism is used to communicate the role of the first person of the Trinity as far as His plan for mankind is concerned. The Father is the author of the plan — operation grace. He is also the authority in the planning stage.

"of all" — the genitive plural of paj. What does this mean? a) This is a genitive to refer to all members of the royal family. "All" refers to you as a believer in this dispensation. b) This is a genitive of relationship. You have a relationship with God forever. c) We are born into the family of God by regeneration. d) The Holy Spirit is the agent of that regeneration. e) At the same time the Holy Spirit baptises us into union with Christ making us members of the royal family of God.

"who" — nominative masculine singular of the definite article o(, used in its generic sense. The generic use of the definite article views God the Father in a class by Himself and distinct from all others. So it should be translated, "One God even Father of all, the one .."

"above all" — e)pi plus the locative plural of paj. E)pi plus the genitive emphasises contact and therefore it would be translated "on, at, or before." E)pi plus the accusative emphasises direction and is translated "to." But e)pi plus the locative emphasises position and therefore it is translated "over." It is translated "over all." This prepositional phrase emphasises the sovereignty of God the Father. God the Father uses His sovereignty to come up with a perfect plan. His essence is perfection, His sovereignty made a decision, a plan for us, and that plan is perfect. The fact that you and I have wound up as members of the royal family of God through no ability of our own, through no nobility of our own, through no works of our own, again indicates God's perfection and God's grace. So "over all" is the sovereignty of God the Father. In human history there is both divine and human volition. Bona fide human volition existed in the garden and is an extension of the angelic conflict. It continues to exist after the fall. The fact that human volition can act independently of God is demonstrated in 2Peter 3:9 and it indicates the fact that whatever God's will for man is man must enter on the basis of his own free will, but it must be free will non-meritorious. That is why salvation is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

"and through all" — dia plus the genitive plural of paj.

1. Dia plus the genitive of paj describes the omnipresence of God the Father.

2. In omnipresence God the Father is imminent and transcendent.

3. All the planning and production of God are manifestations of His essence or His qualities.

4. God is everywhere personally present. The whole of God is in every place.

5. This is not pantheism. Pantheism denies the person of God. It says God is everywhere in the sense of all things. The omnipresence of God is not pantheism.

6. God in the totality of His essence without diffusion, expansion, multiplication, or division, penetrates and fills the universe. This is the principle of imminence and transcendence. Psalm 139:7, 8, 18; Jeremiah 23:23,24; Acts 17:27.

7. However God is also free to be local, as on the mountain with Moses, in the holy of holies of the tabernacle, on the mount of transfiguration.

8. Therefore God is imminent and transcendent — Proverbs 15:3; Psalm 102:27; 1 Kings 8:27; Job 34:21,22.

"and in you all" — the preposition e)n plus the locative plural of paj is "and in the sphere of all." God the Father, undiminished, undivided actually indwells every member of the royal family. He is omnipresent, He is indwelling, and He indwells every believer in His omnipresence. He is also in every part of the universe in His omnipresence, and yet He can do all of those things and be local as illustrated by certain passages of the Word of God.

Translation: "One God even Father of all [the royal family], the one over all [the royal family], and through all [the royal family], and in all [the royal family]."

Summary

1. All members of the royal family have the same Father just as all members of the royal family have the same saviour and all members of the royal family enter the palace the same way, the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ.

2. While all members of the royal family are unified by these attributes of nobility — one body, one Holy Spirit, one Lord, one way of salvation [faith], one entrance into the royal family [baptism of the Spirit], one heavenly Father—all do not have the same function, nor do all achieve the same stage of growth.

3. Spiritual gifts are different, therefore various functions are assigned to members of the royal family.

4. All believers are members of the same team, therefore members of the same royalty. But as members of the team they have different functions. We are different members but the same body, and the difference are many but the things that unite us are permanent and eternal.

Verse 7 — the provision of super-grace for the royal family. We are left on this earth as members of the royal family to reach super-grace, so that we can be wealthy, successful, promoted, have prosperity, have God's happiness, so that whenever we have adversity we can roll through it as if the adversity were nothing. This is a post-salvation provision.

"But" is the adversative conjunctive particle de, translated "but." This particle is used to differentiate between the common essence of the royal family and the difference of function, growth and attainment in the royal family. So de becomes a very great divider. We all have everything in verses 4-6. Now we have what some have and what some do not have. This particle separates the men from the boys.

"unto every one" — the dative singular of e(ij plus the dative plus the dative of e(kastoj which means "each," it is very individual, very personal. It should be translated, "But to each one." Here is an indication of the recognition by the Word of God, a recognition of the difference of personality and outlook, environment, all of the things that differentiate one believer from another or one person from another. We have a dative of indirect object to indicate the royal family for whom the act is performed. God has provided something for the royal family, something in time that is very special, something that makes all of the difference as far as your life on earth is concerned, and something that says in effect that you should have not hell on earth but heaven on earth. You will have heaven on earth of you reach super-grace.

"of us" — the genitive plural of the personal pronoun e)gw. This is a descriptive genitive indicating the members of the royal family of God and/or Church Age believers.

"is given" — but first of all the subject of this verb is the word "grace," h( xarij — "the grace," literally. It refers to super-grace. The definite article indicates it has been defined before and it is referring to the same super-grace we have seen before; "is given" should be "has been given" — the aorist passive indicative of the verb didomi which means to give. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers up into one entirety the entire super-grace package designed for every believer. The aorist tense gathers up into one ball of wax everything that God ever designed for you. The passive voice: the member of the royal family receives the super-grace paragraph when he GAPs it to super-grace. What keeps you from getting these things? Lack of Bible doctrine — indifference, apathy, rejection or antagonism toward doctrine. Sometimes it is just substituting something for doctrine. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative viewing the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality. However, this is the reality of super-grace blessings in the decrees, it does not guarantee that you will actually receive them. The attainment of these blessings is based upon your consistency in the function of GAP.

"according to the measure" — kata plus the accusative of metron, "according to the standard."

"of the gift of Christ" — the genitive singular from dwrea means a gift without any strings. Christ was given without strings; Christ was the greatest thing God could give us; Christ is the source of salvation; Christ is the source of every blessing. Without this unique person of the universe we would have no salvation, we would have nothing, we would be worse off than dead. The standard or measurement is Christ. This is the same thing as we have in Romans 8:32.

Translation: "But to each one of us the grace has been given according to the standard of the gift of the Christ."

In verses 8-10 we have royalty related to the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus Christ in the angelic conflict. If we have a future on this earth as well as in heaven what was our past relationship? How do we tie into these things? Royalty has to be related to what Christ did on the cross.

Verse 8 — "Wherefore" is an inferential conjunction, dio, and it means "for this reason." Dio is only used when something great has been presented and now from it certain additional inferences are about to be made. So dio follows a conclusion in order to give inferences from the conclusion.

"he saith" — present active indicative of legw, and it isn't "he" that is speaking, but this is a quotation from Psalm 68:18. So it should be translated, "For this reason the scripture says." Documentation, and documentation used to draw an additional inference from the conclusion of verse 7.

Now we have the quotation: "When he ascended up" — aorist active participle of a)nabainw. It refers to the ascension of Christ as a part of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the ascension in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results — glorification of Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father as the unique person of the universe. The active voice: Jesus Christ produced the action of the verb through ascension. This is a temporal participle, it also has antecedent action to the main verb as an aorist participle.

"on high" — the prepositional phrase e)ij plus the accusative of u(yoj is a reference to the third heaven.

The doctrine of the ascension

1. The resurrection body of Jesus Christ was capable of space travel, and the ascension is space travel — John 20:17.

2. Once arriving in heaven Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. This is called the session of Christ — Psalm 110:1; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3,13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1Peter 3:22.

3. The ascension and session of Christ formed the basis of victory in the angelic conflict — Hebrews 1:3-13.

4. The ascension and session of Christ began a new sphere of the angelic conflict — Ephesians 1:20-22; 4:7-10. Therefore the believer of the Church Age is involved in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict.

5. The ascension and session of Jesus Christ begin operation footstool, prophesied in Psalm 110:1 and quoted in Luke 20:42,43; Acts 2:33,34; Hebrews 1:13.

6. The second advent of Christ will conclude operation footstool — Daniel 7:13,14; Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15; Revelation 20:1-3.

7. The ascension and session of Christ completes the glorification of Christ in His hypostatic union — Acts 2:33; 5:31; Philippians 2:9; 1Peter 3:22.

8. The ascension and session of Christ explains the uniqueness of the Church Age and the importance of having a royal family in this dispensation only — John 7:37-39.

9. The ascension and session of Christ is the key to victory in the angelic conflict — Hebrews 1:4.

10. The ascension and session of Christ after resurrection make possible the second high priestly function of our Lord, namely intercession or praying for all members of the royal family on earth — Hebrews 7:25.

As the strategic victor, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the royal priest, our only celebrity distributes the spoils to both dispensations. The ascension of Christ interrupts the Age of Israel, begins the Church Age, but in His triumphal procession the distribution of the spoils go both ways. First of all, what are the spoils, what is the booty for the Age of Israel? The answer is the transfer of the Old Testament saints from their residence from the heart of the earth called Paradise or Abraham's bosom.

"he led captive" — the aorist active indicative of the verb a)ixmalwteuw which means to take captives in battle or to lead people, captives and your own troops, in a triumphal procession. At this point we have all of the Old Testament saints who have died, those who are in Paradise at the time of the ascension, follow in our Lord's train. They are called captives because they do not have a resurrection body and will not have until the second advent of Christ . The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety the transfer of all of the Old Testament saints from Paradise to the third heaven, the throne room of God. They go to heaven as captives because they have souls and spirits but no bodies. This is a part of the triumphal procession. Then you have a cognate accusative, the word "captivity" which is a)ixmalwsia, the noun form of what we have just had in the verb. It is translated: "he led captives in a triumphal procession [the ascension] from a state of captivity." The state of captivity is Abraham's bosom or Paradise where all Old Testament saints resided until the ascension. The fact that Old Testament saints resided in this place is verified by Luke 23:39-45; 16:10-31; Matthew 27:52,53; and also to verify the distinction between this and the third heaven we have 2Corinthians 12:1-4. The activity of Christ in Hades covers many areas of scripture, e.g. 1Peter 3:18-22.

Now how do the Church Age believers share in this victory? They are still on the earth, their part is still to come.

"and gave" — aorist active indicative of didomi which means here to distribute. Since this is portrayed as a triumphal procession distribution is a better translation. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety but takes the distribution of spiritual gifts and regardless of the duration of the Church Age gathers them all into a single whole. The active voice: Jesus Christ makes the distribution as the conqueror, as the victorious general returning from the wars. The indicative mood is declarative contemplating the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality.

"gifts" is the accusative plural of direct object doma. It is used technically here for spiritual gifts distributed, but the spiritual gifts are not given to the family of God. That is an incorrect statement. They are given to the royal family of God, believers of the Church Age. All believers have received a spiritual gift and this spiritual gift is a guarantee that Jesus Christ has already won the victory of the angelic conflict, has been seated in the place of victory at the right hand of the Father, and you are a part of the royal family and share in that victory.

"unto men" — the dative plural of a)nqrwpoj. The dative of indirect object indicates the ones in whose interest the act is performed. In this case it is the royal family of God in whose interest spiritual gifts have been distributed. So spiritual gifts are designed to be beneficial as well as to mark each one of us out as members of the royal family. A)nqrwpoj is a generic term and means male and female.

Translation: "For this reason the scripture [Psalm 68:18] says, When he had ascended up on high, he led captives [Old Testament believers] in a triumphal procession from a state of captivity, and has distributed [spiritual] gifts to men [persons of the royal family of God]."

The doctrine of spiritual gifts

1. Definition. Spiritual gifts are distributed to the royal family of the Church Age both as a recognition of Christ's strategic victory in the angelic conflict plus a recognition of the royalty of every believer in the Church Age. So the distribution of spiritual gifts in the Church Age recognises that Christ has already won the victory, therefore distribution of spoils; and that furthermore we are give spiritual gifts first as recognition as being members of the royal family. For the Church Age spiritual gifts are the Father's organised witness and testimony to grace in salvation — Hebrews 2:4. Spiritual gifts demand the function of royalty under GAP plus the attainment of the tactical victory of super-grace. So the challenge of spiritual gifts: GAP it daily and reach super-grace.

2. Distribution. Distribution is divided into two parts, initial and subsequent.

a) Initial distribution. At the beginning of the Church Age spiritual gifts were provided immediately by the Lord Jesus Christ — Ephesians 4:8-11.

b) Subsequent distribution during the Church Age is handled by the sovereign decision of God the Holy Spirit who gives every believer of the Church Age at least one spiritual gift, known or unknown — 1Corinthians 12:11. These gifts do not depend upon human ability, morality, talent, achievement, but constitute a sovereign decision of God the Holy Spirit.

3. Function. 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 — 1Corinthians 12:27-31. All spiritual gifts function through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit — Acts 2:4; 1Corinthians 13. The function of spiritual gifts also depends upon Bible doctrine in the soul as the result of functioning under GAP. Also these Bible doctrines mould a grace attitude for the spiritual gift — Romans 12:3. The true perspective regarding spiritual gifts is found in 1Corinthians chapter 12.

4. There are two categories of spiritual gifts — temporary and permanent. Temporary gifts are in the pre-canon period of the Church Age. The post-canon period has permanent gifts. So we have temporary from 30-96 AD; permanent from 96 AD through the present and to the Rapture of the Church. Temporary gifts are necessary to take up the slack until the canon of scripture was completed and circulated. Once the Bible was completed certain temporary spiritual gifts were withdrawn. These temporary gifts include apostleship, tongues, healing, and so on. The fact that tongues was removed earlier is found in the Greek of 1Corinthians 13:8-10. The fact that healing was removed, even in Paul's day half way through his ministry, is found by comparing Acts 19:11,12 with Philippians 2:27 and 2Timothy 4:20. Permanent gifts continue after the completion of the canon and throughout the Church Age, as per Romans 12:6-8; 1Corinthians 12:31.

5. The time of distribution. All spiritual gifts were given after the resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus Christ — Ephesians 4:8. Spiritual gifts were given for the first time on the day of Pentecost when the dispensation of Israel was dramatically interrupted — Acts chapter two.

6. The abuse of these gifts. Reversionism and apostasy seek to perpetuate temporary spiritual gifts, like tongues and healing, beyond the closing of the canon in 96 AD. When anyone claims the gifts of apostleship, tongues, miracles, healing, they are apostate and reversionistic; separate yourselves from them.

7. Communication gifts. Surviving communication gifts are really twofold. The first is pastor-teacher. The authority of this gift is found in Hebrews 13:7,17; 1Thessalonians 5. The gift of evangelism is also a communication gift but limited and without authority in the local church. The gift of apostle-prophet was designed for the producing of the New Testament canon and stabilising the Church before the completion of the Bible. After the completion of the canon of scripture the gift of pastor-teacher carried authority inside the local church. The authority of the evangelist is in the response to the Word of God, the Gospel, as he teaches outside of the local church. Evangelism was not to be conducted in the classroom but outside of the classroom on the campus of this world, as it were.

Verse 9 resumes with a parenthesis which goes through verse 10 for the purpose of amplification.

"Now" is the conjunctive particle de. It is a transitional participle without any contrast intended and it is used to introduce the parenthesis.

"that" is the definite article in the nominative neuter singular but it is used as a demonstrative pronoun in order to refer back to the Bible doctrine which has been taught so far in this passage. Literally, what we have so far is: "Now this." After the citation of an Old Testament scripture a parenthesis is used to explain what is meant by the citation. The doctrine which is involved has to be amplified, so literally, we have "Now this doctrine that." First of all we have the doctrine of ascension.

"he ascended" — the aorist active indicative of a)nebainw is used for the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is, of course, the triumphal procession which has been mentioned in previous verses. The ascension is Jesus Christ in resurrection body going from point A to point B, from the earth to the third heaven. This is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The entire ascension is now considered under one heading. The active voice indicates that Jesus Christ was the one who ascended. He is the unique person of the universe, He is just as much God as the Father and the Holy Spirit, He is at the same time true humanity. The indicative mood is a declarative indicative contemplating the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality, this is a dogmatic principle. "Now this doctrine that he ascended." Amplification is now necessary.

"what is it" — ti e(stin. This is an idiom which means "what does it imply?" What is the significance of the ascension.

"but that" — e)i mh o(ti, means "except that." The conjunction o(ti is used after verbs of thinking, implication, or inference to indicate the content of the conclusion.

"he also descended" — aorist active indicative of katebainw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist and it takes up the occurrence of descending and regardless of its extent or duration gathers it into a single whole or entirety. In other words, when the body of Jesus Christ was in the grave and the human spirit of Jesus Christ was at the right hand of the Father His soul descended into Sheol or Hades. The descent of the Lord fulfilled many purposes. The indicative mood is declarative indicating that it is a part of doctrine, an unqualified assertion. The doctrine of the descent into the heart of the earth is a very important one. 1Peter 3:18-22; Luke 16:10-31; 23:39-45.

"first" is not found in the original.

"into the lower parts of the earth?" — prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative neuter plural of katwteroj, which means inside; "of the earth" is a descriptive genitive and also a genitive of location — gh.

Translation: "Now this doctrine that he ascended, what does it imply except that he also descended into the inner-lower part of the earth?"

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #50

50 09/23/1973 Ephesians 4:9–11a Doctrines of PLEROO, apostleship

Verse 10 — "He that descended." Jesus Christ during those three days between His death and resurrection. This is an aorist active participle of katabainw, it contemplates the descent into the lower parts of the earth in its entirety. It includes the fact that He was in Paradise, that he made a visit to Tartarus, as per 1Peter 3:18. The active voice: Jesus Christ produced the action of the verb immediately after His physical death on the cross. He was a trichotomous being at the point of His death. His body went into the grave — Luke 23:53, His spirit went into the presence of the Father — Luke 23:46, and His soul descended into the inner-lower parts of the earth — Psalm 16:10; Luke 23:43; Acts 2:27.

"is" — present active indicative of e)imi to state an absolute and dogmatic fact without equivocation. The present tense is retroactive progressive present indicating that that which was begun in the past continued until it was completed.

"the same" — the intensive pronoun a)utoj used in the predicate nominative and should be translated "the same person also." No changing of identities.

"that ascended up" — aorist active participle, "having ascended."

"far above all heavens" — we have an adverb here for "far above," u(peranw which is an imperfect preposition. This is a prepositional phrase which describes route of the triumphal procession.

"that" — the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive mood introduces a purpose clause.

"he might fill" — aorist active subjunctive of the verb plhrow. In this passage plhrow means three things: to fully possess. That the believer possess potentially all of the super-grace blessings designed for us in eternity past. In other words, were it not for the ascension there would be no super-grace blessing but because of the ascension there is. It also means to fill up a deficiency. The believer's deficiency after salvation is the super-grace status — occupation with Christ, super-grace capacity and super-grace blessing. It also means to fill up with a certain quality. The super-grace believer is filled with the highest quality of spiritual and material things. The aorist tense of this verb is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the super-grace believer in its entirety. It takes up the super-grace status from the point of entry to the Christian life to the attainment of the super-grace life. The active voice: Christ after the ascension is represented as producing the action of the verb. it is the Lord Jesus Christ who has unlocked the door to super-grace living and blessings for each believer. The subjunctive mood is a reminder that super-grace is not automatic. The potential subjunctive indicates the fact that while the super-grace blessings were designed in eternity past and provided, that at the present moment the Lord Jesus Christ is tapping His foot waiting to give us these things, it is only provided for those who reach the super-grace status. And this demands a consistent positive volition toward Bible doctrine. The potentiality does not become a reality until the believer continues to GAP it all the way.

The doctrine of plhrow gives at least nine different usages of the word.

a) In Luke 2:40 we have the function of GAP on the part of the humanity of Christ. He erected an ECS and entered the super-grace life. The Church Age believer — Ephesians 3:19; 4:10; Colossians 1:9.

b) It is used for the believer controlled by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 5:18. We are commanded to be filled with the Spirit.

c) It is used for the fulfillment of the law through the filling of the Spirit — Romans 8:4; Galatians 5:14. As believers in this dispensation we are not under the law, we are under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

d) It is used for the reception of the super-grace blessings for the super-grace believer — Ephesians 4:10; 3:19.

e) It is also used in the doctrine of right man, right woman. There is an analogy between the doctrine of right man, right woman and the body of Christ being filled by Christ — Ephesians 1:23; Colossians 2:10.

f) The verb plhrow is used for the pastor-teacher communicating doctrine to his congregation — Colossians 1:25. In that sense he is the aggressor and the teacher. The congregation listen and become those who are blessed by it, and they are fulfilled in the sense of receiving Bible doctrine which contributes to their growth and entrance into the super-grace life.

g) It is used for the priestly function of the believer in giving money to establish the financial security of the pastor who is then released to study and teach and fulfill his purpose. Philippians 4:18.

h) It is used for the production of divine good in the super-grace status — Philippians 1:11; Revelation 3:2.

i) It is used for the completion of the top floor of the ECS resulting in the entrance to the super-grace life — 1John 1:4 cf. Philippians 4:4.

"all things" — the accusative of direct object with the definite article paj. In the neuter gender which we have here this refers to the blessings of super-grace, to sharing God's happiness.

Translation: "The one having descended is the same person also as the one having ascended far above all the heavens, in order that he might fill up the deficiency with a certain quality of the all things."

Verse 11 — the source of super-grace. This is the direct source, the absolute source is Jesus Christ. The direct, the immediate source, is the pastor-teacher who communicates Bible doctrine.

"And" resumes the discourse on the other side of the parenthesis. This is the continuative use of the conjunction kai. As a result of His strategic victory and as a result of providing for the Old Testament saints He has made a permanent and continuous provision for each one of us, the spiritual food which Jesus described: "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

"he gave" — aorist active of didomi, meaning to give, indicates the principle. This is a culminative aorist, it views the giving of spiritual gifts for the purpose of leading the believer to super-grace in its entirety, but it emphasises the existing results. It views the results of GAP. As a result, for example, of the ascension of Christ He left behind communicators so that believers could reach super-grace. We have in this culminative aorist:

a) Pastor-teachers have been provided.

b) Pastor-teachers communicate doctrine.

c) As you respond and receive that doctrine you reach super-grace, so the ultimate objective is the super-grace life which glorifies God.

The active voice: Christ initially and after Pentecost produced a certain number of communication gifts which continue right down to the present time. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. There are those who have the communication gift, that on which you depend for reaching super-grace. No one has ever reached super-grace on his own. You cannot read the Bible and grow up! It has to be taught to you.

"some" — masculine accusative plural of the definite article o(. The "some" here is in the masculine gender only. God does not give the communicating gift to women. Why? Women are under the authority of men and therefore it breaks every concept of authority. It goes counter to all systems of authority set up by God. No woman has ever received a communication gift from God. This is used with a couple of particles, men and de. That means there are alternative groups who receive these things. Hence, it is translated "[he gave] some, [he gave] others, [he gave] others." This is the accusative of direct object and the fact that male believers receive these communication gifts is brought out by that fact. Furthermore, we have touj men plus touj de to indicate very specialised gifts to implement a deficiency. You are born again into the family of God without super-grace. You are deficient of doctrine which is the basis of super-grace. God, therefore, has provided in a gracious way the gift of apostle (before the completion of the canon of scripture), and then the post-canon gifts. These specialised gifts fulfill the deficiency mentioned by plhrow in the previous verse. So this paragraph introduces communication gifts designed to lead members of the royal family to the super-grace life.

"apostles" — the accusative plural of the noun a)postoloj.

The doctrine of apostleship

1. A)postoloj does not mean one sent. The meaning of a word is determined by its usage. A)postoloj was the highest ranking officer in the Athenian navy. It was the Spartans who saw that they could not defeat the Athenian navy and since they had accumulated great wealth they decided to bribe Athenian admirals to throw the victory to the Spartans. Therefore the council in Athens came up with a plan. Just as the Athenian fleet was about to leave one of six men would be appointed in command of the fleet, so that no one knew ahead of time which of the six would be appointed. He is then escorted to his ship under guard and is called a)postoloj, the one who has absolute authority. It is used in the New Testament for the highest spiritual gift and the highest authority ever given. It is the gift of absolute spiritual dictatorship — 1Corinthians 12:11,28; Ephesians 4:11.

2. The function of apostles. Since the gift carried absolute authority it was designed to carry the church during its formative years, from 30-96 AD or the pre-canon period of church history. The functions can be classified under two categories: a) Apostles or someone closely associated with an apostle were the writers of New Testament scriptures. Their first function was the formation of the New Testament canon. b) The apostles established local churches, communicated doctrine verbally, appointed and trained pastors, and acted as policy-makers prior to the completion of the canon. Apostles had authority over all churches.

3. The time of appointment. Apostles were not appointed until after the resurrection of Christ and the completion of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. This we know by comparing Ephesians 4:8 with 4:11.

4. The extent of the gift. The gift of apostleship carried as much authority as God ever gave to anyone in the Church Age. The apostles had authority over all the local churches in contrast to the pastor who has authority over only one local church. Apostleship, however, was temporary and was removed when the canon of scripture was completed. Today all local churches are autonomous with authority vested in the complete canon of scripture and the local pastor-teacher.

5. Distinction between apostles to Israel and apostles to the Church. In Matthew chapter ten Jesus appointed apostles to Israel, not to the Church — before His death, burial, ascension and session, in the Age of Israel. The fact that eleven of these twelve survived and became apostles in the church is only incidental. They were commanded to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. However, in Acts chapter one we have a travesty at the first meeting before Pentecost when they decided to elect someone to replace Judas Iscariot. Apostles are appointed by God, they are not elected by people — Ephesians 4:11.

6. The qualification of apostles. Apostles were qualified by receiving the gift of apostleship from Jesus Christ — Ephesians 4:11. After initial appointments the selection of other spiritual gifts came from the sovereign ministry of the Holy Spirit — 1Corinthians 12:11. Furthermore, to qualify all apostles had to be eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This qualified the eleven but Paul was qualified by the Damascus road experience where he saw the resurrected Christ — Acts 1:22 cf. 1Corinthians 9:1; 15:8,9.

7. The identification of apostles. Apostolic authority resided in certain gifts that accompanied. Every apostle had an ID card which was some temporary gift to establish authority, some gift whereby the authority of the apostle would be recognised. The three gifts most prominently used as ID cards were miracles, healing, and tongues. Acts 5:15; 16:16-18; 28:8,9. Once the authority of the apostle was established his ID card was taken back and these gifts were removed. For example, the apostle Paul had the gift of healing — Acts 19:11,12 — but once it was established that he was an apostle he lost the gift so that he could not heal Epaphroditus who was dying — Philippians 2:27, his dear friend Trophimus whom he had to leave behind — 2Timothy 4:20.

8. The roster of apostles: The twelve to Israel minus Judas Iscariot. Paul is the twelfth apostle to replace Judas — 1Corinthians 15:7-10.

9. The delegation of the apostolic authority. Apostles had authority to delegate to certain believers their authority so that they would exercise temporarily apostolic authority when they went on apostolic missions. For example, Barnabas — Acts 14:14; Galatians 2:9; John Mark whom Peter designated in the writing of the second Gospel; James, the Lord's half-brother was delegated by the Lord in the writing of the book of James, and this is also true of Jude, another of the Lord's half-brothers. James is delegated apostolic authority so that he could write — 1Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19. Apollos was Paul's delegate to Corinth — 1Corinthians 4:6,9; Sylvanus and Timothy are mentioned as Paul's delegates in 1Thessalonians 1:1; 2:6. The apostles, therefore, did have the authority under certain conditions to delegate authority to certain people so that in that mission they could actually use apostolic authority.

"and some prophets" — the accusative plural of profhthj. Prophecy was a temporary gift, like apostleship. The temporary gift was used for communicating eschatological doctrine and relating the early church to its historical orientation. The historical orientation demanded the rise of certain prophets in the Church to explain the dramatic interruption of the Jewish Age, to explain it related to the angelic conflict, the strategic victory of Christ, on to the tactical victory, and to show where the Church was going [Rapture of the Church], what would follow in the Tribulation and second advent. The gift was removed after the completion of the canon according to 1Corinthians 13:8 so that the are no prophets in the church today, the gift of prophecy is gone.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #51

51 09/23/1973 Ephesians 4:11b–12a Doctrine of Pastor–Teacher

Verse 11 — the post-canon communicators. The completion of the canon of scripture removed the need for either apostleship or the gift of prophecy. Therefore there are two kinds of communicators as far as spiritual gift is concerned. The first one is a very specialised type and is to be used outside of the local church, not inside. "And some, evangelists" — we have that Greek phrase touj de which means "and others," rather than some. So, "to others he gave the gift of evangelism," the accusative plural of the direct object from e)uaggelisthj. The is a very specialised type of gift. We have the idea that every pastor is supposed to do the work of an evangelist and that is not correct. The fact that pastors communicate the gospel is perfectly legitimate and in view of the fact that they teach all portions of the Word of God. Evangelism under the spiritual gift is to be accomplished outside of the local church. The evangelist has absolutely no authority in the local church. All authority is vested in the pastor-teacher who is the final authority in the local church, and the administration is executed by the deacons. There is no place for an evangelist either on the board of deacons or as the pastor-teacher of the local church. His ministry should be entirely outside of the local church. This does not mean that he does not receive support and encouragement from those who are believers, he does; but his ministry is actually to be conducted outside of the local church. The gift of evangelism, then, has to be summarised as a special communication gift which is confined to the presentation of the gospel only. His ministry is entirely to unbelievers.

"and some, pastors and teachers" — touj, the accusative masculine plural of the definite article, plus de means "and to others; "pastors and teachers" — the word "pastor" is the accusative plural of poimhn which means "shepherd," and pastor is an old English word for shepherd. The word poimhn emphasises the authority of the one who possesses this gift in the local church. This does not mean that everyone who has the gift of pastor-teacher in a local church has authority. The word "and" is the ascensive use of kai. The ascensive use of kai is simply an hyphen. There are no such punctuation markings in ancient languages, therefore kai acts as a hyphen and shows that pastor is only a part of the title and that this is a hyphenated gift. The other part is the accusative plural of the noun didaskaloj which is correctly translated teacher. However, didaskaloj is one of those words that is clearly defined for us from etymology of the ancient world. It does refer to one person teaching a group and it does refer to monologue, not dialogue.

Translation: "And he gave some [male] members of the royal family, apostles; and others, prophets; and others, evangelists; and still others, pastor-teachers."

The doctrine of pastor-teacher

1. Diakonoj connotes the principle of them pastor-teacher from the standpoint of service. It indicates that the pastor-teacher is in a profession, a very highly skilled, highly trained, and highly authorised profession; and that this profession of the communication of Bible doctrine requires a variety of types of training in order that the individual who possesses the gift will not have a stereotyped personality but will function under the principles which will be declared in this doctrine.

Diakonoj is used in a number of ways:

a) It is used always with authority in mind. Service, profession and authority are the meanings of diakonoj. Diakonoj is found in Romans 13:4 in a political sense for those who run a government, those who are rulers in a state, local or national.

b) The word is used in a general sense for every believer. Every believer is to be a professional in the sense of reaching the super-grace life. Being a believer is a full time job for everyone. All 24 hours of the day he is to be a professional as far as service for the Lord is concerned. Professional should characterise the believer's life, and being a super-grace believer taking in doctrine consistently makes him a professional. 2Corinthians 3:6;4:1; 6:3,18.

c) Sometimes the word refers to those who have some spiritual gift of administration, and in this administration they are to be professional in their function of the local church. Whenever diakonoj is used in that sense it is transliterated by the word "deacon." A deacon is an administrator — Philippians 1:1; 1Timothy 3:8-13. He is an administrator under the pastor and his function is generally administration. The policy-maker is the pastor and whatever policy is made by deacons it is made within the framework of that which has been declared in the pulpit teaching of any particular local church.

d) The pastor-teacher has both authority and the communication of the Word of God. He must also be professional in the sense of being an accurate and correct student of the Word of God. 1Corinthians 3:5; Ephesians 3:7; Colossians 1:7,23; 4:7; 1Thessalonians 3:2; 1Timothy 1:12; Hebrews 6:10; Acts 6:4.

e) There is also an evil use of the word and that is Satan's ministers — 2Corinthians 11:15.

Generally speaking diakonoj when translated is translated "minister" but sometimes transliterated "deacon."

2. There are other words by which the pastor-teacher is identified. Each one deals with the principle of authority and some function. There are three other words or phrases. The first deals with the authority of his person, the second with the authority of his policy, and the third the authority of his message. Each one has a word or a phrase attached. In each case authority is the principle.

a) The authority of his person is the word translated in the English Bibles "elder," but in the Greek is presbuteroj. This is the person of the pastor in the sense of having the final authority in the local church. He is the elder or the ruler of the local church. This use is found in 1Timothy 5:17,19; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1Peter 5:1.

b) The authority of his policy is usually found by the English word "bishop" and in the Greek is the word e)piskopoj — Philippians 1:1; 1Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:7.

c) The authority of his message is in the passage we have just observed where we have two nouns in the accusative plural joined by a hyphenated kai — pastor or shepherd-teacher, poimhn and didaskaloj. This is the authority of his message.

3. Some synonymous identifications. All three of the above words are used interchangeably. For example, in Acts 20:17,28 all three of these words are used. In verse 17 we have the pastors at Ephesus called presbuteroi. Then in verse 28 the pastors at Ephesus are called bishops, e)piskopoi, and that is the authority of their policy. Then they are also told in verse 28 to shepherd the flock, the aorist active imperative of poimainw which is the verb cognate to poimhn, shepherd in our passage. The same aorist active imperative is also found in 1Peter 5:2.

4. The appointment of the pastor-teacher — 1Corinthians 12:11, God the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation sovereignly bestows this spiritual gift. 1Corinthians 12:28 confirms it, also Ephesians 4:11 where at the beginning of the Church Age pastors were appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ. So it is the Lord's sovereign decision, it not a part of any merit of the individual.

5. The principle of right pastor, right congregation is taught in 1Peter chapter 5, especially verse 2. Every congregation has a right pastor and every pastor has a right congregation.

6. The authority of that right pastor is a great principle — Hebrews 13:7,17; 1Thessalonians 5:12.

7. The concept of the pastor as the total product of grace is taught in 1Corinthians 15:10; Ephesians 3:7; 1Timothy 1:12,16.

8. The reward of the pastor is found in Hebrews 6:10; 1Peter 5:4.

9. There are many scriptures which document the existence of the pastor, the requirements, preparation, training, and all other concepts — Colossians 1:23-29; 1Timothy 2:24-26; 3:1-9; Titus 1:6-9; Ephesians 3:7-13; 4:11,12.

One thing should be noted in some of these passages. No man has the right to function as a pastor-teacher if he is ruled by his wife, or ruled by any woman — his mother, his wife, his girlfriend, or any other dominant female personality in his periphery.

Verses 12 and 13 deal with the function of the pastor-teacher. What is his primary responsibility?

Verse 12 — the purpose of the gift of pastor-teacher. "For the perfecting" is the preposition proj plus the accusative of katartismoj. We have "for" two more times and it is not proj. The next two times we are going to see it as e)ij and e)ij. There is a reason for that. All of these three functions are not the same. We switch from proj to e)ij to show that the second function is really a specialised function for those who have the gift of pastor-teacher. They are not to be distinguished from other members of the congregation but they are in the congregation. And when you are fulfilling the teaching ministry to the congregation as a whole you are also fulfilling a special ministry to those who have the gift of pastor-teacher as specialists. So it is possible to train all members of the royal family in the local church and at the same time in the local church train certain members of the royal family who have the gift of pastor-teacher and are in the process of training. Therefore, for that reason verse 12 has three prepositional phrases. Proj plus katartismoj and then two e)ij prepositional phrases. Katartismoj means to train and equip for combat. The combat is the angelic conflict, the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. The combat takes cognisance of the fact that all believers in this dispensation are members of the royal family and living in the intensified stage of the angelic conflict it is extremely important for them to be trained for combat, to be trained for life. In effect, that is what katartismoj means, to train you to live as a member of the royal family on this earth. So training and equipping is the concept. This training and equipping comes through the teaching of Bible doctrine, not through counselling, not through church programs, etc. Proj plus the accusative here connotes a goal aimed at or striven for. It means to strive or to move toward the goal with conscious purpose. It should be translated, therefore, "For the purpose of training and equipping the saints for combat." The genitive of relationship of a(gioj is used here for you and I as members of the royal family. While it is a plural and while it is a descriptive genitive it is used in the sense of indicating who is to be trained or which ones are to be trained by the pastor.

"for the work of the ministry" — the change of prepositions demands that we recognise here a special group of people in the congregation. "For the work" is e)ij plus the accusative of e)rgon. While e)rgon can be "work" it has many other meanings. For example, e)rgon is used for a vocation or occupation. That is the meaning here, recognising that the pastor-teacher is a professional type person — "for the vocation [or occupation] of the ministry." E)ij plus the accusative also denotes purpose, so it is "for the purpose of the vocation of the ministry."

Summary

The word e)rgon plus diakonia in the genitive is a descriptive genitive singular, it denotes a male member of the royal family who sits in the congregation with everyone else but he is different in that as of the moment of salvation he received the gift of pastor-teacher. He is to be prepared in the classroom of the local church.

1. The vocation of the ministry refers to that doctrinal training and teaching inside the local church whereby those who have the gift of pastor teacher mature to the point of recognising their spiritual gift.

2. There are always a certain number of males in every local church who possess the gift of pastor-teacher.

3. Through the daily function of GAP they come to recognise the fact of having the gift and therefore intensify their efforts.

4. Having recognised the fact that they possess the gift they intensify their study of the Word of God in preparation for the ministry of the Word.

5. How did they do it in the ancient world becomes a question at this point? They had no theological seminaries, no colleges of note. In the early church the pastors were trained in two ways. First, they were trained under the apostles. The apostle Paul had his own travelling seminary. When he called Timothy his son, he was actually calling him a theological student. "Son" is used for a student in a seminary. Then there were others who were trained locally in a local church. So all "seminaries" fell into one of these two categories. Then in the middle ages we have the rise of scholasticism and the rise of universities where men were trained for the ministry. So we have gradually developing in the Church Age academic concepts. So the rise of theological seminaries can be traced to the middle ages.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #52

52 09/28/1973 Ephesians 4:12b Doctrine of the ECS (Edification Complex of the Soul)

Verse 12b — there is a third prepositional phrase which is the second category: "for the edifying of the body of Christ." This is another e)ij preposition plus the accusative of o)ikodomh, correctly translated "edification." It must be understood that it refers to the edification complex of the soul [ECS] — "for the purpose of edification." Who is to be edified? All believers in the local church are to be edified and they are called here "the body of Christ" to relate them to the royal priesthood. "Of the body of Christ" — tou swmatoj tou Xristou is actually a couple of genitives: tou swmatoj is a genitive of relationship. It is our relationship to the Lord, we are body of Christ as members of the royal priesthood on the earth; tou Xristou is a descriptive genitive — to whom the body belongs.

Summary

1. Note that each prepositional phrase carries a different emphasis. The first prepositional phrase has a summary emphasis, proj. It indicates the general purpose for all believers of the royal family as long as they remain on earth — to be trained, to be prepared for combat. The next two phrases begin with the preposition e)ij indicating a categorical breakdown of the congregation into two parts: certain males with the gift of pastor-teacher and the congregation in general.

2. While the pastor candidates are in the body of Christ they are separate in the sense that their doctrinal perception is designed for additional training in keeping with their future vocation.

3. All members of the royal family must be trained and equipped for combat plus the ECS.

4. Combat plus edification plus super-grace is the objective for all members of the royal family, therefore pastor-teachers must be trained in their occupation so that they can perform their part, i.e. To provide the information by which everyone develops and ECS and enters into the super-grace life.

The doctrine of the edification complex of the soul [ECS]

1. By definition, the construction of a house or a backbone of the soul occurs through the intake of doctrine. E)pignwsij residing in the soul and the spirit is the basis for constructing a house or backbone for the soul. The ECS is the bridge to super-grace. The consistent function of GAP under the authority of the believer's right pastor is the basis for the construction of the ECS. This is emphasised in Ephesians 3:16-21; 4:11-13.

2. To understand the ECS as a structure in the soul, a little work on the etymology of the Greek. Our word is e)ij plus the accusative of o)ikodomh. O)ikodomh is made of two words: o)ikoj = a house or a temple; demo = a Classical Greek word for construction. So it means the erection of a temple, the erection of a structure, the building of a structure. O)ikodomh is used in Ephesians 4:12,16,29. A similar word o)ikodomia is the result of construction. The resultant construction of the ECS is the entrance into the super-grace life — 1Timothy 1:4. O)ikodomoj emphasises the building and the one who builds it. It refers to the contractor which is doctrine — Acts 4:11.

3. The structure of the ECS. When doctrine is taught it becomes gnwsij, but by becoming gnwsij it can immediately become others things. If the individual listening to the doctrine is hypersensitive, subjective in any possible way then anything that touches a subjective nerve in the soul causes that individual to operate under dokew which is subjective thinking. That immediately eliminates any possibility of utilising the doctrine just learned in the ECS or advancing toward super-grace. Gnwsij must become and must remain immediately objective thinking or fronew. Fronew plus volition or faith transfers it to the human spirit and immediately changes it into e)pignwsij. Then e)pignwsij is sucked into the right lobe into the frame of reference, and there are two valves, one at each end of the memory centre. One valve processes it into vocabulary and categories and the other valve into the norms and standards, and all feed into the launching pad. This is important because we are going to see that scar tissue is not in the lungs of the soul but in the heart, the right lobe. So e)pignwsij is the basis for advance in the Christian life.

E)pignwsij is also known as sunihmi which means to know the underlying laws, the meaning of an object, the technical knowledge, and when e)pignwsij enters the human spirit it becomes sunihmi, and as sunihmi and e)pignwsij the construction of the ECS begins. The first floor, then, is grace orientation. This is absolutely essential. Without this floor you can't function in anything. Grace orientation make it possible to advance when sooner or later there is conflict from the norms and standards of your soul and what is taught from the Word of God. The mastery of the details of life is almost a result of grace orientation. However, the relaxed mental attitude is not. The RMA means doctrine must conquer subjectivity in the life. Next we have the capacity for love in which the structure is almost completed, and that means category #1, category #2, and category #3 love. If you have capacity for one you have capacity for all. Finally we have the penthouse, +H, and from there entrance into the super-grace life. The believer enters the super-grace life after completion of the top floor; +H is sharing God's happiness.

4. The usage of the word "edification." a) One of the objectives of the pastor's teaching of doctrine is the erection of the ECS, therefore the first use of edification is technical. In its technicality it means a complex structure in the soul — Ephesians 4:11,12. b) It has a general meaning. The local church with a maximum number of ECSs is a prosperous church — Acts 9:31. c) The objective of phase two is the ECS, not speaking in tongues — 1Corinthians 14:3,4,12, 26. The thing that shows that you are advancing is not speaking in tongues but the construction of the ECS. d) Human knowledge or gnwsij puffs up while knowledge of doctrine through GAP edifies. So 1Corinthians 8:1 distinguishes between the type of knowledge that causes you to advance and grow up and the type of knowledge of doctrine that causes you not to. It has nothing to do with academic learning.

5. The humanity of Christ possessed an ECS during the incarnation — Luke 2:40,52; John 1:14.

6. Rapid construction of an ECS comes from GAP under maximum pressure — James 1:2-4.

7. Relationship to the national entity is a very important factor. Your ECS has a lot to do with the condition of the country. The believer in the royal family has that privilege of developing through doctrine an ECS which provides personal stability and national stability. In tact, if there are enough ECSs the country is preserved in spite of the idiocy of its government, the men who are running it. All freedom gained by the military on the battlefield is exploited by the believer erecting an ECS — Jeremiah 42:10 states the principle.

8. There are a few synonyms for the ECS. a) The word "light" — Psalm 43; 119:130; Ephesians 5:8,9,13.

b) "Christ formed in you" — Galatians 4:19. c) The "new man" — Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10. d) The "perfect work" — James 1:4. e) "Imitators of God" — Ephesians 5:1, as per the Greek.

9. The ECS has a direct relationship to the super-grace life. Just before everyone reaches super-grace there is a great chasm he must cross. On the other side is the super-grace life. Across the chasm is a bridge, and that bridge is the ECS. The top floor of the ECS takes you right into super-grace, as per Philippians 4:4 cf. 1John 1:4.

10. Two spirits are vital in the construction of the ECS. The Holy Spirit makes GAP function; the human spirit is the converter of building material in the function of GAP. The Holy Spirit — John 14:26; 16:12-14; 1Corinthians 2:9-16; 1John 2:27. GAP is the source of the ECS — Ephesians 4:12,13. For the human spirit as the target for GAP — Job 32:8; Romans 8:16; 1Corinthians 2:12,13. Doctrine stored in the human spirit is used for construction material of the ECS — Ephesians 4:23,24; Colossians 1:9,10; 1John 2:3.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #53

53 09/30/1973 Ephesians 4:13–15a Warning to reversionists

Verse 13 — the attainment of super-grace comes through the teaching of the pastor-teacher, the communication of Bible doctrine. "Till" is an adverb, mekri, used as a conjunction related to time and it indicates the fact that if one is faithful in the teaching of the Word of God and you are faithful in coming to hear that teaching inevitably and eventually you will reach super-grace.

"we all" is the nominative plural paj plus the definite article used as a pronoun. When the definite article is used as a pronoun it gives great emphasis to the passage and reminds us once again that since the day we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ we are members of the royal family of God. We are members of royalty forever.

"come" is mistranslated in the KJV. It is the aorist active subjunctive of the verb katantaw and it means to cross the goal line, to arrive at a goal, to attain or reach a goal. The goal being super-grace here. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the advance to super-grace in its entirety through the function of GAP but emphasises the existing results of the blessings of super-grace. The culminative aorist is the actual attaining of the super-grace status. That means occupation with the person of Jesus Christ, that you have the capacity to love the Lord Jesus Christ. It means also the capacity for super-grace blessings. And then it means the actual giving of super-grace blessings, where believers become wealthy, successful, promoted, prosperous. It is the point at which the believer shares the happiness of God, where believers become famous, have leadership ability divinely bestowed, and so on. So this is the point of great prosperity and blessing. We have a subjunctive mod, the super-grace blessings designed in eternity past for time are potential until such time that the believer has capacity for them. Apart from the function of GAP, listening to Bible teaching, there is no possible way to reach the goal designed by God.

"in the unity" is incorrect. It is the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of e)nothj which means 'unity' but it should be translated "because of the unity." This word 'unity' can also be translated 'oneness,' and whatever unity or oneness means here is described next by a genitive singular plus the definite article of the noun pistij which has two meanings: trust, and it also means what is believed or doctrine. Here it means doctrine — "because of the oneness [unity] of doctrine."

"and of the knowledge" — the word for knowledge here is the genitive singular of e)pignwsij and it refers specifically to the principle of occupation with the person of Christ. No one can love Jesus Christ unless they know doctrine. Knowledge of Jesus Christ comes through Bible doctrine and this knowledge becomes capacity for love in the soul. All true love come from the soul of the individual.

"unto a perfect man" is how we are described in super-grace — e)ij plus the accusative of the adjective teleioj and the noun a)nhr used for a noble man. These three words should be translated "unto a mature man" or "with reference to a mature man." The super-grace believer is described not as the perfect man but as the mature man. Super-grace is the status of maturity in the Christian way of life.

"unto the measure" — a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of metroj and it expresses equivalency or standard: "to the standard."

"of the stature" — descriptive genitive of h(likia meaning 'full age,' therefore maturity: "to the standard of the maturity."

"of the fullness of Christ" — possessive genitive of plhrwma. Jesus Christ went this way before. He went this way in His humanity and it is called here 'fullness of the Christ.'

Translation: "Until we all [members of the royal family] have attained the goal of super-grace, because of the consistency of the doctrine [being taught] of the e)pignwsij of the Son of God, with reference to the mature man [the believer is now occupied with Christ], to the standard of the maturity [super-grace status] which belongs to the fullness [super-grace] of the Christ."

This is what you might call following in the footsteps of the Lord. You don't follow in the footsteps of the Lord by turning the other cheek, you do it by taking in Bible doctrine until you attain the maturity which belongs to the royal family — super-grace life. This means that there must be progress instead of retrogression. In order for this to occur there is in verse 14 a warning.

Verse 14 — a warning to avoid reversionism. "That" is the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive mood and it is used for a purpose clause: "In order that."

"be no longer" is "we no longer be" — present active subjunctive of e)imi plus a negative adverb mhketi. The present tense is a static present used to represent a condition assumed as perpetually existing: perpetually in a state of childishness. The active voice: the royal family produces the action of the verb. It is inconsistent for us as believers to be childish in our attitudes. The subjunctive mood is the subjunctive of prohibition.

"children" — predicate nominate plural from nhpoij. This is in contrast to a)nhr which means nobleman, and nhpoij means 'childish.' It refers to a person who is childish in his thinking, no matter what his chronological age may be. This means:

1. It is used for immaturity spiritually, for the various stages of reversionism.

2. To be childish means to be encumbered with reactor factors — disillusion, boredom, discouragement, self-pity, frustration, and filled with mental attitude sins which intensify them.

3. To Be childish is to be on a frantic search for happiness, emotional revolt, negative volition, blackout of the soul, practicing reverse process reversionism.

4. The scar tissue of the soul presented in verses 17-19 is anticipated by this exhortation.

Three illustrations:

"tossed to and fro" — present passive participle of kludwizomai which is used for a ship out of control at the mercy of the wind and the waves. It means to be tossed by waves. The storm of a succession of waves or rough water is called kludwn by Homer. This is where we get the verb. It refers to the pressures of self-induced misery and divine discipline to the reversionistic believer. The reversionistic believer is caught and will succumb to every wind and wave that comes along. He cannot handle the storms of life. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present which describes that which has occurred in the past and continues right up to the present. The Ephesian believers, or many of them, were in this status. The passive voice: the reversionistic believer of the royal family receives the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial describing conditions which accompany reversionism.

The second nautical analogy has to do with being out of control in a storm: "and carried about" — present passive participle periferw which means to be carried here and there. Again, we have a retroactive progressive present to indicate that at the time that this was written so were many believers in the area of Ephesus. The passive voice: the reversionistic believer receives the action of the verb, being carried around by false doctrine. The participle is circumstantial to indicate the influence of false doctrine and the receptivity of false doctrine by those in reversionism.

"by every wind of doctrine" — this means false doctrine.

Summary

1. False doctrine is called in 1Timothy 4:1 'doctrine of demons.' It is the doctrine which enters the vacuum of the soul of the negative believer.

2. It enters the nouj or the left lobe.

3. The vacuum through which the false doctrine enters is called in verse 17 mataiothj, translated vanity or emptiness.

"by the slight" is a gambling metaphor — e)n plus the instrumental of kubeia, it means 'by means of.' Kubeia is taken from the word kuboj, singular. So this denotes gambling but it also denotes gambling and cheating; "of men" — descriptive genitive plural of a)nqrwpoj to indicate a category. The men involved here are gamblers who make their living by loading the dice.

"and cunning craftiness" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of panourgia which means to cheat. This should be translated "in the sphere of cheating." The reversionistic believer, then, is shooting craps with the devil and the devil has loaded the dice, as it were, with false doctrine. The devil cheats those members of the royal family who neglect and reject Bible doctrine. Your neglect of Bible doctrine inevitably results in being outsmarted by the devil. False doctrine loads the dice.

"whereby" is proj plus the accusative means here 'face to face with' or 'against.'

"they lie in wait to deceive" is incorrect. We have proj thn meqodeian in the accusative. Meqodeian comes from meqodeia which means deceitful strategy. It has a connotation of deceit. Then there is also a genitive with this, planh with the definite article and it means deceit. So we are to understand twice that deceit is involved here. So we might translate this "against the deceitful strategy of deception" or "against the cunning method of deception" or "face to face with the cunning method of deception." The reversionist is face to face with a cunning method of deception. He cannot hold his own against Satanic ideas, they infiltrate his left lobe with Satanic viewpoint. He is face to face, then, not with doctrine but with deception. Therefore he is cheated, he is a sucker, he is in the royal family and yet he is completely out of it as far as the angelic conflict is concerned. Under those conditions there is no hope of moving into the super-grace life. Without Bible doctrine no member of the royal family can cope with life in phase two. Therefore doctrine is the very air we breathe, it is our very life as believers, and without doctrine we enter into this system of false doctrine. Under this system of false doctrine the believer has really had it because he begins to think like a liberal, like a weirdo.

Translation: "In order that we no longer be immature ones [childish reversionists], being tossed here and there by waves [instability], being carried here and there by every wind of the [false] doctrine, by the dice-playing of the men in cheating, face to face with the cunning method of the deception. "

Summary

1. The childish believer (reversionist) is compared to a ship out of control in a storm and foundering to indicate his instability, and this instability is related to the reactor factors of life. An unstable person reacts.

2. The childish reversionist is compared to a sucker in a crap game playing against the house with loaded dice. This means that no matter how smart you are, or think you are, you cannot hold up against the opening of mataiothj, the infiltration of demon doctrine into your soul. Your only hope is GAPing it with Bible doctrine.

3. No matter how you slice it the odds are totally against the reversionistic believer.

4. The two analogies (naval and gambling) are designed to awaken the reversionist to his status, to encourage him to change his mind toward doctrine and to recover through the function of GAP.

Verse 15 — the principle of the growing believer. "But" is the conjunction de. This is for the growing believer. "But on the other hand." All believers aren't reversionistic, just 90% of them today! So there is a contrast between a reversionistic believer who is missing the boat in the previous verse and the member of the royal family who is progressing under the consistent intake of doctrine.

"speaking the truth" — present active participle a)lhqeuw which means to communicate truth, and it is addressed to the pastor. It means to communicate it to persons. It also means to live by the truth or doctrine, or to teach doctrine. Here it means to teach doctrine. "But teaching doctrine," says the present active participle. The present tense is a customary present used for that which should habitually occur, namely the teaching of doctrine to the royal family. There are only two things that hinder this participle being fulfilled: a) a pastor-teacher who won't study and who does not consistently teach the Word of God; b) the member of the royal family on negative signals toward doctrine. The active voice:

the pastor-teacher produces the action of the verb by teaching doctrine in the local church to the royal family assembled as priests. The participle is the instrumental participle and indicates the method by which the action of the verb is accomplished, it is by teaching doctrine that we grow up.

"in love" — this is the love of the pastor-teacher. It is e)n plus the locative of a)gaph which is "in the sphere of love." What does a)gaph mean? It means a relaxed mental attitude.

"may grow up" is incorrect, a)ucanw means to cause to grow. There is a difference between growing and causing to grow. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence of growth to super-grace and regardless of its extent or duration and gathers it into a single whole. The active voice: the royal family of believer priests produce the action of the verb by the daily function of GAP under a pastor-teacher. The subjunctive mood is potential, depending upon attitude toward doctrinal teaching of the right pastor.

"unto him" should be translated "with reference to him," e)ij plus the accusative of a)utoj which is an intensive pronoun and as an intensive pronoun has many uses. Here it is used as a personal pronoun with great emphasis on the person. The person involved is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. It refers back to the last half of verse 13 where we had the word plhrwma. So "cause to grow up with reference to him" refers to the plhrwma of verse 13, the super-grace blessings.

"in all things" — paj plus the definite article to indicate this word has been previously emphasised: "the all things." In the neuter this refers to Bible doctrine. The adverbial accusative here does not directly compliment the verb but rather qualifies it an indirect way. This is an adverbial accusative of manner in the Greek translated like an instrumental. The accusative neuter of paj with the definite article refers to all the doctrine that goes into your soul and stays there causing you to grow up spiritually — "by the all things of doctrine with reference to him" is the way it should read from the Greek.

"which is the head" — literally, "who." The relative pronoun has as its antecedent the Lord Jesus Christ previously mentioned by the intensive pronoun — "who keeps on being the head."Chapter 4:15

Translation of verse 14 — "In order that we no longer be immature ones [childish reversionists], being tossed here and there by waves, and being carried here and there by every wind of ]false] doctrine, by the dice-playing of men in cheating, face to face with the cunning method of the deception."

Verse 15 — "But speaking the truth." Present active participle a)lhqeuw means literally, "teaching doctrine." The present tense is a customary present since this is always what God has designed the gift of pastor-teacher for. The active voice: the pastor-teacher produces the action of the verb. The participle is instrumental and therefore should be translated, "But by teaching doctrine in the sphere of love [relaxed mental attitude], may cause to grow up." Doctrine causes the believer to grow up. It is the intake of doctrine that does the growing though. Seed stored does not grow; seed in the ground is what grows. So Bible doctrine must be in the soul before you can grow up. That is why we have the constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety, taking the occurrence of growth to super-grace regardless of its extent or duration, gathering it into a single whole or entirety. The royal family of believer priests produces the action by listening to the right pastor-teacher. The subjunctive mood is potential, it depends upon finding your right pastor-teacher and depends upon your attitude to doctrine once you find him.

"into him" — should be "with reference to him." The intensive pronoun refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. It also refers back to plhrwma in verse 13.

"in all things" is actually a reference to Bible doctrine. The causing to grow up is based upon Bible doctrine. The causative concept must be emphasised.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #54

54 09/30/1973 Ephesians 4:15b Importance of Bible doctrine; doctrine of the Head (N.T.)

The importance of Bible doctrine to the believer priest

Every believer is a member of the royal family and therefore he must have the right perspective with regards to doctrine. There are false concepts whereby people think they can read the Bible for themselves and grow up. You cannot read the Bible for yourself, you cannot memorise it and grow up. All of this requires the function of a pastor-teacher who is released for the sole objective of studying and teaching, studying and teaching.

1. By definition, what is doctrine? Bible doctrine is the content of the canon of scripture derived from exegesis and classification of promises, principles and categories. Bible doctrine is called the mind of Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16. Bible doctrine is the Word as it is taught. In content it is simply whatever the content may be, a promise, a principle, or some axiom, some historical description or narrative, but when it is communicated it is called doctrine.

2. A vocabulary is necessary. Six words are used for doctrine in the scripture.

a) The first is a Hebrew noun leqach. It means doctrine, learning, knowledge, i.e. what one receives into his mind or learns. This word is used for doctrine in Deuteronomy 32:2; Job 11:4; Proverbs 4:2; Isaiah 29:24.

b) A second Hebrew noun is musar. It means instruction or doctrine. It means you have doctrine that you have taken in — Job 10:8; Proverbs 1;2; 4:13; 23:23.

c) The Greek noun didaskalia means teaching or doctrine or what is taught from the scripture — Matthew 15:9; Ephesians 4:14; Colossians 2:22; 1Timothy 1:10; for doctrine of demons in 1Timothy 4:1; 1Timothy 5:17; 6:1,3; 2Timothy 3:10,16; 2Timothy 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1,7,10. In other words, throughout the pastoral epistles, 1 & 2Timothy and Titus, practically every time you see the word doctrine it refers to this noun didaskalia.

d) The Greek noun didaxh is the act of teaching or what is taught from the scripture — Matthew 7:28; 22:33; Mark 1:22,27; Acts 2:42; 5:48; Romans 6:17; 16:17; 1Corinthians 14:6,26; 2Timothy 4:2; Hebrews 6:2; Revelation 2:14,15,24.

e) The Greek noun logoj which has numerous correct and accurate meanings. In Hebrews 6:1 it refers to doctrine.

f) The Hebrew word shemuah means what is heard or doctrine — Isaiah 28:9.

3. Bible doctrine has a long history, a history that begins with God in eternity past — Proverbs chapter 8. Here is one passage that emphasises the importance of Bible doctrine. There is nothing more important in your life than doctrine as illustrated by this chapter in Proverbs.

Proverbs 8

Verse 1 — "Does not wisdom call." The word for wisdom here is chakmah — it is the equivalent of the Greek sofia and it refers to the application of e)pignwsij doctrine or metabolised doctrine to experience. Chakmah is e)pignwsij. Wisdom calling is the application of doctrine to experience; "and understanding lift up her voice?"

Verse 2 — "On top of the high places on the street [doctrine was taught in city auditoriums], At intersections she takes a stand" — doctrine was taught outdoors in those days at places where people gathered. "She" refers to Bible doctrine.

Verse 3 — "Beside the gates leading to the city, At the entrance she communicates aloud." They often had small auditoriums at the gates of cities.

Verse 4 — "To you, mankind, I call; And my voice [communication of doctrine] is to all mankind."

Verse 5 — "You who are ignorant, learn doctrine [learning, of course, must precede thinking]; You who are fools [referring to negative volition], learn the importance of understanding [the importance of application of doctrine]".

Verse 6 — "Hear [qal imperative from shamah — you have to hear, concentrate, listen], for I [doctrine] speak noble things; And the communication of my lips is virtue."

Verse 7 — "For my mouth [the personification of doctrine] communicates truth; For my lips detest evil."

Verse 8 — "All the words of my communication are integrity; Nothing is twisted or perverted in them." [Twisting and reversion refers to false application of doctrine or misunderstanding of doctrine or the heresies that are passed for doctrine. If you are twisted in your understanding you are perverted in your thinking. If you are twisted in learning you are perverted in application.]

Verse 9 — "To those who understand [the hiphil participle of the verb bin — causative active voice, which means we are caused to understand. This is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.] they are all to the point, And perspicuous to those who have obtained knowledge [the qal active participle of the verb matsa — to find]."

Verse 10 — " Seize [laqach — to seize or to grab] my instruction, rather than silver [a matter of priorities]; And learning doctrine rather than choice gold."

Verse 11 — "For wisdom is better than precious gems; And all desirable things cannot be compared with her [doctrine]."

The results of doctrine:

Verse 12 — "I wisdom have a lifestyle [once you begin to apply doctrine (thinking doctrine — once there is understanding then there is thinking) that develops a lifestyle] of prudence [amarmar — the ability to regulate and discipline one's self to the exercise of reason and common sense. Reason is learning the principles and common sense is the application of it]. I find [or discover] knowledge and discernment [knowledge is understanding of doctrine; discernment is thinking or application of doctrine]."

Verse 13 — "To respect the Lord is to hate evil: I [doctrine] hate arrogance and pride, and perverted speech."

Verse 14 — "Counsel and sound judgment belong to me [Note: You are not counselled by someone on the outside; you learn doctrine and a part of the application is to self. We apply doctrine toward God, toward people and toward self]: I have understanding and power [understanding is the noun binah — metabolised doctrine. Power — giborah, (strong and intrepid of soul) means application of doctrine]."

Verse 15 — "By me [Bible doctrine and the laws of divine establishment] kings rule [ruling is an application], And rulers make just laws [Application of establishment principles]."

Verse 16 — "By me princes govern, And all honourable judges of the land."

Verse 17 — "I [doctrine] love those who love me [for doctrine to love you, learning it and understanding it isn't enough; it is understanding it and thinking doctrine or learning and applying doctrine. You begin to love doctrine, not by learning it, but by applying it. Love is an application of knowledge.]; And those who diligently seek me [the piel participle of shachar. The piel is the intensive stem and it means concentration. You learn by concentration but you also apply doctrine through concentration.] will find me."

Verse 18 — "With me are riches and honour [escrow blessings for time]; Enduring wealth and prosperity [escrow blessings for the eternal state]."

Verse 19 — "My fruit [production] is better than pure and fine gold; And my profit better than the choicest silver."

Verse 20 — "I walk in the way of righteousness, along the path of virtue."

Verse 21 — "To give an inheritance [the hiphil infinitive construct from the verb nachal — to cause to inherit] to those who love me [doctrine], And I will make their treasuries full."

The dynamics of metabolised doctrine:

Verse 22 — "The Lord possessed me [doctrine] at the beginning of his work, Before his deeds of old [in other words, doctrine was in the mind of God before the creation of the universe]."

Verse 23 — "From eternity past I was established [the piel perfect of the verb nasak — I was poured in a mould. Established categorically would be a better translation. God thinks categorically! Absolute truth lends itself to categorical thinking; relative truth does not.] from the foundation of the earth."

Verse 24 — "When there were no oceans, I [doctrine] was already formed; When as yet there were no springs abounding with water."

Verse 25 — "Before the mountains were settled in place, Before the hills I [doctrine] was formed categorically:"

Verse 26 — "Before he made planet earth, or its fields, Or the sum total of the dust of the earth."

Verse 27 — "When he established the heavens, I was there: When he marked out a horizon on the face of the deep:"

Verse 28 — "When he made the skies above: When he restrained the fountains of the deep."

Verse 29 — "When he set the sea in its boundary, So that the water would not overflow his mandate: When he marked out the foundations of the earth:"

Verse 30 — "The I [Bible doctrine] was with him, as a designer of the work [creation]: Rejoicing always in his presence [Bible doctrine perceived, metabolised, applied is the true source of happiness in the devil's world];

Verse 31 — "rejoicing in the world, his earth; And having my delight in the human race."

Verse 32 — "Now therefore, human race, listen to me: Blessed [ashere — happiness] are those who guard my ways [the ways of doctrine]."

You have to start with understanding:

Verse 33 — "Hear instruction [understanding doctrine] and become wise [thinking doctrine and/or application of doctrine], Do not neglect it."

Verse 34 — "Blessed [happiness] is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates [the place of assembly worship], Waiting at my doors [when you really like it you wait for the doors to open]."

Verse 35 — "For he who finds me [doctrine] finds capacity for life [But remember: capacity for life is not just learning doctrine, it is application of doctrine], And obtains grace from the Lord."

Verse 36 — "But he who misses me [Bible doctrine] injures himself: All who hate me [Bible doctrine] love the sin unto death."

Inevitably, the person who stays with doctrine is going to come to the place of sharing God's happiness. No matter how much misery and disappointment along the way, if you stick with it you are going to end up with +H.

4. Bible doctrine was received under the function of GAP — 1Corinthians 2.

a) Bible doctrine received under the function of GAP produces confidence in phase two — Job 5:24-27; 2Corinthians 5:6-8.

b) Doctrine produces divine viewpoint in the right lobe — Isaiah 55:7-9; 2Corinthians 10:5.

c) It orients the believer to the plan of God — Isaiah 26:3,4; Romans 8:28.

d) It produces stability of mind — James 1:8.

e) It becomes the basis for divine guidance — Romans 12:2,3.

f) It leads to occupation with Christ in the super-grace life — Hebrews 12:2,3. Therefore Bible doctrine is the only way to know and to love Jesus Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16 cf. Philippians 3:10; Ephesians 3:19.

5. The communication of Bible doctrine in the Church Age is the function of the pastor-teacher. He is the communicator and therefore he has the responsibility for the local church — Hebrews 13:7; Ephesians 4:11-13; Colossians 1:25-29.

6. The plan of God is vindicated through Bible doctrine — Romans 3:4.

7. Without Bible doctrine Satan corrupts the mind of believers — 2Corinthians 11:13. This is accomplished through the doctrine of demons infiltrating under conditions of reversionism — 1Timothy 4:1

8. Doctrine is the basis for deliverance in phase two — 1Timothy 4:16.

"which is" — the nominative masculine singular of the relative pronoun o(j, the antecedent is the Lord Jesus Christ who is previously presented under the intensive pronoun a)utoj; plus the present active indicative of e)imi, meaning is, always ways, there never will be a time when He isn't — "who is." This is a dogmatic principle.

"the head" — the noun kefalh used as a predicate nominative. The word means "head." It refers sometimes to that extension of the body above the neck where the soul is located, but it refers also to the one who is supreme, the one who is a chief, the one who is superior to all others in authority. And then to make sure that we understand what has gone before by way of the relative pronoun modifying and being antecedent to the intensive pronoun we have another word used in apposition .…

"Christ" — Xristoj, in apposition to "head." So there is no question that Jesus Christ is the absolute and final authority in the body, that Jesus Christ is the only celebrity, that Jesus Christ in the unique one.

Translation: "But by teaching doctrine in the sphere of a relaxed mental attitude love, may cause to grow up by the all things of doctrine, with reference to him [Christ] who is the supreme chief, Christ."

The doctrine of the head

There are seven principles found in the New Testament with regard to kefalh or the head.

1. Oaths by the head were prohibited by the New Testament. In other words, you couldn't swear by your head — Matthew 5:36.

2. Divine care and protection of the believer is emphasised by the hairs of the head — Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7; 21:18.

3. Blood on the head was a sign of taking responsibility for your own decisions in the New Testament — Acts 18:6. Blood on the head also indicates a sign of maturity because the mature person never tries to blame someone else for his own mistakes.

4. Coals of fire on the head is self-induced misery by trying to put someone else down, by trying to hurt someone else. It is a picture of non-retaliation, shifting judgment to the guilty one, putting it in the Lord's hands — Romans 12:20.

5. Headship is also used in the concept of extreme authority, the man over the woman. The very fact of marriage means that the woman accepts the supreme authority of the male whom she loves. 1Corinthians 11:3-10; Ephesians 5:23.

6. The word "head" is used for the rulers of empires. Heads are used for empires in Revelation chapters 13; 17:3-9.

7. But the way the word is used with maximum blessing associated is the headship of Jesus Christ. The headship of Jesus Christ is used in at least three different ways:

a) As the head of the corner Christ is the supreme ruler of Israel and the Church — Acts 4:11; 1Peter 2:7.

b) Christ is said to be the head of the Church — Ephesians 1:22.23; 4:15; 5:23; Colossians 1:18.

c) Christ is said to be the head or absolute authority over all angels — Colossians 2:10.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #55

55 10/05/1973 Ephesians 4:16 Points on joints and ligaments

Verse 16 — "From whom." Jesus Christ is the source of something. He is the source of everything that is worthwhile in life. This is the preposition e)k plus the ablative of the relative pronoun o(j referring to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the head of the body, the supreme chief, the one who is superior forever, the King of kings.

"the whole body" — pan to swma means "all the body." Paj and swma are nominative neuter singular here. There is also a nominative neuter definite article. This explains the mechanics of plhrwma in verse 10. "From the source of whom all the body." Since Christ has been glorified through the ascension and session He must have a body to complete Him. Remember that Jesus Christ is in a state of being glorified forever. While God the Father was judging Him on the cross He was at an all-time low, He was not glorified. But then there were some changes. Three days later Jesus Christ rose again and He now has a body of incorruption. He made the triumphal procession. The victory was won, and therefore He went from earth to heaven. That is the triumphal procession. And when he arrived in heaven He was received as the victor. God the Father said to the humanity of Christ, "Sit thou at my right hand…" The interruption of the Age of Israel was to demonstrate this principle. Jesus Christ is in a state of glory, all he is doing while He is praying for you and for me, is waiting until His enemies are made His footstool which is the next phase of the strategic victory in the angelic conflict. In the meantime on this earth Jesus Christ must have a body, a royal family. He has to have someone with whom to share His glory. The Old Testament saints have received some fantastic things under super-grace blessing but these things are nothing compared with what God has for you as a member of the royal family. The Old Testament saints received their blessings before the strategic victory was won.

"fitly joined together" — sunarmologew means "being joined together." It is a present passive participle.

Summary

a) This is a reference to the baptising ministry of God the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation.

b) Regeneration makes Old Testament and Millennial believers members of the family of God, but none of them are members of the royal family.

c) One only becomes a member of the royal family through the baptism of the Spirit, unique and peculiar to this dispensation.

d) In the Church Age only God the Holy Spirit does additional things for each believer at salvation which were never accomplished before and will never be duplicated after the Rapture.

e) The Church Age is unique in many ways. It is the only dispensation which is completed without interruption; it is the only dispensation in which God the Holy Spirit takes us at the point of salvation and enters us into the palace, members of the royal family now and forever; it is the only dispensation in which the badge of royalty is the universal indwelling of God the Holy Spirit; it is the only dispensation in which the sealing of the Spirit is double security; it is the only dispensation in which spiritual gifts are given at the beginning of our salvation to guarantee that in time we are to be given super-grace blessings — the guarantee of super-grace blessings is found in spiritual gifts.

f) All of these ministries of the Holy Spirit are related to the royal family.

g) The present tense of this participle is a static present used to represent a condition which is perpetually existing.

h) The passive voice: the believer in the Church Age receives the action of the verb whereby you and I are not only in union with Christ but were joined to each other. The participle is circumstantial.

"and compacted" — present passive participle of sumbibazw. This doesn't means to be compacted, it means to unite, to hold together, but it also means to instruct or to teach and that is exactly what it means here — "and being taught." That is the objective. The present tense is a customary present which denotes the habitual occurrence of something. Being taught is something which should occur habitually. Why are you here? To be taught. Why are you alive on this earth? To be taught. The participle is circumstantial. The passive voice: the royal family receives the action of the verb; they receive teaching. Since the verb connotes being put together or being united it means to be taught categorically, to be taught exegetically. The pastor studies and puts it all together and then teaches it.

"by that which every joint supplieth" — should be "every joint of supply." The big problem here is the word "joint of supply." It is the descriptive genitive singular of e)pixohgia, the sugar-daddy who provides the funds for the Greek drama, the benefactor. The word "joint" is also a problem. A)fh means a joint or a ligament. Literally, this says "through every joint of supply."

The joint metaphor

1. All members and parts of the body are linked by joints or ligatures.

a) Different parts of the body represent differences and spiritual gifts and functions in life — 1Corinthians 12.

b) The joints or ligaments pull the body together.

c) Therefore Bible teaching from the pastor-teacher brings together the greatest variety of personalities, vocations, functions and activities in life. The pastor-teacher is the joint in the body and all men who have the gift of pastor-teacher are joints. All the joints are different but it is the joint who pulls the body together and in this metaphor the joint is the pastor-teacher.

d) All members of the royal family are linked by having their own right pastor to communicate to them doctrine leading them to the super-grace life.

d) The next time you have an ache or a pain in your joints remember your pastor is speaking to you! All the members of the royal family on earth are linked together by doctrinal teaching of the right pastor. It is doctrine that unifies believers.

2. Joints are the basis for building muscle and strength in the body. Without joints the human body would be in a state of atrophy. Without pastor-teachers Christianity, the royal family, would be in a state of spiritual atrophy on the earth. If you want to have muscles you have to bend at the joints. Repetitious exercise demands the use of joints (sometimes this is painful). Repetitious exercise is analogous to repetitious GAPing to super-grace. Using the joints in exercise is like using the daily function of GAP. The inevitable result of exercise is muscle, strength, endurance, coordination, and so on. The inevitable result of GAP under the authority and teaching of the joint pastor-teacher is the construction of the ECS and entrance into the super-grace life.

3. Joints provide body action. Every function and action in life must be motivated by doctrine and the mental attitude dynamics of divine viewpoint. Therefore Bible teaching from the pastor is like the joints which make action, coordination and team function possible. Without the function of joints there would be no body action.

"according to the effectual working" — kata plus the accusative singular of e)nergeia. It should be translated, "according to the operational power." The operational power is God the Holy Spirit controlling the pastor-teacher in his teaching, controlling the royal priests in their listening; and God the Holy Spirit is the one who makes every part of GAP function from the deliverance to the reception.

The analogy of this verse: The emphasis is on the function of the Holy Spirit in the pastor-teacher, joints are analogous to the pastor, and the function of the joints require operational power. The function of pastors require the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

"in the measure of every part" — this is "in the measure one for each part," literally. One pastor-teacher for every believer. In other words, every believer has a right pastor-teacher.

"maketh" is the present middle indicative of poiew and it should be translated here "causes." The present tense is retroactive progressive present which denotes that which was begun in the past and continues into the present time. The middle voice is the indirect middle which stresses the pastor-teacher as the agent producing the action rather than participating in its results. The believer by listening participates in the results but the pastor-teacher is the agent producing the action. The indicative mood is declarative which views the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality — you really do have a right pastor-teacher.

"increase" — the accusative of direct object in the singular from a)uchsij. It refers to the individual progress of each member of the royal family under the function of GAP — "causes growth." We have a reference to the individual growth of every believer as a member of the royal family when he responds to the teaching of the Word of God from his right pastor.

"of the body" — this is an objective genitive of the noun swma. In the objective genitive the noun in the genitive case receives the action of the verb being thus related as the verbal idea. Again, this is individual growth, not the increase of the size of the body. Increase of the body occurs through evangelism but the growth of the individual part of the body comes through daily and consistent intake of Bible doctrine.

"unto the edifying" — e)ij plus o)ikodomh; "of itself" — the genitive of possession of a reflexive pronoun e(autou which means "belonging to himself in love."

Translation: "From whom all the body being joined together [in union with Christ], being taught categorically through every joint [pastor-teacher] of supply, according to the operational power in measure [one pastor-teacher] for each part, causes growth of the body resulting in an edification complex belonging to himself in love."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #56

56 10/07/1973 Ephesians 4:17–18a Doctrine of the stages of reversionism

Verse 17 — "This" is the genitive neuter singular from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. It refers to something comparatively near at hand. The neuter gender refers to some point of doctrine which immediately follows. Here is the demonstrative pronoun referring to that which hinders growth. There is something near at hand available to you without which your growth is hindered — Bible doctrine.

"I say" — present active indicative of legw here is used in the sense of explanation. The present tense is an iterative present which describes what recurs at successive intervals, therefore it is the present tense of repeated action. Paul has repeatedly warned about neglecting doctrine, about the dangers of reversionism. Now he does the same thing again. He is going to explain the principle of reversionism as a frustration to growth and the attainment of the super-grace status. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb in writing. He is now going to offer an explanation as to why the Christian life in time goes sour for you. The indicative mood is the reality of Paul's explanation and the certainty of its preservation in the canon of scripture. "This I explain." Paul is actually doing something for their benefit but it comes out very harsh, very strong. Reason: Believers who are negative toward doctrine have to be shaken up. There are two ways in which this can be accomplished. They can be shaken up verbally by the strong words of this paragraph or they can be shaken up experientially by various categories of discipline associated with the road to reversionism. Any believer who is inconsistent in the intake of doctrine falls into this category.

"and testify" — what the apostle Paul is about to declare is not only an explanation but is stronger than that. He is standing as it were in the court of this life. He is standing up before the members of the congregations in the Roman province of Asia to give a solemn testimony, a testimony which is given before the Lord. The word marturomai which is translated here "testify" is the accuracy of what he is saying, the honesty. This word means to testify but it means more than that, it means that Paul is intellectually honest. Today we have a rise of liberalism, a rise of reversionism, in Christianity. As a result we find people who are intellectually dishonest. There are those who are afraid to give the true explanation of a passage because it might hurt someone's feelings and that person will leave and be no longer a member of the congregation. They are more interested in catering to people than they are in doing their job as unto the Lord. Every pastor-teacher must testify, and that means every time he stands in the pulpit he is under oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help him God the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul says here when he says, "No only do I make an explanation but I make an explanation under oath." Harshness is one of the manifestations of love under certain conditions, and here we have the conditions that bring out the apostle's harshness.

"Therefore" is the inferential particle o)un, it means that certain conclusions are being drawn from the previous information. It comes immediately after the demonstrative pronoun and becomes a transitional conjunction to indicate the fact the subject is now changed from the glories of super-grace, from the blessings of being a member of the royal family of God, to seeing the other side of the picture. You are still members of the royal family, you still have eternal life, you will still have the perfect environment of heaven in the future, but you are a casualty, a failure in the angelic conflict and the purpose for which you are left on this earth is not fulfilled.

"in the Lord" is the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of kurioj and it means "by means of the Lord."

"that" is not found in the original but is a correct use to translate the infinitive of purpose; "ye henceforth not" — an adverb mhketi plus the accusative of general reference, su. Literally, "you all no longer." Mhketi means "no longer" and the accusative of general reference, su, means that this pronoun is regarded as the subject of the infinitive. Or better, it is actually used to describe the person connected with the action of the infinitive. Therefore the simple explanation is that the accusative becomes the subject rather than the object with this infinitive.

"walk" — present active infinitive of peripatew. The word means to have a pattern, a way of life, a thought pattern, a behaviour pattern, a modus operandi, a modus vivendi. The present tense is retroactive progressive present denoting that which is begun in the past and should be continued into the present time. That is, you should not continue walking on the road to reversionism. So the retroactive progressive present plus the adverb mhketi plus the accusative plural of the pronoun su all add up to the fact that Paul is writing to a large number of believers who are already on the road to reversionism. Therefore this is a challenge to get off that road and get on to the road to super-grace. The active voice: the recipients are believers in the first century who are members of the royal family of God walking on the road to reversionism. The infinitive indicates purpose and it should be translated "This therefore I explain and make an emphatic demand by means of the Lord, that you all no longer continue walking." In other words, stop walking in the road to reversionism.

"as" is a comparative adverb, kaqoj, and should be translated a little stronger, "just as." This means that they have been walking just like all unbelievers in their part of the Roman world.

"other Gentiles" — kai ta e)qnh. This is the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai and means "also," plus the nominative plural of e)qnoj, plus the definite article. E)qnoj refers to unbelievers in the area of the Roman province of Asia. It is used for unbelievers in the same geographical location and immediately a principle of doctrine arises from this statement: The reversionistic believer is influenced by the society in which he lives.

"walk" — the present tense of peripatew is a retroactive progressive present denoting the reversionistic lifestyle of the unbelievers in the Roman province of Asia which at this time in the Roman empire was so prosperous from the past that it has now become somewhat of a degenerate society. Unbelievers produce the action of the verb through their own types of reversionism, through degeneracy, described in Romans 1:18-32. The indicative mood is declarative and represents the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality — decadence in the Roman province of Asia from the unbelievers. This decadence no overflows into the life of reversionistic believers. Reversionistic believers are influenced by the society in which they live.

How do they keep walking?

"in the vanity of their mind." "In the vanity" is a very important prepositional phrase — e)n plus the instrumental of the noun mataiothj. Matiaothj means "emptiness" but it means emptiness, nothingness, or devoidness. As devoidness it has the concept of a vacuum and that is the way it should be translated — "by the vacuum of their mind." The way people live only reflects the way people think is the principle here. It indicates thought or lack of thought, it indicates sloppy thought, unstable thought. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is." The reversionistic unbelievers in Asia are obviously decadent at this point in their history and the reversionistic believers in their area are simply taking their cue from the unbelievers, the other Gentiles. Emptiness denotes that they are devoid of truth, they have a vacuum in the soul, and this vacuum is specifically of their mind; "of their mind" is the possessive genitive from nouj, the left lobe or the staging area of the mentality of the soul. With nouj is the intensive pronoun a)utoj, and when the intensive pronoun is used as a possessive pronoun it gives great emphasis to the nouj. In other words, religion, legalism, liberal panaceas, false doctrines and concepts have infiltrated the souls of these reversionistic believers. They have taken on he same thought pattern of the unbelievers in their decadent society. In this manner all of these things have been infiltrated through a vacuum. The vacuum is said to enter through the nouj or the left lobe. Through this vacuum comes the doctrine of demons, the incorrect viewpoint of a decadent society. Mataiothj plus nouj indicates the stage of reversionism of the people who are believers in the Roman province of Asia. They have believed in Jesus Christ, they are born again, they are members of the family of God by regeneration, they are royal members of the family of God through the baptism of the Spirit, they are royalty forever, they cannot lose their salvation, they are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, sealed by the Spirit, given a spiritual gift by the Spirit, but they are taking on the liberalism, the apostasy of the unbelieving society around them.

The doctrine of the stages of reversionism

1. Reversionism in the Christian way of life is first of all motivated by reactor factors. So the first stage in reversionism is the reaction stage. The reaction stage means that there are things in your soul which are the results of initial negative volition and which will intensify your negative volition toward doctrine in you have been neglecting it. Neglect of Bible doctrine, indifference, or sporadic interest followed by indifference to the Word of God results in reactor factors in the soul. These reactor factors include discouragement, boredom, disillusion, self-pity, failure to handle the loneliness problem, frustration. All of these are basic reactor factors in the life. You think in terms of one or more of these things and your thought pattern is one of frustration, and from frustration come the mental attitude sins, the initial intensification of reactor factors in the life — things that cause you to react against Bible doctrine, the one who teaches Bible doctrine. These are some of the factors. Others include disasters of one type or another, being jilted, finding a set of adverse circumstances and not being able to cope. The presence of reactor factors in the life combined with difficulties in the life, combined with indifference or lack of exposure to Bible teaching cause the reactor factors to function. The reaction then sets in for the second stage of reversionism.

2. The second stage is the frantic search for happiness. This is reaction to the reactor factors. The frantic search for happiness follows the pattern of the old sin nature's trends. The OSN has a trend toward lasciviousness or a trend toward asceticism, the reaction will take one or the other. If the trend is toward asceticism then you becomes a holy-roller, to go out into the woods for victorious life conferences, throw a faggot on the fire, give up something, go into your closet and pray, agonising and tarrying and mumbling, reacting to things that shock. All of these things are one type of frantic search for happiness. Unfortunately, the person involved is a reversionist but often construed by other stupid types as being a great believer. Believers involved in these things are reversionists. They have accepted a substitute for doctrine and they are trying to compensate for the reactor factors in their life. The other type is the person with the trend toward lasciviousness in which a person goes out into debauchery, seduction, raising hell. This is a little more obvious but no different in degree from the other frantic search for happiness. The frantic search for happiness immediately leads to a third stage.

3. The third stage is the intensification of reversionism, the intensification of the reactor factors. There is a greater frustration than previously and it results in "operation boomerang" in which the frantic search intensifies the original reactor factors.

4. The fourth stage is emotional revolt of the soul. The emotion of the soul is designed to respond to the right lobe or the heart. The right lobe or the heart is where you do your thinking. It has a frame of reference, a memory centre, vocabulary, categories, norms and standards, a launching pad. Emotion was de signed to respond, it is the right woman of the soul. The heart is the right man of the soul. The emotion starts a revolt which further confuses the reversionist, so this fourth stage is the stage of confusion. The emotion is designed to respond to the right lobe or the heart but in turn revolts against it. Once there is a revolt all of the valves of the right lobe shut down destroying the function of doctrine in that area.

5. The fifth stage is negative volition toward doctrine and it becomes very pronounced. As a result of the reactor factors, the frantic search for happiness, the intensification of these things, the emotional revolt of the soul, negative volition is now characterised by several things:

a) Indifference or apathy to Bible teaching.

b) So occupied with the things of life that there is no time for Bible teaching.

c) Antagonism or personality hang-ups regarding the Bible teaching and/or the pastor-teacher.

d) Antagonism or conflict with others in the congregation.

e) Failure to utilise the rebound technique, and under lack of the filling of the Spirit permitting reactor factors in the life, or in permitting their intensity.

f) Inability to handle three super-grace types of prosperity. There is often in the life some pre-super-grace type of prosperity — sometimes a blessing from God, sometimes something else. There is an inability to handle that prosperity and therefore a decline in the intake of the Word of God.g) The early patterns of reversionism — reaction, frantic search for happiness, emotional revolt of the soul — are permitted to continue by the volition of the soul. In other words, you can do what you want to do.

So negative volition at this point becomes a factor which leads to other factors.

6. The sixth stage is found in Ephesians 4:17. This is an attack on the left lobe or the nouj. The blackout of the soul is an attack upon the left lobe only. It leads to an attack upon the right lobe which is scar tissue but the blackout is an attack upon the mind or the nouj. This negative volition produces a vacuum — mataiothj. When negative volition sets in this vacuum (mataiothj) opens. The negative volition principle opens this vacuum and into it comes the doctrine of demons, false doctrines, human viewpoint. This vacuum is the source of setting up all the false viewpoints of life. It is known as demon influence in contrast to demon possession. When you get all of these false doctrines, false concepts, into the staging area they immediately move over to the right lobe and therefore the blackout of the soul becomes a general thing.

7. The seventh stage is scar tissue of the soul. Just as blackout of the soul attacks the left lobe scar tissue attacks the right lobe. The various valves are knocked out. There is a destroying of the true norms and standards of the Word of God. Vocabulary and categories change and human viewpoint is on the launching pad making personal applications resulting in subjectivity, and making overt applications resulting in being a casualty as far as being the royal family of God. Scar tissue is the result of the blackout of the soul in which the believer adopts Satanic worldly viewpoint about everything in life.

8. The eighth and last stage is reverse process reversionism just as super-grace is the final stage of growth. This final stage of reversionism is the exact antithesis of super-grace in which the believer loves and desires the opposite of what the Bible commands. It is a reversal of the objects of true love for the believer. The object of true love is the Lord Jesus Christ. We were designed to love Jesus Christ who is the King of kings. We are members of the royal family. So we replace the love of Jesus Christ with something else and this becomes the reversal. Interest in doctrine is now replaced by other things to the neglect of doctrine. Interest in other things is legitimate provided you are on the road to super-grace but these things replace doctrine as interests in your life. Reverse process reversionism is the area in which the believers dies the sin unto death.

Translation: "This therefore I explain and make as an emphatic honest demand by means of the Lord, that you all no longer continue walking just as also the Gentiles [reversionistic unbelievers] keep walking, by means of the nothingness [or vacuum] of their mind."

Verse 18 — "Having the understanding darkened." Here is scar tissue or the blackout of the soul. The Greek here is quite different from the KJV here. It is a perfect periphrastic, it is composed of a perfect passive participle of the verb skotizw plus the present tense of the verb e)imi. Them periphrastic perfect here is an intensive one. That is, we have the perfect passive participle of skotizw, something that happens in the past and the results continue. The passive voice means that darkness of the soul is received by a process. The participle itself is a part of the periphrastic. Also the static present tense of e)imi representing that the condition continues in its intensity. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb by negative volition. Negative volition results in darkness entering the mind and resulting in the whole soul becoming darkened. So the first thing we have is "Having become darkened." Then we have literally, "in their understanding" — the locative singular plus the definite article used as a possessive pronoun. Together it should be "Having become darkened in their understanding." But "in their understanding" is incorrect because the word dianoia means thinking. It is interesting that dianoia is being used as an alternative for the nouj and it explains the thinking in the nouj. Corrected translation: "Having become darkened in [the sphere of] their way of thinking." The nouj refers to the left lobe of the soul, it is used here as referring to dokew or subjective type thinking. Dianoia is the same as nouj. Nouj is the location, dianoia is the thinking of that location.

"Having become darkened in their thinking" describes the result of the opening of that mataiothj. The opening of the vacuum means that they have darkness in their thinking. There is no objective type thinking, there is no objective type opinions, there is no dogmatism of that type left in the soul. Therefore we have instead subjectivity, hypersensitivity, guilt reaction to hypersensitivity and indifference to others manifest by going all out for some downtrodden messed up and confused group of people in the periphery. The concept, then, is the blackout of the soul.

The doctrine of the blackout of the soul

1. The blackout of the soul is that state of reversionist in which the mentality of the soul is directly influenced by Satan and doctrine of demons, plus everything that is anti-God and antiestablishment. It is the direct result of persistent negative volition toward doctrine regardless of how that negative volition is expressed.

2. Mechanics. The blackout of the soul is the result of all previous stages of reversionism. It is directly related to the opening of the vacuum into the left lobe. It results first of all from the reactor factors in the life — discouragement, boredom, disillusion, overcome with self-pity, unable to handle loneliness, frustration, plus the mental attitude sins of bitterness, jealousy, vindictiveness, etc. These result in a frantic search for happiness which in turn causes emotional revolt, which in turn emphasises more negative volition — apathy or indifference, doctrine taking second place. Negative volition is followed by the opening of a vacuum which attacks the nouj or the left lobe, and as false doctrine, false principles move through this vacuum the general condition is the blackout of the soul. The blackout of the soul, then, mechanically is a combination of reactor factors, frantic search for happiness, emotional revolt, negative volition toward doctrine.

3. The attack upon the nouj or the left lobe.

a) Negative volition toward doctrine in this particular state of reversionism causes the vacuum to open through which Satanic and false doctrine enters.

b) The nouj is flooded with false teaching, human viewpoint.

c) This human viewpoint, this false teaching, these erroneous ideas, are called "doctrine of darkness" because Satan's kingdom is a kingdom of darkness — Ephesians 5:11; 6:12; Colossians 1:13; 2Peter 2:4. The result is darkness in the soul.

4. The dissemination of darkness. It starts with what you think in the left lobe, basically called noew. Noew -type thinking can either be good or bad, objective or subjective, excellent or corrupted. When noew becomes subjective it is called dokew, when it is objective the New Testament calls it fronew. Subjectivity, then, is the basis for the blackout of the soul. Subjectivity causes the believer to support and to enter his energy into causes like world peace, disarmament, world brotherhood, "love the brethren" erroneously applied, social action to help the downtrodden, everything associated with operation bleeding heart.

There is also a noun in the New Testament to describe this — nohma. It is found as corrupt thinking in 2Corinthians 3:14; 4:4; 11:3. The word is also used for the devices of Satan in 2Corinthians 2:11 and therefore is a noun to indicate darkness-type. This type of thinking spreads throughout the soul, leading to blackout of the soul. There is another noun for irrational foolish thinking in the blackout of the soul — a)nohtoj which is used in Galatians 3:1,3; Titus 2:3. The word indicates the type of thinking the believer has at the point of blackout of the soul. The intensification noew is called katanoew, used in Hebrews for the responsibility of the priesthood in considering the Lord Jesus Christ — Hebrews 3:1; 10:24. Another word used for thinking in the left lobe is pronoew which means to perceive in advance. This one is corrupted and replaced by u(ponoew which means to hold in suspicion but is used for rejection of the truth. There is also a noun which is used from u(ponoew for the blackout of the soul, used in 1Timothy 2:4 — u(ponoia. So the blackout of the soul has a vocabulary all of its own, a technical vocabulary found throughout the scripture.

5. A synonym for the blackout of the soul, a synonym in the sense of something that occurs at the same time. It is not quite a synonym, it is more a related problem. Blackout of the soul comes from the nouj, the left lobe. The vacuum goes into the left lobe with its false teaching. As a result blackout is spread to every part of the soul. As a result of this blackout of the soul, and coexistent with it, is an attack on the right lobe, the heart, and this attack is called hardness of heart or scar tissue. When blackout of the soul hits the heart it becomes scar tissue or hardness of the heart. 6. The result of blackout of the soul is twofold. First, a continuation of reversionism through the practice of reverse process reversionism — 2Corinthians 11. Secondly, maximum divine discipline, the sun unto death — James 5, among other passages.

7. The solution to the blackout of the soul is found in another verb — metanoew. It is translated generally "repent," it means a change of mind. Actually, it is a combination of change of attitude toward doctrine resulting in the intake of doctrine, getting back under the Word. Hebrews 6; Ephesians 3:16-21. Technically, then, blackout of the soul, while it applies to the left lobe, has an effect upon the right lobe and the solution is the reversion recovery concept.

Summary

1. False doctrine, false standards, false criteria, flow from the left lobe or mentality of the soul.

2. The result of flooding the soul with these things is subjectivity, pseudo-sensitivity, soul fainting, frustration, unhappiness, and it affects the right lobe with scar tissue or hardness of heart.

3. The frantic search for happiness continues with slavery to the details of life becoming more pronounced.

4. Modus vivendi is a state of apostasy which combines with scar tissue to produce pathological, neurotic or psychotic thought which eventuates in behaviour pattern reflecting these things.

5. These things become more pronounced through the various stages of discipline to the reversionist, such as the warning stage, the intensification stage, and they reach their culmination in the sin unto death.

If you have blackout of the soul, if your thoughts are darkness rather than light then the result becomes quite obvious, you are …

"alienated from the life of God" — being alienated is the perfect passive participle of a)pallotriow which really means to be estranged as well as alienated. The perfect tense is intensive, it means alienated in the past with the result that you keep on being alienated. This means that all the time that you are a member of the royal family, all of the time that you have eternal life, all of the time that God is tapping His foot waiting to provide super-grace blessings, you have estranged yourself from the life of God provided for you on earth. The life of God is Bible doctrine. The life of God is everything worthwhile related to doctrine. The life of God is the ECS and the entrance into the super-grace life. The believer in reversionism is totally estranged from that. Furthermore, the passive voice indicates that the reversionists who have degenerated to the stage of blackout of the soul receive this alienation from the life of God. The participle is a circumstantial. The word means three things: having been estranged, having been alienated, having been excluded. All three are legitimate translations and all three can be used in connection with divine discipline for the reversionist. In the warning stage of discipline you have been estranged from the life of God; in the intensified stage you are alienated; in the final stage you have been excluded from the life of God. The ablative of source of zwh plus the definite article refers to the road to reversionism. "Life" here refers to the believer living the normal Christian life which is the consistent, daily, continual intake of Bible doctrine. The definite article is used for a possessive pronoun and it should be translated "from the life of their God."

"through the ignorance" — dia plus the accusative of a)gnoia is "because of the ignorance." A)gnoia describes blackout of the soul. Blackout of the soul is a believer, member of the royal family of God on earth, in ignorance of doctrine, divine viewpoint, principles, promises, blessings; in fact, the life of God. Ignorance can come from neglect or apathy, rejection, antagonism toward doctrine, but ignorance is always the reason. Furthermore, ignorance is no excuse. There is never an excuse for a believer being ignorant of doctrine. The word zwh means "concept of life." There is another word for life in the New testament, bioj, which means the function of life. The concept of life is what we have in this verse, rather than its actual function. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present for that which has begun in the past and continues into the present time. It describes the stages of reversionism and resultant negative volition toward Bible doctrine. The active voice: negative volition, ignorance, produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial to describe the condition of the believer who becomes indifferent or sporadic in his intake of doctrine.

So far: "Having become darkened in their thinking, having been estranged [alienated, excluded] from the life of their God because of the ignorance which keeps on being in them."

"in them" — the locative prepositional phrase which indicates that blackout of the soul is a condition inside of the soul. The function of the intensive pronoun here is to emphasise identity. In other words, it is a demonstrative pronoun intensified. The identity of the object of the preposition is the reversionist who has become negative toward Bible doctrine. This perpetual state of ignorance of doctrine is blackout of the soul. Furthermore, it results in something else and now we are introduced to the subject of scar tissue. Blackout of the soul makes its attack on the left lobe; scar tissue makes its attack upon the right lobe.

"because of the blindness of their heart" — dia plus the accusative of pwrwsij which means hardness or scar tissue. "Blindness," as in the KJV, is an incorrect translation' "of the heart" — the possessive genitive of kardia. We all possess a heart or right lobe. The word "heart" is never used for the physiological part of the body, it is always used in the Bible for the thinking part of the soul and/or the right lobe.

The doctrine of the heart

The Bible is always consistent in that it takes parts of physiology and relates them to parts of the soul. The word "heart" is used for the right lobe or the thinking part of the soul.

1. The physiological heart.

a. The physiological heart in the human body is an intricately woven muscle which is in contraction rhythmically causing circulation of the blood.

b. It pumps five quarts of blood in a minute, 75 gallons in an hour, 70 barrels a day, and 18-million barrels in 70 years.

c. The heart is a double pump because it has two valves, the auricle and the ventricle.

d. The pumps and valves circulate the blood in the same manner as doctrine is circulated by the right lobe of the soul. Therefore the word "heart" is used for that part of the soul which process thought. In other words, that part which thinks.

2. The heart which is found in the soul.

a) The word "heart" [kardia] has many connotations in the English language. For example, the heart is the part nearest to the centre, the core of something, sometimes that which resembles a heart, shaped like a heart, a suit in playing, the seat of the spiritual or conscious life in the soul, the source of thinking. All of these are legitimate English meanings for the word "heart" but none of them pertain except one: the thinking part of the soul, and that is the way that the word "heart" is used in the Bible. The Bible never uses the word "heart" for emotion, it never uses it is a physiological sense, the Bible use is always related to thinking. The Bible heart is used for that part of the mentality of the soul known as the right lobe. Whether it is the Old Testament word lebh or the Greek kardia it always refers to thinking. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness" is thinking. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is." Sometimes the heart is related to the old sin nature, and then "the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" — the heart or the thinking of the soul related to the old sin nature and a perfect description of reversionism.

b) The heart in the Bible is the organ of thinking — Proverbs 23:7.

c) Genesis 6:5 distinguishes between imaginations and thoughts of the heart.

d) The heart is the residence of Bible doctrine in the soul — Proverbs 2:2,10; 3:3; 15:14; 18:15; Psalm 119:11, 161; Job 38:36.

3. The essence of the heart.

a) The frame of reference is the entrance, the antechamber for doctrine — Proverbs 4:4.

b) The memory centre is the pump that circulates doctrine into the various areas of the right lobe or heart .

c) The vocabulary storage is the supply house for the formation of thought. You have to have a vocabulary for thinking.

d) The categorical storage is a nearby supply house. Categorical thinking is where you advance and where you begin to grow up. Categorical thinking is logical progression from the simple to the complex, from the obvious to that which is totally brilliant.

e) The conscience is also a part of the right lobe, it is the storage for all norms and standards. Those norms and standards become the basis for your volition. They become the basis for determining what you do and what you don't do. Romans 2:15; 9:1; 1Corinthians 8:7; 2Corinthians 4:2; 5:11; Titus 1:15; Hebrews 9:14; 1Peter 2:19.

f) You have a launching pad which is the source of all application to life. The launching pad draws upon categories, upon vocabulary, from the conscience, all of which are processed through the volition; the memory centre often is the basis for your protection; therefore the launching pad is the real you. "Bringing every thought into captivity for Christ" is nothing more or less than having divine viewpoint on the launching pad.

4. Therefore the doctrinal content of the soul or the heart resides in the right lobe. The heart is the right man of the soul, it is designed to dominate the soul, all other parts of the soul are designed to be subordinate to the heart. The heart, then, is the target for GAP and to reach the target doctrine must pass through the various staging areas. The principle of this is found in Proverbs 2:2,10; 10:8; Psalm 119:11; 19:14; Job 38:36.

5. The facets of heart function.

a) The heart can function in rejecting Bible doctrine — Proverbs 5:12,13.

b) The heart is the source of discord and trouble making — Proverbs 6:14,18.

c) The heart of the prostitute is said to be subtle — Proverbs 7:10 ( A woman can spot the pride of a man and make him think he is really something by the use of flattery and subtle words, yet she despises him) A perfect illustration of evil thinking, it's application, and the false concepts that are developed — and filled with hatred in 2Samuel 6:16.

d) The heart suffers disappointment from promises not kept — Proverbs 13:12. The frustration that comes from the disappointment is scar tissue of the soul.

e) The heart promotes mental attitude sins: bitterness — Proverbs 14:10; sorrow and disappointment — Proverbs 14:13; pride — Obadiah 3; Proverbs 21:4; worry — Ecclesiastes 2:23.

f) Women use the heart as their weapon to trap uninteresting men — Ecclesiastes 7:26.

g) The frantic search for happiness is related to the heart — Ecclesiastes 1:13.

h) Reversionism is described in terms of the heart — Jeremiah 17:5,9; Zechariah 7:12.

i) Revolution and insubordination are described as being in the heart — Jeremiah 5:23; 2Samuel 15:6; Ezekiel 6:9.

j) Hypocrisy is related to the heart — Job 36:13; Psalm 55:21.

6. The heart is related to thinking and perception.

a) The heart is specified in the function of GAP — Deuteronomy 29:4.

b) The thinking of the reversionist is related to the heart — Psalm 10:6,11,13.

c) The heart is related to the thinking of atheism — Psalm 14:1.

d) The heart is the system for rationalising education (making education think it is something it isn't) — Ecclesiastes 1:13-18.

e) Rationalisation of mental attitude sins is accomplished in the heart — Isaiah 47:10.

f) False teachers communicate deceit from their hearts — Jeremiah 14:14.

g) The heart is used for meditation on Bible doctrine — Luke 2:19.

h) The heart is used for thinking superiority — Luke 9:46,47.

7. The heart is involved in the analogy of right man, right woman. The heart is analogous to the right man and dominates the soul in the normal person. Emotion is designated as the right woman designed to be a responder to the content of the heart. Therefore they are linked in the following scriptures under the right man, right woman analogy: Psalm 26:2; Jeremiah 11:20; 17:10; 20:12.

8. The heart is related to the capacity for life

a) Since the emotion takes the place of the right woman [the responder] and since the heart is the right man [the aggressor] all capacity for life must be initiated from the heart.

b) All capacity for life resides in the frame of reference, memory centre, vocabulary thinking, categorising thinking, conscience of the right lobe.

c) From these areas the heart initiates and the emotion responds just as in sex the right woman responds to the right man.

c) There are both positive and negative concepts of capacity for life. On the positive side: love — Deuteronomy 6:4; 11:13; Joshua 22:5; happiness — Psalm 19:8; 28:7; dynamics — Job 9:4. On the negative side: sorrow — Leviticus 26:16; Nehemiah 2:2; pressure — Psalm 34:18; cowardice — Joshua 14:8; discouragement — Numbers 32:7,9. All of these are related to the heart and in each case the heart refers to the right lobe or the thinking part of the soul.

9. Therefore the heart is the basic area for happiness in life: "gladness of heart — Judges 18:20; 1Samuel 1:13; 1 Kings 8:66ff;" and "the merry heart" — 1Samuel 15:36; 2Samuel 6:16; Proverbs 17:22.

10. The heart is the area of cursing in the soul. Reversionism in the heart results in national disaster — Deuteronomy 28:47,48. Revenge is a malfunction of the heart — Proverbs 24:1,2; Ezekiel 25:15-17. The heart is related to psychoses — Isaiah 13:7,8. Mental attitude sins relate the old sin nature to the heart — Psalm 66:18; 101:5; Proverbs 6:18; Matthew 12:35; 15:18,19; Luke 6:45; 24:25.

11. The heart is the area of blessing in the growing believer.

a) The heart is related to grace function — Proverbs 24:17.

b) The heart is related to grace orientation — Exodus 23:9.

c) The heart is related to happiness — 1Samuel 2:1.

d) The heart is the basis of stability in the crisis — Psalm 112:7,8.

12. The heart is related to motivation in life: Temporal life — Exodus 35:25,26,35; 36:8; Spiritual life — 2Corinthians 9:7.

13. The heart is related to positive volition at the point of salvation — Romans 10:9,10.

14. The heart is also used in the scripture as an anthropopathism: the heart of God, God doesn't have a heart, God doesn't have a human soul as we have, except in the humanity of Christ in His hypostatic union. 1Samuel 2:35; Psalm 78:72; Jeremiah 23:20; 30:24.

Translation: "Having become darkened in their way of thinking, having been estranged [alienated, excluded] from the life of their God because of the ignorance which keeps on being in them, because of the hardness of their heart [right lobe]."

The doctrine of the scar tissue of the soul

1. The mind, according to Ephesians 4:23, actually breaths. The word for "mind" emphasises the function of the left lobe as a processor of doctrine; it is a staging area, not the final resting place of Bible doctrine. The left lobe has a processor which is called "breathing" and this implies the existence of lungs. The intake and the output of doctrine would be comparable to physiological breathing. Therefore, the definition "hardness of the heart" or "scar tissue of the mind" is the blackout of the left lobe resulting in the hardness of the right lobe.

2. Mechanics. The malfunction of GAP through negative volition causes a vacuum to open up in the left lobe, as per Ephesians 4:17. The left lobe is attacked by the opening of mataiothj. Through this vacuum comes doctrines of demons and other types of Satanic propaganda which cause the blackout of the soul. At the time of the blackout of the soul the reversionistic believer lives under the intensification of reactor factors, emotional revolt, frantic search for happiness, and all of these things open up the mataiothj. The result is the blackout of the soul which invariably causes scar tissue to form on the right lobe.

3. Illustrations: First of all the illustration which is based upon a frantic search for happiness through the trend toward lasciviousness — Ephesians 4:19; 5:3. A second illustration is found in 1John 2:9,11 — the function of mental attitude sins. With the blackout of the soul and the hardness of the heart it is impossible to avoid the repercussions of mental attitude sins — e.g. Hymenaeus and Alexander, 1Timothy 1:20, fell into this.

4. Scar tissue and the reversionistic believer. The reversionistic believer develops scar tissue in the right lobe of the soul called the heart. It is built up on the basis of the fact that there is a blackout in the left lobe.

5. Scar tissue and the unbeliever. The reversionistic unbeliever accumulates scar tissue or suffers from the hardness of the heart — 2Thessalonians 2:10-12, where it is called strong delusion. He is also found in 2Peter 2:22 where he is described as the dog returning to his vomit. However, scar tissue in the unbeliever or hardness of heart is removed at salvation — Isaiah 43:25; 44:22. For the unbeliever who remains in hardness of heart or strong delusion there is total disaster. One of the best illustrations in scripture is Judas Iscariot and his suicide which is described in great detail in Matthew 27:3-10. He became very emotional, felt sorry for what he had done, made restitution, and wound up committing suicide. The Pharaoh of Exodus is another illustration. The solution to scar tissue or hardness of the heart is the same in both cases. For the unbeliever it is response to the gospel by faith in Christ and for the believer it is reversion recovery through the intake of doctrine.

The doctrine of the hardness of the heart

1. Definition.

a) The hardness of the heart (kardia, the right lobe) is the seventh and next to last stage of reversionism. It is coterminous with and the result of blackout of the soul, the attack upon the left lobe.

b) While blackout of the soul affects the left lobe or nouj by the infiltration of Satanic doctrine hardness of the heart and/or scar tissue of the soul affects the right lobe. It is the final attack that leads to reverse process reversionism.

c) In the hardness of the heart all of the valves of the right lobe freeze and shut down so that doctrine no longer circulates in the soul.

d) Therefore doctrine in the right lobe is no longer operative and is no longer applicable to the life.

e) Scar tissue accumulated results in the function of the vacuum [mataiothj] to suck more false doctrine into the left lobe which in turn increases the pressure on the right lobe.

f) When the effects of blackout of the left lobe reach the right lobe all of the valves freeze. This means that no longer is there any vocabulary functioning, the categories dry up first, norms and standards change, there is no longer any divine viewpoint in the launching pad, no way of recalling or calling upon frame of reference doctrine.

g) No more doctrine is fed into the vocabulary and into the categorical storage. The conscience begins to change, there is no doctrine on the launching pad. No more doctrine, therefore, flows back and forth and, as it were, all doctrinal function of the right lobe freezes. This is the prelude to the sin unto death.

2. Case documentation: The hardness of Pharaoh's heart.

a) This is a case of a reversionistic unbeliever. The pharaoh of the Exodus hardened his own heart by constant and continuous rejection of the gospel. He was constantly on negative volition — Exodus 7:22,23; 8:15,32, 9:34. He was constantly exposed to the gospel from Aaron, and then from Moses. He saw the power of the gospel, he had a clear delineation of it, and he constantly said no. This caused a blackout of the soul.

b) This Pharaoh had the same chance to be saved as Moses did. Romans 9:15 cf. Romans 9:17.

c) Furthermore, God was not willing that Pharaoh should perish — 2Peter 2:1; 1John 2:2.

d) But Pharaoh, like the religious Jews of Jesus' day, kept on rejecting the gospel.

e) Both the Pharaoh of the Exodus and the Jews of our Lord's time had opportunity to show the scar tissue of their souls — John 12:40.

f) God finally removed all restraint from Pharaoh's negative volition by giving him opportunities to say no to God repeatedly, to carry it further than anyone had in his day — Exodus 9:12,16; 10:1,20,27.

g) This brings up the subject of God hardening Pharaoh's heart. What does it mean? God only hardened Pharaoh's heart in the sense of giving him more opportunities to say no than anyone in his generation or at any time in that era of history. While most people say no once or twice Pharaoh said no to the gospel under the most stringent conditions of manifestation over a period of time so that his scar tissue reached an all-time high. The blackout of his soul resulted in the hardness of his heart.

h) The purpose of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, giving him this maximum expression of negative volition, was to evangelise the world in his generation. So in that generation the world was evangelised by the hardening of Pharaoh's heart — Romans 9:16 cf. Exodus 9:17.

i) One of the more famous converts from the hardness of Pharaoh's heart is Rahab the prostitute who was saved through hearing the story of the hardness of Pharaoh's heart — Joshua 2:10,11.

J) Every time Pharaoh expressed blackout of the soul, scar tissue, hardness of the heart, it brought forth a fresh revelation of God's power which impressed others at the point of hearing the gospel.

k) The pattern of negative volition and subsequent reversionism among unbelievers is found in Romans 1:18-32.

l) Negative volition at gospel hearing resulted in opening a vacuum through which false doctrine, the demon doctrine of 1Timothy 4:1, was sucked into the left lobe of Pharaoh. This caused blackout of the soul.

m) Blackout of the soul in turn caused hardness of the heart or the formation of scar tissue in the right lobe. The valves froze. This pattern is found in 2Corinthians 4:3,4.

n) Therefore, Romans 2:5 is a perfect description of Pharaoh.

3. The hardness of heart during the incarnation is found in one verse and it is a perfect illustration of the subject — John 12:40. (The principle is stated also in Mark 3:5 and 6:52) This verse is a quotation from Isaiah 6:9,10. This hardening of the heart is uttered here by Jesus as an expression of the rejection of Him at His first advent.

"He hath blinded" — the perfect active indicative of tuflow, it refers to the blackout of the soul or the attack upon the left lobe. The perfect tense is a consummative perfect in which the process is presented and emphasised rather than the existing results. It emphasises the process of blindness. The process of blindness is the blackout of the soul, the opening of the mataiothj or the vacuum. The active voice: the reversionistic unbeliever of Israel during our Lord's stay on the earth is the producer of the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative, an unqualified assertion of the reality of the blackout of the soul while our Lord Jesus Christ was on earth.

"their eyes" — the eyes of the soul. This is blackout of the soul; "and hardened their heart" — the aorist active indicative of pwrow which means scar tissue or callouses. This is a culminative aorist tense, it views scar tissue or hardening of the heart in its entirety but emphasises the existing results.

There are three results in this verse: "that they should not see" — aorist active subjunctive of o(raw which means to see. Blackout of the soul follows negative volition, and these people were negative. The fact that they could not see is because of their own negative volition. The aorist active subjunctive of o(raw — this is a constative aorist which indicates they never did see, they just got worse and worse; the active voice: they produced the action of the verb in the 6th and 7th stages of reversionism; "nor understand" — aorist active subjunctive of noew; "and be converted" — aorist passive subjunctive of strefw which means to receive conversion. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist. The passive voice: they could not receive conversion because of blackout of the soul and hardness of the heart which both came from their own negative volition.

Literally, this verse says: "He has blinded their eyes, he has hardened their hearts; lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive by means of the heart, and receive conversion, and I restore them."

"I should heal them" is "I should restore," the future active indicative of i)aomai which does mean to heal individuals but it also means to restore nations from the fifth cycle of discipline.

Why wasn't Israel restored at the first advent? Through their own negative processes, through the rejection of the gospel they rejected the Messiah. Rejecting the gospel and rejecting the Messiah they went through every one of these stages of reversionism, and therefore in reverse process reversionism they accepted their religious leaders instead of Jesus Christ as their Messiah. They accepted Rome rather than the Lord Jesus Christ because they rejected the gospel.

Summary of John 12:41

a. The Jews of our Lord's time followed the same pattern as the Pharaoh of Exodus.

b. In the fact of overwhelming evidence, wrought by miracles and dynamic messages from our Lord, they kept saying no and entered into the stages of reversionism.

c. Entering into the first four stages of reversionism, including negative volition, this opened the vacuum resulting the infiltration of Satanic doctrine into the nouj and blackout of the soul.

d. This in turn caused malfunction, stoppage of the valves of the right lobe, scar tissue of the soul or hardness of the heart.

e. No generation of Jews ever said no to more overwhelming evidence, and there is nothing comparable except to go all of the way back to the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

f. The result was blackout of the soul (the attack on the left lobe), scar tissue of the soul (the attack upon the right lobe).

g. This caused them to remain unconverted and caused the nation in the fourth cycle of discipline to go into the fifth.

4. The Meribah revolution — discussed in Psalm 95:8 where the word "provocation" means "meribah," as well as in Hebrews 3:8,15; 4:7.

Summary of the Meribah revolution

a) The Meribah revolution is reversionism among believers in contrast to the two previous points.

b) Reactor factors were manifest at the first Meribah, especially the mental attitude sins, disillusion, discouragement, frustration. Reactor factors produced a frantic search for happiness which was manifested by operation golden calf.

c) The Meribah revolution, therefore, was a combination of reactor factors, frantic search for happiness, emotional revolt, leading to strong negative volition which caused blackout of the soul, hardness of the heart, which resulted in reverse process reversionism at Kadesh Barnea. Their right land was Canaan and because they believed the majority of the report they said no to Canaan.

d) The result was reversionistic discipline to an entire generation and finally after 39 years the administration of the sin unto death.

5. The hardening of Nebuchadnezzar's heart — Daniel 5:20. This is a case of unbeliever reversionism in which Nebuchadnezzar was finally deposed as an intensification of his discipline. The shock of this intensified discipline led to his eventual repentance, conversion — the removal, therefore, of the hardness of heart or scar tissue of the soul.

6. Zedekiah's hardness of heart — 2Chronicles 36:11-13. This is the case of believer's reversionism. Zedekiah was negative toward doctrine as taught by Jeremiah, his right prophet. This resulted in revolt against Nebuchadnezzar plus revolt against God in the form of hardness of the heart. The result of all this was the first administration of the fifth cycle of discipline to Judah in 586 BC.

7. The hardness of the neck — 2 Kings 17:14; Nehemiah 9:16; 17:29; Jeremiah 7:26; 19:15. This is exactly the same as the hardness of the heart but emphasises the insubordination which accompanies hardness of heart rather than negative volition.

8. Hardness of heart is a part of the reversionistic picture — Ephesians 4:18.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #57

57 10/07/1973 Ephesians 4:18b Doctrines of blackout of the soul, the heart (revised extensively)

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #58

58 10/08/1973 Ephesians 4:17–18 Review: stages of reversionism, the heart, blackout/soul

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #59

59 10/08/1973 Ephesians 4:19a Scar tissue of the soul, hardness of the heart; adultery; hardness of Pharaoh's heart

Verse 19 — the principle: Hardness of heart, scar tissue of the soul, emotional revolt of the soul, result in the intensification of the frantic search for happiness. This verse is the illustration of the fact that once you have blackout of the soul and hardness of the heart you just keep trying to be happy. The principle of psychosis comes into play at this point. What is brought out here is the person who is on the verge of total self-destruction; a person whose frantic search for happiness, intensified by frustration, reaches the point of no return.

"Who" is a nominative masculine plural from the pronoun o(stij, and it doesn't mean "who." As a relative pronoun it speaks of categorical types and it should be translated "Who, which category" or Who in the sense of reversionists. "Which category being past feeling" — reversionists who have reached this point.

"past feeling" — perfect passive participle of the compound verb a)palgew. It means to become calloused and, again, it refers to the hardness of heart. The perfect tense is intensive perfect emphasising the completed action with results which continue — constantly trying to find daylight and happiness. The passive voice: the reversionistic believer receives callousness of the right lobe after he has blacked out in the left lobe. The participle is a temporal participle and should be translated. Which category (reversionist) while having become calloused [with scar tissue of the soul]." The participle describes the conditions or the circumstances for the illustration of the blackout of the soul.

There are eight possibilities at this point: a) Phallic reversionism — 2Corinthians 12:21; Colossians 3:5; Revelation 2:14; b) Legalistic reversionism — Hebrews 5:11-6:16; Colossians 2:16-19; c) Monetary reversionism — James 4:13,14; 5:1-6; Revelation 3:14-20; Ecclesiastes 5:10-16; d) Drug addiction reversionism — Galatians 5:20; or its counterpart, alcoholic reversionism — Isaiah 28:1-9; e) Antiestablishment reversionism — Romans 1:18-32; f) The mental attitude reversionism; g) Verbal reversionism; h) Mental illness reversionism. All of these are possibilities.

"have given themselves over" — the aorist active indicative of paradidomi plus the accusative plural of the reflexive pronoun e(autou. This means to betray self. Once you reach the stage of the blackout of the soul and scar tissue of the soul you are now betraying yourself. This indicates the self-betrayal starts with a super search for happiness but the self-betrayal ends up with trying to commit suicide or being a hopeless psychotic. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the event of reversionism in its entirety but emphasises the existing results of self-betrayal, and therefore in self-betrayal entering into a new phase of frantic search for happiness. The active voice: the reversionist in the stages of the blackout of the soul and scar tissue of the soul produces the action of the verb, betraying himself in the super frantic search for happiness. The indicative mood is declarative, this actually happened, it happens now.

"unto lasciviousness" — dative of indirect object a)selgeia which means adultery, illicit sexual activity. It is used here in the sense of being completely weird and shut down in the soul by blackout.

The doctrine of adultery

1. Definition. Adultery is used in the sense of any sexual activity outside of divine institution #2. Sex is not love, it is an expression of category #2 love. Adultery may be categorised as fornication, seduction of a member of the opposite sex, incest, homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality, molestation of children.

2. The prohibition of adultery can be covered under six sub points:

a) It was prohibited by the Mosaic law — Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18.

b) It is prohibited in the New Testament — 1Corinthians 6:18; Acts 15:20; Colossians 3:5; 1Thessalonians 4:3.

c) Mental adultery is prohibited — Matthew 5:27,28.

d) Incest is forbidden — Leviticus 18:6ff; Deuteronomy 27:20; Leviticus 20:14; 1Corinthians 5:1-7.

e) Homosexuality is forbidden — Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:18-32.

f) Bestiality is forbidden — Leviticus 18:23; 20:15; Deuteronomy 27:21.

3. Reversionistic destruction of the soul through adultery is described by two verses — Proverbs 6:32; Ephesians 4:19.

4. Self-betrayal and self-destruction in the field of adultery is described by the last word in Ephesians 4:19, the word translated "greediness" but it isn't greediness. Pleonecia is insatiable lust, a desire to have more and more and more. It describes the intensification of the frantic search for happiness beyond the ordinary intensification point. It is a search for happiness through phallic reversionism. The physical destruction is found in 1Corinthians 6:13-18. Promiscuity has a destructive effect upon both the male and the female body. The male body: impotence, inability to sexually satisfy the right woman; the female body: the destruction of sexual responses to the right man, loss of orgiastic pleasure in sex, and the result in antithetical type problems: nymphomania and frigidity.

5. The sanctification of category #2 love is marriage — 1Thessalonians 4:3,4; Hebrews 13:4.

6. The glory of category #2 love is described in a spiritual analogy — 1Corinthians 11:7; Ephesians 5:25-31.

7. Adultery or fornication is a bona fide basis for divorce — Matthew 5:32; 19:9; Luke 16:18. The resultant blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, frantic search for happiness intensified in reversionism destroys rapport between husband and wife. This is also emphasised in Deuteronomy 24:4. The principle of interim sex destroys soul love and sex capacity.

8. Adultery and fornication is often used in the Bible to describe reversionism and apostasy — Jeremiah 3:8-10; Ezekiel 16:23-43; 23:24-28; Revelation 17:1-5.

9. Application to the single person.

a) The right man and the right woman were designed by God in eternity past. Therefore, there exists for you an opposite number of divine design.

b) The exception is the rare case of celibacy or function under the law of supreme sacrifice. Under the law of supreme sacrifice a normal person is designed by God for maximum concentration and production. E.g. Jeremiah — Jeremiah 16:2; Paul — 1Corinthians 9:5.

c) Every believer will eventually meet his opposite number. God will bring you together at the right time, His timing is perfect.

d) However there is no benefit in meeting your opposite number unless you have waited on the Lord in faithfulness to that principle. This means the avoidance of fornication, this means the function of GAP so that you will be spiritually, mentally and physically prepared for this great blessing.

e) Therefore your life and conduct must be based on doctrinal principles that there exists on this earth a right man or right woman for you and no other person will do. It is not a case of cheap substitutes, it is a case of no substitutes.

f) Fornication or adultery is accepting a cheap substitute in order to gratify a biological or even an emotional urge, or to enter into a frantic search for happiness through reversionistic reactor factors.

g) Divine viewpoint plus faith-rest — flee fornication. Super-grace, ECS, growth under GAP reject the principle of the frantic search for happiness through fornication or any of the other categories.

h) Fornication builds scar tissue in the soul, destroys the body, and ruins the spiritual life. Fornication, therefore, is the enemy of right man, right woman relationship and therefore prohibited in the strongest terms in Ephesians 5:3.

i) Doctrine in the soul is the capacity for category #2 love, therefore GAP is the preparation for the greatest of human relationships.

j) Super-grace status gives maximum capacity to express love in sex.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #60

60 10/09/1973 Ephesians 4:19b Doctrine of reversionism. Review/scar tissue of the soul, hardness of heart; adultery

Verse 19 — hardness of heart and/or scar tissue of the soul plus emotional revolt result in intensification of the frantic search for happiness. We have the illustration in this passage.

"Who" is a categorical relative pronoun o(stij which describes the reversionistic believer of the previous two verses.

"Being past feeling" is the perfect passive participle of a)pelgeia and it should be translated "Who while having become calloused" — scar tissue of the soul. It is important to understand the temporal participle which is why it is translated "while having become calloused."

"Whowhile having become calloused [scar tissue of the soul] have betrayed themselves to promiscuous debauchery."

"to work" — the prepositional phrase e)ij plus the accusative singular from e)rgasia which means practice, trade, business, and it should be translated with e)ij "resulting in the practice."

"all uncleanness" is literally, "every kind of immorality" — the descriptive genitive of a)kaqarsia which means viciousness, and the whole gamut of sexual sins with the genitive of paj.

"with greediness" — e)n plus the locative of pleonecia. Which means insatiableness, intense desire, insatiable lust, therefore the intensification of the frantic search for happiness. "In the sphere of insatiable lust" is a good English translation but it must be understood that insatiable lust is the super frantic search for happiness.

Translation: ""Who while having become calloused have betrayed themselves to promiscuous debauchery, resulting in the practice of every kind of immorality in the sphere of insatiable lust."

Summary

1. Insatiable lust, or the Greek pleonecia, connotes grasping and desiring more and more and therefore represents not the ordinary frantic search for happiness but something way beyond that.

2. In this particular verse the illustration is the sexual reversionism so it means an insatiable desire for more and more sex in abnormal ways.

3. In other passages it is used for insatiable desire for money, or dope, or power. It is often covered by the word "covetousness" or "greediness," neither of which is adequate.

4. In this context the members of the royal family have reached the latter stages of reversionism. This verse presupposes the existence of the intensification of all stages.

5. What this verse also indicates is beyond the point of that negative volition, apathy or indifference or antagonism toward doctrine or the communicator.

6. The resultant neglect of the function of GAP, failure to assemble together for the learning of the Word of God or to get it off tapes, results in the attack on the left lobe, the blackout of the soul, and the attack on the right lobe, hardness of heart or scar tissue of the soul. And what we have at this point is reverse process reversionism practiced and/or strong delusion.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #61

61 10/10/1973 Ephesians 4:20–21 Doctrine of DIDASKO

Verses 20-32, the royal family in reversion recovery; Verse 20 & 21, the importance of GAP in reversion recovery.

Verse 20 begins with the conjunctive particle de which sets up a contrast between the practice of reversionists and their recovery. The royal family should be inculcated with Bible doctrine, moving up the road to super-grace, or enjoying the grace benefits of the super-grace status. Instead the royal family at Ephesus and throughout the Roman province of Asia is bogged down with the reversionistic problem of the three previous verses. "But ye" — the nominative plural of the personal pronoun su. This pronoun is proleptic, it is in the emphatic position in the Greek sentence. The personal pronoun emphasises the royalty and nobility of members of the royal family during the Church Age.

"have not so learned Christ." The word "not" is the particle o)ux which is a particle of summary negation here. It is used as the proper negative for a statement of an absolute fact in the negative. It is both objective and final. O)ux is always used with the indicative mood to state a negative fact forcefully. The point is that as members of the royal family you were never told to go in the direction of reversionism. The word "so" is an adverb, o(utoj, used to refer to that which precedes. The adverb with the negative indicates that whatever you have done by way of reversionism that is not the order of the day from the Word of God. You were doing that on your own, you were negative toward doctrine, you have entered into a stage of reversionism strictly on your own and totally in disobedience to the Word of God and insubordination to the royal high priest, Jesus Christ. The word o)utoj should be translated "in this manner" or "in this way." The word "learned" means to be taught here — the aorist active indicative of manqanw, used to learn through categorical instruction. It means to learn from someone as a teacher. "But you [members of the royal family of God] have not been taught in this manner." Manqanw is a technical word for learning, it is used for academic study, academic learning where there is discipline. It is so used in John 7:15; Galatians 3:2; 1Corinthians 14:31; Philippians 4:11. The aorist tense of manqanw is a constative aorist which gathers up into one entirety the action of the verb, or the consistent and daily function of GAP leading to, first of all, reversion recovery and eventuating in the super-grace status. The active voice: believers who are members of the royal family produce the action of the verb by submitting themselves to a system of academic training in the local church — inculcation of doctrine. The indicative mood is the reality here, with the negative, of never learning from doctrinal teaching anything that would encourage or motivate toward reversionism. You haven't learned anything from the Lord that would encourage you to fulfill verses 17-19, the reversionistic section just studied.

"Christ" — the accusative of direct object from Xristoj plus the definite article is "the Christ." Since doctrine is the mind of Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16 — this becomes a normal way of stating the doctrinal situation. All doctrine must be related inevitably to the person of Jesus Christ, and especially doctrine of the mystery. Christ is the head of the body — Colossians 1:18. Therefore He is not only the one who has set up the system but He is the one who has set up the content.

Translation: "But you [members of the royal family] have not been taught in this manner the Christ."

The correct and accurate teaching of the Word of God neither motivates nor encourages reversionism. Therefore, neither God, the Bible, nor doctrine from the Bible, nor the pastor-teacher can ever be blamed for the reversionistic status of the individual believer. There is no excuse for reversionism. Reversionism is the function of your own soul, the function of your free will.

Verse 21 begins with the conjunctive particle which introduces a first class condition — e)i, translated "If."

"If so be" is an enclitic particle and it refers to the words around it and emphasises them. It is an untranslatable particle actually — ge. It is probably best translated "inasmuch as." "If inasmuch as."

"you have heard [and you have]" is better translated "you have begun to hear." It is the aorist active indicative of a)kouw and is referring to the part of the royal family in GAPing it to super-grace, listening to Bible teaching . It is used for Spirit-filled concentration in the local church as a classroom, listening to the teaching of the Word of God. It recognises the function of GAP in the past where these members of the royal family were operating before they went into reversionism. The aorist tense is ingressive. This recognises the fact that these believers had begun under GAP and interrupted the function of GAP. They started under GAP but they broke off for reversionism. When they did it was their own negative volition at every stage that brought it about. The first class condition recognises the reality of this statement. The active voice: the believers themselves produce the action of the verb. As members of the royal family of God they have moved into various stages of reversionism. The indicative mood is the reality of the former function of GAP and breaking it off to become reversionists. The point is they started out right, they ended up wrong. Now Paul is trying to get them back on the track.

"Inasmuch as you had begun to hear him" — "him" is the accusative of direct object from the intensive pronoun a)utoj, referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you hear Christ? Through the teaching of doctrine. That is the point that he is making. The intensive pronoun emphasises the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ and believers hear Christ through doctrinal teaching of their own pastor-teacher — Ephesians 4:11-13. The pastor represents Christ in the teaching function of GAP.

"and" is the continuative use of the conjunction kai, correctly translated "and."

"have been taught" — aorist passive indicative of the verb didaskw. This is the primary word for the whole function of GAP — the pastor teaching in monologue to a congregation of more than two or three people.

The doctrine of didaskw

1. The public assembly of the local church is the classroom for this dispensation. Everyone who reaches super-grace must do so either with assembly in the classroom or, in the absence of a proper local church, has to live in front of a tape recorder. It requires both the pastor-teacher and the congregation in order for any believer to reach super-grace.

2. The pastor must have complete authority as well as the proper spiritual gift of communication — the gift of pastor-teacher. In addition to the gift he must have study and preparation along with moral courage and academic honesty, minus stupidity. (There are too many pastors running around who are half-baked, poorly prepared, do not have the gift)

3. The public assembly of the local church is designed by divine authorisation (by God Himself) to provide the privacy of the priesthood for the believer. So in keeping with the principle of privacy the member of the royal family, the believer, assembles with other believers as a student. The word for learning is manqanw; the word for student, taken from manqanw, is the word maqhthj. Maqhthj is translated "disciple" in the KJV, a disciple means a student. True discipleship is subordination to the teaching principle and consistency in intake. The function of didaskw must never be one on one under this principle because maqhthj or student has no rights and privileges, and therefore his privacy and objectivity is protected by gathering him with other disciples. Privacy is protected in a gathering of the local church as far as getting personal and therefore the pastor-teacher simply stays with the passage. One on one is very personal, very subjective, very bad, and it becomes bullying. If it is one on a group then it fulfills the biblical principle.

4. Therefore only in public communication of doctrine in the classroom of the local church does the believer have the necessary privacy for learning, personal application, and living as unto the Lord in fulfillment of Colossians 3:16,17.

5. Personal time with the individual (a pastor one-on-one with a member of the congregation) is an intrusion on both freedom and the privacy of the royal priesthood of the believer. It violates freedom and becomes a system of dictatorship through coercion, bullying, overpowering leadership or salesmanship.

6. The pastor is a teacher of doctrine to an assembly of people. He is not a coach, a physical training expert, or even a DI. He does not meet with individuals to jack them up on prayer, witnessing, and other personal ideas. He doesn't even counsel. If his congregation listens consistently to his teaching of the Word of God they will never need counsel.

7. The primary functions of the pastor are first of all teacher and secondly policy-maker.

8. The pastor must have absolute authority in teaching. This authority is derived from manqanw and didaskw. Didaskw emphasises a monologue message to a group of people, not to one person.

"by him" — e)n plus the instrumental singular from the intensive pronoun a)utoj. The intensive pronoun emphasises the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, believers hear Christ through doctrinal teaching of the pastor-teacher. This is how they come to know the Lord, how they come to the point of occupation with Christ.

"as" — an adverb which should be translated "since." It is the adverb kaqwj. It is ordinarily used for comparison but here it is used as a conjunction with a causal connotation.

"the truth" — nominative singular from the noun a)lhqeia, minus the definite article. The absence of the definite article in the Greek emphasises the qualitative aspect of the noun. Truth is doctrine.

"is" — present active indicative of e)imi, is and keeps on being; "in Jesus" — e)n plus the locative of the definite article, so it is "in the Jesus," which indicates that He has already been discussed, doctrine is already said to be the mind of Christ, and therefore this is the principle.

Translation: "Inasmuch as you have begun to hear him, and have been taught by him, since doctrine is in the Jesus."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #62

62 10/11/1973 Ephesians 4:22 Doctrines of the stages of reversionism, old sin nature. Change from emphasis on lungs/soul to right/left lobes

Verse 22 — the importance of rebound in reversion recovery. Rebound is one of the great principles in reversion recovery, obviously. In fact, rebound is necessary for any kind of advance in the Christian life. You can't go one inch forward in the Christian life apart from the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and rebound in the secret to the ministry of the Spirit in the life. Of course, with the ministry of the Spirit you have to expose yourself to the teaching of doctrine, the two cannot be separated in that sense.

"That" does not occur in the original but it is used legitimately to translate the infinitive of purpose; "ye put off" — the aorist middle infinitive of the compound verb a)potiqhmi [a)po — preposition of ultimate source; tiqhmi — to place or to put]. The word was used originally in the Greek language for taking off something, like clothes, but figuratively it means to rid one's self of something or to lay aside something obnoxious. It means here to lay aside something obnoxious. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. We will see when we get to the object of the verb that what is being laid aside here is the function of the old sin nature. We cannot get away from the old sin nature in this life but we can get away from certain functions of the old sin nature. To do this it demands that we have the rebound technique consistently as a function in the Christian life. Therefore the constative aorist gathers up into a single whole every act of rebound plus every function of GAP by which we recover. The middle voice is a direct middle, it refers to the results of the verb's action and refers them directly to the agent with reflexive force. The infinitive obviously means purpose because we have seen that it is legitimate to translate it "that." "That you rid yourselves," and this is accomplished through the rebound technique. Laying aside, in effect, becomes the road to the correct function of GAP in reversion recovery.

"concerning the former conversation" — this is actually a prepositional phrase, rather a strange one, the preposition kata, plus an adverb proteron which means former, plus the accusative of a noun a)nastrofh which means "manner of life." Kata plus the accusative has two or three meanings. It generally means "according to" or "along at." It also means "with reference to" or "with respect to." When it is used with the adverb it refers to "with respect to" or "with reference to" — "that with reference to your former manner of life you lay aside." Here it refers to the laying aside of reversionism, and it means to break it up, first of all by the means of utilisation of the rebound technique. Proteron refers to either the former manner of life as an unbeliever, but here it refers to the believer's manner of life as a reversionist, a manner of life which is under the control of the old sin nature.

The stages of reversionism

1. The presence of the reactor factors — discouragement, boredom, disillusion, overcome by self-pity, inability to handle loneliness, frustration, mental attitude sins, operation vengeance, being jilted, being disappointed about some person. These reactor factors are generally permitted into the soul because the individual involved has not been consistent in the function of GAP, and therefore they come to exist in the soul. Their residence is removed only by consistent intensification of the GAP function.

2. The frantic search for happiness, the reaction to the reactor factors. This frantic search for happiness follows the current trends of the old sin nature either toward asceticism of toward lasciviousness. When the trend is toward asceticism people get into victorious Christian life things, the Keswick movement, super experiences instead of super-grace, operation holy roller, and so on. On the other hand, if it is the trend toward lasciviousness it can be drunkenness, debauchery, dope addiction.

3. Operation boomerang — frustration and intensification. The frantic search for happiness boomerangs, it comes back and intensifies whatever reactor factors existed, whatever mental attitude sins existed, and instead of solving the problem it merely intensifies the frustration as well as the reactor factors which started everything rolling.

4. Emotional revolt of the soul. This is where the soul gets out of kilter because of the first three stages. They all overlap, they also are interwoven. They interact and the interaction cause the fourth stage which is the emotional revolt of the soul, the emotion now controls the soul. The emotion is begging for some kind of stimulus and is looking for its kicks. The emotion of the soul is design to respond to the right lobe and, of course, it does not do so, it takes over the soul. This further intensifies the problem.

5. Negative volition toward doctrine as a result of the presence of the reactor factors, the frantic search for happiness, the emotional revolt, the believer becomes intensively negative toward doctrine. The negative volition can follow a number of different trends: a) Indifference or apathy to Bible teaching; b) Too busy for Bible teaching; c) Antagonism or personality hang-ups regarding the pastor-teacher; d) Antagonism or conflict with regard to other people in the congregation; e) Failure to utilise the rebound technique, therefore lacking the filling of the Spirit the inability to constantly take in the Word of God; f) The inability to handle pre-super-grace prosperity; g) The early pattern of reversionism, including reaction, frantic search for happiness, emotional revolt — all of these interact, causing a person to be indifferent to toward Bible doctrine.

6. The blackout of the soul. This is an attack upon the left lobe only. The individual involved cannot clearly think, has no protection in his own soul through either common sense (the unbeliever) or doctrine, the divine viewpoint for the believer. The blackout is caused by the constant infiltration of Satanic doctrine. This is called scar tissue of the soul, and affliction of the left lobe affecting the entire soul.

7. Scar tissue of the soul or hardness of heart, the right lobe. Scar tissue is callous — pwrwsij.

8. Reverse process reversionism, the final stage of reversionism. It is the antithesis of super-grace in which the believer loves and desires opposites commanded by the Bible, hence it is a distortion of love, it is a reversal of the objects of love. The believer becomes enamoured with pseudo objects. For example, in category #1 he becomes occupied with other things than the Lord Jesus Christ; category #2, pseudo lovers instead of true right man, right woman. As far as doctrine, the true object, is concerned some other object takes the place of Bible doctrine in the life.

To crack out of any one of these stages there must be the rebound technique, there must be a repentance which is a change of attitude toward doctrine, and there must be the consistency of decisions, the operation of the volition in life in the direction toward whoever the right pastor happens to be. In all of these stages there is a breakout place. Reverse process reversionism, of course, eventuates in the sin unto death.

"the old man" is the accusative of direct object from an adjective palaioj meaning "old." This word goes back to the fact that in the very beginning the old sin nature came upon man at the point of the fall. We are born with an old sin nature, Adam and the woman acquired one through the fall. We also have the accusative of direct object of the noun a)nqrwpoj referring to mankind. The old sin nature is peculiar to mankind in his state of birth.

"which is corrupt" is actually, "which is being corrupted" — the present passive participle of fqeirw which means to be depraved or to be corrupted. The present tense is retroactive progressive present in which something began in the past and continues to the present moment. We have right now an old sin nature, it always has been corrupt, it always will be. It was corrupt from the moment it entered the original parents at the time of the fall, it was corrupt in us the moment we were born into this world. The passive voice: the old sin nature receives the action of the verb which is corruption or depravity. The participle is circumstantial, indicating that each one of us possesses an old sin nature. The old sin nature can be controlled in members of the royal family but it will never ever be improved, which is why in the resurrection body there will be no old sin nature.

The doctrine of the old sin nature

1. Definition. The old sin nature is found in the cell structure of the human body, was acquired originally by Adam's fall and subsequently through physical birth. It came originally into the human race at the fall of Adam and we acquire it by physical birth; we are born spiritually dead, therefore. It is the centre of human rebellion towards God.

2. The essence of the old sin nature. The fact that an old sin nature has an essence is declared in Romans 6:6. It has an area of weakness, an area of strength, a lust pattern, and trends — asceticism and lasciviousness. The area of weakness produces all personal sins; the area of strength produces all human good. The lust pattern explains why people go in certain directions, how they are motivated. Lust is a motivator — approbation lust, monetary lust, power lust, and so on. The trends vary from time to time.

The area of weakness produces personal sins — Hebrews 12:1.

The area of strength produces human good — Isaiah 64:6; Romans 8:8.

The lust pattern — Romans 7:7; Ephesians 2:3.

The trends of the old sin nature, lasciviousness and asceticism, are documented by the two general categories of overt sin — the sins in the field of legalism and the sins in the field of lasciviousness.

3. The old sin nature in the scripture is found under several types of nomenclature. In Ephesians 4:22 and Colossians 3:9, "the old man." Sometimes the word "flesh" or sarc in the Greek is used for the old sin nature, as in Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 2:3. The word "carnal" means old sin naturish, it is an adjective — Romans 7:14; 1Corinthians 3:1-3. One of the most common designations for the OSN is "sin" in the singular — Romans 5:12; 7:14; 1Corinthians 15:56; 1John 1:8. The word "heart" refers only to the OSN's area of weakness or strength because many sins have thought behind them. The right lobe is the source of all thinking, so technically speaking the word "heart" never refers to the OSN but to the motivator of the OSN. Matthew 12:34,35; Mark 7:21,23.

4. Principles of the old sin nature. a) The OSN is the source of spiritual death in mankind — Romans 5:12; Ephesians 2:1,5; b) The OSN is perpetuated in the human race through physical birth — Psalm 51:5; 1Timothy 2:13,14; c) The believer continues to have the OSN after salvation. There is no such thing as eradication of the OSN or sinless perfection in this life; d) The believer under the control of the OSN is designated "carnal" or "OSNish" — Romans 7:14; 1Corinthians 3:1-3; e) The OSN frustrates bona fide production in phase two — Romans 7:15; f) The OSN is not found in the resurrection body of the believer — 1Corinthians 15:56; Philippians 3:21; Colossians 3:4; 1Thessalonians 5:23

5. Divine judgment solves the problems of the OSN. In phase one judgment Christ was judged for the sins of the world on the cross, taking our place, bearing our sins, and being judged by God the Father, as per 2Corinthians 5:21; 1Peter 2:24. Phase two judgment is the believer's sins judged by the rebound technique — 1Corinthians 11:31; 1John 1:9. This is why 1John 1:7 is so important. The principle is that in phase two the believer's sins are judged by the rebound technique, he judges his own sins. In phase three there is a judgment that solves the problem of the OSN, the believer's human good is judged at the judgment seat of Christ — 1Corinthians 3:12-16. The unbeliever's human good is judged at the great white throne — Revelation 20:12-15.

6. The origin of the OSN — Romans 5:12. While God created man He did not create the OSN in man. Many by disobedience to God created the OSN. God is the creator of man minus the OSN; man by man's negative volition toward God's command in the creator of the OSN.

"according to the deceitful lusts" — kata plus the accusative of e)piqumia for "lusts," plus a)path for "deceitful." A)path is in the ablative singular and it is the ablative of source. So it comes to means "according to the lusts from deceit." It refers to the deceit of reversionism. Reversionism is the source of firing up the lust pattern of the OSN.

The doctrine of rebound

1. Definition. Rebound is simply a technical term for the believer's restoration to fellowship and recovery of the filling of the Spirit.

2. The concept of rebound.

a) Rebound must be understood in relationship in the light of relationship with God — Jeremiah 3:13.

b) Rebound must be correlated with positional truth by the royal family of God — Romans 8:1.

c) The frame of reference for rebound is the efficacious death of Christ on the cross being judged for our sins — 1John 1:7 cf. 1John 1:9. Also the true meaning of the blood of Christ in 2Corinthians 5:21; 1Peter 2:24.

d) Rebound means restoration to fellowship with God plus the recovery of the filling of the Spirit — Proverbs 1:23; Ephesian 5:14 cf. 5;18.

e) Eternal security is the prerequisite to understanding the rebound technique — Romans 8:38,39. The believers sins after salvation but such sin or carnality does not mean loss of salvation, it means loss of fellowship, it means moving in the direction of reversionism — 1Corinthians 3:1-3; 1John 1:8,10.

3. The mechanics of the rebound technique. a) Confess it [the sin] — 1John 1:9; b) Forget it — Philippians 3:13,14; c) Isolate it — Hebrews 12:15. The isolation of sins means that sins are built one upon the other and that sins cause other sins to be triggered in the soul and in the life. Therefore, isolation of sin is very important. To isolate a sin means that it has already been confessed, it has been forgiven by God, and it should not become the basis for chain sinning.

4. The alternative to rebound is carnality, reversionism, and dying discipline. 1Corinthians 11:31 indicates the avoidance of discipline through rebound ; Hebrews 12:6 indicates the principle of discipline as the inevitable result of neglecting the rebound technique.

5. The discouragement to rebound is found in Luke 15:11-32; 2Corinthians 2:5-11.

6. Old Testament rebound commands. The technique belonged to the Old Testament saints as well as to the royal family of God — Psalm 32:5; 38:18; 51:3,4; Proverbs 28:13.

7. Biblical synonyms for rebound. a) Confess — 1John 1:9; b) Judge self — 1Corinthians 11:31; c) "Yield" in the aorist tense — Romans 6:13; 12:1; d) "Lay aside every weight" — Hebrews 12:1; e) "Be in subjection to the Father of lights" — Hebrews 12:9; f) "Lift up the hands that hang down" — Hebrews 12:12; g) Reversion recovery is related to rebound — Make straight paths," Matthew 3:3; Hebrews 12:13; h) "Arise from the dead [lit. 'Stand up again out from deaths'] — Ephesians 5:14; i) "Put off the old man" — Ephesians 4:22; j) "Acknowledge thine iniquities" — Jeremiah 3:13.

8. Helping others to rebound under grace is a principle thought under certain concepts: a) Mechanically — Galatians 6:1; b) The mental attitude which must accompany this — Matthew 18:23-35; c) The application of grace orientation — Colossians 3;13; d) Reward for helping other members of the royal family to rebound — James 5:19,20.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #63

63 10/12/1973 Ephesians 4:23–24 Doctrine of rebound

Verse 23 — the resumption of GAP in reversion recovery. The word "And" is a continuative use of the particle de, it relates everything to what has just been said in the previous verse. In addition to the rebound technique it is necessary to GAP it daily to recover from reversionism. "And that" — the word "that" is merely a device to translate the infinitive of purpose.

"[you} be renewed" — present passive infinitive of a)naneow. This is one of several infinitives used in the restoration concept. This means to be restored rather than to be renewed. A)na = again and again; neow = to renew. So renew again and again means restoration. The present tense is an iterative present which describes that which recurs at successive intervals. Therefore it is the present tense of repeated action and it indicates the fact that you just don't take in doctrine once or once in a while but it has to be a continuous thing both for reversion recovery as well as moving toward super-grace. Consistency is the concept, the consistent function of GAP for reversion recovery and also for achieving the tactical objective of the super-grace status. The present tense is in contrast to the aorist infinitive a)potiqhmi of the previous verse where we have "put off concerning the former conversation," and that was an aorist tense. The aorist tense was used for rebound; the present tense is used for GAP after rebound. The passive voice: the believer in reversionism recovers by the consistent use of GAP, and like the previous infinitive of a)potiqhmi it indicates a purpose or design for your life. So it should be translated, "And that you be restored by means of the Spirit."

"in the Spirit" — the instrumental singular of pneuma. This is a reference to God the Holy Spirit who makes GAP function.

"of your mind" is an ablative singular of nouj, used for the left lobe. This is a rare use of the ablative, it is the ablative of means, when the expression of means is accompanied by the implication of its origin or source. The nouj is both the means and the source of cranking up doctrine. The left lobe is the staging area.

Translation: "And that you be restored by means of the [Holy] Spirit by means of the left lobe."

Verse 24 — the reconstruction of the ECS. This is a part of recovery and as you begin the ECS you are now moving toward your objective again.

"And" is the continuative use of kai, plus the third infinitive of purpose — "And that." Here is the case of the three infinitives:

a) a)potiqhmi from verse 22, used for the rebound technique, laying aside the old sin nature's function, the control of the OSN through rebound. That was the aorist middle infinitive for the rebound technique; b) a)naneow, present passive infinitive in verse 23, used for the consistent function of GAP in reversion recovery; c) e)nduw, aorist middle infinitive, used for the ECS being constructed.

"ye put on" — e)nduw. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety but emphasises the existing results. First of all, there is rebound-GAP. These two go together because GAP functions under the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the filling of the Holy Spirit can only be attained by rebound after carnality. That is the entirety. But the existing result in this case is the construction of the ECS — "and that you clothe yourself." The middle voice is the direct middle which refers the results of the action directly to the agent with reflexive force; you build your own ECS, no one can build for another.

"[with] the new man" — the accusative singular direct object. The adjective is kainoj; a)nqrwpoj is the noun. Kainoj means new in species and that is a perfect adjective to describe the fact that you and I are members of the royal family. Anything that is provided for us by grace is new in species, there is nothing like it anywhere. The believer with the ECS is unique from the standpoint of his position: member of the royal family of God forever. He has a double uniqueness, an experiential uniqueness — inside of his soul he has the ECS. Here is the concept of the constative aorist — consistency of GAP. The aorist tense: rebound whenever necessary in this. The culminative aorist builds that construction in the soul which is absolutely unique and for members of the royal family only. So you have positional uniqueness; you have experiential uniqueness.

"which" is the accusative singular of the definite article, but the definite article is used as a relative pronoun.

"after God" — kata plus the accusative of qeoj means according to the standard of God. The standard of God is a perfect standard, it represents His entire essence and anything that represents the essence of God has to be absolutely perfect.

"is created" — the aorist passive participle from ktizw. Only God can make an ECS; only God can bring a person to super-grace. It is a grace operation. This is a culminative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety but emphasises the existing results — resulting in the creation of something new. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb through the daily function of GAP. The participle is a circumstantial participle which means that God is going to do all the work.

The function of rebound results in God the Holy Spirit controlling the life. Under the filling of the Spirit the daily function of GAP leads to reversion recovery. As you begin to recover it is inevitable that you will begin the construction of the ECS, at which time your recovery is completed and you are simply now fulfilling your objective of the erection of the ECS leading to the super-grace life.

"in righteousness" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of dikaiosunh meaning absolute righteousness; "in the sphere of +R [divine essence]." You have to have righteousness in your soul by way of doctrine before you can have righteousness in your life by way of practice. This is used of the believer in fellowship and filled with the Spirit, and the ECS is built "in the sphere of righteousness." Righteousness is nobility, and since we are royal family we might as well act like it!

"and true holiness" — kai o(siothti thj a)lhqeiaj. This means "devotion to doctrine." The word o(siothti is the locative singular of the noun o(siothj and it means "in the sphere of devotion." Then, a)lhqeia is a noun, and a)lhqeiaj is the genitive singular of possession, designed to indicate ownership. The believer possesses or owns doctrine. With your own building materials you construct your very own ECS. So we have "in devotion to doctrine."

Translation: "And that you clothe yourself with the new species man [ECS], which according to the standard of God has been created in the sphere of righteousness and in the sphere of devotion to doctrine."

That must be contrasted with what we have had previously. Ignorance of doctrine now is replaced by devotion. to doctrine. How do you know when you are on the road to super-grace? You are totally devoted to doctrine. You love doctrine, you can't get along without doctrine, doctrine becomes your life.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #64

64 10/25/1973 Ephesians 4:25–26 Dissertation on lying; alcohol and drug problems

The results of this are given in verses 25-32. Seven results are actually given: The recovery of divine viewpoint — verse 25; objective indignation — verse 26; victory in the angelic conflict — verse 27; the production of divine good in business — verse 28; the control of the tongue as a sign of maturity — verse 29; discontinuance of grieving the Holy Spirit — verses 30,31; nobility of soul in the function of grace — verse 32.

Verse 25 — "Wherefore" is an inferential conjunction, dio. It denotes that the inference is obvious. We have an exact equivalent: "therefore." The inference is based on the previous paragraph where rebound, GAP, and the ECS are tied into reversion recovery. Therefore there are certain additional results to accompany reversion recovery. There are seven in the last paragraph of this chapter and the paragraph which follows.

a) You recover the divine viewpoint — verse 25.

b) You have objective indignation — verse 26.

c) Victory in the angelic conflict — verse 27.

d) Production of divine good in the business world — verse 28.

e) Control of the tongue as a sign of maturity — verse 29.

f) Discontinuance of the practice of grieving the Holy Spirit — verses 30,32.

g) Nobility of the soul under the function of grace — verse 32.

The word "wherefore" is literally "therefore." This means an obvious inference follows; "putting away" — aorist middle participle of a)potiqhmi. It means to take off clothes, it is used in the Greek figuratively for laying aside something or getting rid of something. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety but emphasises the existing results of reversion recovery in laying aside or stripping off the habit of telling lies. The middle voice is the intensive or dynamic middle which emphasises the part taken by the action of the verb. This use of the middle voice gives the verb an individualistic or specific application. So the dynamic middle always has a specific application to anyone in reversionism. Reversionism is a life of deceit and it is always characterised by habitual lying. The participle is circumstantial and at the same time it has coterminous action with the main verb which is "have been taught" in verse 21. When you begin to GAP it and recover from super-grace you lay aside the habit of lying. Having been taught doctrine the reversionistic believer sheds, gets rid of, the habit of lying. "Therefore having laid aside" is a good translation.

"lying" — this is not a participle as translated in the KJV but a noun plus the definite article, to yeudoj. It should be translated "the lie." It refers to a habit of lying. This does not mean to tell a lie occasionally, this is a pattern of lying because one is living in a total life of deceit. "Therefore having laid aside the lie."

Summary

1. "The lie" is both the pattern of deceit and the expression of that pattern in what is commonly known today as pathological lying. It has been known as compulsive lying. A compulsive liar is a person who lies when he doesn't have to, it just gets to be such a habit that he does it automatically.

2. One of the results of reversion recovery is stripping off or laying aside compulsive lying.

3. The removal of false doctrine through the consistent function of GAP strips away scar tissue of the soul, and this removal of scar tissue causes a person to become so relaxed that they stop lying. Lying and pathological lying is a sign of tension, a sign of living a life of deceit and constantly being on guard lest someone penetrate the deceit.

4. The verb a)potiqhmi is used in the sense of laying aside this pattern. This cannot be done any more than the average person (unbeliever, for example) can quit drinking, can give up dope, can quit smoking, can quit anything to which over a long period of time the volition has acquiesced.

The next phrase is a quotation from the Old Testament — Zechariah 8;16 — where the phraseology describes the believer recovering the ECS and entering the super-grace life, and at the same time into national prosperity. Therefore this next phrase is a command to enter super-grace status, a command from Zechariah 8:16.

"speak" — present active imperative of the verb lalew. It means here "be speaking" or "be communicating." The word "be" is used to bring out the imperative mood. The present tense is a pictorial or progressive present used to indicate what should now be going on. The active voice: the royal family recovering from reversionism produces the action of the verb and produces it through the motivation of Bible doctrine, not the motivating factors in the life of an unbeliever — a love, a friendship, the encouragement of someone in a position of leadership. Bullying is often a motivation for the unbeliever. The imperative mood is used here as a command. There are two kinds of imperative mood: prohibition and command.

"every man" is the nominative of e(kastoj, the subject of the verb, which means "each one of you."

"the truth" (in contrast to the lie) — accusative singular direct object from a)lhqeia. Arndt and Gingrich, p36, defines a)lhqeia as used in this passage: "The embodiment of knowledge and truth, especially the content of Christianity as the absolute truth." What this is saying is that a)lhqeia refers to Bible doctrine, doctrine in the soul and the spirit of the believer. To speak or communicate doctrine with the neighbour or those in your periphery means you are now living in the world of reality, and as doctrine motivates whatever you communicate is true, people can depend on your word. When you say something, that's it, your word becomes your bond. This comes from living in the sphere of the truth.

"neighbour" — in the Bible this always means your friends, those with whom you associate. When the Bible says "love your neighbour" it means love your friends. In other words, have a true affection for your friends. The word "neighbour" doesn't actually occur, this is the preposition meta plus the genitive of the definite article, plus the adverb plhsion, plus the intensive pronoun a)utoj. Literally, it should be translated "with the near to him." In our language, "near to him" means the "dear to him." Your friends are those who are dear to you, and because they are dear to you they are near to you — in your soul, not necessarily geographically. "Each one of you be speaking doctrine [divine viewpoint] with his neighbour [the believer with whom you associate]."

"for we are members one of another" — this means the royal family.

Verse 26 — "Be ye angry." This is the present middle imperative of o)gizw. It means to be angry at someone because of something, to be indignant. This begins a quotation from Psalm 4:4 which should read, as it is in the Hebrew, "Tremble with anger and do not sin." That is exactly what is mean in the present middle imperative of o)rgizw. To tremble with anger is righteous indignation, is justified anger. The present tense is an iterative present which describes that which recurs at successive intervals, therefore the present tense of repeated action. This means that there are right times to be angry without sinning. "Be angry with righteous indignation" is the best translation of the present middle imperative. The middle voice her is the permissive middle which represents the agent as voluntarily yielding himself to the results of the action (free will) through his own interest — e.g. taking a stand for what is right. The imperative mood is a command. There is a legitimate anger or righteous indignation and this anger is directed toward the false of the previous verse. In other words, the context determines the reason for legitimate anger. Legitimate anger is reserved for false doctrine, the false, for apostasy, for religiosity, for revolution, for antiestablishment, for everything that is contrary to Bible doctrine whether it is some idiot male with long hair or some so-called conscientious objector. There is a place for righteous indignation toward the fourth estate, the press. The press no longer reports news, it comments on it and therefore the news is slanted. If your are going to comment on it you are going to get the news to support your petty ideas, and that is exactly what has happened today. This command says that you have the right to be angry without sinning. There is illegitimate anger. Illegitimate anger is a sin, it is a sin based on mental attitude sins. These mental attitude sins, along with guilt complex, produce pseudo anger or sinful anger. So there follows in the same passage a prohibition of illegitimate anger.

"let not the sun go down upon your wrath" — "let not go down" is the present active imperative of e)piduw plus the negative mh. The negative mh recognises that there is a legitimate anger and therefore it is used instead of o)uk. The present tense is the tendencial present, used for an action attempted but not actually taking place at the moment. The active voice plus the negative prohibits the subject from sinful anger. The imperative mood is the imperative of prohibition rather than command. It expresses, therefore, a negative command. Mh plus the imperative is a prohibition. The word for "sun" here is h(lioj, it describes the end of the day according to Jewish time. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. In the time when Paul wrote this he was a Jew and thought in terms of Jewish rather than Gentile time. Under Jewish time the day is divided from the next day by sunset to sunset rather than midnight to midnight which is Gentile time. Paul is a Jew and he thinks in Jewish time, so he says don't let the end of the day go down on your wrath. In other words, do not end the day by harbouring mental attitude sins and accompanying anger.

"upon your wrath" is e)pi plus the locative of parorgismoj. O)rgh = mental anger; qumoj = emotional anger. So there are two kinds of anger. The mental anger sin and the emotional anger sin are both based on mental attitude. The only difference is that the emotional anger sin also includes emotional revolt of the soul. Qumoj, emotional anger, connotes sinfulness in the area of mental attitude sins expressed plus emotional revolt expressed. It also connotes turbulence, tantrums, and hysteria. Hysteria may or may not be sinful. This is dealing with sinful hysteria. Hysteria is a sin by association id it is caused by jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, pride. If hysteria is produced by shock alone without these things, then it is non-sinful. Here we have o)rgh in a compound. It has para in front of it which means beside and also immediate source. O)rgh means anger, and when you put it all together it is a double attitude sin. Para means it takes more than one sin to produce this, it means a sin beside a sin and it means a mental attitude sin resulting in a mental attitude sin — like jealous causing anger, implacability causing anger. In other words, it is a double sin. Therefore it is an intensified sin and so we say "upon your intensified anger."

Translation: "Be angry with righteous indignation, and yet do not sin in your anger: do not permit the sun to go down on your intensified anger."

Summary

1. The first command demands legitimate righteous indignation as the result of spiritual growth and discernment.

2. The second command of this verse demands rebound. The believer must keep short accounts.

3. Otherwise mental attitude sins double and intensify, producing extensive mental attitude sins to produce misery of soul and body.

4. Furthermore, mental attitude sins combine with reactor factors to provide energy for various stages of reversionism.

5. Like a hurricane gathering energy from heat mental attitude sins are like the heat in a tropical storm turning into a hurricane because the heat provides energy and intensifies the storm. In the same way, we have the doubling of mental attitude sins which provide the energy for anger.

6. The further implication of this verse is that only the mature believer in super-grace can handle legitimate anger and avoid illegitimate sinful anger.

7. Hence, this verse is the result of reversion recovery going as far as super-grace.

The doctrine of the royal family

1. Definition. All believers of the Church Age belong to a unique system of royalty. This royalty is based upon the spiritual principle of doctrine, and while regeneration always occurs in every dispensation and in every generation of history only those who are regenerated in the Church Age are members of the royal family of God. All other people, born again, are simply members of the family of God; they are definitely not in the same status as any believer in the Church Age. Regeneration occurs in every dispensation but regeneration in this dispensation is unique.

2. The basis of royalty in the Church Age. This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit mechanically stated in 1Corinthians 12:13. No believer before the Church Age and no believer after the Church Age receives at the point of salvation the baptism of the Spirit. Only Church Age believers receive the baptism of the Spirit whereby they are entered into union with Christ, whereby they become members of the royal family. Regeneration makes one a member of the family of God; baptism of the Spirit makes one a member of the royal family of God.

3. The precedent for royalty: the order of Melchizedek. It should be noted that Melchizedek acquired his royalty by becoming king of Salem, whereas Jesus Christ was born royalty in the line of David. They royalty of the Church Age believer comes at the point of regeneration through the baptism of the Spirit — positional truth or union with Christ.

4. The relationship to the King. Royalty must have a relationship with the King, that is what royalty means. While Jesus Christ was alone at the cross, bearing our sins, talking our place, God the Father has provided for Him a royal family — called the body and the bride. Again, through the baptism of the Spirit every believer has entered into union with Christ. Hence, believers are known today as the body of Christ. Being the body of Christ makes every believer of the Church Age personally related to the King of kings. Positional truth places every believer in the palace. At the Rapture the body of Christ will become the bride of Christ.

5. The sign of royalty is the unprecedented universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In addition to the sign of royalty we also have a coat of arms of royalty — Ephesians 4:4-7. Never before in history has God the Holy Spirit indwelled every believer and the purpose of the indwelling of the Spirit in this dispensation is to glorify God — John 7:37-39.

6. The security of royalty. The sealing ministry of God the Holy Spirit, as well as positional truth, provides a double security for all members of the royal family.

7. The function of royalty is twofold: a) Moving toward the objective of the super-grace life in which every believer receives the accouterments of royalty as well as the tactical victory in the angelic conflict; b) The function of royalty is the modus operandi of the new priesthood.

8. The future of royalty. As members of the body of Christ and the royal priesthood all Church Age believers will return with Christ at the second advent. We will be personal observers of the termination of the great middle east campaign of the future.

The doctrine of the body of Christ

1. The Trinity is related to the body of Christ. The Father placed Christ as the head of the body — Ephesians 1:22. He is the head of the body — Ephesians 1:22,23. The Holy Spirit forms the body — 1Corinthians 12:13. He also sustains the body — 1Corinthians 6:15 cf. 6:19,20.

2. Christ is the saviour of the body — Ephesians 5:23,25,30.

3. Christ is the sanctifier of the body — Hebrews 2:11; 13:12.

4. The body is related to the strategic victory of the angelic conflict — Ephesians 1:22,23.

5. The body includes Gentile believers as well as Jewish in the Church Age — Ephesians 3:6.

6. The body is the recipient of numerous spiritual gifts — Romans 12:4,5; 1Corinthians 12:27,28.

7. The communication of doctrine and the gift of communication is for the purpose of edification and leading the royal priesthood into super-grace — Ephesians 3:6-8; 4:11,12.

8. Therefore, the objective of the body of Christ in phase two is to reach super-grace — Ephesians 4:15,16.

The doctrine of the manifestation of the bride

1. The body of Christ is being formed on earth during the entire Church Age. The process continues all the way to the Rapture. Ephesians 1:22,23; 2:16; 4:4,5; 5:23; Colossians 1:18,24; 2:19.

2. When the body is completed the Rapture occurs — 1Thessalonians 4:16-18; 1Corinthians 15:51-57. By comparing Colossians 2:15 with Revelation 19:6-8; Zechariah 13:2; 1Thessalonians 3:13 the number of believers in the body of Christ will be equal to the number of demons operating under the command of Satan in this stage of the angelic conflict.

3. During the Tribulation on earth the bride is prepared in heaven. While the sands of time are running out in the Tribulation, the Jewish Age, the bride is in heaven being prepared. This includes ultimate sanctification or a resurrection body like that of the Lord Jesus — Philippians 3:21; 1John 3:1,2. The bride is cleansed of all human good, there is no place in heaven for human good — 1Corinthians 3:12,15. The bride no longer possesses the old sin nature and the capabilities of sin.

4. The bride returns with Christ at the second advent — 1Thessalonians 3:13.

5. Operation footstool of Psalm 110:1 then occurs. There will be a triumphal procession in which all demons are going to be publicly displayed in that procession — Colossians 2:15. Satan will be cast into prison for 1000 years — Revelation 20:1-3, and Church Age believers at the end of the triumphal procession will cast demons into the prison — Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15; 1Corinthians 15:24,25.

6. Then occurs the coronation of the Groom, the Lord Jesus Christ — Revelation 19:6.

7. The wedding supper of the Lamb occurs — Revelation 19:7-9. The marriage occurs in heaven but the wedding supper takes place on the earth — Matthew 25:1-13. The wedding supper of the Lamb is described in Revelation 19:6-9.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #65

65 10/26/1973 Ephesians 4:27; Rev. 19:6 Doctrines of the royal family, the body of Christ, manifestation of the body, devil's seven

Verse 27 — our attitude should be not to give place to Satan. "Neither" is the negative disjunctive particle mhde. The disjunctive particle is used when continuing a preceding negation, so it should be translated "And do not."

"give" — present active imperative of didomi. The progressive present of existing results is used to represent a fact which has come to exist in the past but is emphasised as a present reality. In other words, too many times members of the royal family have done exactly this. They have given their seat to the devil. The active voice: the believer in reversionism has given his seat to the devil. Therefore he is to stop it. The present plus the disjunctive negative means stop it. Stop giving your seat to the devil. You do this by simply being a reversionist. The active voice: the believer is recovering now from reversionism and therefore he must stop a procedure which has occurred. The imperative mood of prohibition is used to express a negative command.

"place" means two things in the Greek: topoj, from which we get topography, can mean a seat or geographical area, a dwelling place actually. It also means opportunity. "And do not be giving opportunity."

"to the devil" — dative singular of diaboloj. This is the dative of indirect object, it indicates the one in whose interest the act is performed. It is to your benefit, to your interest, to make sure that you do not give the devil any running room.

Translation: "Do not be giving opportunity to the devil."

Summary

1. The believer gives opportunity to the devil by entering reversionism.

2. Any believer in any stage of reversionism has given his seat to the devil or has given the devil opportunity.

3. Such a believer who has given opportunity to the devil has become a casualty to the angelic conflict.

4. This is totally incompatible with being a member of the royal family of God.

The devil's seven

1. The person of the devil. He has a very pleasing personality, he is a genius and is the smartest creature ever to exist. He is the highest of all angelic creatures, he is the ruler of all fallen angels — Matthew 8:28; 9:34; 12:26. He is a prehistoric creature — Isaiah 14:12-17; Ezekiel 28:11-29. He as the devil is the chief antagonist in the angelic conflict — Hebrews chapters 1 & 2; Genesis 6; 1Peter 3:18-22. The devil has the greatest and most thorough of all organisations — Ephesians 6:10-12. He was a murderer from the beginning. He is the opponent of Bible doctrine — Matthew 13:9,39. He is the enemy of the royal family — Revelation 2:9,13,24.

2. The devil's rulership. The devil is not only the ruler of fallen angels but he is the ruler of this world — Luke 4:5-7; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2.

3. The devil has strategy regarding nations in the world. It is his strategy to wipe out the Jew. He always uses nations to try to destroy Israel. He is the head of any international organisation, like the United Nations. He is the chief opponent of the laws of divine establishment and seeks to break down the sovereignty and the freedom of nationalism. It is his objective to turn those nations under his influence into empires and utilise them to further his own purposes in the strategy of nations.

4. His strategy regarding the unbelievers of this world. He not only has a strategy for people collectively as nations but he has strategies for persons individually. This runs the gamut from blinding their minds (scar tissue of the soul in the unbeliever) to every form of unbeliever reversionism, as in 2Peter 2. Reference to the devil's strategy regarding the unbeliever — Luke 8:12; 2Corinthians 4:3,4; 2Thessalonians 2:7-10; Colossians 2:8; Revelation 17.

5. The devil's strategy regarding the royal family. His primary strategy is accusation. That is his strategy in heaven. He is constantly gathering information with regard to every believer, noting all of their sins. Then comes the accusations in the court of heaven. But the Lord Jesus Christ is not only our high priest but He is our advocate, and He represents us in heaven and the case is always thrown out. Job 1; 2Corinthians 2:1; Zechariah 3:1,2; Revelation 12:9,10; 1John 2:1,2. The devil is also in on reversionism. Reversionism is a combination of Satanic strategy and the function of the old sin nature and the two combine with the volition of the soul in order to bring about reversionism. This is giving your seat to the devil. He is always seeking to frustrate the will of God — Ephesians 4:14; 1Thessalonians 2:18; James 4:7,8. He also seeks to neutralise doctrine, doctrinal application, through worry and anxiety. Worry is the way the devil makes a believer indifferent to the Word of God. Worry is a total soul function just as occupation with Christ is a total soul function. Occupation with Christ is the total soul occupation with doctrine, whereas worry is the total soul function of facing your problems erroneously. 1Peter 5:7-9, worry is one of the greatest ways to eliminate doctrine on the negative volition basis. Obviously the devil seeks to get the believer's eyes on people, self, and things. He tries to get believers so involved in improving the devil's world that they have no time for reaching super-grace because they have no time for doctrine. Also there are things that distract the soul. The soul is turned on by socialism, social action, social gospel, operation bleeding heart; many, many ways of trying to solve man's problems. The inculcation of fear regarding physical death has always been the capstone on Satanic strategy for the believer — Hebrews 2:14,15.

6. Religion is the devil's basic strategy, it is his counterfeit of the plan of God. Christianity is a relationship with God through Christ whereas religion is man by man's efforts using man's ability and man's ingenuity to gain the approbation of God.

7. Satan himself is a great communicator and great in inculcating false doctrine. False teachers are his basic strategy for the communication of false doctrine.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #66

66 10/28/1973 Ephesians 4:28 Doctrine of the poor; dishonesty in race relations

Verse 28 — this begins the practical area of this passage. The great doctrinal principles of the first part of this chapter deal with the universal priesthood of the believer and the fact that in this dispensation every believer is a member of the royal family of God and will be royalty forever. Therefore we have seen royalty defined in terms of present objectives. Our present objective is to taker in doctrine until we reach the super-grace life, and then to keep on taking in doctrine.

"Let him that stole" is a present active participle from the verb kleptw. The present tense is an iterative present, it describes certain reversionistic believers as stealing at certain intervals. They don't steal all the time. The active voice: this is produced by the reversionist. It refers to a believer. The participle is circumstantial.

"The one stealing"

1. The verb kleptw connotes criminal activity but applies also to dishonesty in business or business malpractice.

2. Here is a believer on a frantic search for happiness trying to get ahead in life through dishonesty.

3. The accumulation of business profits through dishonesty is stealing.

4. The frantic search for happiness, emotional revolt of the soul, negative volition toward doctrine, blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul results in some form of dishonesty in the life of every person. Every person who gets into reversionism becomes a dishonest person.

5. Reverse process reversionism is manifest in dishonesty in any facet of life. Dishonesty is a status of the soul.

6. This circumstantial participle of kleptw recognises reversionistic dishonesty in two areas specifically: business and crime.

"steal no more" — present active imperative of kleptw. With it is a negative adverb mhketi and it means "not from now on." So literally we have to translate this, "Stop stealing from this point on."

"but" is the connective particle de which can be used to establish a contrast between reversionism and the practice of crime on the one hand, and super grace and the function of integrity on the other hand. So it is set up for the purpose of showing that beyond the particle a course is recommended, a course which at the time of writing would be compatible with super-grace recovery.

"rather" is a comparative adverb mallon which, along with the particle de, is used to express a concept which corrects the preceding problem. Rather than being a criminal or dishonest businessman this verse is going to say from this point on, earn an honest living, be an honest person.

"let him labour" is the present active imperative of kopiaw which means to work hard, to labour to the point of exhaustion. It is used in principle on Colossians 3:16,17. The present tense is a tendencial present used for an action purposed or intended but not taking place at the moment. The active voice: the believer recovering from reversionism will produce the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a command.

"working" — may be with the mind or the hands. Apparently the ones involved here worked with their hands. The present middle participle of "working" is e)rgazomai. This word and kopiaw together indicate that God provides for X number of people a means for maintaining inner integrity of the soul and living a life free from any type of dishonesty.

"with his hands" is literally, "working with his very own hands" — taij i)diaij xersin are instrumental plural plus the definite article. This is the instrumental of means which indicates the way to make an honest living rather than being involved in a life of crime is a spiritual issue for the believer. The spiritual issue demands that first of all there is the intake of doctrine to strengthen the volition, to move into a sphere of life where he can make an honest living.

"the thing which is" is not found in the original.

"the good" is the accusative of the direct object of a)gaqoj and it has with it a definite article. If you want money and you are in business the way to get it is to get to super-grace and let God provide it on a permanent stabilised basis. If you are a believer and you want money and you are a reversionist and you steal or cheat or embezzle then obviously you will never have money but you will have every misery and frustration that goes from divine discipline from that type of activity.

"that" — the conjunction i(na introduces a purpose clause; "he may have" — present active subjunctive of e)xw which means to have and to hold. The present tense is the retroactive progressive present, denoting that which was begun in the past and continues to the present time. The active voice: believers in reversion recovery produce the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood is potential, it implies a future reference and is qualified by the element of contingency, namely whether reversion recovery will occur under GAP or not.

"to give" — the possession of money to give depends upon a continuation in GAP for reversion recovery. Earning an honest living here does not mean to be just living on short funds. When you become a believer taking in doctrine and growing up spiritually then God is going to provide for you in an honest living more than enough for your own needs. He will provide so much that you will have to give others. That is what an honest living does. The possession of money comes from two sources: spiritual growth where the believer is concerned, and spiritual growth resulting in super-grace blessing. Super-grace blessings include money. This is the present active infinitive of metadidomi means to share. To give or to share with someone who is less fortunate or who has a problem. The present tense is an iterative present which describes what recurs at successive intervals, hence the present tense of repeated action. The active voice: the believer who has saved from God's provision or has an excess because of super-grace provision can give as the occasion arises. The infinitive is an infinitive of purpose. The purpose in saving money is to share with a needy believer when the occasion arises.

"to him that needeth" — should be translated "with the one having need." This is a dative of indirect object of the article plus a present active participle of e)xw, plus the accusative of xreia which means a need.

Translation: "The one stealing [reversionist] from now on stop stealing: but rather work hard, earning a living with his own hands in order that he might have money to share with the one having need."

Summary

1. The one having a need refers to the fact that the poor you have with you always — Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8. The welfare state cannot solve the problem of poverty.

2. Just as there will always be wars until the Millennium — Matthew 24:6; Mark 13:7; Luke 21:9 — so there will always be poor, even in the royal family of God.

3. The solution to the problem of poverty is not found in the welfare state, not found in socialism, not found in the social gospel or social action. The solution to poverty is a spiritual solution.

4. The solution is found in Bible doctrine and the individual believer reaching the super-grace status where either he is going to be poor and happy, rich and happy, or prosperous and happy.

5. Under super-grace certain members of the royal family of God will be blessed financially and materially.

6. This gives the opportunity to practice charity which is a legitimate function of the individual, the church, and in some rare cases the state.

7. Such giving on the part of super-grace believers is a bona fide application of the super-grace life. However, when the state tries to make everyone a charity patient, when it is constantly giving out, it destroys something in life. You are being deprived of your own government of friendships. Those who take a dole have lost the opportunity of being helped by someone who loves you and you have been deprived of a great relationship in life.

8. While the Bible condones charity it neither condones nor encourages socialism.

9. Socialism impoverishes the rich to keep the poor poor.

10. Under conditions of socialism the poor remain poor but they become leeches to society. So poverty is not solved, you merely develop a society of leeches.

11. Learn to distinguish between the socialism of the welfare state and the legitimate charity of free enterprise.

12. The same principle of establishment applies to the spiritual life of the believer. Charity is a legitimate function of grace; socialism is a part

The doctrine of the poor

1. God can raise the poor out of the poverty of their circumstances — 1Samuel 2:8; Psalm 113:7.

2. There is a special happiness for those who help the poor [charity, not government] — Psalm 41:1,2; Proverbs 19:17; 22:9; 29:14.

3. The poor are not only delivered by God from poverty but in the reality of their poverty they see the need for salvation — Psalm 72:12-14; Matthew 11:5.

4. Charity to the poor is a bona fide function of the establishment — Proverbs 14:30,31; 19:17. But again, we must learn to distinguish between charity and welfare. Charity is for the helpless poor; welfare is for the poor helpless — Galatians 2:10. Welfare is rejected; charity is a Christian virtue.

5. The poor cannot enter into pseudo friendship because of his poverty. Poor people, if they have friends, generally have real friends. Proverbs 19:4.

6. There is a special curse for those who ignore helping the poor — Proverbs 21:13; 22:16,22; 28:3.

7. Until the Millennium there will always be poverty — Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8.

8. It is possible to be poor and still have great happiness — Mark 12:43.

9. The Bible teaches that the poor are often the target for hypocrisy — John 12:5; James 2:2-4.

10. The poor have the same spiritual privileges as the wealthy believer possesses — James 2:5. Financial status does not in any way cause spiritual discrimination.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #67

67 10/28/1973 Ephesians 4:29 Doctrine of the tongue

Verse 29 — this verse is a special exhortation to pastors in teaching toe Word of God. It therefore is a parenthesis since it refers to a special classification, namely pastor-teachers only. This is a grim reminder that pastors must teach the Word if members of the royal family are to recover from reversionism and are to reach the super-grace life. Therefore in reversion recovery when a passage mentions the function of the pastor it emphasises at the same time the only way in which anyone ever comes out of the hole of reversionism, and the only way any member of the royal family ever reaches the super-grace status which is the status of blessing. The principle which we find here is very similar to that found in verse 15 and in Hebrews 7:10, a parenthetical principle to remind the pastor-teacher that reversion recovery or moving toward the objective of super-grace, or any advance or any progress in the spiritual life in the dispensation of the Church must come through the teaching of the Word of God in the classroom, the local congregation.

"Let no corrupt communication" is entirely wrong. The Greek phrase is Paj logoj saproj. [Logoj = doctrine or the communication of doctrine; saproj = decayed, rotten, putrid; paj = all]. All this really says is, Every rotten sermon." A rotten or a putrid sermon should be defined. Sometimes a rotten sermon is one that steps on you, it hits you too hard, rubs you the wrong way. It may be the content or it may be the way it is delivered but sometimes you may think things are being rather forcibly shoved down your throat. That may or may not be true but that is not a rotten sermon. A rotten sermon to you may be one you do not like, it disagrees with your pet ideas. It offends your sensibilities. God the Holy Spirit communicates in language that can be understood. Koine means common or street language, and that is exactly what we have in the New Testament. It is a mistake to try to obscure the truths of Bible doctrine in abstruse, nebulous, pedantic language. While it always seems to sound nice and it is very impressive to hear words that you cannot understand, that is not the objective of the teaching of the Word of God.

The Word of God indicates that a putrid sermon "lacketh doctrine, therefore stinketh" because basically there are only two things you can get out of a sermon: the doctrine which is taught and the application of that or other doctrines. Sheep do not feed themselves. This passage is not addressed to the one who habitually communicates doctrine, it is addressed to the pastor who doesn't communicate doctrine at all, who doesn't know any doctrine. So a putrid sermon is a sermon which does not take a portion of the Word of God and analyse it, and categorise its doctrines and communicate its built-in application. Putrid sermons are preached by saproj [putrid] minds in the sense that there are a lot of "fundy' pastors who cannot analyse or teach and have no purpose in mind when it comes to the Word of God. Everything must be built upon the Word. The failure of the pastor-teacher to communicate Bible doctrine means the failure of the royal family to reach super-grace. It further means that you cannot pull out of the mud those who are in reversionism. There is only one way to do it and that is through the teaching of the Word of God.

"let it not proceed" is a present active imperative from the verb e)kporeuomai with the negative mh. It means a little more than proceed, it means communication obviously. The present tense is an iterative present used to describe what recurs at successive intervals, the message preached by the pastor-teacher should be consistent. He should continue to teach one passage, then another, then another. The active voice: the rotten sermon is produced by the pastor-teacher and he therefore produces the action of the verb. With the negative it means he should stop it or discontinue it. The imperative mood is not the imperative of command but of prohibition with the negative mh.

Translation so far: "Do not permit any rotten sermon to go out of your mouth."

"your mouth" is a part of a prepositional phrase — e)k plus the ablative of stoma which is "from the source of your mouth." This applies to pastor-teachers. This also has the application of a principle: Born again believers all have problems with the tongue.

The doctrine of the tongue

1. Seven blessings from God include protection from the sins of the tongue — Job 5:17-21.

2. Three of the seven worst sins are sins of the tongue — Proverbs 6:16-19.

a) Sins of the tongue emanate from the old sin nature — Psalm 34:13.

b) Sins of the tongue are sponsored or motivated by mental attitude sins — Psalm 5:9.

c) The perpetuation of the sins of the tongue indicates verbal reversionism — James 5:9,12. Verbal reversionism can result in the sin unto death — Psalm 12:3.

d) Sins of the tongue produce triple compound discipline — Psalm 64:8; Matthew 7:1,2.

e) God protects the believer victimised by the sins of the tongue — Job 5:19-21. God turns cursing into blessing when you are the victim of sins of the tongue — James 3:9;5:16.

f) Control of the tongue or absence of the sins of the tongue is a sign of maturity. As a sign of possessing the ECS — James 3:2; as a sign being in super-grace — James 4:11,12.

g) Sins of the tongue are the sign of reversionism — James 4:11; 5:9,12.

h) Verbal reversionism produces enough gossip, slander, judging, maligning and criticism to destroy an entire congregation — James 3:5,6.

i) Since the sins of the tongue can destroy an entire congregation it is the duty of the pastor-teacher to warn against them — 2Timothy 2:14-17.

j) Troublemakers are characterised by sins of the tongue by which they produce their trouble — Psalm 52:2. Believers in the royal family are commanded to separate themselves from such troublemakers — Romans 16:17,18.

k) By avoiding sins of the tongue the believer can find great happiness and add years to his life — Psalm 34:12,13.

3. Control of the tongue is the sign of a super-grace believer — James 1:26; 4:11,12; Colossians 4:6.

4. The power of the tongue to express thought is found in 1Corinthians 2:4; Ephesians 4:15; 1Thessalonians 2:4.

5. The power of the tongue to communicate doctrine on the part of the pastor-teacher is emphasised in Ephesians 4:15,29.

"but" — an adversative conjunction a)lla which sets up a contrast between a rotten sermon and a good one.

"that" — incorrect. This is e)i tij which is a combination of the conditional or conjunctive particle plus the indefinite pronoun and it should always be translated "whatever." Whatever refers to expository teaching.

"is" — present active indicative of e)imi, "keeps on being." This is the retroactive progressive present tense. What is good keeps on being good. Doctrine is always good, there never will be a time when it isn't good.

"good" — the predicate nominative of a)gaqoj referring to intrinsic good.

"to the use of edifying" — proj plus the accusative of o)ikodomh which refers to the ECS. There is also a descriptive genitive of xreia which means need. The descriptive genitive of xreia put together with this should read, "for the required edification complex." The ECS is required not only for reversion recovery but also for super-grace living.

"that" is the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive used for a purpose clause — "in order that."

"it may minister" — third person singular aorist active subjunctive of didomi which means to give, not to minister. The third person singular here refers to the doctrine taught by the pastor, not the pastor. Doctrine in the mouth of the pastor-teacher is designed to lead the royal family to super-grace. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. GAPing to super-grace — super-grace is the result. The active voice: doctrine in the mouth of the pastor produces the action of the verb, leading the believer to super-grace. The subjunctive mood is potential depending on which side of the conjunction the pastor functions. If he functions in front of the conjunction, the first half of verse 29, then he is only going to produce that which is putrid or rotten. If he functions on the last half, behind the conjunction, then he is going to fulfill the principle "that it may give grace to the hearer."

The word "grace" here is minus the definite article. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the word xarij. Doctrine in the mouth of the pastor produces the action of the verb to "give grace to the hearers." Grace here refers to super-grace. That is the objective of the Christian way of life. The accusative is direct object. That is the purpose of teaching doctrine.

"unto the hearers" — if you are not a hearer, if you do not have a pastor either by tape or face to face, you will never reach super-grace. This is the dative plural of the indirect object from the definite article plus the present active participle of a)kouw. When the participle has the definite article it means "the ones hearing." The dative case is indirect object which indicates the ones in whose interest Bible teaching is performed. It is performed for your benefit. It is also the dative of advantage, it is to the advantage of all members of the royal family to have consistent Bible teaching so that they can reach super-grace. The active voice indicates that the members of the royal produce the action of the verb by listening, by concentrating, by being under the discipline of a pastor-teacher. The participle is circumstantial, it depicts the function of GAP in the local assembly.

Translation: "Do not permit any rotten sermons to go out from your mouth, but whatever is intrinsic good [doctrine] for the required edification complex, in order that it [doctrine taught by the pastor-teacher] may give super-grace to the ones customarily hearing."

Summary

1. Rotten sermons are taught by believer and unbeliever pastors who have rejected the principle of exposition.

2. Such pastors hinder reversion recovery and frustrate the possibility of any member of the royal family from reaching super-grace.

3. Only doctrine has intrinsic value in the pastor's sermon. Doctrine can be presented in many forms, e.g. the military preserves national freedom. That is doctrine, the doctrine of divine establishment. False doctrine: What we need in this country is more brotherhood, more friendliness. That is Satanic.

4. The pastor is the link between the doctrine in the canon of scripture and the doctrine in the soul of the believer.

5. Therefore doctrine in the pastor's mouth is required for both reversion recovery and the construction of the ECS.

6. Such doctrine gives super-grace to the ones who are continually and customarily listening to Bible teaching in local churches or through a tape recorder.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #68

68 10/29/1973 Ephesians 4:30 Doctrines of the Deity of God the Holy Spirit; sins against & sealing of God the Holy Spirit

Verse 30 — "And" is the continuative use of the conjunction kai. It indicates that we are still in the phase of application. The command follows immediately.

"grieve not" — present active imperative from the verb lupew plus the negative mh. The present tense is retroactive progressive present, it denotes that which was begun in the past and continues into the present time. With

the negative it means stop it. The action is produced by the reversionistic believer. This is a negative prohibition and it should be translated "And stop grieving the Holy Spirit of the God."

"the Holy Spirit of God" is a reference to the third person of the Trinity.

The doctrine of the deity of the Holy Spirit

1. All the Trinity passages reveal the coequality with other members of the Godhead — 2Corinthians 13:14 indicates the total deity of the Holy Spirit.

2. The Holy Spirit is also called Jehovah in the Old Testament, this is a title of God — cf. Isaiah 6:8,9 with Acts 28:25, or Jeremiah 31:31-34 with Hebrews 10:15.

3. The sovereignty of the Spirit is found in 1Corinthians 12:11.

4. God the Holy Spirit is said to be omniscient — 1Corinthians 2:10,11.

5. He is said to be omnipotent — Genesis 1:2.

6. He in omnipresent — Psalm 139:7.

7. The deity of the Lordship of the Spirit is mentioned in 2Corinthians 3:17.

Principle: You cannot hurt someone else until you have first of all hurt or grieved God the Holy Spirit who indwells all members of the royal priesthood.

The doctrine of the sins against the Holy Spirit

There are five sins which are committed against the Holy Spirit but they fall into two categories. Two of these are committed by the unbeliever and three of them by the believer.

1. The sins committed by the unbeliever.

a) The first of these is called blaspheming against the Holy Spirit — Matthew 12:14-32. It is tantamount to rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ as saviour — actually, rejection of Christ during the earthly ministry of the Son of God in that context. When the unbeliever says no to the gospel this in effect is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because the unbeliever is minus a human spirit, therefore there is no way for him to take in the gospel or spiritual phenomena so that he can act upon it one way of the other with his volition. So God the Holy Spirit and makes the gospel a reality and then the individual takes a good look at it. He now understands it because God the Holy Spirit has made it clear. The individual now understands it and has the right to say yes or no to the gospel message. If he says no this is called blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

b) The second sin of the unbeliever in this connection is called "resistance of the Holy Spirit" — Acts 7:51. Rejection of Christ as saviour during the Church Age is resisting the Spirit. This emphasises the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in making the gospel clear — 1Corinthians 1:18; 2:14; John 16:7-11; Genesis 6:3. Resistance is also described in terms of 2Corinthians 4:3,4.

Basically these two phrases, blasphemy and resistance against the Holy Spirit, are sins committed by the unbeliever. In effect, it is the only sin that he can actually commit and go to hell. It is simply rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The last three sins which follow are committed by the believer.

3. Lying to the Holy Spirit is the first — Acts 5:3. This is the function of a believer in reversionism, in this case the function of a believer in monetary reversionism. We have in this case a combination of approbation lust plus false motivation under conditions of blackout of the soul. It is the sin of false motivation, doing something for personal glory rather than for the honour of the Lord.

4. Grieving the Holy Spirit is the function of the believer in reversionism whereby he produces extensive carnality in one of three categories: mental attitude sins, sins of the tongue, or overt sins. Grieving the Holy Spirit can occur under the following phases of reversionism. The first is the reaction phase, the one in which the sin accompanies disillusion. For example, if you are disillusioned about something and get bitter that would be grieving the Holy Spirit. In phase two of reversionism there is a frantic search for happiness and the sins here can run the gamut. These are grieving the Holy Spirit in phase two of reversionism. In phase three of reversionism we have emotional revolt of the soul. This is when the emotion of the soul takes over everything. The heart or the right lobe which usually dominates the soul is now dominated by the emotion. Example; the "gift" of tongues and the holy-rollers. This actually becomes a blasphemy, a faking out of the gift of tongues. The fourth phase of reversionism is the negative volition phase. It may be apathy or antagonism which is grieving the Holy Spirit. The fifth phase is the blackout of the soul which means you are now under Satanic influence. Now you have become a bleeding heart, a hippy, and have got into some activity of socialism or welfare, etc. In this phase blackout of the soul leadsto pride, bitterness, jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability. This is also the stage at which criminal activity becomes quite extensive. Phase six is the scar tissue phase and in this phase it is anything goes. When you grieve the Holy Spirit in the scar tissue phase there is no sin that the worst unbeliever in the world has committed that you as a believer cannot commit. You are not going to lose your salvation, you are going to be under divine discipline and will die the sin unto death. Phase seven is reverse process reversionism in which we have the same principle.

The principle should be obvious. Grieving the Holy Spirit is something the believer does in one of the seven phases of reversionism.

5. Quenching the Holy Spirit — 1Thessalonians 5:19 is the function of the believer in reversionism by which he produces human good. This is the basic difference from grieving the Holy Spirit which is sin.

"whereby" is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the instrumental of the relative pronoun o(j. It should be translated "by which" or "by whom." Since the word "Spirit" is in the neuter in the Greek it always takes the neuter pronoun.

"ye are sealed" — aorist passive indicative of sfragizomai. The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist, it is a fact that every believer in the Church Age is sealed by God the Holy Spirit. The reason he is is that it is a reminder that in eternity past when God the Father set up the divine decrees He had a special paragraph with your name in it. He had for you super-grace blessings — +H, promotion, success, happiness, prosperity, material wealth, all kinds of wonderful things. The super-grace blessings were provided for you in eternity past, you are now a believer in the Church Age and the sealing of the Holy Spirit is a guarantee that God will keep you in this world long enough to acquire your super-grace blessings, provided that you do not log too much time in reversionism. The passive voice: the believer receives the action at the point of salvation. The indicative mood is a declarative indicative which represents an unqualified assertion, a dogmatic statement of doctrine.

The doctrine of the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit

1. The isagogics of seals. Seals in the ancient world were used in five ways.

a) a guarantee of a transaction. In the ancient world two kings decide to set up a peace treaty between the two countries. Each one has a signet ring. Each king impresses his signet in wax and that is his mark, and each man has then sealed the paper and that meant they agreed to the terms in writing on the paper. It was a guarantee of a transaction.

b) A seal was identification of ownership. It is a guarantee translation — salvation. Identification of ownership takes us right back to salvation when we are entered into union with Christ. Christ has eternal life; we share that life. He has +R; we share His +R. He has an election; we share His election. He has a destiny; we share His destiny. He is an heir; we share His heirship. He is the Son; we become royal sons of God. He has a priesthood; we share His priesthood. He is a King; we are going to reign with Him. We share everything that Christ has. The sealing of the Spirit is a stamp on you, in effect, which says God owns you forever. You can never lose your salvation.c) The sealing of the Spirit is not only an identification of ownership but it is also an authentication. The authentication of invoices, contracts, laws, directives, orders was always by the use of a seal to make them authentic. It is analogous the doctrine of divine decrees with the super-grace paragraph. God in eternity past formulated blessings for the believer and the sealing of the Spirit is the guarantee that they are in writing and the believer can have them.

d) The ratification of a treaty in the ancient world. In this sense the Holy Spirit signs a treaty between the believer and God. This is the doctrine by which the barrier is removed between man and God.

2. The sealing of God the Holy Spirit is the promise of super-grace blessings for the royal family — Ephesians 1:13.

3. Reversionism is incompatible with the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 4:30.

4. The sealing of the Spirit is the down-payment guarantee of security for the royal family forever — 2Corinthians 1:22.

"by whom you have been sealed."

"unto the day of redemption" — the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of h(mera should be translated "for a day." There is no definite article in front of h(mera and this emphasises a specific day; plus the descriptive genitive of the noun a)polutrwsij, the strongest word for redemption. Redemption has two connotations. The redemption of the soul is eternal salvation. We are all born in the slave market of sin. We can only get out of the slave market by someone paying for our freedom. Christ through the virgin birth was born into the world free and He went to the cross and paid the price for our freedom. When we believe in Christ we come out and we are said to be redeemed. And that means purchased from the slave market of sin. The key here is the redemption of the soul. There is also in the Bible a redemption of the body — ultimate sanctification and refers to the resurrection — Romans 8:29; 1Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 3:21; 1Thessalonians 5:23; 1John 3:1,2. In this case it is the body which is redeemed.

Translation: "Stop grieving the Holy Spirit the God, by whom you have been sealed for a day of redemption [ultimate sanctification]."

The doctrine of sanctification

1. Etymology.

a) a(gioj is the basic word, usually translated "holy" or "saint." It means to be set apart, to be unique, to be under a system whereby you are isolated for the purpose of being honoured. It refers to the fact that every believer in the Church Age is a member of the royal family of God. This is the work of God the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation entering us into union with the Lord Jesus Christ.

b) a(giothj, which means "holiness" or better yet, "set-apartness." This takes up the entire principle of the royal family of God, our uniqueness because of who and what Christ is, the 40 things we receive at salvation, the ministry of the baptism of the Holy Spirit entering us into union with Christ, the act that we are royalty now and will be forever, the fact that we have a purpose now and will have forever.

c) a(giosunh, which means "sanctification" or "royal familyship," "set-apartness."

d) a(giosmoj, also translated "holiness." It means "uniqueness, royalty."

e) a(giazw, which means to be set apart and it is generally translated "to sanctify." It is the work of God the Holy Spirit at the point of our salvation that makes us members of the royal family of God or sets us apart.

2. Basically all words for sanctification connote separation, uniqueness, set-apartness. All of the words connote separation unto God. The doctrine of sanctification applies to the royal family of God only as taught in the New Testament. Not to the Old Testament believers, the 144,000, the Tribulational believers, and not to the Millennial believers. Saint is a technical word for the royal family.

3. The agency of sanctification. There are three agents in sanctification.

a) The Son of God. Jesus Christ is the King of kings, and as the King of kings an high priest. He is the agent of sanctification, it is definitely related to His priesthood in Hebrews 10:10,14.

b) The Holy Spirit is the agent of sanctification — Romans 15:16; 2Thessalonians 2:13. He is the agent in sanctification by the five things he does for us at salvation. He enters us into union with Christ. He enters inside of us — the sign of the royal family. He seals us — the double security of the royal family. He provides a spiritual gift for every believer — the function of the royal family. In addition to that He regenerates us, but He does that in every dispensation. This is the only dispensation in which royal family exists.

c) The Word of God — John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26.

All three of the agencies to sanctification relate to the royal family of God.

4. Phase one sanctification refers to the ministry of God the Holy Spirit taking every believer at the moment he is saved and entering him into union with Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father. Christ is eternal life, we have His life. He is righteousness, we share His righteousness. He is the Son, we share His sonship. We share His heirship, His election, His destiny, and His Kingship. 1Corinthians 1:2,30; 6:11; Hebrews 10:10,14.

5. Phase two sanctification is divided into two areas. a) The growing area; b) The victorious area which is the sphere of maturity. The growing area is the filling of the Spirit — 2Thessalonians 2:13. It is also the daily function of GAP — John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26. The second phase is the super-grace stage, the objective where we glorify God an where we have occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

6. Phase three sanctification. In phase two the believer under sanctification fulfills the objective for which he remains alive. In phase three sanctification we have the believer in a resurrection body — Romans 8:29; 1Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 3:21; 1Thessalonians 5:23; 1John 3;1,2. This is the royal family being prepared to return with Jesus Christ.

7. Ultimate sanctification or phase three sanctification involves at least three principles. a) The acquisition of a resurrection body — 1Corinthians 15:51-57; b) The removal of all human good by divine judgment — 1Corinthians 3:11-16; c) The removal of the old sin nature — Philippians 3:21. The royal family on earth is called the body Christ collectively. It is called in heaven, after the resurrection, the bride of Christ collectively.

8. Phase two sanctification has several objectives. a) By the intensive study of GAP reaching the super-grace life; b) Glorifying God in the intensive stage of the angelic conflict. This can only be accomplished by reaching super-grace; c) The principle of establishing the divine viewpoint in the devil's world and establishing the establishment concept historically.

9. Phase two sanctification depends upon the function of the believer's priesthood in the area of rebound and in the area of GAP — 1John 1:9; 1Corinthians 11:31 plus all of the passages dealing with the study of the intake of the Word of God.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #69

69 10/30/1973 Ephesians 4:31–32 Doctrines of sanctification, bitterness

Verse 31 — the verse starts out with "all," the nominative feminine singular of paj and it is used as a noun. Paj is an adjective but it is used here as a noun. It indicates that the noun is actually the subject of a verb.

"bitterness" — this should be translated "all categories of bitterness" because of the fact that paj is a noun. The syntax brings out something that the word order does not. Paj used as a noun refers to categories. This is what this verse is all about — "all categories of bitterness." All that follows are categories or parts of bitterness. Obviously, all categories of bitterness indicates a problem, a cluster of mental attitude sins. The word for "bitterness" is pikria. It means here a mental attitude sin cluster. The mental attitude sin of bitterness is the basis of all chain sinning, the way you add one sin to another. Hebrews 12:15. Bitterness involves antagonism, animosity, hardness and cruelty toward others. Hence, the totality of resentment toward others. Bitterness is related to the mental attitude sinning of reversionism in this passage.

The doctrine of bitterness

1. Bitterness is a reactor factor in the first stages of reversionism — Isaiah 38:17. It is the intensifier of reactor factors.

2. Bitterness is a characteristic of every stage of reversionism — Romans 3:14.

3. Bitterness perpetuates and intensifies every stage of reversionism — Ephesians 4:31; Hebrews 12:15.

4. Bitterness is related to the frustration from the fifth cycle of discipline — Isaiah 33:7; Ezekiel 27:30.

5. Bitterness destroys category #2 love — Colossians 3:19.

6. Frustration from bitterness causes the one involved to live a living death — Job 21:28.

7. Bitterness motivates both frustration and complaining — Job 7:11; 10:1.

8. Frustration motivates bitterness of the soul, while bitterness of the soul starts frustration — 1Samuel 1:10.

9. Mothers become bitter toward their children when they do not turn out right — Proverbs 17:25.

10. Bitterness puts pressure on others causing them misery — Job 9:18.

"All categories of business" colon:

"both wrath and anger" — wrath is qumoj, emotional upset, tantrums; anger is o)rgh which is mental anger. Here are the first manifestations of bitterness. This is why bitterness is a mental attitude cluster because it produces tantrums and mental type anger. The two types of anger found in this context also produce at least five categories of misery. a) Self-induced misery; b) Chain sinning; c) Misery to those in the periphery; d) Revenge type misery. Two principles: Two wrongs don't make a right; you cannot build your happiness on someone else's unhappiness; e) The various categories of divine discipline which are administered to the reversionist.

"and clamour" — kraugh which means vociferation, shouting (but shouting under a mental attitude sin), verbal brawling. Vociferation is offensive loudness, vocal brawling, being blatant obstreperous with one's mouth. In other words, a flannel-mouth. It implies rejection of authority plus the expression of mental attitude sins.

"evil speaking " means slander, blasfhmia which means to murder with your mouth, character assassination.

"be put away" — aorist passive imperative of a)irw which means to be removed. Remove it. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes an occurrence and regardless of its duration gathers it up into a single whole. These sins which are listed in this verse are linked with reversionism in the sense of grieving the Holy Spirit. The constative aorist, then, is a reference to reversion recovery which sheds the bitterness cluster. The passive voice: the cited sins in the bitterness cluster are linked with reversionism, reversionism grieves the Holy Spirit, and the believer must receive removal of these things through the intake of doctrine and spiritual growth. The imperative mood is the imperative of command. The degree of authority involved in the command and the degree of probability that the one addressed will respond in incidental to the use of the mood here. The imperative mood itself indicates that no one ever recovers from reversionism without dropping a mental attitude sin cluster. In this case it is bitterness. The command is obeyed by the daily function of GAP in reversion recovery.

"from you" is a)po plus the ablative of the pronoun su — "from you all." This is a reference to those in reversionism who need to be in recovery status.

"with all malice" — this prepositional phrase sun plus the instrumental of paj plus kakia. What this means is that bitterness is not the only mental attitude sin cluster, it is just the one used here. This prepositional phrase indicates that this represents other mental attitude sin clusters. They all fall into the same category. So it should be translated, "together with all other forms of wickedness." In other words, you have a jealousy cluster, a pride cluster, an implacability, a guilt complex cluster. So there are clusters of mental attitude sins, and while bitterness is the cluster used here your problem may not be bitterness at all, it may be one of the others. Whatever it is kakia covers them all.

Translation: "All categories of bitterness, both wrath [emotional anger], and anger [mental anger], both vociferation and slander, be removed from you together with all kakia [mental attitude clusters]."

Verse 32 — "And be ye" should be translated "But become" — de plus ginomai. This is a present active imperative. The present tense is a customary present for that which habitually occurs or may be reasonably be expected to occur. The active voice: the growing believer produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood: this is a direct appeal to positive volition toward doctrine.

"kind" — nominative plural from xrhstoj. This is manliness and graciousness of the soul — "become kind." It is difficult to translate this word because it implies many acts of thoughtfulness, many acts of graciousness, many acts of kindliness. Kindness is often mistaken for weakness, which it isn't. "But become gracious one toward another."

"tenderhearted" — e)usplagnoj [eu = good; splagnoj = guts, intestines]. The intestines often refer to the emotions under control of the right lobe. Compassionate, if you understand what compassionate means, is an excellent translation. In your soul you will be thoughtful and courteous to those around.

"forgiving one another" — present middle participle xarizomai means to grace out, to forgive on the basis of grace, forgive on the basis of what you are, not what you think they are. The iterative present describes what occurs at successive intervals, it is called the present tense of repeated action. The middle voice: the subject acts with a view toward participating in the outcome. The participle is circumstantial.

"even as the God in Christ has forgiven you." You have been forgiven on the basis of grace. "Has forgiven" — aorist active indicative of xarizomai. The aorist tense is a gnomic aorist, this is an absolute fact. This is a doctrine which is axiomatic in character. You have been forgiven on the basis of God's character, none of us have been forgiven on the basis of who and what we are.

Translation: "But become gracious toward one another, compassionate, graciously forgiving each other, even as the God for Christ has graciously forgiven all of you."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #70

70 01/22/1974 Ephesians 5:1 Doc/super grace life; principles of imitators of the Lord Jesus Christ; doctrine of the royal family of God

Chapter 5

This next section goes from verse one to chapter six, verse nine.

Introduction

1. There are three phases to the plan of God.

Phase one is salvation, Jesus Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, becoming our substitute and taking our place, propitiating God the Father, providing reconciliation of man to God. In one moment of time, the moment we believe in Jesus Christ, we enter the plan of God. God does, at the moment we believe, 40 things for us. Some of these are done by the Father, some by the Spirit, and some by the Son so that all members of the Godhead have a part in our salvation. Though Jesus Christ is the only saviour.

Phase two begins one second after we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the Christian in time. We are now members of the royal family of God, we are a kingdom of priests. Our objective is to follow a course of progress called spiritual growth. We start as a baby and if we continue to function under GAP we move to adolescence and eventually to maturity of the super-grace life. If we neglect Bible doctrine then we follow a course of retrogression called reversionism. Phase two, the believer in time, ends with either death or the Rapture, whichever occurs first. At which point we enter into phase three, absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. That is the believer in eternity.

Our passage, chapter 5:1 to 6:9, deals with phase two — the challenges, the handicaps, and the problems of it.

Outline of the passage

Verse 1-13, the imperatives of the super-grace life.

Verses 14-18, the principle of redeeming time.

Verses 9 through 6:9, the relationship in the royal family.

Verse 1 is incorrectly translated. "Be ye" is a present active imperative of the verb ginomai which does not means "to be." It means to become something you are not or to become something you should be or that is important in the plan of God. The present tense is a static present, it represents the condition of the super-grace believer. The spiritual condition of the super-grace believer is becoming an imitator of God. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood designates a command to become a super-grace believer. This command can only be fulfilled in the status of super-grace, which is synonymous to spiritual maturity.

The doctrine of super-grace

1. Definition. Super-grace is the final stage of spiritual growth in the Christian way of life. It is the stage which makes the transfer from the completed ECS to the maximum growth status. It is the ultimate is spiritual achievement in phase two and is the basis for the normal function of the royal priesthood of the believer. It is the area in which Romans 8:28 is fulfilled. In other words, the super-grace believer reaps what God sows. The reversionistic believer reaps what he sows. The nomenclature for super-grace is derived from the Greek of James 4:6. In the English is says, "He giveth more grace." In the Greek it says "He giveth greater grace." The Greek word is equivalent to our "super" grace.

The super-grace life has three general characteristics: occupation with the person of Jesus Christ, capacity for life and blessing, and the super-grace blessings designed for the believer.

2. Characteristics. The super-grace life is characterised under an analogy. There is no capacity for divine blessing until a believer has GAPed it consistently in the intake of doctrine so that he has constructed inside of his soul a cup. The cup is capacity for blessing. This cup is composed of doctrine. When the cup is constructed remember that as long as you live in this life God is your host, and you are His guest in cosmos diabolicus. Therefore when you have a cup God pours. You have a cup when you reach the super-grace life. God pours for you whatever blessings He has. It includes, of course, sharing His happiness [+H], the promotion, prosperity, wealth concepts. And remember, this is how God is glorified. God does the pouring; God gets the credit. The host pours; the host is glorified. We are the guests of God on this earth. When David reached super-grace he said, "My cup runneth over" — Psalm 23:5. The next verse says literally, "Dogmatically, grace will pursue me all the days of my life." When grace starts to pursue you, that is super-grace. When you are pursuing grace, that is growth; but super-grace is grace pursuing you. So the cup is super-grace capacity through Bible doctrine in the soul. Pouring into the cup is God providing super-grace blessings. The believer reaps what God has sown in eternity past.

3. Categories of grace.

a) Salvation grace, called phase one grace. In other words, all the Trinity does to save you. It involves the strategic victory of the angelic conflict, Christ dying on the cross. It is non-meritorious where we are concerned, we enter salvation by faith in the living Word, Jesus Christ.

b) Living grace, called phase two grace. This is everything that God does to keep us alive in the devil's world. This includes also the principle of dying grace.

c) Super-grace. This is maximum growth, again resulting in maximum blessing, maximum activity for God; this is the place of the tactical victory of the angelic conflict.

d) "Exceeding riches of his grace" — Ephesians 2:7. A literal translation from the Greek is "surpassing " grace. Surpassing grace is all that the Trinity will do for each one of us forever and ever.

4. The illustrations of super-grace. The best way to illustrate super-grace is to take the line of the Jewish race, beginning with the father of the Jewish race [Abraham], right down to the apostle Paul. The purpose of this point is to illustrate the fact that while we have certain things in common when we reach the super-grace life we also have something very special which God has for each one of us in the super-grace status. For example, Abraham. Abraham had all of the blessings of super-grace. He was occupied with the person of Jesus Christ, he had great capacity in super-grace, he had all kinds of blessings and the sharing of God's happiness. But his outstanding super-grace blessing was sexual prosperity whereby he became the father of a new race as well as the father of many Gentile nations. Next one in the line is Joseph who had all of the blessings of super-grace, yet the emphasis in on his promotion in super-grace prosperity with emphasis on ruling and being a blessing to a Gentile empire. The third is Moses who had all of the blessings of super-grace, and yet the outstanding one is his super-grace leadership making him the father of the Jewish nation, even as Abraham is the father of the Jewish race. The next is David, again an illustration of super-grace leadership making David the greatest king of Israel and one of the greatest kings in all of human history. Then, Isaiah whose area of super-grace blessing included many of the things that are mentioned as super-grace blessings, and yet the outstanding thing was the fact that he was the greatest prophet and Bible teacher during the monarchy period of Israel's history. Jeremiah, who in super-grace blessing at a time of national disaster demonstrates the principle that while he did not have many of the super-grace blessings that go with national prosperity he was the great man in time of disaster. Greatness under pressure is the outstanding super-grace blessing. He also holds the record for old age super-grace blessings and prosperity. Next is Daniel who had super-grace blessing and promotion outside the land in Gentile empires. Then Paul who represents super-grace blessing in the time of Jewish dispersion. While the apostle Paul did not have all of the areas of blessing that are specified in the Word, yet he is the greatest person of all time in the field of Bible doctrine.

5. The promotion of super-grace is the subject of Psalm 84. The super-grace believer is always God's man for the crisis, and if God doesn't promote you, you are not promoted. The only guarantee for promotion is to reach the super-grace status.

6. The love problem and super-grace. First of all, God loves every believer with a maximum amount of love because of propitiation. Secondly, the believer does not love God in return until he knows Him. "We love him because he first loved us" of 1John 4:19 can only be fulfilled in the super-grace status. In other words, no believer gets to know God apart from the consistent intake of Bible doctrine. Capacity to love God is based upon Bible doctrine in the soul. This means that the believer's love for God varies according to the amount of doctrine he has in his soul. The super-grace believer loves God, as per Romans 8:28; Ephesians 3:19; 1John 4:19. God expresses, therefore, His love to all members of the family of God in one of two ways. To the super-grace believer he expresses His love through blessing; to the reversionistic believer He expresses His love through divine discipline: "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."

7. The role of happiness in super-grace. The key to super-grace is happiness or sharing in God's happiness in time. God has found a way through grace to share with us His +H which takes the place of -H and neutral H. Happiness has many manifestations in the +H spectrum. The same doctrine which provides +H also is the doctrine that provides the super-grace life because the top floor of the ECS is +H and that is the point at which we enter into super-grace, as per Philippians 4:4; 1Thessalonians 5:16. The fulfillment of +H through the intake of Bible doctrine and the entrance into the super-grace life is covered in 1John 1:4.

8. The reality of the celebrityship of Jesus Christ. In the super-grace life occupation with Christ or maximum category #1 love is the first and most important characteristic of this status. Therefore the super-grace believer has maximum love for and appreciation of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as per Lamentations 3:22-25; Hebrews 12:2; Colossians 3:1,2. Our test of this comes at the communion table.

9. The areas of super-grace activity. In the function of our freedom and privacy — Romans 8:21; 2Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:1; James 1:25-2:12; in the field of living — 1Samuel 17:47; 18:5,14; in the field of love: category #1 love — Deuteronomy 6:6; 30:20; Joshua 23:10,11; 1John 2:5; 4:19; category #2 love — Song of Solomon 8:6,7; category #3 love — 2Samuel 1:26. We also have super-grace capacity in the field of happiness — Psalm 9:1,2; 21:1; 31:7; 43:4; 97:12; John 17:13; 1John 1:4. In the field of suffering — 2Corinthians 12:7-10.

"therefore" — the inferential particle o)un denotes what is introduced as a result of a preceding paragraph. What precedes is Ephesians chapter four where we had a dissertation on the royal family of God. The inference from the previous chapter is that the believer has now recovered from reversionism and reached the super-grace status. Therefore he is ready for the commands or the imperatives of the super-grace life. So here we have the first imperative, "Become therefore [in view of the previous chapter]."

"followers" is not correctly translated. It is a predicate nominative plural from the Greek word mimhthj which actually means an imitator. This noun demands recognition of the fact that all believers are members of the royal family of God in this dispensation, and because of this our objective must be the super-grace life for this is the only place in which the royal family can imitate the basis for our royalty. Of the five things that God the Holy Spirit did at salvation one of them is baptism of the Holy Spirit whereby the Holy Spirit takes us at the moment of salvation and enters us into union with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and this is our position in Christ. Because we are in union with Christ we share His life, eternal life; we share His righteousness, +R; we share His priesthood, we share His Sonship, His heirship, His destiny; His election. We also share His royalty. We are royal family. Christ is King of kings, we are in union with Christ, therefore we are different from all members of the family of God in the past.

We now have a command to "Become therefore imitators of your God," literally. This means that the super-grace believer fulfills the commands of nobility of life, nobility of soul, the poise, the dignity, consistency, the stability of life tat has always characterised true nobility. Let's face it, you are nobility. But if you are nobility in reversionism then you act as the most common type of a person and this is dishonouring to the Lord.

"of God" — tou qeou. The use of the definite article is entirely different from the use of the definite article in English. We use the definite article to emphasise. In all of the original Indo-European languages based on Sanskrit the absence of the definite article emphasised the quality of the person or thing in the noun. The adding of the definite article to the highest quality noun — like qeoj for "God" — indicates that the definite article is not a definite article but, as is often the case, the definite article was used for some sort of a pronoun. It could be a demonstrative pronoun or a possessive pronoun. Here it is a possessive pronoun and this is a standard Attic Greek characteristic which is carried over into the Koine Greek. So this is called a substantive use of the article, and there are numerous examples in both Classical Greek, rarer examples in the New Testament. Here it should be translated as a possessive pronoun in the second person plural, to whom everyone is being addressed here, you take that from the imperative in the verb. Literally, "Become therefore imitators of your God." "Your God" refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. The command to imitate Jesus Christ involves those principles of experiential sanctification, namely, the filling of the Spirit, the daily function of GAP, the inevitable result of these things in the attainment of tactical victory — the super-grace life.

The principle of imitating "your God"

1. Jesus Christ our God is in hypostatic union. The essence of His deity cannot be imitated. It is blasphemous and unthinkable that a human being with an old sin nature could even approximate imitating God. Furthermore, it is inscrutable as well as impossible for anyone to even come within a billion miles of the sovereignty, righteousness, justice, love, eternal, life, or any of the other attributes of God. So when we are commanded to imitate God we are not commanded to imitate the deity "of your God." Your God refers to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is true deity but He is also true humanity in one person forever. Therefore it is the humanity of Christ that we are commanded to imitate. When the definite article in verse 1 is a possessive pronoun it can only refer to the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As true humanity Christ was sinless and impeccable, and this we cannot imitate because we possess and old sin nature and we do sin. Therefore the imitation of Jesus Christ must be limited to His humanity and it must be limited to something we can do, not something we cannot do.

2. The humanity of Christ was constantly filled with the Holy Spirit and sustained by the indwelling third person of the Trinity. When the believer is filled with the Spirit, therefore, he becomes the imitator of Jesus Christ. The principle of imitating Christ is related to a secondary command, "Be filled with the Spirit" or "Walk in the Spirit."

3. A second thing is noted about the humanity of Christ which we can emulate and imitate. Jesus Christ GAPed it to the super-grace life, according to Luke 2:40,52. Therefore in imitating "your God," Jesus Christ, you are commanded in effect to close in on the super-grace life.

4. Believers of the Church Age are members of the royal family of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Therefore we should bear family resemblance of nobility, as per Ephesians 5:1.

The doctrine of the royal family

1. Definition. All believers of the Church Age belong to a unique system of royalty. This royalty is based upon the spiritual principle of doctrine and, again, while regeneration occurs in every dispensation as the salvation ministry of the Holy Spirit it is only the regenerate of the Church Age who form this royalty.

2. The basis of royalty in the Church Age. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the basis of royalty. No believer before the Church Age and no believer after the Church Age receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is unique, it belongs to this dispensation only. In every dispensation the believer is regenerated by the Holy Spirit at the moment he believes in Christ, but in the Church Age the Holy Spirit also baptises into the body of Christ making each one of us royalty forever.

3. The precedent for royalty is found in the order of battalion of Melchizedek which provides both pattern and precedent. However, it should be noted that Melchizedek acquired his royalty by becoming king of Salem whereas Jesus Christ was born royalty in the line of David. The royalty of the Church Age believer comes at regeneration through the baptism of the Spirit and the precedent is the order of Melchizedek.

4. The relationship to the King.

a) While Jesus Christ was alone on the cross God the Father has provided for Him a body and a bride.

b) Through the baptism of the Spirit every believer is entered into union with Christ.

c) On earth, therefore, the believers are known as the body of Christ.

d) Being the body of Christ makes every believer of the Church Age personally related to the King of kings.

e) Positional sanctification places every believer in the palace.

f) When the body of Christ is completed on earth the Church Age terminates with the Rapture or the resurrection of the Church.

g) At the Rapture the body of Christ becomes the bride of Christ.

h) During the Tribulation the bride is prepared for operation footstool, the second phase of the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus.

5. The sign of royalty is the unprecedented universal indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit indwells every believer as the sign of royalty. Never before in history has the third person of the Trinity indwelt every believer,. The purpose of this indwelling is to glorify Jesus Christ — John 7:37-39.

6. The security of royalty. Both the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit as well as positional sanctification provide eternal security for the royal family.

7. The function of royalty is twofold. First, moving toward the objective of the super-grace life in which the believer receives the accouterments of royalty as well as the tactical victory of the angelic conflict. Secondly, the function of royalty is the modus operandi of the priesthood.

8. The teacher of royalty. As a member of the body of Christ and the royal priesthood all Church Age believers will return with Christ at the second advent to participate in operation footstool. Operation footstool includes the overthrow of Satan as the ruler of this world. He is replaced by the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler. After the Millennium the royal family will be with Christ forever in the new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem. So it is a permanent status.

Next we come to a comparative particle o(j translated "as." Actually, this is a relative adverb derived from the relative pronoun. It introduces a true analogy. We are members of the royal family of God, therefore we should imitate our God. Royalty must imitate royalty.

"dear" is one of the mistranslated words. This is a verbal adjective from the nominative plural of a)gaphtoj which means "beloved." This means we are the objects of a perfect maximum love from the time we are saved and forever. Whether we are spiritual or carnal, whether we are babies, adolescent, mature or reversionists God found a way to love us without compromising His character, and this is called propitiation. A)gaphtoj or "Beloved" was originally a title for the Lord Jesus Christ as the object of the Father's love — Ephesians 1:6; 2Peter 1:17. But because of positional truth it becomes a title for every member of the royal family of God in the Church Age. So it is also used for each one of us — 2Corinthians 7:1; Hebrews 6:9; 2Peter 3:1,8,14,17; 1John 3:1,2; 4:1,7,11.

"children" — the nominative plural of teknon. It emphasises children in the sense of people being under authority. It was used for the relationship of parents to children, children under the authority of parents. It also has the connotation of our royal posterity. Our royalty comes from our God, Jesus Christ, we are in union with Him. Therefore we must become imitators of our God, Jesus Christ. Again, this is accomplished by the filling of the Spirit, GAPing it to super-grace.

Translation: "Become therefore imitators of your God [Jesus Christ], as beloved posterity [members of the royal family of God]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #71

71 01/23/1974 Ephesians 5:2 Docs/propitiation, Christ's love for us. No right to oppose government through revolutionary activities

Verse 2 — a second imperative. "And" is the connective use of the conjunction kai indicating that these imperatives are related. The first command deals with doctrine in the soul — the only way we can become imitators of Christ — while the second command is an application of doctrine from the soul.

"walk" — present active imperative of peripatew. Walking obviously means to take one step at a time and is therefore for the modus operandi for the royal family, as well as in many cases simply for all believer priests, regardless of their status. The present tense is an iterative present tense which means that this walking recurs at successive intervals or is conceived of as being in successive periods of time. It is called the present tense of repeated action and refers primarily to the filling of the Holy Spirit, and it goes with the command of verse 18. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb by means of the filling of the Spirit. This is an imperative of command, a command given to all members of the royal family of God.

The sphere of walking is said to be "in love" — e)n plus the locative of a)gaph. The filling of the Spirit produces a)gaph type love, as per Romans 5:5; Galatians 5:22; and the entire chapter 13 of 1Corinthians is talking about the filling of the Spirit producing this love. A)gaph type love is strictly a mental attitude, the repercussion of which are many. But a)gaph type love means a complete absence of mental attitude sins — no jealousy, no bitterness, no vindictiveness, etc. The principle of loving the brethren is only found in this area. The love which is commanded by God for us as members of the royal family is a love which is impossible to fulfil in the energy of the flesh. A)gaph love is a mental attitude which is characterised by the filling of the Spirit. The repercussions of a)gaph love are described under the word "charity" in 1Corinthians 13, but in this passage a)gaph love is simply that relaxed mental attitude that comes from the filling of the Spirit and becomes consistent with the intake of Bible doctrine in the daily function of GAP.

So literally, "And be walking in the sphere of love."

This means three things: a) Walking in the sphere of love represents the doctrine of spirituality and the normal function of the super-grace life. Walking in the sphere of love can be accomplished by three categories of believers. It is possible for a spiritual baby to be filled with the Spirit and to manifest this love, however it is still the love of a baby believer. It is possible for an adolescent to be filled with the Spirit and produce this love. But this love reaches its maximum peak of effectiveness under the filling of the Spirit when the believer is mature. The mature believer logs more time in the filling of the Spirit and therefore this becomes more meaningful as the believer reaches the super-grace life and as he is occupied with Christ which is maximum category #1 love. b) Walking in love represents the filling of the Spirit, as per Romans 5:5; Galatians 5:22. But in 1John 2:5 this same a)gaph love represents not the filling of the Spirit but the construction of the ECS. c) Walking in love is the third floor of the ECS, namely that relaxed mental attitude. The context in verse 18 indicates that walking in the sphere of love here refers primarily to the filling of the Spirit.

Now we have an illustration, the adverb comparison kaqoj, translated "just as," after which we have the perfect illustration of relaxed mental attitude love. The illustration is described in the Greek as o( Xrisotj, "the Christ." Again, the definite article can also be used for a possessive pronoun and this could be translated "your Christ." It is addressed to believers and each one of us personally possesses the Lord Jesus Christ.

Next comes the adjunctive use of kai — "just as your Christ also."

"hath loved" is the aorist active indicative of the verb a)gapaw. This is the verb that goes with the noun. A)gaph is the cognate of a)gapaw. The aorist tense here is a dramatic aorist. This is an idiom in the Greek to state a present reality with the certitude of a past event. The idiom is a device for emphasis, it is used for the statement of a doctrine or a principle which has been taught or realised. Apparently the congregation in Ephesus had come to realise this principle, that Christ loved them. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb toward each member of the royal family of God. The indicative mood is a declarative indicative for a dogmatic assertion.

"us" is the accusative plural from the second person pronoun su, it should be translated "you." It is the accusative of direct object of the verb and refers to all members of the royal family. It is very personal. In the hypostatic union there are two categories of loved involved. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, as a royal priesthood, we have to become aware of the fact that Christ loves us. Even though we are aware of it at the point of salvation this isn't enough. We first become aware of the love of Christ on the cross from the standpoint of His humanity, but Christ is also God. As God His love is without compromise when it is directed toward us because of propitiation, but at the same time He is true humanity. He has a body, a soul, and a human spirit. He is in hypostatic union, He is the God-Man. So in the hypostatic union there are two categories of love involved when it says that Christ loves us. His love stems from two sources, separate and yet part of the same person. His divine love, therefore, is timeless; it is a part of His essence. But His human love stems from the filling of the Holy Spirit, from the fact that Jesus Christ constructed an ECS early in the period of His incarnation, and the fact that Jesus Christ very quickly arrived at the point of super-grace status so that the love that He bears from His humanity is very strong. United with His deity it becomes the strongest love in all of the universe. The principle of Christ's love for us therefore demands some analysis.

Christ's love for us

1. A person's love for another person is no stronger than the character of the person who initiates the love. In other words, when someone says "I love you" it is just as strong as that person is. If the person is weak you have nothing. Love is no stronger than the person who declares it.

2. The character of Jesus Christ is both perfect and impeccable. Therefore Christ has perfect love. When Christ loves someone that love is perfect because the one who declares it is perfect.

3. The perfection of Christ's love cannot be matched by the believer (No one loves Jesus Christ without Bible doctrine in his soul), therefore we cannot return to Him perfect love. We are imperfect, we cannot love perfectly. Consequently, His love for us does not depend upon our love for Him.

4. Therefore the love of Christ does not depend on us but it does depend on who and what Christ is.

5. Therefore the love of Christ expresses itself for us always through the principle of grace. We do not earn, deserve, or work for it. Someone has worked for it, however, and that takes us right back to propitiation.

6. Consequently, Christ must provide a way for the believer to respond to the perfect love He has initiated from His perfect character.

7. Doctrine is the mind of Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16. Doctrine has been provided for the believer as the means of responding to the love of Christ and to fulfil the principle of 1John 4:19. "We love him because he first loved us."

8. But doctrine must be in the soul of the believer before the believer can respond and initiate love toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

9. We cannot love Christ unless we know Christ. We cannot know Christ apart from Bible doctrine in the soul. Therefore our most important function under the royal priesthood is the daily function of GAP.

"and hath given" — the connective use of the conjunction kai is correctly translated "and." But "hath given" is incorrect. The verb to give is didomi but that isn't the verb we have here, we have paradidomi which means to betray, to deliver over or to deliver up. The verb actually emphasises the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ in eternity past and the human volition of the incarnate Christ in time — "and has delivered up himself ." The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The verb gathers into one whole the work of Christ on the cross. The active voice: Christ produced the action of the verb by delivering up Himself to the cross. He made the decision in eternity past, that was the sovereignty of His deity. He made the decision in time — "Father if it be thy will let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but thine be done." The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic assertion.

"himself" is the accusative singular direct object of the reflexive pronoun e(autou. "And has delivered himself up," not given, it was more than that. He betrayed or delivered Himself up. It has to be paradidomi rather than didomi because the Lord Jesus Christ was perfect in His deity, could not have any contact with sin His deity. He was also perfect and impeccable in His humanity and therefore sin was totally repugnant to Him, so that in His humanity He wanted to say, as it were, No, I don't want to have anything to do with sin. And yet, because of us, He betrayed or delivered up Himself to the cross for us, not for Himself. The benefit comes to us as He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

"for us" — the preposition u(per plus the ablative plural of e)gw means "on behalf of." It is substitutionary. This prepositional phrase connotes expiatory substitution.

"an offering" — the accusative singular from prosfora refers to the Levitical offerings; "and a sacrifice" — kai plus the accusative of qusia. Qusia means a sacrifice where blood is shed to kill it. It comes from the Greek verb quw which means to kill an animal in sacrifice with a knife, or to kill a sacrifice.

"to God" — literally, "to the God." The dative singular of qeoj plus the definite article. This is the dative of indirect object indicating the one for whom the sacrifice is performed (God the Father in this case). It represents Jesus Christ and His work, it is performed for God the Father in order that He might express propitiation in the ritual before the historic cross occurred. It should be translated "an offering and a sacrifice to the God."

The five Levitical offerings all portray some aspect of the cross. They are mentioned in these two noun, prosfora and qusia. First of all there are salvation offerings — the first three Levitical offerings. The burnt offering represents the work of Christ on the cross from the standpoint of propitiation, whereas the meal or the food offering depicts propitiation from the standpoint of the person of Christ. The burnt offering and the meal offering go together, both speak of the doctrine of propitiation. The third offering is the peace offering which is the doctrine of reconciliation. The fourth is the trespass offering, rebound emphasising the known sins of the believer. Together we have a picture of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

"for a sweetsmelling savour" — this is a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of o)smh. E)ij plus the accusative means "for." However o)smh means "fragrance." And then we have something to describe this fragrance, a descriptive genitive e)uwdia. So literally we have, "for an odour of fragrance." This is the concept of propitiation. God the Father is satisfied with the work of the Son. So the death of Christ on the cross bearing our sins and taking our place is an odour of fragrance to God the Father.

Translation: "And be walking in the sphere of love, just as the Christ also has loved all of you, and has delivered up himself on behalf of you and offering and a sacrifice to the God for the purpose of a fragrant aroma."

The fragrant aroma is propitiation.

The principle of imitating God

1. Jesus Christ our God is in hypostatic union. The essence of His deity cannot be imitated, such a thought is blasphemous. But He is also true humanity, and as true humanity Christ was sinless and impeccable. Neither can we imitate His impeccability or His sinless state. The only way in which we can imitate the Lord Jesus Christ is limited to Bible doctrine. As Jesus Christ took doctrine in His soul, so can we. As He erected an ECS, so can we. As the Lord Jesus Christ became super-grace status in His humanity, so can we.

2. The humanity of Christ was constantly filled with the Holy Spirit and unstained by the indwelling third person of the Trinity. When the believer is filled with the Spirit He becomes an imitator of Jesus Christ — Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 4:19; 5:22,23; 2Corinthians 3:3.

3. Jesus Christ GAPed it to the super-grace life, according to Luke 2:40,52. The believer is commanded to imitate Jesus Christ, therefore also GAPing it to super-grace.

4. Believers of the Church Age are members of the royal family of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Therefore we should bear the family resemblance of nobility. This principle is emphasised in the closing statement of Ephesians 5:1.

The next three verses indicate that reversion and carnality are not a part of God's plan. Therefore, any time that we log in carnality is not in the plan of God and any time that we log in reversionism is not the plan of God — verses 3-5. The type of reversionism and the type of carnality most common in Ephesus is phallic reversionism and this becomes the background for this next passage. Remember that "fragrant aroma" describes what Jesus Christ did for us. Fragrant aroma becomes the sign of the royal family, the believer in this dispensation.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #72

72 01/24/1974 Ephesians 5:3 Doc/adultery; review lessons 70 and 71; dating

Verse 3 — "But" is the adversative particle de. It is used to epmphasise a strong contrast between the fragrant aroma of Jesus Christ and the stench of the old sin nature and the believer's negative volition. We have a strong contrast between the impeccable life of Christ and the carnal and reversionistic failure of believers in phase two. We go from the perfection of Christ and what He has done to the failure of the royal family and how we have failed. Obviously adultery isn't going to catch all of us, so remember there is a principle here.

"fornication" — porneia means normal illicit sex, sex between a man and a woman in contrast to perverted illicit sex.

"and all uncleanness" — a)kaqarsia refers to abnormal sex. The word first came into the Greek language meaning "refuse, dirt, impurity," and in a broader sense it came to refer to the defilement of the soul, and in the narrower sense it refers to sexual profligacy. The noun also connotes the cultic impurities of the Old Testament Mosaic law. The Hebrew equivalent is tame. For example, certain things made the Jews ceremonially impure. There were impure objects — Leviticus 7:21. Touching an impure animal — Leviticus 11:1ff. You could be in an impure place — Leviticus 14:40,45. You could have contact with impure people, like lepers — Leviticus 13:11,46. You could be in the presence of a woman after childbirth — Leviticus 12:5. You could touch a corpse — Numbers 9:6. This was all considered to be ceremonial impurity, ceremonial uncleanness. However, when this word comes to the apostle Paul a)kaqarsia is changed from its Judaistic connotation and instead of ritual or ceremonial impurity it refers to illicit abnormal sex in contrast to porneia which means normal adultery — fornication with a member of the opposite sex. A)kaqarsia refers to abnormal fornication, such as homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, incest, bestiality, etc. "But fornication [normal illicit sex] and all [uncleanness] abnormal illicit sex."

"or covetousness" — pleonecia. In its basic concept this word means striving for either materialistic things or striving for the object of one's sexual lust. This is how the word comes to mean frantic search for happiness. The manner in which pleonecia is fulfilled is how it often gets its translation. It can be dishonesty in business, or frantic search for happiness in sex, or any frantic search for happiness. While greed or covetousness is often used as the translation for this noun it is totally inadequate in view of the technicalities related to this word. Basically, the noun means an evil impulse leading to an evil deed, or a strong lust leading to the attempt to gratify this lust and calling it happiness. In other words, pleonecia means a strong lust plus the attempted gratification of that lust equals happiness. Therefore it comes to mean a frantic search for happiness. If the evil deed is dishonesty the word "greed" is used as the translation in the context. If the evil deed is illicit sex then "lust" or "covetousness" is used for its translation. Actually, all of the translations miss the principle whatever the context. There are many, many types of frantic search for happiness. Everyone at some time will be tempted in their own area of the frantic search for happiness. This is not limited to illicit sex.

The doctrine of adultery

1. Definition. Porneia, a)kaqarsia, and other words for adultery are used in the sense of any sexual activity outside of divine institution #2, i.e. marriage. Sex is designed, of course, by God for right man, right woman relationship only. This marriage relationship protects the right man and the right woman. But it must be remembered that sex is not love, sex when properly used is an expression of category #2 love relationship. Adultery may be categorised as fornication, seduction of a member of the opposite sex, or it may be categorised as abnormal as previously noted.

2. The Bible prohibits adultery. It is prohibited in the Mosaic law — Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18. It is prohibited in the New Testament — 1Corinthians 6:18; Acts 15:20; Colossians 3:5; 1Thessalonians 4:3. Incidentally, mental adultery is prohibited — Matthew 5:27,28. Incest is forbidden — Leviticus 18:6ff; 20:14; 1Corinthians 5:1-7; Deuteronomy 27:20. Homosexuality is forbidden — Leviticus 18:22; 20:13. Bestiality is also forbidden — Leviticus 18:23;20:15; Deuteronomy 27:21.

3. There are two passages which indicate the reversionistic destruction of the soul through adultery as a frantic search for happiness. The reversionistic destruction of the soul comes from the wrong attitude toward Bible doctrine resulting in setting up in the soul reactor factors of one kind or another. The reactor factors always begin with something like negative volition toward any authority of any kind. Boredom or disillusion or discouragement, frustration, are all intensified by mental attitude sins such as bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, pride, hatred, and so on. These are the reactor factors that start because a believer is out of sorts with regard to the Word of God. In other words, he has the beginning of his negative volition. Reactor factors under the activity of the old sin nature always lead to a frantic search for happiness. The one in this context is adultery, there are many other types. There are even trends. The frantic search for happiness, once begun, intensifies whatever reactor factors were involved here. The three stages — reaction, frantic search for happiness, intensification — are already based upon apathy and indifference to the Word of God. But now comes the strong negative volition, the total antagonism or total apathy, or total rejection of the authority of the pastor, or conflict with someone in the congregation. Whatever it may be, all of these things start the next phase of the destruction of the soul which is the confirming of negative volition toward doctrine. This negative volition automatically starts the opening of the mataiothj, the vacuum, through which come the doctrine of demons of 1Timothy 4:1. And as this sort of information comes into the left lobe the believer is now under the influence of doctrine of demons. This is called demon influence in contrast to demon possession. No believer can be demon possessed, believers can only be under demon influence. Demon influence makes a patriot into a traitor, a conservative into a liberal, etc. All of the demon influence concepts cause the person to take in the doctrine of demons, and this is called "darkness." This is blackout of the soul. It causes hardness of heart or scar tissue on the right lobe. This leads to the practice of reverse process reversionism. All of these stages are destructive to the soul.

There are two verses that relate these to adultery as a frantic search for happiness — Proverbs 6:21; Ephesians 4:19.

4. Self-betrayal and self-destruction also exist in the field of fornication. Spiritual destruction is brought out by pleonecia which is insatiability toward things called greed, insatiability in the field of sex called fornication, frantic search for happiness in the field of phallic reversionism. The physical destruction of the body is also mentioned in 1Corinthians 6:13-18. In other words, promiscuity does have a destructive effect on both the male and the female body.

5. The sanctification of category #2 love is marriage — 1Thessalonians 4:3,4; Hebrews 13:4.

6. The glory of category #2 love is described in spiritual analogy — 1Corinthians 11:7. The right woman is the glory of the right man. The sign that she has her right man is her long hair.

7. Adultery is a bona fide basis for divorce — Matthew 5:32; 19:9; Luke 16:18. The resultant blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, frantic search for happiness, intensified reversionism, destroys rapport between husband and wife. All types of compatibility have been destroyed by adultery. In Deuteronomy 24:4 the principle of interim sex destroys soul love and sex capacity, and you can never remarry a man and a woman who are divorced when one of them has had sex in between. The interim sex destroys the relationship.

8. Adultery and fornication is often used in the Bible to describe apostasy or reversionism — Jeremiah 3:8-10; Ezekiel 16:23-43; 23:24-28; Revelation 17:1-5.

9. The application of category #2 love to the single person.

a) The right man and right woman were designed by God in eternity past. Therefore there exists for you an opposite number by divine design.

b) The exception to this is the rare case of celibacy or the law of supreme sacrifice designed by God for maximum concentration and production — like the apostle Paul, 1Corinthians 9:5; like Jeremiah, Jeremiah 16:2.

c) Every believer will eventually come into contact or meet his/her right man or right woman. If you come together on God's timing it is going to work out beautifully. God has perfect timing.

d) However, there is no benefit in meeting your opposite number unless you have capacity for life based on Bible doctrine, unless you have waited on the Lord in faithfulness to this principle. This principle means the avoidance of fornication. It also means the function of GAP which is extremely important.

e) Therefore, your life and conduct must be based on the doctrinal principle that there exists on the earth your right man or right woman designed by God and no other person will do.

f) Fornication or adultery is accepting a cheap substitute in order to gratify a biological or emotional urge, or to enter into a frantic search for happiness at stage three of reversionism.

g) Divine viewpoint plus faith-rest say "Flee fornication." Super-grace, the ECS, and growth under GAP reject the principle of frantic search for happiness through fornication, or even being a holy roller.

h) Fornication builds scar tissue on the soul, destroys the design of the body and organs related to sex, as well as spirituality. Fornication, therefore, is the enemy of right man, right woman relationship. It is therefore prohibited in Ephesians 5:3 in the strongest terms.

i) Doctrine in the soul is capacity for category #2 love. The greatest preparation for your right man or right woman is GAPing it consistently.

j) Super-grace status gives maximum capacity to express love in sex.

"let it not once be named" — we have here a negative disjunctive particle mhde. This should not be translated "let it not," it should be translated "should not." Then we have a present passive imperative from the verb o)nomazw. It means to mention something — "should not even be mentioned." The present tense is a customary present, and plus the negative indicates that it should not habitually occur. The passive voice: members of the royal family receive the action of the verb. O)nomzw can be translated "Named" or "mentioned" but what it really means is "think." You have never mentioned anything without thinking it. All verbal language is based upon thought in the soul. The whole point is, don't even in your soul tempt yourself with this type of thing. The passive voice: this refers to all members of the royal family. The imperative mood is not the imperative of command but the imperative of prohibition. In effect, this is a prohibition of phallic reversionism and it has to do with thinking rather than speaking.

"among you" is e)n plus the locative plural of the second person pronoun su. It should be translated "among you all."

"as" is the adverb of comparison kaqoj; "becometh" is the present active indicative of prepw which means to be fitting, to be suitable, to be proper, to be compatible with one's status. There are certain things that you do not do, not because they are wrong but because they are incompatible with your status. "Proper" here is a good translation if you understand that it means compatible with your status.

"saints" — dative plural of a(gioj. This means royal family. All "saint" means is set apart. The Church Age is the set apart age, the royal family age. Therefore, all the commands that are given are related to your royalty.

Translation: "But fornication [normal illicit sex], and all uncleanness [abnormal illicit sex], or any frantic search for happiness, should not even be mentioned among you, as is proper with reference to royal family [saints]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #73

73 01/25/1974 Ephesians 5:4–5a Sexual conduct while dating; doctrine of the phallic cult

Verse 4 — "Neither filthiness" is the connective use of the conjunction kai plus a word that only occurs here, e)ij plus a)isxrothj. The reason it only occurs once is because it is a vulgar word. It was a gutter word from Attic Greek and it is a word for fellatio. "Filthiness" is simply a euphemism to obscure the fact that a)isxrothj refers to general areas of sexual activity which were common in the phallic cult in Ephesus. It indicates, in this particular case being outside of the marital bonds and being accomplished in the temple of Aphrodite, any type of sex other than what you usually think of as sex, any of the abnormal areas. Here it indicates the fact that there should never be abnormal attentions to your date while dating. This word in itself actually sets up a prohibition for these things and it indicates the fact that if a single male is dating someone you have a responsibility to your date. Arousal is not a part of the date. All this is doing is to indicate many of the different things by which any female can be aroused because the average woman to the highly above average has enough erogenous zones where she can be attacked from a thousand different ways and therefore aroused. The Greek word was also used for someone who was deformed, and this is how it had its origin — a deformed person who could not have normal sex and therefore had to have sex in some other way. So the word is a "dirty" word, but actually it is a communicative word. It indicates the fact that every man on a date has a responsibility to his date. So we translate, "And vulgar [common] arousal."

"nor foolish talking" — mwrologia [mwro = fool]. However, the meaning of a word is determined by its usage, and mwrologia actually means words which are used for sexual arousal as over against the previous word which is techniques of sexual arousal. This is using words for the same thing. The whole thing here is forbidding sexual arousal of your date.

"nor jesting" — e)utrapelia is an Attic noun and it is based on a verb which is very similar: e)utrapeleuomai which meant originally to have ready wit, to have excellent repartee. But eventually the word changed and it came to be used in a bad sense of being tricky, dishonest, a flatterer, or what might be commonly called a teaser, which is exactly the way it is used here. This has to do primarily with the woman. She is not to be a teaser. It means a woman should not be a flirt.

Principles

On a date the male member of the royal family is the guardian of the woman's soul for the duration of that date. You attack the soul through the body of a woman. But a woman responds in her body when the right man comes into her soul. When the wrong man comes along and attacks the woman through her body, this attacks her soul. It is the soul that is attacked when the woman responds and becomes promiscuous. But when the right man comes along he gets into the soul of the woman and then she of her own volition gives her body to her right man. Therefore, on a date the male is the guardian of the woman's soul. On a date the man becomes the custodian of the woman's body. On a date he does not know whose right woman she really is. Therefore it must always be assumed at the beginning that on a date you are dating someone else's right woman. You guard her soul and body just as you hope someone else is guarding the soul and body of your right woman wherever she is. This is the basic principle of dating in the royal family. The man must always protect the woman from himself and herself, and in this the woman must cooperate — no teasing.

"which are not convenient" — "which" is a nominative neuter plural from the relative pronoun o(j and is correctly translated "which" to bring out the neuter. The neuter also can be translated "which things." Plus the perfect active indicative of the verb a)nhkw. The word means to do one's duty. Here it is in the negative and should be translated "which is not one's duty [responsibility]." "Both tactile passes or verbal passes or teasing which is not one's duty." The perfect tense means that it is not your duty now and never will be, except in right man, right woman. The active voice: this is the action you must take. The indicative mood is declarative, an absolute statement.

"but rather" — the adversative conjunction a)lla sets up a contrast to what precedes; plus the comparative adverb mallon which means to a greater degree.

"the giving of thanks" — after all that, on the contrast side we simply have giving of thanks. But it is not quite that simple. The noun is e)uxaristia which refers to the communion table. It means thankfulness toward the Lord or occupation with the person of Christ. Thankfulness toward the Lord for whatever He gives you, occupation with the person of Christ for whatever He has provided. Today He provides a date, tomorrow a date, the next day something else. Eventually right woman or right man, whichever the case may be. E)uxaristia is used for the ritual of the Lord's supper and this is why the Lord's supper is biblically called the Eucharist. It means gratitude in the sense of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

Translation: "Both tactile passes and verbal passes or teasing which is not one's duty: but rather to an greater degree gratitude in the sense of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ."

Verse 5 — pimps and principle. So far in this paragraph, verses 3-5, we have various aspects of phallic reversionism and the point is that phallic reversionism is not a part of the plan of God. Therefore, the royal family is presented with a series of prohibitions. In the time in which this was written we have the phallic cult and idolatry as inseparably united as the religion of the ancient world.

The phallic cult

1. The best attested operation of the phallic cult in the ancient world is that of the Canaanites who lived in the land before the Jews did.

2. The immorality of the phallic cult is described in detail in Leviticus 18:3-25 in which all types of sexual sins are all described. And with these the height of these things is a human sacrifice — Leviticus 20:1-5. All human sacrifice in history has been related to the phallic cult.

3. In Deuteronomy 12:29-31 the phallic cult includes fornication, homosexuality, bestiality, and incest.

4. Behind all of this sexual activity as a part of their worship is an actual system of doctrine — false doctrine, doctrine of demons. The Canaanitish pantheon is like the Hellenistic pantheon. It has a supreme being. The Canaanites called their supreme being El. The Greeks called theirs Zeus. The Romans called Zeus "Jupiter." But whether it is any of these you have at the top a supreme being, and he was always the greatest of all sex athletes. He is always portrayed as seducing goddesses in heaven, women in the human race.

5. In the pantheon of the phallic cult the supreme being always has a wife. The wife of El is called Ashera; Zeus has a wife called Hera, and so on.

6. El and his wife have a son called Baal. He becomes a counterfeit of Jesus Christ, just as Apollos is the son of Zeus and becomes a counterfeit of Jesus Christ. Baal provides rain for the crops — blessing in the economy of the ancient world; fertility for procreation — social-sexual happiness implied.

7. In the Epic of Eugarit we have the story which is repeated in all of the phallic cult systems of all the people of the ancient world. Baal and Mot are great enemies. Mot is the god of death and there is a fight between Baal and Mot. In this great struggle between the two, since Mot is the god of death, Mot overcomes Baal and kills him. This explains the long, hot summer. Every year when summer comes around it is hot because Baal is dead. This is a counterfeit of Christ on the cross.

8. But Baal has a wife-sister. She is always his wife, always his sister, and it is always incest. Ball's wife is called Aneth. She finds the body of Baal and brings him back to life — a counterfeit resurrection.

9. Aneth is the goddess of sex, warfare, murder and the prosperity in agriculture. In every phallic cult in every part of the world there is always an Aneth. When the Jews conquered the Canaanites on the battlefield the Canaanites later conquered the Jews in the area of the phallic cult. This is why we have so much information about the phallic cult in the Old Testament.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #74

74 01/27/1974 Ephesians 5:5b–7 Doctrine of idolatry

In verse 5 we go back to the phallic cult and we notice something. This verse condemns pimps in the function of the phallic cult. Pimps were recruiters for the male and female prostitutes of the temples. There were many types of pimp at the time Ephesians 5 was written. Ephesus was filled with pimps. They were well known to the Christian to whom Ephesians was addressed.

"For this" — touto gar. This is the explanatory use of the conjunctive particle gar plus the nominative neuter singular of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. When these are put together in idiom it means "for this principle." It always refers to some principle near at hand, such as we have had in the previous verse.

"you know" — second person plural, which means all members of the royal family to whom this was addressed, present active indicative of o)ida, to have inherent knowledge of these things, to grow up knowing these things. However, added to the Greek text we have another word — ginwskonthj which is the present active participle of ginwskw. So we have two words for "knowing." Only one is translated. The present tense of ginwskw is a tendencial present which may be used to represent a condition which is purposed but not actually taking place. It represents an intended idea but not a fulfilled idea. The active voice: all believers are members of the royal family of God and they should know this, whether they do or not. The participle is a conditional participle and therefore the whole thing should be translated, "For this principle you know if you are learning anything."

"no whoremonger" — the Attic Greek noun is pornoj. Originally this was a male prostitute. The female prostitute was called porneia which is simply the feminine form of the word. But pornoj eventually became a pimp rather than a prostitute. The same word is found in 1Corinthians 6:9; Galatians 5:19-21. With pornoj we have paj which means all or every. It should be translated "every pimp."

"nor unclean person" — a)kaqartoj refers to a person involved in abnormal sex.

"nor covetous man" — pleonekthj, "greedy." The principle here is a general one. Pimps were in it for the sex or for the money.

"who is an idolater" — this ties it up with the phallic cult.

So far we have in this verse, "For this principle you know, if you have learned anything, that every pimp either perverted or greedy who is an idolater." This relates phallic reversionism to religion. It was a religion in the ancient world.

"who" is a nominative singular of the relative pronoun o(j indicating that the pimp or the recruiter for these various temples fall into two categories, either perverted or greedy or both; "is" is the present active indicative of the word e)imi, absolute status quo verb.

"idolater" — the function of the phallic cult in the Roman world.

The doctrine of idolatry

1. Idolatry is forbidden by the Word of God — Exodus 20:3,23; 23:24; Deuteronomy 4:28; 5:7; 6:14; 7:16; 8:19. In the ten commandments the first commandment prohibits mental or soulish idolatry, the second commandment prohibits overt idolatry.

2. Idolatry is spiritual adultery, an attack upon category #1 love — Jeremiah 3:8-10; Ezekiel 16:23-43; 23:24-30; Revelation 17:1-5.

3. Idolatry of mind precedes idolatry of practice. In other words, mental idolatry occurs before overt idolatry — Judges 2:10-13; Ezekiel 14:7.

4. Idolatry is caused by rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ or negative volition toward doctrine in the believer. The principle with the unbeliever is found in Romans 1:18-25.

5. Demons function through idols and the practice of idolatry — Zechariah 10:2.

6. Idolatry is called the devil's communion table — 1Corinthians 10:19-21.

7. Since idolatry is related to the emotional revolt of the soul it often produces psychotic conditions like the phobias, the fear psychoses of Jeremiah 50:38.

8. Idolatry is related to sexual sins under the phallic cult — Ezekiel 22:3-18; 23:37-49. Consequently, idolatry has an adverse effect on both soul and body — 1 Corinthian 6:9.

9. Idolatry causes national judgement of the fifth cycle of discipline to a nation — Isaiah 2:8, 18-20; 21:9; 36:18-20; 37:12-19; Jeremiah 3:6-11; 2:27-30; 7:17-20; 17:1-4; Ezekiel 6:4-6.

"hath" — present active indicative of e)xw has with it a strong negative, o)uk. It should be translated "does not have." The present tense is a futuristic present used to denote an event which has not yet occurred but it regarded as so certain in thought that it may be contemplated as already coming to pass. The active voice: the idolatrous pimp involved in the phallic cult produces the action of the verb. Obviously these pimps are not believers, though they could be in some stages of reversionism, but they do line up with the demons in the phallic cult which is indicative of the fact that they are not saved here. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative.

"any" is not found in the original.

"inheritance" — the accusative of the direct object of the noun klhronomia — "does not have inheritance," used for being in the plan of God forever, for being saved.

"in the kingdom" — e)n plus the locative of basileia. This refers to being in an empire, to the nature and state of a king, and it is used generally in the Greek for royal rulership. Therefore it is translated "in the royal empire of Christ."

"of Christ" — genitive of possession. Every believer in the royal empire possesses Christ.

"and of God" — literally, "even of God."

Translation: "For this principle you know if you are learning anything, that every pimp, whether perverted or greedy, who is an idolater, does not have inheritance in the royal empire of Christ, even of God."

Summary

1. The plan of God as designed in eternity past under the doctrine of divine decrees does not call for carnality or reversionism. So whenever we are carnal or in some stage of reversionism while we are in the plan of God we are not functioning under the plan of God.

2. The illustration which best communicates the principle to the believers in Ephesus is the pimp involved in the phallic cult of Aphrodite in Ephesus.

3. To the Ephesian believer the pimp was the lowest form of human life, so this immediately caught his attention.

4. It is obvious to the Ephesians that the unbelieving pimp has no inheritance in the royal rulership of Christ.

5. But many of these Ephesian believers had succumbed to the panderings of the pimps involving themselves in either sexual carnality or in phallic reversionism.

6. This carnality, or in some cases reversionism, is no more of the plan of God for the believer than the function of the Ephesian pimps in the temple of Aphrodite.

7. Reversionism is not only loss of time assigned and allotted — Ephesians 5:15-18 — but is a function outside of the plan of God for any believer in phase two. So when the believer is out of fellowship he is in the plan of God but is functioning outside of the plan of God.

8. When a believer operates in carnality or reversionism he is functioning outside of the plan of God. He is in the plan of God but he is functioning outside of it.

9. Such function does not mean loss of salvation but it does mean failure to enjoy the blessings of his paragraph in the divine decrees. It means failure to attain the objective. The objective after salvation is to get to the super-grace life. There is only one way to reach super-grace and that is to take in doctrine consistently.

Verses 6 and 7, a warning against association with the reversionistic believer.

Verse 6 — "Let no man deceive you," present active imperative from the verb a)pataw. It means to seduce, to cheat, to mislead, to seduce into error and therefore to deceive by false teaching, to entice. With it is a compound particle, mhdeij. It is composed of two words meaning "not even one" or "no one." Literally, "Let no one deceive you." The present tense of this verb is iterative, used to describe what recurs at successive intervals. it is the present tense of repeated action. This means that into your life sooner or later is going to come something which is false, contrary to the teaching of the Word. If you are deceived by this then you are taken into reversionism. You are often deceived by association with the reversionist. He gives you a little human viewpoint, he says something that is not true but you buy it because of your association with him. Therefore you are led into reversionism not by the unbelieving pimp in the temple but by your "dear Christian friend" who is all mixed up with regard to Bible doctrine and is actually losing out in the Christian life. The active voice: the royal priest produces the action of the verb of not being deceived by this false teaching. The imperative mood is the imperative of prohibition used to express a negative command.

"you" — accusative plural direct object from the second person pronoun su, "you all." It refers to every member of the royal family of God, every believer who is a priest. It should be translated, "Let no one be deceiving you all."

"with vain words" — we have an instrumental plural of an adjective, kenoj, which means empty, without content, without truth, without power; plus the instrumental plural of the noun logoj for words or thoughts, thoughts expressed. Because both of these words are in the instrumental this should be translated "by means of empty words." Empty words are the means by which you in association with a reversionistic believer enter into reversionism yourself. So even empty words have power. They have the power to deceive you, to lead you astray. They have the power to present to you something that is attractive, and in effect your "dear Christian friends" who are in reversionism are compared now to the Ephesians pimps. They are pimps drawing you into false doctrine, drawing you into the various stages of reversionism.

"for" — the conjunctive particle gar expresses the reason for all of this; "because of these things" — dia plus the accusative plural of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. Because of these false doctrines, because of these false things.

"cometh" — the present active indicative of e)rxomai now makes a point of what these empty words do to the unbeliever. To the believer they merely seduce him into reversionism so that he is deprived of blessing in time, but to the unbeliever they deprive him of any chance of ever believing in Jesus Christ. The unbeliever is more taken with false doctrine, the false things of the doctrine of demons, than he is in the truth of the gospel. The present tense is a futuristic present denoting an event which has not yet occurred — the last judgement for the unbeliever — but it is regarded as very certain, it is going to happen, and therefore the present tense indicates it will come to pass. The active voice: the empty words in the soul of the unbeliever is the sign of his rejection of Jesus Christ. He is said to be the dog who returns to his vomit. The indicative mood is declarative indicating an absolute.

"the wrath of God" refers to the last judgement of Revelation 20:12-15. The word for "wrath" here or o)rgh.

"the children of disobedience" — the unbeliever has rejected propitiation. He is therefore going to be called a "child of disobedience [or unbelief]." Grace demands that God be consistent in His own essence or character. At the cross God the Father found a way to save all members of the human race. God cannot have fellowship with sinful man — Romans 3:23, that is from His righteousness. The wages of sin is death, that is from His justice. God cannot have fellowship with sinful man and yet the grace pipe extends to man. Grace is based on love plus giving eternal life to the one involved. The only way God can do it and be consistent with His righteousness and justice is the cross. When Christ was on the cross He was +R, satisfying the righteousness of the Father. He bore our sins, satisfying the justice of the Father. Now love and eternal life can come through the grace pipe by way of the cross. So it is "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."

These people have rejected the propitiatory work of Christ on the cross. Therefore the Father must now express His righteousness and justice. The Father's righteousness and justice are expressed at the great white throne. The unbeliever is resurrected. He has rejected Christ as saviour, therefore righteousness must express an attitude toward him. Justice must be expressed. The unbeliever cannot be judged for his sins, they were also judged on the cross. Human good was rejected. So the unbeliever's human good is brought up and analysed. it is minus R and minus R cannot have fellowship with plus R. Justice therefore demands that minus R and the person who possesses it go into the lake of fire forever because in effect they stand upon their human good. These are called here in Ephesians 5 the children of disobedience: the preposition e)pi plus the accusative plural of u(ioj, which is "on the sons." With it is a descriptive genitive to see what kind of sons are involved, the descriptive genitive of a)peiqeia which means disbelief or unbelief. It refers, therefore, to those who have rejected Christ as saviour. The rejection of Christ as saviour becomes the same as the fifth stage of reversionism for the believer. Negative volition toward the gospel opens the mataiothj through which doctrine of demons enters into the unbeliever and by which he becomes a reversionistic unbeliever.

Translation: "Let no one be seducing [deceiving] you by means of empty words [doctrines of demons]: for because of these things the wrath of the God is coming upon the sons of disbelief."

If reversionism brings the future wrath of God upon the unbeliever what will it do to the reversionistic believer, member of the royal family, in time. The answer is found in the fact that it will bring discipline from the Lord.

Verse 7 — "Be not" is the present active imperative of ginomai plus the negative mh. It means "Stop becoming." The present tense is a static present, it indicates a condition constantly existing. With the negative it indicates a condition which must be stopped. The active voice: the believers of Ephesus and those in the Roman province of Asia produce the action of the verb through the various stages of reversionism in which they find themselves at the time they receive this epistle. The imperative mood is negative prohibition.

"therefore" — the inferential negative particle o)un. This particle is never used at the beginning of a Greek sentence, it is usually found in the second or third word. It is an inferential particle which forms a conclusion, therefore, from the previous verse. Hence, we have an inference from what precedes.

"partakers" — the predicate nominative plural from the noun summetroxoj. It is a word for partnership.

Principle

1. The reversionistic believer becomes a partner with the unbeliever.

2. The reversionistic believer imitates the unbeliever.

3. In reversionism the believer acts and thinks like he would act and think if he were an unbeliever.

4. Reversionism is a compromise with the unbeliever, and with the devil.

5. Reversionism is lack of separation in the soul.

6. Since believers are members of the royal family of God they must bear the family resemblance.

7. The family resemblance of nobility and royalty comes from the filling of the Spirit, the daily function of GAP, resulting in the ECS plus the entrance into the super-grace life.

"with them" — the genitive plural from the reflexive pronoun a)utoj. It is a genitive of reference translated "with reference to them."

Translation: "Stop becoming therefore partners with reference to them."

As members of the royal family of God our objective is advancing toward the super-grace life. This is the area of maturity, the area where we are occupied with Christ and have maximum category #1 love. This is the place where God pours His blessings upon us and we have the capacity to appreciate it. There is a paragraph on each one of us in the divine decrees in which are enumerated the blessings of the super-grace life. The great hindrance to this is moving into some phase of reversionism.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #75

75 01/27/1974 Ephesians 5:8–9 Doctrines of light, walking

Verse 8 — "For" is the conjunctive particle gar which is used to explain cause, inference, continuation or explanation. These particles often give us the key and the continuity to a passage. This particle refers in this case to continuation with some explanation to be added.

"ye were" — imperfect active subjunctive of the verb e)imi. The imperfect tense needs explanation here. It is a moving panorama. The aorist tense tells a simple story; the imperfect tense draws a picture of that story. The course of the act passes before the eye in a flowing stream of history in the imperfect tense, it dwells on the course of events instead of really stating an occurrence as does the aorist tense in the Greek. The progressive imperfect, which is what we have here, denotes action in progress in past time. Like the present tense the imperfect tense has linear connotation. This is a progressive imperfect tense of description in which the process is vividly presented as going on in past time. The process will be determined by the predicate nominative. The subjunctive mood goes with the active voice. The believer produces the action here and the subjunctive mood indicates potential. The potential subjunctive s actually here a future reference and is qualified by contingency. In other words, while you did this as an unbeliever whether you do it now as a believer is potential depending on your status, whether you are reversionistic or growing up.

Next we have another particle, and enclitic particle of time, pote, which means formerly or at one time. it describes the believer's past when he was an unbeliever. Here is a believer asked to recall what he was like as an unbeliever.

"darkness" — the predicate nominative skotoj. It refers to the state of ignorance of doctrine in which the unbeliever plus his old sin nature found himself in the past — the state of ignorance as well as the state of spiritual death. It refers to the unbeliever also in reversionism when the unbeliever reversionist reaches the blackout of the soul, as in the case of the Pharaoh of Exodus or Judas Iscariot. In other words, darkness of the soul is attributed here to the unbeliever. This passage through the imperfect subjunctive is saying this is what you were like as an unbeliever. You were in darkness as an unbeliever, you are now a believer. Other passages referring to the unbeliever in a state of darkness include 1Samuel 2:9; Isaiah 42:7; 49:9; John 8:12; Romans 1:21; Colossians 1:13. Now that the soul is saved the condition of the unbeliever soul should no longer exist. As unbelievers we are in darkness. Our soul is now saved as of the moment we believe in Jesus Christ, therefore light ought to characterise the soul. As we will see, light refers to Bible doctrine in the soul. If the believer lives a normal Christian life and functions in a normal, progressive, growing way then he will have light in the soul.

"but now" — the adversative use of the conjunctive particle de plus the adverb nun. Both together indicate the present status of the individual to whom this epistle is addressed. Now they are believers. This is contrast in the adversative conjunction between an unbeliever of the past and a believer now.

"light" — the predicate nominative of fwj. The word describes two things: the ECS which is constructed on the basis of Bible doctrine, and the reflected glory of God which results from a completed ECS and entrance into the super-grace life. The constant intake of doctrine in the human spirit as e)pignwsij which then goes into the right lobe, into the frame of reference, into the memory centre, into the vocabulary, the categories, the norms and standards, the launching pad, the construction of the ECS, moving into the super-grace life. Light is Bible doctrine in the soul constructing the things designed for us by God in eternity past.

The doctrine of light

1. The literal use of light is necessary for man's existence on the earth. This literal light is found in Genesis 1:3; Ecclesiastes 11:7; Jeremiah 31:35.

2. Light used as an illustration for various aspects of spiritual life. Light illustrates the essence of God — 1John 1:5.

3. Jesus Christ as the manifest person of the Godhead is called "light" — John 8:12; 1Timothy 6:16.

4. The gospel is called light in 2Corinthians 4:3,4; 2Timothy 1:10.

5. Being saved by faith in Jesus Christ brings the believer out of darkness into light — Luke 1:79; 1Peter 2:9.

6. Light is used to portray Bible doctrine in the soul through the function of GAP — Psalm 119:105, 130.

7. The ECS is said to be constructed of light and/or Bible doctrine — Psalm 43:3; Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:8; 1Corinthians 2:8; 1John 2:8.

8. Light depicts the believer's entrance into the super-grace life — 2Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 5:14.

"in the Lord" — e)n plus the locative of kurioj. There is no definite article. The absence of the definite article emphasises the quality of the noun kurioj. This means that Jesus Christ is Lord, the God-Man. It emphasises the uniqueness of the person of Christ. It also emphasises the fact that Bible doctrine is the mind of Christ or the thinking of Christ. When we learn Bible doctrine we actually have the thinking of Christ in our souls.

"walk" — present active imperative from the verb peripatew, the normal Greek word for walking. It is also used in the New Testament to represent the various functions of the Christian way of life. The present tense often has linear connotations and generally it is a linear text. There are, of course, many exceptions to this. It is possible for the present tense to be simply descriptive and here we have a descriptive present to represent what is now going on, plus a progressive present of existing results. This very rare use of the present tense emphasises the continuance of the results through present time in contrast to the perfect tense which stresses existence of results but not their continuance. This is saying once you start to walk you take your foot off the ground and when you lift your foot off the ground you have to put it down again. That is the progressive present we have here. The active voice: growing or progressing as a believer produces the action of the verb through a consistent, positive attitude toward Bible doctrine. The imperative mood here is an imperative of command. This is a direct command to every member of the royal family.

"as" — the relative adverb w(j. It is used as a comparative particle designed to tell us how to walk.

"children" — the accusative plural of teknon. Teknon recognises that the child here is not an adult. The word is used two ways in the Word of God. It is used as children under the authority of their parents. It means then that you must recognise authority if you are to grow up spiritually. Teknon therefore says you cannot grow up apart from your right pastor-teacher. The second use of the word teknon has to do with being a student. You are a student with one responsibility — worship. All worship is listening to the teaching of the Word of God. Once under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit you have assimilated a certain amount of Bible doctrine then you are a student prepared to go out and fulfill your responsibilities as a member of the royal family of God. "Children" has to do with the recognition of someone else's authority. A child must recognise the authority of the parent or the parent cannot teach.

"of light" — the possessive genitive of fwj, and the actual form is fwtoj. This genitive refers to what doctrine produces, the ECS and the super-grace status which is the status of maturity in the Christian way of life.

Translation: "For you were formerly darkness of soul, but now light in the Lord: keep walking as light's children."

The doctrine of walking

1. The mechanics of walking depict analogies relevant to the function of the Christian way of life. Walking involves one step at a time which is analogous to the believer living one day at a time — Romans 14:5,6; Ephesians 5:16-18; James 4:13-15. Walking is also used for the consistency in being filled with the Spirit. Walking is used for the function of GAP. Walking is related to the erection of the ECS. It is also used to depict the function, the modus operandi, of the super-grace life. All of these are related in one passage or another to phase two or the believer in time.

2. The mechanics of walking are related to the intensification of the angelic conflict. In walking, man is off balance, at least for one instant. But he recovers his balance by putting his foot forward and down to the ground. In the angelic conflict the believer is off balance living in the devil's world during the Church Age or the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. But the believer is stabilised by putting his foot down and forward — this is being filled with the Spirit plus the consistent intake of doctrine through the function of GAP — Romans 13:13. 3. Therefore walking depicts the pattern and the function of the royal family of God in phase two, the modus operandi of the Christian life.

4. Walking is used to describe the lifestyle of the reversionistic unbeliever — Ephesians 4:17.

This describes the reversionistic lifestyle of thought and behaviour pattern of the unbeliever.

5. Walking is used to describe the modus operandi of the reversionistic believer — Philippians 3:18; Ephesians 4:17.

6. There are three spheres of positive walk: a) In the Spirit — Galatians 5:16; b) By faith — 2Corinthians 5:7; Colossians 2:6; c) In doctrine — 3 John 3.

7. Therefore walking summarises experiential sanctification. Walking depicts the Spirit-filled life — Romans 8:2-4; Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 5:2 cf. 5:18; 1John 1:7. It includes the function of GAP — Romans 13:13; Ephesians 5:15; 3 John 3. As a part of experiential sanctification walking describes the production of that status — Ephesians 2:10; Colossians 1:10. It describes the erection of the ECS and the entrance into the super-grace life — Romans 6:4, "walk in newness of life"; Ephesians 5:18, "walk as light's children"; Colossians 1:10, "walk worthy of the Lord."

In verses 9,10 we have the experiential production of light.

Verse 9 — "For the fruit of the Spirit" is incorrect. It is literally, "For the fruit [or production] of light." There is no word for Spirit in the passage at this stage. The word "for" introduces a parenthesis, it is the explanatory use of gar and the beginning of a parenthesis. The sentence which was begun in verse 8 will be concluded in verse 10. So verse 9 is parenthetical. In it we have the production of light stated not in detail but in three generalities which become principles of production rather than then eliciting of production categorically.

"the fruit" — o( karpoj which refers to production. The fact that we constantly take in doctrine does not mean that we should be concerned about doing something for the Lord. These things will come at the right time and the right place, whether it is witnessing or prayer or anything else that someone has emphasised to you as being spirituality or virtuous or the Christian way of life. Production is always a result, it is never the means.

"of the Spirit" — this is fwj, not pneuma. As a descriptive genitive this should be translated, "For the production of light." This is the production of doctrine from the soul, the production of the ECS, the production of the super-grace life. It is a reference to production from experiential sanctification and/or progress in the Christian way of life.

Principle

1. The production of the light includes the filling [or walking in] of the Spirit — Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 5:18.

2. It includes the consistent intake of Bible doctrine, i.e. the daily function of GAP — Ephesians 5:15; 3 John 3.

3. It emphasises the production of divine good from the combination of these two things — Ephesians 2:10; Colossians 1:10.

4. It includes the erection of the ECS and the entrance into the super-grace life where we have maximum effectiveness in the function of our priesthood — Romans 6:4; Ephesians 4:11; 5:8; Colossians 1:10.

"in all" — the preposition e)n plus the locative singular of paj. Then we have three words which are the object of the preposition. Each one will be in the locative singular. Each one of these represents some facet of the principle of the production of light. Not actual cases of production of light, but principle.

"goodness" is the first — the locative singular of a)gaqwsunh. This word is a little more complicated than to simply translate it by the word "goodness." The base for this word is a)gaqoj which means intrinsic good. But more than that, it is the principle of intrinsic good because of the suffix sunh. This suffix was never used in the Greek language until the time of Attic Greek when people began to think and write in the abstract. Once they did they had to invent a series of suffixes to cover concepts. A)gaqoj became a)gaqwsunh which means the principle of intrinsic goodness, a goodness that is always good. In other words, it has to be the principle of divine good. In other words, it is good based upon Bible doctrine.

"and righteousness" — the locative singular of dikaiosunh. Eventually this word came to mean righteousness or justification in the Koine Greek, but that isn't what it means here. Recogising the principle here, we have a word with a suffix dealing with abstract thought, a suffix which deals with a word in principle. Therefore what it means here is grace virtue.

"and truth" — the locative singular of a)lhqeia which actually means truth or residual doctrine, doctrine in your soul, doctrine in the human spirit.

Translation: "For the production of the light [doctrine] in all intrinsic goodness and grace virtue and residual doctrine."

Notice that the sentence begun in verse 8 is not concluded until verse 10. The entire sentence reads: "For you were formerly darkness of soul, but now light in the Lord: keep walking as light's children: putting to the test what is well pleasing to the Lord."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #76

76 01/31/1974 Ephesians 5:10–13 Doctrine of human good

Verse 10 completes the sentence of verse 8. "Proving " is the present active participle from the verb dokimazw which means to test for the purpose of approval. It is used also for testing metal to determine its value. This is translated "Putting to the test." The present tense is a progressive present denoting continuation of existing results which are, in this case, learning Bible doctrine. The more doctrine the believer learns the more he can put anything in life to the test. The active voice: the believer with doctrine in his soul produces the action of the verb. This is a telic participle denoting purpose as far as doctrine in the soul is concerned. Doctrine in the soul is the means of testing the value of anything in life. Without doctrine in the soul no matter how smart you are, no matter how discerning, you do not have the ability to test what is valuable and what is not in this life.

"what" — the nominative neuter from tij, meaning content; "is" — present active indicative of e)imi, "keeps on being," plus "acceptable" which is the predicate nominative of e)uarestoj which means well pleasing.

"unto the Lord" is the indirect object of the dative case and it indicates the one in whose interest the act of testing is performed. If you have doctrine in the soul you have the ability to test everything in life. The more things you can test the more you enter into the angelic conflict.

Translation: "Putting to the test what is well pleasing to the Lord."

You can tell what pleases the Lord and what doesn't if you have doctrine in your soul. Doctrine is the norm or standard whereby you determine these things.

Verses 11-13 are an amplification of this principle.

Verses 11 — the beginning of the amplification. "And" is the connective use of the conjunction kai; "have no fellowship" — present active imperative from the verb sugkoinwnew. This particular word means more than fellowship, it means partnership, to be very much involved. Perhaps the best translation here would be, "stop involving yourself in." The present tense is an iterative present describing what recurs at successive intervals. It is called the present tense of repeated action. The negative mh indicates that this is an imperative of prohibition. The reversionists produce the action of the verb from the active voice.

"the unfruitful" — locative plural of a)karpoj which means "barren." "Stop involving yourself in barren works [production]."

Barren production is the activity of the old sin nature in the sphere of sins, lust pattern, and human good.

"darkness" indicates a phase of reversionism. This is the ablative of source from skotoj — "from the source of darkness. It is that stage of reversionism known as blackout of the soul. In other words, by the time you reach blackout of the soul your production is all bad. You are producing maximum human good.

"And stop involving yourself in the barren production from the source of darkness." All human good is a combination of the blackout of the soul plus the area of strength of the old sin nature. The blackout of the soul gives false doctrine, false concepts.

The doctrine of human good

1. It is impossible for God to be unfair, it is incompatible with His essence. Therefore the believer is capable under grace of producing divine good, good which is rewardable. But if the believer is in reversionism it is impossible to produce divine good. Therefore he can only produce human good.

2. Human good is dead to God's plan, therefore it is called "dead works" in Hebrews 6:1.

3. Since God is perfect human good is not acceptable to God at any time — Isaiah 64:6.

4. However, distinction must be made between human good and morality — Romans 13:4,5. Morality is a part of the laws of establishment and is necessary for the perpetuation of the human race under the angelic conflict. Human good is pseudo morality and pseudo good and destroys man in the angelic conflict.

5. Human good will not save mankind — Titus 3:5.

6. The believer's human good is revealed and destroyed at the judgement seat of Christ — 1Corinthians 3:11-16.

7. Human good is the basis for the unbeliever's indictment at the last judgement — Revelation 20:12-15.

8. Human good can only produce human boasting — Ephesians 2:9; Romans 4:2.

"but rather" — the adversative use of the conjunction de plus the comparative adverb mallon. It always means "rather to a greater degree." It introduces a thought which is supplemental and thereby adds to what has preceded.

"reprove" — the present active imperative e)legxw which means expose them, roast them, clobber them (verbally). The present tense is a retroactive progressive present denoting that which was begun in the past and should continue into the present. It is called the present tense of duration. The active voice: the correct function of a royal priest in phase two is to expose human viewpoint, to expose Satanic doctrine. That means the exposure of socialism, the exposure of the social gospel, the exposure of religion and revolution, and anything that is anti-establishment. And it is the imperative mood of command. And you don't do it once either, you keep doing it. "But rather be exposing them critically."

Translation: "And stop involving yourself in the barren production from the source of darkness, but rather be exposing it."

Verse 12 — "For" is gar, used here to express cause. Why should we expose in our generation the evils of Satanic doctrine, religion, socialism, communism, revolution, anti-establishment?

"it is" — present active indicative of e)imi, a static present. It is now and always will be; "a shame" — the predicate adjective from a)isxroj which means "disgraceful."

"even to speak" — to speak in the sense of upholding or being for it. The ascensive use of kai, the present active infinitive of legw. Legw here in the infinitive denotes a purpose. A person is for a Satanic principle. The present tense of legw is an iterative present, it describes what recurs at successive intervals whenever the believer gets to the sixth stage of reversionism. He starts talking up that which is false. In the status of blackout of the soul you start to advocate whatever Satanic doctrine appeals to you. The active voice: the reversionist produces the action of the verb in the sixth stage of reversionism.

"those things" is the accusative neuter plural plus the definite article, and should be "the things."

"which are done" — the accusative neuter plural present active participle of ginomai, should be "coming to pass."

"of them" should be "by them," u(po plus the ablative means "by" — "by means of them."

"in secret" — this is the locative used as an adverb and should be translated "secretly."

Translation: "Because it is a disgrace even to speak of the things which are accomplished by them secretly."

All of this takes us back to that first word in verse 10 — prove by testing. How do you prove by testing? By getting doctrine in your soul. Doctrine gives the ability to see the difference between right and wrong, the difference between establishment and the sincere do-gooder who is all mixed up.

Verse 13 — "But" is the adversative use of the conjunctive particle de; "all things" — ta plus paj. Both are in the accusative neuter plural and they actually refer to the things that need to be exposed, the things that are Satanic and evil, the things that are anti-Christian and anti-God and anti-establishment

"are reproved" — e)legxw. "But the things that are being exposed" — present passive participle. The passive voice makes the difference in the translation here.

The passive voice means that these things receive. Reversionistic type evil things receive exposure. The present tense is a progressive present of description indicating what is now going on. It is also called the pictorial present since it focuses the mind in a picture of events in the process of occurrence. The participle is a temporal participle and therefore it should be translated, "But the all things when being exposed." They are not exposed all the time, but when they are exposed.

"are made known [not 'manifest']" — present passive indicative of fanerow. The present tense is a static present representing a condition which is perpetually existing. The passive voice: the evil thoughts of legalism, religionism, revolution, socialism, reversionism, are constantly being exposed by the Word of God and/or Bible doctrine. The declarative indicative says this will always be true, and those who have doctrine in their souls will respond and understand and take a stand in the angelic conflict. Those who do not will fall by the wayside.

"by the light" — u(po plus the ablative of fwj. U(po plus the accusative means under the authority of, but u(po plus the ablative means agency — "by agency of the light." The light is Bible doctrine.

"for" is the explanatory use of gar — "for you see."

"whatsoever" should be "everything" — paj; "doth make known" — should be "being made known," the nominative neuter singular present passive participle of fanerow which means to make known or make manifest. The present tense is the retroactive progressive present, it denotes that which was begun in the past and continues into the present time. Bible doctrine in every generation exposes that which is anti-God. When a person has Bible doctrine in his soul as a royal priest he always understands the difference and he is capable of handling contemporary history in the light of the Word of God, in the light of absolute standards. The passive voice: the believer receives the action of the verb through the intake of Bible doctrine in his soul. The participle is circumstantial to indicate that the continual intake of Bible doctrine gives the royal priest tremendous discernment in every field of life.

Translation: "But the all things of reversionism when being exposed are made known [through doctrine] by agency of the light [Bible doctrine]: for you see all things being made known is light." Doctrine exposes reversionism.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #77

77 02/01/1974 Ephesians 5:14a Doctrine of reversionism

Verse 14 — "Wherefore" should be translated by the inferential concept "therefore." This is the inferential conjunction dio. Because of the preceding commands to teach the royal family it is necessary to recover from reversionism and press on to the objective which is the super-grace status. Remember that the Christian way of life is not defensive. A super-grace believer or a growing believer takes the offensive and moves toward his objective of the super-grace life. He never bothers to apologise for the Lord Jesus Christ or to apologise for anything Christian. Everything Christian is completely, totally, infinitely superior to anything else this life has to offer, anything in the devil's world, any combination of things in the devil's world. Christianity is not cowardly, it does not take the defensive; Christianity is on the offensive. The only people who stand around and take the defensive or do nothing are reversionists who are outside of the plan of God even though they are members of the royal family of God. There is only one celebrity in the Christian way of life and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many heroes — anyone who reaches super-grace.

"he saith" — present active indicative of legw is used to introduce a quotation. The present tense is an aoristic present. It is actually quoting two passages of scripture by paraphrase — Isaiah 26:19; 60:1. These two verses are combined by paraphrase to actually form a new verse and to form some analogies — three analogies. Any time that you as a member of the human race find yourself standing still you have the right to recognise that you are standing still, that you are not advancing, and you have the right to ask yourself why. If you are careful in your analysis you will discover almost every time that as a member of the royal family of God that if you are not positive toward doctrine you are standing still.

The first of the analogies in this verse is directed toward awareness of reversionism. The command which is given at this point, the present active imperative of e)geirw, translated "awake" or "wake up," is to make you alert to the true condition. It means to wake up to your status, to wake up to a bad situation. Remember that reversionism is loss of time. The moment that you believe God assigns to you time. But this time is no good if you are on the reversionistic road, you are losing time completely and totally. So "wake up" is the first command. It is used here for the command to become aware that you are a reversionist, to see yourself as you really are in the light of the Word of God. Again, the present tense is an aoristic present used for punctiliar action in present time. The active voice: the reversionistic believer must become aware of his spiritual condition, and the imperative mood is a command. No one ever recovers from reversionism until he is aware of his condition. The importance of becoming aware of reversionism, its symptoms, its causes, its cures, is vitally important. You have to know that you have a spiritual problem. Prosperity or even tranquillity does not mean spiritual advance, spiritual success, or even spirituality. Therefore it is a little more difficult to recognise your condition, but God has provided some helps in the form of Revelation 3:20, "Behold I stand at the door and knock." The knockings on the door are sudden disasters in the life to make you aware of the fact that all is not well. These disasters are intensified in the long-range suffering for the reversionist, and long-range suffering ends up in the sin unto death. Sometimes it isn't even long-range. Obviously in this passage the analogy must be carried out with the concept that reversionism is the loss of time. When you are asleep you are not aware of time.

"thou that sleepest" — the definite article used as a personal pronoun plus the present active participle of the verb kaqeudw. Sleeping describes the status of reversionism: loss of God's grace time provided for you for phase two. "Wake up you sleeping one" refers to the believer in reversionism. The present tense is a static present used to represent a set of circumstances assumed as perpetually existing as far as the writer is concerned. The active voice: the reversionistic believer produces the action of the verb, he is a spiritual Rip Van Winkle. The participle is circumstantial. This means that you must become aware that your basic spiritual problem is reversionism if you are ever going to recover, and that a spiritual problem may have with it many other problems — physical, mental, social, all kinds of problems. But all of these problems go right back to the fact that you are a reversionist. To solve this problem you need: a) Awareness; b) Repentance (change your mind); c) Rebound; d) GAP. These are the things that are going to get you back into the time situation.

The doctrine of reversionism

1. Definition.

a) The status quo of the believer in phase two who is negative toward doctrine.

b) Reversionism is the recession from the stage of growth, including the partial or completed ECS, and even super-grace. (Growth is no protection, it is persistence in the intake of doctrine)

c) Reversionism is one of the two states of phase two, the other being super-grace.

d) Reversionism in the believer is analogous to apostasy.

e) There is also reversionism for the unbeliever, describes in 2Peter 2:17-22, in which the unbeliever departs from the laws of establishment to a condition of total apostasy and liberalism.

f) The mechanics include rejection of the gospel, which opens the flood gates for Satanic propaganda in the soul — the dog returning to his vomit.

g) Reversionism must be distinguished from carnality. The carnal believer is simply a believer temporarily out of fellowship but a reversionistic believer is a believer negative toward doctrine and more permanently out of fellowship. The reversionistic believer is not inclined to rebound, though that may be the one thing that he will remember all the way to the sin unto death. On the other hand a carnal believer rebounds, he usually keeps very close accounts with the Lord.

h) The carnal believer rebounds and continues to grow while the reversionistic believer does not rebound and continues to move toward the sin unto death.

2. The stages of reversionism.

a) Stage one: the presence of reactor factors in the life because of neglect of doctrine. Reactor factors such as rejection of authority, discouragement, disillusion, boredom, overcome by self-pity, inability to handle loneliness, frustration intensified by mental attitude sins. These reactor factors combine difficulties in the life with indifference or lack of exposure to Bible teaching. The result is stage two.

b) Stage two: the frantic search for happiness. The reaction to reactor factors leads to some sort of a frantic search for happiness in order to resolve the frustration part of the reactor factors. The frantic search for happiness follows the trend of the old sin nature. Asceticism leads to legalistic victorious living, super extra natural experiences which have no spiritual qualification — holy rollers, healers, and so on. The trend toward lasciviousness leads to drunkenness, debauchery, and so on.

c) Stage three: the intensification of reversionism. The frantic search for happiness results in operation boomerang in which the particular type of frantic search merely intensifies the original reactor factors without any resolving of the difficulty. The frustration becomes greater frustration, the bitterness becomes greater bitterness, jealousy becomes extreme jealousy to the point of being psychotic, and so on.

d) Stage four: the emotional revolt of the soul. The emotion of the soul is designed to respond to the right lobe of the heart. The heart or the right lobe is equivalent to the right man while the emotion is equivalent to the right woman. Emotional revolt shuts down all the valves of the right lobe, destroying the function of doctrine in that area, leading to stage five.

e) Stage five: negative volition toward doctrine. As a result of the presence of reactor factors, the frantic search for happiness, the intensification and the emotional revolt, a certain type of very consolidated negative volition exists. For example, indifference or apathy toward Bible teaching, being too busy and too preoccupied for Bible teaching, antagonism or personality hang-ups toward the one communicating doctrine, i.e. a pastor, antagonism or conflict with other people in the congregation, failure to utilise the rebound technique and under lack of the filling of the Spirit to become involved with reactor factors, inability to handle prosperity.

f) Stage six: the blackout of the soul. This is an attack on the left lobe but it results in darkness of the soul. The negative volition produces the vacuum which sucks into the left lobe doctrine of demons — 1Timothy 4:1. The mechanics of this is found in Ephesians 4:17 and this is known as demon influence in contrast to demon possession. The unbeliever is demon possessed; the reversionistic believer is not demon possess, he can only be under demon influence.

g) Stage seven: hardness of the heart, hardness of the neck, or scar tissue of the soul. This is an attack upon the right lobe or the kardia. It is coterminous with and usually in some ways follows or is related to blackout of the soul.

h) Stage eight: reverse process reversionism. This is the final status of reversionism, the antithesis of super-grace in which the believer loves and desires the opposite of what the Bible commands. It is a distortion of love, it is a reversal of all the objects of love, it is a total destruction of any true scale of values according to the Word, and therefore the person lives in a state of total confusion before he is removed by the sin unto death.

3. The discipline of reversionism is divided into three categories: a) the warning stage — James 5:9; Revelation 3:20. This is the category of discipline in which rebound with GAP can produce the recovery; b) the intensive stage — Psalm 38:1-14. Not only is the discipline intensified but this is the stage called strong delusion — 2Thessalonians 3:11. Repentance, and in some cases even recovery of health, are necessary before one can continue to GAP it back to super-grace — James 5:14-16; c) the dying stage. This is related to the doctrine of the sin unto death — Psalm 118:17,18; 1John 5:16. Reversionism is always the cause of the sin unto death — Jeremiah 9:16; 44:12; Philippians 3:18,19; Revelation 3:16. Relationship between negative volition toward doctrine and reversionism and the sin unto death is found in 1Chronicles 10:13,14.

4. The principle of reversionism is found in Galatians 5:4. This is reversionism in a nutshell — "You have drifted off course from grace." This is comparable to Ephesians 5:14 — reversionism is loss of time.

5. Reversionistic believers reject the authority of their right pastor. They reject the authority of Bible teaching in general but they reject the authority of the one who communicates to them doctrine. The illustration of Moses in the days of the Exodus — Exodus 16:20; 17:3; Numbers 11:5. Jeremiah in his day — Jeremiah 44:16. In Jeremiah's day the reversionistic believers spent a great deal of time listening to false teachers. The apostle Paul led many of the Corinthians believers to the Lord and yet they turned right around and rejected him — 2Corinthians 6:11,12; plus chapters 7,10,11.

6. In reversionism the believer uses mental attitude sins to perpetuate carnality. This results in contaminating others — Hebrews 12:15.

7. The biblical descriptions of reversionism are many.

a) Drifting off course from grace — Galatians 5:4.

b) No one failing from the ultimate source of the grace of God — Hebrews 12:15.

c) An uncircumcised heart/right lobe — Jeremiah 9:25,26.

d) Tortured souls (psychopathic personalities) — 2Peter 2:7,8.

e) The unstable soul — 2Peter 2:14.

f) The lukewarm — Revelation 3:15,16.

g) An enemy of the cross — Philippians 3:18.

h) Leaving your first love — Revelation 2:4.

i) Fallen — Revelation 2:5.

8. The recipients of the book of Hebrews were involved in reversionism and we have a description of them in Hebrews 5:11-14.

9. Reversion recovery is impossible apart from the daily function of GAP in the field of basic doctrine — Hebrews 6:1-3; Revelation 3:19-20.

10. Reversion recovery is impossible under the practice of religion — Hebrews 6:4-6; or the function of the phallic cult — 2Corinthians 12:20-21.

11. Reversionism leads to perversion — Romans 1:26,27; and also produces national disintegration — Romans 1:29-32.

12. Reversionism intensifies suffering — Psalm 77.

13. The principle of reverse process reversionism. Reverse process reversionism means to face in the opposite direction. It means a reversal of judgement, a complete change of values. It means to invert or reverse the objects of what the Bible describes as the true objects of love or the true objects of evaluation so that reverse process reversionism is a distortion of love, it is the reversal of its objects when the believer is under reversionism. Mechanically, under reversionism the believer departs from the true objects of love defined by Bible doctrine and goes for pseudo objects. Bona fide objects of love receive blasphemy (that's God) or become objects of hatred, bitterness, cruelty or vindictiveness or revenge tactics. Pseudo objects are called inconsequential persons; pseudo objects receive love, flirtation, attention, resulting in social or sexual or both types of unfaithfulness to the bona fide objects of love. Reversionists find it easy to give their attention, their love, their affections, their body and even soul to inconsequential persons because of a desire for self-gratification. There are a number of illustrations of this. In category #1 love — Jeremiah 8:9-11,15-20; Revelation 3:14-21. The true object of love should have been the Lord Jesus Christ but instead, as in the Nicolaitanes, as in the days of Jeremiah, Baal. In category #2 love — Proverbs 5; Ecclesiastes 7:26-29; Song of Solomon 8:6,7. Category #3 — James 2:1-5, the case of the shortsighted usher.

14. Reversionism and psychosis is the subject of 2Peter 2:15-19. In reversionism and the practice of reverse process reversionism the believer's behaviour pattern becomes psychopathic, and neurotic and psychotic believers live to haunt us on this earth. Most reversionists lose their common sense, they lose their discernment, and when they lose their sense of humour they are usually neurotic or psychotic. This is illustrated by Balaam in 2Peter 2:15,16,18.

15. The categories of reversionism.

a) Phallic reversionism — 2Corinthians 12:21; Ephesians 4:19; 5:5; Colossians 3:5; Revelation 2:14,20-23.

b) Ritual reversionism, which is both legalistic and religious — Hebrews 5:11-6:6; Colossians 2:16-18.

c) Monetary reversionism — James 4:13,14; 5:1-6; Revelation 3:14-20; Ecclesiastes 5:10-16.

d) Drug addiction type of reversionism — Galatians 5:20. It also includes alcoholic reversionism — Isaiah 28:1-9.

e) Antiestablishment reversionism — Romans 1:18-32.

f) Mental attitude reversionism — James 4.

g) Verbal reversionism — James 5:9,12.

i) Mental illness reversionism — 2Peter 2:15-19.

16. Reversionism destroys super-grace living or any progress made in the Christian way of life. Just as reversionism kept the Jews of the Exodus out of the land of Canaan so reversionism keeps the believer from developing an ECS or entering the tactical victory of the super-grace life. Hebrews 3:10-12. Just as the reversionists put the Exodus generation under the sin unto death so it puts believers today under this maximum penalty — 1John 5:16.

17. The profile of the reversionist — Psalm 7:14-16.

There is no solution to reversionism until you recognise the condition for what it is. Reversionism is like sleeping in this analogy, we lose time without being aware of that loss of time. The second analogy deals with reversion recovery.

"arise" is an aorist active imperative of a)nisthmi which means to not arise from the dead but to stand up, to get up, and sometimes it even means to get out. It is a compound of the word a)na meaning again, and isthmi which means to stand up. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of reversion recovery in its entirety. It takes the recovery and regardless of its extent of duration gathers it into a single whole. The entirety or the whole includes every act of rebound as well as every act of GAPing it. The active voice in the Greek always has the subject producing the action of the verb and in this case the reversionistic believer produces the action by rebound, subsequent filling of the Spirit, assembling in the classroom of the local church, concentration, learning doctrine under the ministry of the Spirit. The imperative mood is a command to the reversionistic believer.

The next phrase is incorrectly translated in the KJV. "From the dead" is the preposition e)k plus the ablative plural of nekroj. The ablative means "from among." With the definite article it is "from among the dead ones." Literally, "Get up [or, rise up] from among the dead ones." The dead ones in this analogy is used to describe reversionists. There are several principles we need to recognise. Reversionists flock together. Compatibility is developed in reversionism that would not otherwise exist. You never grow up as long as you associate with people who are negative toward Bible doctrine. Reversionists are called here "dead ones" because they are headed toward the sin unto death. This is a command to break away from reversionists.

The doctrine of the sin unto death

1. The sin unto death is maximum punitive discipline for the reversionistic believer. The sin unto death is only administered to members of the royal family of God. It is a discipline for nobility in this dispensation. This discipline is also the only exception to dying grace for the believer in this dispensation. The object of this discipline is the believer in reversionism. It includes maximum misery, maximum pressure terminating in the physical death of the believer before his time. Two passage which deal with the principle in definition: Psalm 118;17,18; 1John 5:16.

2. However the sin unto death does not mean loss of salvation — 2Timothy 2:12,13.

3. Reversionism is the cause for the sin unto death — Jeremiah 9:16; 44:12; Philippians 3:18,19; Revelation 3:16. It is a possibility that if you neglect Bible doctrine long enough you will be under the sin unto death.

4. There are four causes of death for the believer. a) Your work on earth is finished. God has assigned to you a certain amount of time after your salvation and when that time has elapsed God takes that believer to be with Himself. The principle is found in 2Timothy 4:7. b) Glorification of God in a very special way, as in Philippians 1:20,21. Sometimes God takes the believer out of this world in order to accomplish in our dying what could never be accomplished in our living. This is a special case type of death where we glorify God to the maximum, where the impact of our death is greater than the impact of our life, and where in this death God is going to be glorified in a special way. c) Maximum discipline for reversionism. This is the sin unto death — 1Chronicles 10:13; 1John 5:16. d) There is also an offshoot of this which is really a fourth reason: suicide. Suicide is generally the result of psychotic or neurotic reversionism. Because of this the individual superimposes his will over God's and takes his life. The first two categories have dying grace — those whose work is finished and those who die to glorify God in a special way. The last two categories are the result of reversionism and are not related to dying grace.

5. Case histories of the sin unto death. (The sin unto death is for believers only)

a) Monetary reversionism — Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5:1-10. They were greedy and had a problem with money.

b) Moral reversionism. The incestuous Corinthian — 1Corinthians 5:1-5.

c) Ritual reversionism: participation in the communion service without the use of rebound, therefore grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit

— 1Corinthians 11:30,31.

d) Mental attitude reversionism: rejection of Bible doctrine. Saul was the king of Israel. He had a command to go out and annihilate the enemy and he refused to kill Agag. For this Saul died the sin unto death — 1Chronicles 10:13,14.

e) Antiestablishment reversionism. Trying to solve the world'sproblems through socialism and bureaucracy. Isaiah 30:1-3; 31:1-3. Hezekiah's foreign policy caused him to be put under the sin unto death.

f) Verbal reversionism. This is the reversionistic believer involved in blasphemy or maligning, and so on — 1Timothy 1:19,20.

6. Reversion recovery eliminates all discipline and removes all sins. Even under the sin unto death you can recover through reversion recovery — 2Corinthians 2:5-10; James 5:15, 20.

7. The cancellation of the sin unto death.

a) Repentance — James 5:14,16, a complete change of mental attitude, to completely change your mind about doctrine. It causes a change of policy in life — to take in doctrine until you recover and move on to your objective, the super-grace life.

b) Rebound for those not under the sin unto death — 1Corinthians 11:31.

c) The daily function of GAP — Hebrews 6:1-6.

d) The erection of the ECS — Ephesians 4:24 — and entrance into the super-grace life — James 4:5-8.

The third analogy has to do with the super-grace status. Super-grace blessing is what happens when you recover from reversionism. At this point we have an erroneous word order in the KJV English: "and Christ shall give thee light." The Greek is kai e)pifausei soi o( Xristoj. Kai = and; e)pifausei is a future active indicative of the verb e)pifauskw which means to enlighten or to shine. The future tense is a progressive future in which the context requires the use of the future tense to be construed as denoting the idea of progress or growth in future time. The active voice: the subject produces the action of the verb. Sometimes the definite article helps us to find the subject. Here o( Xristoj is the subject — "the Christ." The indicative mood of the verb is the declarative indicative and it represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. Super-grace blessing is a reality. "And he will shine" is what we have so far — kai e)pifausei. The word "thee" is the dative of indirect object from the personal pronoun su. The dative of indirect object indicates the one in whose interest the act is performed. Reversion recovery is for your benefit. Reversion recovery glorifies God but it is for your benefit — "on you" is a believer recovering from reversionism.

Then we have the last two words, "the Christ" — "and he will shine on you the Christ," the inevitable result of super-grace blessings from the Lord Jesus Christ. Reversion recovery is more than recovery from something terrible, it means entrance into something wonderful designed for you by God in eternity past.

Translation: "Therefore he communicates, Wake up you sleeping one [reversionist], stand up from among the dead ones [reversionists with whom you associate], and the Christ will shine on you."

The doctrine of rebound

1. Rebound is a technical term for the believer's restoration to fellowship and recovery of the filling of the Spirit.

2. The concept of rebound.

a) Rebound must be understood in the light of relationship with God — Jeremiah 3:13. Rebound has to do with temporal relationship with God.

b) Rebound must be correlated with positional truth by the royal family of God — Romans 8:1.

c) The frame of reference for rebound is the efficacious death of Christ on the cross being judged for our sins. The spiritual death of the Lord Jesus Christ solves the problem of the old sin nature's area of weakness which produces sins. These sins were poured out on Christ and judged. When a believer commits a sin he either knows it was a sin or he does not in the case of an unknown sin. But whether he knows it is a sin or not he still does it from his volition, and that sin was poured out upon Christ on the cross and judged. When the believer commits a known sin he names that sin to God. That sin was judged on the cross, he is forgiven immediately. He also at the same time is forgiven the unknown sins. 1John 1:9; 1Peter 2:24; 1John 1:7; 2Corinthians 5:21.

d) Rebound means restoration to fellowship with God plus the recovery of the filling of the Spirit. When we are in fellowship we are controlled by the Spirit. How effective the filling of the Spirit is depends upon the stage of our spiritual growth. Proverbs 1:23; Ephesians 5:14 cf. 5:18.

e) Eternal security is a prerequisite to understanding the rebound technique — Romans 8:38,39. The believer sins after salvation but such sin is carnality, not loss of salvation — 1Corinthians 3:1-3; 1John 1:8,10.

3. The mechanics of rebound.

a) You confess a sin to God — 1John 1:9. The Greek word for confess is o(mologew and it means to cite or to name, it does not mean to feel sorry for. It has no emotional connotation.

b) Isolation of sin — Hebrews 12:15.

4. The alternative to rebound. This is simple. If you do not want to name your sins to God and be forgiven the alternative is twofold: carnality and/or reversionism. They are the results of rejecting the rebound technique — 1Corinthians 11:31. Hebrews 12:6 is the inevitable result of failure or neglect of rebound.

5. There is also a discouragement to rebound. Legalism is the enemy of rebound. Luke 15:11-32; 2Corinthians 2:5-11.

6. The technique belonged to the Old Testament saints as well as to the royal family of God in the Church Age — Psalm 32:5; 38:18; 51:3,4; Proverbs 28:13.

7. Some biblical synonyms for rebound. Confess or name it — 1John 1:9; Judge self — 1Corinthians 11:31; "Yield" in the aorist tense — Romans 6:13; 12:1; Lay aside every weight — Hebrews 12:1; Be in subjection to the Father — Hebrews 12:9; Lift up the hands that hang down — Hebrews 12:12; Make straight paths — Matthew 3:3; Hebrews 12:13; Arise from the dead — Ephesians 5:14; Put off the old man — Ephesians 4:22; Acknowledge thine iniquity — Jeremiah 3:13.

8. There is a principle of helping others to rebound — Galatians 6:1. There must be an accompanying mental attitude — Matthew 18:23-35. Grace orientation must always be applied — Colossians 3:13. There is a reward for helping other members of the royal family to rebound or to use the technique — James 5:19,20.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #78

78 02/03/1974 Ephesians 5:14b Doctrines of the sin unto death, rebound

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #79

79 02/03/1974 Ephesians 5:15–16 Doctrine of one day at a time

Verse 15 — "See" is the present active imperative of the verb blepw. While this word often means to see it does have other meanings. It means, for example, to beware in the present imperative, and that is the translation here. The present tense is a static present, which means that as long as we live in this life we must be constantly alert with regard to our attitude toward Bible doctrine. The word "beware" here is a warning that there is one thing that you must do every day of your life on earth and that is take in the Word of God. The active voice: once recovered the super-grace believer must be alert to maintain his status through the consistent intake of doctrine. Alertness toward doctrine is extremely important. The active voice of this verb means that once recovered the believer must be alert to maintain his super-grace status and this means listening to the teaching of the Word of God regardless of the subject. The imperative mood is a command to all members of the royal family of God to move in the direction for which we are left in this life which is the super-grace life. The thing that has to be emphasised is the fact that all of us have to grow up spiritually.

"then" is an inferential particle, o)un, used as a transitional conjunction to remind us that every time we get a command, every time we are called upon for spiritual alertness there must be behind that some inference, some conclusion. So it should be, "Beware therefore."

"that" is incorrect, this is the interrogative particle pwj which means "in what way."

"you walk" — present active indicative of peripatew. The present tense is an iterative present, it denotes what recurs at successive intervals or conceived of in successive periods. This is the present tense of repeated action. Your are supposed to walk. Peripatew means more than walking, it means advance, to move toward your objective, to close in on the target. The target is the super-grace life. There is only one way to advance spiritually and that is consistency in the intake of doctrine. The active voice: the member of the royal family, the believer priest, produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is an interrogative indicative, this is because of the word pwj. It assumes that there is an actual fact, super-grace, which is now under question.

"circumspectly" is the adverb a)kribwj which means "accurately." Accuracy is what is needed in the Christian life. When you get away from doctrine you get away from accuracy. Accuracy means that you take in doctrine, that you live by doctrine, that your viewpoint in life becomes Bible doctrine. The divine viewpoint is the only accurate way to live in this life. Advancing with accuracy means the maintenance of the super-grace status through the consistent intake of Bible doctrine. As long as you live doctrine is going to be your spiritual food and, if anything, it is much more important than your physical food. Just as physical food provides physical energy, so doctrine provides spiritual energy to redeem the time in phase two.

Now there is a negative challenge: "not as fools" — the negative mh is used here and it is subjective. We can become a fool at any time that we cut loose from Bible doctrine; "as" is the comparative particle o(j; the word "fool" here really has another meaning — a)sofoj [sofoj = wise; a = negative] which means not wise or unwise. The positive challenge follows with the adversative conjunction a)lla — "but." This introduces a contrast after the negative and the contrast is between the believer minus doctrine and the believer plus doctrine; "wise" — sofoj.

Translation: "Therefore beware how accurately you advance, not as unwise ones [minus doctrine], but as wise ones [positive toward doctrine]."

Principle: Reversionism is avoided in the same way in which super-grace is attained. Consistency in the intake of doctrine.

Verse 16 — the purchase of time is the tactical victory in the angelic conflict. "Redeeming" is the present middle participle from e)cagorazw. This word means in the business world to purchase, it was used to buy things. It was often used for purchasing slaves. There was another word, a)gorazw, which meant to go into the market and buy something, but it couldn't be taken away because the person's credit wasn't good and he had to pay cash for it first. So a)gorazw eventually came to mean going into a market or square, or place where you shopped, paying cash and walking off with something because you did pay for it. But e)cagorazw means that your credit is so good that you could just say you would buy something and walk away, and it would be delivered because you had good credit. So a)gorazw means to buy something simply on a cash basis whereas e)cagorazw means to do business, to have such good credit that you can purchase and say "I buy it" and it is yours, without showing any money at the particular time of the transaction. From that we see that this e)c which comes from the preposition e)k means "outside." It means that whatever you purchased in the market you can take it outside with you right now, your credit is good. It becomes a very good word for the doctrine of redemption because it helps us to understand that every person who believed in Jesus Christ in the Old Testament was saved before Christ actually paid for his sins on the cross historically. The credit of the Lord Jesus Christ was so good with God the Father that Abraham believed in the Lord and it was credited to for righteousness, and every person who was saved in Old Testament times was saved right then and there even though the cross had not occurred historically. "Redeeming" is all right here so long as it is understood that this word means specifically here to purchase the freedom slaves out of the slavemarket. The present tense is a progressive present to signify action in progress or a state or persistence. It denotes here the continuation of existing results. The intensive or dynamic middle indicates the part taken by the subject in the action of the verb. The subject or the agent is the believer. The believer is buying time. We actually purchase time on the basis of our credit. E)cagorazw is not used here in connection with the cross, it means we have believed in Jesus Christ. Since the moment we believed God has assigned to us X amount of time from the time that we are saved. That time is credited to us so that when we have all these allotments we also have enough time credited to us so that we can take in doctrine and enjoy the allotments. For example, there is an allotment for war, an allotment for sex, an allotment for dancing, for dying, for different things; and the capacity to enjoy all of these things is based on doctrine. So time is assigned and we actually purchase every allotment of time with doctrine so that doctrine becomes cash. Doctrine is the medium of exchange where time is concerned. We buy time with doctrine in the soul. We have the only cash of the realm as far as God is concerned, we have capital with which to buy time. It is Bible doctrine that gives capacity for life. So we have a present middle participle. It is a telic participle indicating purpose, but it is more than that, it is a participle used as an imperative. Sometimes the participle is used in place of an imperative and this is one of those places where redeeming is a command — "Constantly buying the time." How are you going to buy time? The only possible way you can, with Bible doctrine. That is your cash.

"the time" — the accusative singular here is the direct object, the definite article plus kairoj. The definite article is used to define the objectivity or the reality of a substantive or a noun. The definite article was used in Classical Greek for demonstrative pronouns, possessive pronouns, or personal pronouns. Here we have a possessive pronoun, the definite article is used in that sense. You can't buy anyone else's time, you can only purchase your time. So the definite article is used as a possessive pronoun, you have time; time belongs to you. God has assigned to you time.

"because" — the causal conjunction o(ti gives us the reason for buying the time that is allotted to us.

"the days are evil" — every day that you live on this earth is an evil day. What makes the day evil is what the word "evil" really means. Ponhroj is a predicate adjective. This means Satanic evil. Ponhroj means socialism, revolution, antiestablishment, Jesus freaks and hippies, government control of industry, disarmament of a nation, bleeding-heart human good, most of the thinking done by politicians today. Ponhroj means a system whereby Satan tries to control the world. Satan is basically an evil being and every bit of good that he does is just evil as every bit of sinning he does. "The days" is the nominative plural of h(mera. Life for the believer is assigned in terms of days. God gives us one day at a time until our assignment runs out. These days that God gives us are in cosmos diabolicus. That means Satan is the ruler of the world. These days in time are a part of the world system. The present tense of e)imi is a static present representing a condition which perpetually exists. The active voice: the days in the assignment of time are under the rulership of Satan, therefore evil. The indicative mood is the reality and the certainty of the fact that every day that you live on this earth Satan is the ruler of this world and every day is evil. And only you can purchase that day from the evil grasp of Satan. Bible doctrine is the way that you purchase a day from the evil grasp of Satan.

Translation: "Constantly buying the time [assigned to you], because the days [in your assignment] are evil."

The doctrine of a day at a time

1. The believer with the ECS and super-grace life learns to regard every day alike — Romans 14:5,6. He regards every day as from the Lord, it is a grace gift given to him as an assignment, as part of an allotment. The purpose of that day is to purchase it with Bible doctrine.

2. Only the believer has the grace provision to purchase that day — Ephesians 5:15-18. The super-grace life gives perfect purchase of every day. John 14:26; 16:12-14; 1Corinthians 2:9-16.

3. Every day we as believers in phase two live that day as a gracious gift from God. The only time we possess in which we can honour God is the number of days God has graciously provided for us in time — Psalm 90:12; James 4:13-15.

4. The fact that the believer lives another day on the earth is a sign of divine grace and faithfulness — Lamentations 3:22,23.

5. God has provided soul capital in the form of Bible doctrine for the believer to purchase each day — Jeremiah 15:16; Matthew 4:4.

6. Every day, therefore, becomes a special day in phase two — John 11:9,10.

7. Each day in phase two the believer must avoid mental attitude sins which produce self-induced misery — Proverbs 27:1. These same mental attitude sins characterise reversionism, especially those stages including 4, 5, 6. 2Corinthians 12:7-10 cf. Psalm 102:1-3.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #80

80 02/04/1974 Ephesians 5:17 Doctrine of GAP (pts.1–5)

Verse 17 — "Wherefore" is actually a prepositional phrase, dia plus the accusative neuter singular of the demonstrative o(utoj. Dia plus the accusative means "because of." It should be translated "Because of this." Because of the importance of buying or purchasing time because the days are evil.

"be ye not" — the present active imperative of ginomai plus the negative mh, the subjective negative which doesn't quite close the door, should be translated "stop becoming." The present tense plus the imperative carries the force of a prohibition.

"unwise" — the predicate nominative plural from a)fron. Since it is in the plural it should be translated like a plural, although that is difficult because a)fron really means ignorant. About the only way to make a plural out of ignorant is to say "ignorant ones." This indicates the fact that there was a large number of believers in the church at Ephesus who were ignorant of Bible doctrine and therefore were incapable of purchasing time. So this is a reference to the believer in reversionism with emphasis on the negative volition at every stage of reversionism.

"but" is the adversative conjunction a)lla, it sets up a contrast between ignorance of Bible doctrine and cognisance of Bible doctrine. This separates the sheep from the goats, the men from the boys, the adults from the children, as far as the spiritual life is concerned.

"understanding" — present active imperative, sunihmi, which means to gain insight into something by understanding the various aspects of that something. "Something" could be a category of doctrine. You gain insight into a category of doctrine by understanding all the points in that doctrine. Sumihmi is the highest form of understanding of any principle of the Word of God, or any point of Bible doctrine. The present tense is a progressive present which indicates the action in progress or state of persistence at that time. In other words, it is linear aktionsart — "keep on understanding." The active voice: the believer must produce the action of the verb in order to have capital, in order to have cash to purchase time. The imperative mood is the command, therefore, to GAP it daily, and consequently as a result of GAPing it daily to understand God's will and God's viewpoint in life.

"what" — the nominative neuter singular of the interrogative pronoun tij. In the neuter it means content. What is the plan of God? What is the will of God? What is God's purpose in keeping us in time? etc.

"the will of the Lord" — to qelhma means will, plan, purpose, design, and even stands for the concept of policy. The possessive genitive of kurioj is correctly translated "of the Lord," or it could be translated "belonging to the Lord."

Translation: "Because of this, stop being ignorant, but completely and thoroughly understand the will [purpose, policy, design] of the Lord."

The doctrine of GAP

1. GAP is a coined word to describe the whole system of spiritual perspicacity. G = grace; A = apparatus; P = perception. The grace apparatus for perception. It is the grace system whereby God has made it possible for all believers to learn doctrine and to advance to the objective of the super-grace life. Consequently it is the divine provision for spiritual growth and advancement. God has found a way to take every believer, regardless of IQ, and enable him to learn doctrine. Human IQ is not a factor in learning doctrine.

2. There is a distinction between human and spiritual IQ. Human IQ is the number assigned to a person through testing. The number is based upon dividing the mental age by the chronological age. The number is supposed to determine your quickness in the field of perspicacity or how rapidly you can learn. However, spiritual IQ is not based on any such thing. It is found in the Hebrew under the noun chakmah, often translated "wisdom." It is also found technically under the Greek word e)pignwsij, translated full knowledge and sometimes just knowledge. The amount of doctrine you have in your soul determines your spiritual IQ.

3. There is no place for human IQ in the study and the assimilation of the Word of God. The exclusion of human IQ from GAP is taught in 1Corinthians 1:19 through 2:16.

4. Receptive comprehension. Everything that we ever learn goes through a process in the soul. It is related to the two frontal lobes connected with the mentality of the soul. These are defined in the Greek as nouj or mind, kardia or heart. The mentality of the soul is therefore divided into two parts.

a) The believer's soul possesses mentality and that mentality is divided into two frontal lobes.

b) The left lobe is called nouj and/or mind. It is designed to assimilate objective information. Therefore, when doctrine comes into the left lobe through the teaching of the Word it is called gnwsij — objective information. It means that you understand what is being taught, it doesn't mean you agree or disagree. To understand doctrine is all that is required in receptive comprehension. The problem with receptive comprehension is giving the information or the passage a hearing regardless of personal prejudice or negative reflexes.

c) Gnwsij as objective understanding can never be applied to experience. It is doctrine in the left lobe. Doctrine in the left lobe can never be applied to experience.d) The residence of doctrine in the perceptive lobe/left lobe makes the believer a hearer of the Word but not a doer of the Word. Doctrine in the right lobe makes the believer a doer. The left lobe is the staging area for doctrine.

e) The thinking of the left lobe is called noew in the New Testament.

f) All noew in the left lobe is divided into two parts, fronew or dokew. The difference is very simple. Objective thinking is fronew; subjective thinking is dokew. So thinking in the left lobe can be objective or subjective but not applicable to experience.

g) All of this has some classroom names. Receptive comprehension is all the data understood but not applied or even accepted. Receptive comprehension involves a lot of concepts. It is necessary but not applicable. You have to hear before you can do.

Receptive comprehension involves the following:

i) Attendance at a local church where the pastor teaches the Word of God. The local church is the classroom for receptive comprehension.

ii) The ministry of God the Holy Spirit converting the content of the message into receptive comprehension along the lines of 1Corinthians 2:9-16 or 1John 2:27.

iii) The residence of doctrinal data in the left lobe as the staging area. This doctrinal data is gnwsij, it can be understood but not applied.

iv) The acceptance of the authority of the one who communicates doctrine.

h) It must be remembered that gnwsij can exist to a large degree in the left lobe of the believer without any spiritual benefit. In fact, some gnwsij may result in the subjective thinking of dokew while other categories of gnwsij may continue as objective thinking or fronew. So remember that gnwsij has no spiritual benefit nor application of divine viewpoint to life. This is why believers appear to know a great deal but in reality have no advance in their spiritual status. One thing should be pointed out. The same information that you would have in your left lobe as gnwsij has all kinds of application once that is in the frame of reference of the heart.

5. The grace provision for learning Bible doctrine.

a) The formation and preservation of the canon of scripture. The doctrine of inspiration applies.

b) Divine authorisation of the local church as a classroom for learning doctrine. All worship is centred around learning Bible doctrine. The believer assembled in the local church, therefore, becomes a student without portfolio.

c) The spiritual gift of pastor-teacher which provides both authority and ability to communicate doctrine in the local church. The gift sovereignly bestowed at the point of salvation is not merited.

d) The royal priesthood of the believer which is designed for the privacy and freedom of reception of doctrine.

e) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit for the function of GAP — 1Corinthians 2:9-16.

f) The believer must be filled with the Spirit, and there must be a grace way to be filled with the Spirit — rebound.

g) The human spirit, one of the 36 things that every believer receives at salvation, is the first target for GAP — Job 32:8; 1Corinthians 2:12.

h) The laws of divine establishment whereby the nation protects the freedom and the privacy of the local church.

i) The anatomy of grace whereby certain non-meritorious functions of the body provide the ability to think and concentrate: oxygen in the blood, etc.

6. The mechanics of GAP are divided into stages.

Stage 1 — Operation ICE. This indicates the communication of the Word of God from the pastor-teacher to the members of the congregation. The pastor communicates doctrine to the local church under the concept of the Greek verb didaskw. The word means public teaching of doctrine giving the believer priest the privacy and privilege to assimilate this doctrine.

a) I = isagogics, which means the interpretation of the Bible within the framework of its historical setting. The principle of hermeneutics: the Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. Therefore there must be the recovery of all of the historical background, and this is called isagogics.

b) The C stands for categorical teaching. Categorical teaching is based upon the hermeneutical principle of comparing scripture with scripture to determine classification of doctrine, to take all of the occasions in which a doctrine is mentioned in the scripture to show its various concepts.

c) The E stands for exegesis which is the analysis of each verse in its context, emphasising the grammar, the syntax, the etymology of the words from the original languages of scripture.

Stage 2 — Operation gnwsij. Gnwsij means doctrine in the left lobe. The left lobe is called the nouj or the mind, it is simply a staging area for doctrine. This is being a hearer of the Word, not a doer of the Word. This is equivalent to receptive comprehension which means the perception of doctrine, principles, promises, names, dates, places, categories, and so on. Receptive comprehension or gnwsij is achieved by means of God the Holy Spirit. The two requisites include positive volition toward doctrine, recognition of the authority of the pastor, good manners in the assembly, poise, concentration, alertness. Receptive comprehension does not mean agreement or disagreement but merely comprehension of what is taught.

Stage 3 — Operation e)pignwsij. Gnwsij must be converted to e)pignwsij which is doctrine in the human spirit or doctrine in the heart or right lobe. What you really are is what you think in your right lobe. In this third stage the objective is to get doctrine from the left lobe into the human spirit where it gets taken into the right lobe. Before doctrine is usable for growth, production, dynamics, gnwsij must be converted to e)pignwsij. The converter is your volition of the soul. From the human spirit doctrine remains to become building material for the ECS.

7. The function of the frame of reference of the right lobe.

a) It is the basis for the comprehension of more advanced doctrine when such doctrine is taught.

b) It establishes a new conscience which is compatible with divine norms and standards.

c) It forms divine viewpoint dynamics.

d) It deals with the problems of subconscious and neutralises guilt complex.

e) It provides an alarm system to detect false doctrine, false teaching, and the false teacher con artist of this age.

f) It provides soul capacity and discernment to detect important relationships in life, e.g. right man, right woman.

g) It provides the furniture of soul whereby God is able to share His happiness with the believer.

h) It provides the basis for the production of divine good, such as correct content of prayer, accuracy in witnessing.

i) It causes the proper function of the priesthood until the believer reaches super-grace which is the normal function of the royal priesthood.

8. Results of GAP.

a) The removal of scar tissue from the soul plus other facets of reversion recovery.

b) It constructs the ECS which is the backbone necessary for super-grace.

c) It leads to the attainment of the super-grace status, including occupation with Christ, capacity for life, super-grace blessing. This is the tactical victory of the angelic conflict.

d) It provides a basis for production of divine good.

e) It glorifies God in this dispensation and in this stage of the intensified angelic conflict.

The doctrine of divine guidance

1. There are three categories of will in history. a) There is the will of God which is the sovereignty of God; b) There is angelic will or volition; c) There is human will or volition in the souls of mankind.

2. The cardinal principle in divine guidance is found in 1John 3:23. This is a brief summary of God's will for each one of us. The first part of the verse says, "For this is the will of God that you believe on the name of his Son, Jesus Christ." It is God's will for all members of the human race to believe in Jesus Christ. It is obvious that we have human volition because people reject Christ as saviour. So the cardinal principle of divine guidance: for the unbeliever, salvation; for the believer, spirituality.

3. We start with the incarnate person of Christ. The humanity of Jesus Christ had free will — Matthew 20:22; 26:42; Hebrews 10:7,9. The implications are quite obvious. Jesus Christ as deity had sovereignty [divine volition]. As perfect humanity He had a soul and human volition. No free will in mankind means no free will in the humanity of Christ. No free will means no redemption, no salvation. However, the principle of divine guidance is based upon the fact that man does possess volition and/or free will designed to resolve the angelic conflict, designed to respond to God's purpose, God's will, God's policy, God's law. That is the basic concept of guidance. We have volition which must become totally subordinate to and compatible with divine volition. That presents a number of problems. We have to know what God's policy is, what His will is, what God's desire is on any given subject. Then it is simple. All we have to do is do it and do it in the power of the Spirit.

4. Types of the will of God. Basically there are three categories of the will of God for any believer. These are all illustrated from the life of Balaam who was a believer. a) The directive will of God — Numbers 22:12. God told Balaam not to go to curse Israel, not to go to the king of Moab; b) There is the permissive will of God — Numbers 22:20. Balaam superimposed his volition over the divine policy and went to the king of Moab. But he was still alive, therefore this is regarded as the permissive will of God; c) The overruling will of God. Balaam tried to curse Israel but God would not permit it — Numbers 23:5,12,26.

Bible doctrine in your soul must dictate how you live your life. With doctrine in your soul you will know what the will of God is.

5. Academic principles of guidance.

a) Knowledge of doctrine — Psalm 32:8; Proverbs 3:1-6; Isaiah 58:11; Romans 12:2. God's will in known only through doctrine in the soul.

b) Yieldedness — simply a technical term for the filling of the Holy Spirit, as per Romans 6:13. It is found in Romans 12:1, "present," which is yieldedness or the filling of the Spirit. It is found in Ephesians 5:17,18. Basically the concept comes from 1John 1:9, the mechanics of yieldedness.

c) Growth. Attainment of the super-grace status means guidance comes easy — 2Peter 3:18.

6. The phase two categories of the will of God.

a) The viewpoint will of God: what does God want me to think?

b) The operational will of God: what does God want me to do?

c) The geographical will of God: where does God want me to be?

7. The mechanics of the will of God. There is one chapter in the Bible that actually summarises all of the mechanics of divine will — Acts chapter 11. There we find guidance through prayer in verse 5l; guidance through thinking in verse 6; guidance through the Word, verses 7-10; guidance through providential circumstances, verse 11; guidance through the Holy Spirit, verse 12; guidance through fellowship and comparison of data, verses 13,14; guidance through scripture memory, verse 16.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #81

81 02/05/1974 Ephesians 5:17 Doctrines of GAP, divine guidance

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #82

82 02/06/1974 Ephesians 5:18 Doctrine of drinking

Verse 18 tells us of the second way to buy time — the filling of the Spirit. However, we begin with the negative approach to things.

"And" is the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai and it tells us that the subject continues about purchasing or buying time. Capital is Bible doctrine.

"be not drunk" — the present passive imperative of the verb mequskw which does refer to inebriation, plus the negative mh. The present tense is a progressive present signifying that the action is in progress. It is also a descriptive present to indicate what is now going on or the events in the process of occurrence. The passive voice indicates the fact that drunkenness is received by too much imbibing. This should be translated, "stop becoming intoxicated." The imperative mood is the imperative of prohibition with the negative mh. This is the negative approach given to this passage for a very simple reason. It is actually what is called teaching by antithetical parallelism. To become drunk is obviously antithetical from being filled with the Spirit. Yet the phenomenon is parallel in the sense that alcoholic goes inside of the individual and changes the personality, the attitudes, the entire behaviour of the individual who become inebriated. When the Holy Spirit controls the life there is change as well. One is a negative change, prohibited; the other is a positive change, commanded. But they both follow the same principle: something on the inside makes a person different on the outside.

"with wine" — the instrumental singular of o)inoj and refers to only one type of alcoholic beverage in the ancient world. Drinking is not forbidden here. Drunkenness is not only forbidden but is characterised as a sin.

"wherein" — the prepositional phrase e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j. This combination should be translated "in which," and by that it means in the sphere of drunkenness there is a result. The result must be described in terms of principle rather than the individual characteristics of the inebriate. Therefore we have the present active indicative of e)imi, "is," to state the principle.

"excess" is the predicate adjective a)swtia which does not mean "excess," it means "debauchery" or "dissipation."

Translation: "Also stop becoming intoxicated by means of wine, which is dissipation."

This is a passage which does not say yea or nay about drinking alcoholic beverage, this is passage must be regarded very carefully in its context.

Summary

1. Drunkenness and dissipation in this context is called a waste of time.

2. While drinking is not forbidden in the scripture, except under certain circumstances, drunkenness is always forbidden.

3. However, this verse goes beyond the prohibition of drunkenness.

4. This verse teaches that drunkenness is a sin, but it teaches more than that. The negative command sets up an analogy for the last half of the verse.

5. The indwelling presence of alcohol in large amounts changes the character and personality of the imbiber. This is because alcohol is a depressant and it removes inhibitions.

6. Principle: Things on the inside change us on the outside for better or for worse.

7. We are both activated and motivated by what is on the inside of us. Therefore alcohol on the inside is a chemical illustration of the spiritual principle of the filling of the Spirit.

8. In addition to this principle and amplified to be filled with the Spirit instead of spirits, there is also obvious historical implications. When God the Holy Spirit so directs the human author to get some information on paper it must have also historical implications.

9. In addition to analogy there is a special warning to the believers of Ephesus and the surrounding Roman province of Asia regarding the use of alcoholic beverage as a tranquiliser or as a frantic search for happiness. When the believer so uses alcohol as a tranquiliser or as a frantic search for happiness he is obviously failing in his primary function in this life which is the daily intake of doctrine through GAP, the construction of the ECS, and the achievement of the tactical victory of the super-grace life.

10. The Christian lush is a reversionist who has failed to utilise God's gracious provision in the indwelling Holy Spirit plus everything He provided in GAP. Therefore he has missed the blessing of true capacity for life.

11. The Christian lush is filled with alcohol instead of the Spirit. He is therefore filled with alcohol instead of doctrine.

The biblical doctrine of drinking

1. Drunkenness is always condemned as a sin. (Drunkenness and drinking are not the same) — Isaiah 5:11; 20:2; 28:7,8; Proverbs 20:1; 23:20; Romans 13:13; 1Corinthians 5:11; Ephesians 5:18. Drinking is not classified as a sin in the scripture.

2. Drunkenness is to be avoided in certain categories of humanity: Kings — Proverbs 31:4,5; pastors — 1Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7; deacons — 1Timothy 3:8.

3. Drunkenness is also condemned in certain Bible characters: Noah — Genesis 9:21; Lot — Genesis 19:32-36; Nabal — 1Samuel 25:36,37; Ephraim, the tribe — Isaiah 28:1.

4. Drinking of alcoholic beverage is condoned under certain circumstances — Proverbs 31:6,7; 1Timothy 5:23. Medically speaking, a limited amount of alcoholic beverage is beneficial in certain areas. a) In the brain and nervous system; b) Moderate amounts of alcoholic beverage acts as a sedation; too much always has a toxic effect; c) In the area of circulation. Older persons often have prescriptions containing alcohol or are told to take a glass of good wine a day to dilate the blood vessels and improve circulation.

5. The adverse effects of alcohol. a) It leads to impulsive and abusive behaviour. As a depressant it lowers inhibitions, dulls the reflexes, amplifies mental attitude sins; b) Vernices disease. Too much alcohol causes paralysis of the eyes, uncoordinated walk, clouding of the consciousness, a final coma, and you've had it; c) Excessive alcohol destroys brain tissue; d) Destruction of the liver; e) The Dts — confusion, anxiety, terror, visual hallucinations or delusions.

6. The incident where Jesus turned water into wine — John 2:1-11. a) Jesus truly turned water into alcoholic beverage, it was not grape juice; b) However, the performance of this miracle neither condones nor condemns drinking; c) The miracle was designed not as a brief on drinking but to focus attention on who and what Jesus Christ was in the hypostatic union. It was to focus attention on Jesus Christ as the only saviour as well as Israel's legitimate King; d) The six water pots which were filled with water (to wash feet) are analogous to the water of the Word — Ephesians 5:26. The water was then turned into wine to replace the shortage at the wedding feast; e) Wine produces joy in the human heart — Judges 9:13; Psalm 104:15; f) When through the daily function of GAP the believers converts doctrine into super-grace status God shares His happiness with the believer. The water pots are analogous to a believer filled with water [doctrine]. The doctrine is then converted into +H, God sharing His +H with the believer; g) So the miracle not only focused attention on the hypostatic union but illustrated the manner in which Bible doctrine in the soul converts the believer into super-grace status.

7. Alcoholism is a part of national disaster — Joel 1:4-6. It is related to economic depression — Joel 1:4. It is related to soul frustration — Joel 1:5. It is related t military invasion in Joel 1:6. This concept is also found in Isaiah 28:1-9.

8. The conditions under which drinking is restrained: a) The law of love applied toward believers; b) The law of expediency applied toward unbelievers. Used when presenting the gospel drinking becomes a false issue; c) Under the law of supreme sacrifice which is directed toward God when drinking hinders a specific ministry.

9. Drinking is related to reversionism — Jeremiah 13:12-17. Wine is used in the scripture to represent the entire principle of sublimation involving the rejection of doctrine. The rejection of doctrine is the rejection of category #1 love and the substitute for this in Jeremiah 13 is heavy drinking.

10. The principle of common sense in drinking. a) The importance of abstinence on the job and in youth. b) While moderate drinking is not prohibited by the Word it belongs to those who have the maturity to handle it. c) Drinking is not for young ladies on dates with strange men or with an unknown crowd. d) Never drink alone or when upset. e) Never drink with strangers or in a strange place. f) Never drink while on the job. g) Never drink while operating a motor vehicle or flying an aeroplane.

"but" is the adversative conjunction a)lla setting up a contrast between the filling of the Spirit and drunkenness. The filling of the Spirit produces spirituality; the filling of spirits produces drunkenness. A person is drunk when wine controls. Now we have the analogy. When the Holy Spirit controls we are filled with the Spirit.

"be filled with the Spirit" — the present passive imperative of plhrow which has a number of meanings. It means to fill up a deficiency. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit fills up all deficiencies the royal family possesses on earth. The deficiency is knowledge of doctrine and the function of grace. This word also means to fully possess. The indwelling Holy Spirit must fully possess the believer for both the function of GAP and the execution of phase two. The word also means to fully influence. Only when the believer is controlled by the indwelling Holy Spirit does God fully influence that believer, that member of the royal family of God. The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life, it therefore demands supernatural execution. There is no way by which we can execute the Christian way of life. If we could we would be in the plan of God on the doing end, and God's plan is perfect, we are on the receiving end only, not on the doing end. It also means to fill with a certain quality. The Holy Spirit is God, only God can glorify God and fulfil phase two. Human helplessness demands divine indwelling. That is the principle of plhrow. The present passive imperative demands a little attention. The present tense is an iterative present, it is used to describe what recurs at successive intervals. It is also called the present tense of repeated action. That means that if a believer lives a normal life of progress, because of spiritual growth he will be out of fellowship and he will rebound. So the iterative present recognises the fact that you do not spend your entire life under the control of the Spirit, but every time you sin you are out of fellowship and must get back in again. The imperative mood here is the imperative of command in contrast to the previous one which was an imperative of prohibition.

Remember that plhrow is used a number of ways in the scripture. It is used in the function of GAP, in the erection of the ECS, and the entrance into the super-grace life in such passages as Luke 2:40 where it applies to the Lord Jesus Christ, or for the royal family which is the Church Age believer — Ephesians 3:19; 4:10; Colossians 1:9. It is also used for the completion of the top floor of the ECS — 1John 1:4 cf. Philippians 4:4. Plhrow is used for the believer priest controlled by the indwelling Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5:18. It is also used for the fulfilment of the law through the filling of the Spirit — Romans 8:4; Galatians 5:14. It is used for the reception of super-grace blessing for super-grace believers — Ephesians 3:19; 4:10. It is used for the analogy between right man and right woman and the body of Christ being fulfilled by union with Christ — Colossians 2:10. It is used for the pastor-teacher communicating Bible doctrine to his congregation — Colossians 1:25. It is used for the production of divine good in the super-grace status — Philippians 1:11; Revelation 3:2. It is used for the priestly function of the royal priest in giving — Philippians 4:18. So it has a lot of uses but here in Ephesians 5:18 it applies only to the subject of spirituality.

"with the Spirit" — the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of pneuma, used for God the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, and it should be translated "but be filled by the Spirit."

Translation: "Also stop becoming intoxicated by means of wine, which is dissipation; but be filled [be fully possessed, be fully influenced] by the Spirit."

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit

1. Prophecy. In John 14:20,21 we actually have a prophecy that there would come a time in human history when every believer would be indwelt by the Spirit with the possibility of the filling of the Spirit. This prophecy was given while Jesus was on earth during His incarnation and He is looking forward to a time that had never existed in all of history. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit had never occurred before this time. At the time Christ gave this prophecy it was still future when we would have all believers indwelt by the Spirit. There is a reason for all of that. From the very beginning of time God the Holy Spirit had certain responsibilities. Take, for example, at salvation. The salvation work of the Holy Spirit was simply regeneration. God the Holy Spirit was the agent whereby anyone who believed in Christ in Old Testament times was entered into the family of God. So from the time of Adam's salvation we have the family of God on earth. In other words, all believers. And that continued down through Old Testament times right up until the incarnation of Jesus Christ. There were a few people who had been given special power by the Holy Spirit. This is called the doctrine of enduement. People like Moses, David, people who had special jobs that required the ministry, the power, the omnipotence of the third person of the Trinity. But no one could ever say that all believers were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Reason: You simply have in Old Testament times the family of God, that's all. Even kings who were saved were still just family of God. Then something happened. After Christ died on the cross, rose again and ascended, ten days later the Age of Israel was interrupted. When it was interrupted a whole new thing began to happen. Christ was alone at the right hand of the Father and technically still is. He is the last Adam, He is seated in the place of highest honour. Therefore God the Father planned to have for Him a family, a special family. Jesus Christ is royalty, He is the King of kings, and therefore starting on the day of Pentecost, the beginning of the Church Age we have something new. No longer do we have family of God, now we have royal family of God. This means that at the point of salvation God the Holy Spirit not only regenerates but He also indwells, He also baptises into the body of Christ; that is how we become royal family. He seals. He does five things, whereas before the Church Age began He did one thing at salvation. He did one thing for a few believers after salvation, special enduement, and that is all. God the Holy Spirit did not indwell Old Testament saints. In the same context is both the prophecy of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit — John 14:16,17 — plus the prophecy of the indwelling of Christ — John 14:18-21. The prophecy anticipates the interruption of the Jewish Age with the dispensation of the Church plus the intensification of the angelic conflict. Not until Jesus Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father could He have a royal family. Now He has a royal family. 2. The distinction is very important — Romans 8:9-11. The Holy Spirit indwells the body of the believer permanently for functional reasons as well as the sign of the royal family — 1Corinthians 3:16; 6:19,20. However, Jesus Christ also indwells but He is not said to indwell the body. He is said to indwell the heart or the right lobe for the purpose of fellowship on the road to super-grace — Ephesians 3:17. And that isn't all. When a believer goes into reversionism the indwelling of Christ ceases. In other words, if the believer is progressing to super-grace he is indwelt by Christ, but if he is moving into reversionism he is minus the indwelling of Christ — Christ is on the outside knocking on the door, as per Revelation 3:20. So the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is permanent, functional and representative of our royalty. The indwelling of Christ is for fellowship and temporary, only when we are positive toward doctrine and on the progressive road.

3. The fellowship concept of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is found in Romans 8:10; Galatians 2:20. There we have the concept of fellowship. The only way that royalty can have fellowship God and royalty can have fellowship with other members of the royal family is through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

4. The indwelling of Christ is the confidence of reaching super-grace — Colossians 1:27.

5. The purpose of the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ, then, is different from the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. Each one has a separate and a distinct purpose. The purpose of the indwelling of the Spirit is to give us the sign of royalty, in contrast to the indwelling of Christ, to move us experientially to the point of manifestation of royalty. So that basically the difference between the two is this. Inside you have God the Holy Spirit, the sign of royalty. Inside you have the Lord Jesus Christ to be the overt manifestation of royalty in super-grace. When you are growing Christ is there, but the Holy Spirit is always there. Christ indwells the right lobe or the heart, the Holy Spirit indwells the body. The indwelling of God the Holy Spirit is the sign of royalty.

The doctrine of Spirituality

1. Introductory principles.

a) The essence of God. The Holy Spirit who indwells us is God, so we have the sovereignty of God, the righteousness, the justice, the love, the eternal life, etc. all of the attributes of the essence of God, through the fact that deity indwells us. The executor of phase one of the plan of God is Christ, second person of the Trinity. The executor of phase two is God the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity. The executor of phase three is God the Father, the first person of the Trinity. So that the entire Trinity are involved in the plan from the standpoint of execution.

b) The Holy Spirit is deity. All Trinity passages reveal co-equality with other members of the Godhead, e.g. 2Corinthians 13:14. The Holy Spirit is called by the tetragrammaton in certain passages: Jehovah in Isaiah 6:8,9 cf. Acts 28:25; Jeremiah 31:31-34 cf. Hebrews 10:15. God the Holy Spirit is Jehovah, therefore God. The sovereignty of the Holy Spirit is mentioned 1Corinthians 12:11. The omniscience of the Spirit in 1Corinthians 2:1-11; The omnipotence of the Spirit in Genesis 1:2. The omnipresence of the Spirit in Psalm 139:7. The lordship of the Spirit in 2Corinthians 3:17.

c) Who controls your life determines how your life is going. The Holy Spirit can control your life or the old sin nature. If the Holy Spirit controls your life this produces spirituality in various degrees of growth. If the old sin nature controls your life from the area of weakness it produces sins, the area of strength produces human good, and the lust pattern of the Old sin nature becomes the motivator. All of this is non-acceptable to God and only when the Holy Spirit controls the life is there acceptability.

2. The distinction between the salvation and the post-salvation ministries of God the Holy Spirit. At salvation, God the Holy Spirit does five things.

a) Regeneration. This means that God the Holy Spirit is the agent by which we are born into the family of God — John 3:1-16; Titus 3:5. This is the ministry that God the Holy Spirit has always had with every person who has ever been saved, the only difference being that in the Age of the Gentiles and the Age of Israel — skipping the Church Age — in the Tribulation, and in the Millennium, this is the only ministry of the Holy Spirit at salvation. In the Church Age He also has four other ministries and these all occur simultaneously.

b) The baptism of the Spirit — Acts 1:5; 1Corinthians 12:13. This is the ministry by which He enters us into union with the Lord Jesus Christ. This ministry is absolutely unique, this is the ministry whereby we become royal family of God. This is the ministry by which we live in the palace forever, it is not something we experience, it is something God the Holy Spirit did for us at salvation.

c) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation — Romans 8:9; 1Corinthians 6:19,20. This is the sign of royalty.

d) The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is security for royalty. We have two kinds of security as believers. We have security from salvation itself: we can't lose our salvation. We have security in our royalty: we can't lose our royalty forever and ever. We are sealed by God the Holy Spirit — 2Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.

e) The Holy Spirit gives each one of us a spiritual gift at the point of salvation — 1Corinthians 12:11. Every believer has a spiritual gift. It doesn't mean that you have to know it or understand it, unless it is a communication gift which demands preparation. Generally speaking when you are filled with the Spirit and grow up your gift functions without your cognisance, whatever it is.

The post-salvation ministry of the Spirit is for phase two only, so it deals with the royal family in time. We have the vocabulary of Paul — Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 5:16. John's vocabulary is a little different, he calls it walking in the light — 1John 1:7. Peter, in 2Peter 1:4, calls it being a partaker of the divine nature or the divine essence. In other words, Peter says the filling of the Spirit is partnership in the divine essence. It must be distinguished between what God the Holy Spirit did for us at salvation and what He does for us after salvation. God the Holy Spirit regenerated you once, that's over, you don't have to be regenerated again. Baptism of the Spirit: you are in the top circle, you will never get out — royal family of God. He indwells you, that is the sign of your royalty. He seals you, that is the security of your royalty. He gives you a spiritual gift, that is your participation in the royal family as you move into phase two. But when it comes to the function of phase two everything is related to the filling of the Spirit.

There is a very bad tendency for people to try to make spirituality the indwelling of Christ. They try to practice the presence of Christ and they have little variations of this. None of these things are correct, they are totally inaccurate. When it comes to spirituality it is related entirely to the third person of the Trinity.

3. Spirituality and carnality are mutually exclusive, therefore absolutes in phase two. Light and dark are mutually exclusive, says 1John 1:7; 2:10, and so it is with carnality and spirituality. They are mutually exclusive — 1John 3:4-9. John calls walking in the light the filling of the Spirit; walking in darkness, carnality. It is an either/or situation. Again, the moment you believe in Christ you enter into union with Christ forever. Your positional sanctification is your badge of royalty but you also have the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit. Sin makes you carnal; rebound puts you back in fellowship.

4. Imitation becomes one of the great issues of spirituality in phase two. Spirituality is the imitation of God — 2Corinthians 3:3; Ephesians 5:1; 2Peter 1:4 — whereas carnality and reversionism is the imitation of the unbeliever — 1Corinthians 3:3; Galatians 5:19-21; 1John 1:6. So believers either imitate the unbeliever or they imitate God, they never imitate themselves.

5. Spirituality is a function of the royal priesthood, therefore it is not subject to the Mosaic law of the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priesthood function under the Mosaic law and functioned to the nation Israel. But now we have a royal priesthood which is not authorised by the law, it is authorised by God Himself and under the new covenant we have the statement of it and so it is not subject to the Levitical priesthood, it is not subject to the Mosaic law — Romans 8:2-4; 10:4; 13:8; Galatians 5:18.

6. In keeping with partnership in the divine essence through the filling of the Spirit (2Peter 1:4) spirituality produces the character of the incarnate Christ — Galatians 4:19 cf. 5:22,23; 2Peter 1:4; 1John 2:5,6. In other words, the filling of the Spirit produces the character of Christ, the personality of Christ.

7. The general objective of spirituality and/or the filling of the Spirit is a) Partnership with divine essence — 2Peter 1:4; b) Imitation of God — Ephesians 5:1; c) Glorification of Christ — John 7:39; 16:14; 1Corinthians 6:19,20; d) Fulfilment of the law — Romans 8:2-4; e) Proper function of GAP — John 14:26; 16:12-14; 1Corinthians 2:9-16.

8. Spirituality is lost through carnality but recovered through the rebound technique of 1John 1:9. The principle is stated in Proverbs 1:23.

9. The results of spirituality.

a) Christ is magnified in the inner life — Ephesians 3:16,17; 2Corinthians 3:3; Philippians 1:20,21.

b) The perception of doctrine — John 14:26; 16:12-14; 1Corinthians 2:9-16; 1John 2:27.

c) Effective witnessing — Acts 1:8; 2Corinthians 3.

d) Guidance and assurance in phase two — Romans 8:14-16.

e) True worship — John 4:24; Philippians 3:3.

f) Effective prayer — Ephesians 6:18.

g) Helping the carnal or reversionistic believer to rebound — Galatians 6:1.

10. Spirituality is the source of divine good — 1Corinthians 3:16. Divine good is the believer's decorations in eternity — 1Corinthians 3:12-14. Human good, produced in carnality or reversionism, is destroyed at the judgement seat of Christ because no member of the royal family of God can be contaminated by human good in eternity — 1Corinthians 3:12,15.

11. Nomenclature for spirituality. Positive nomenclature: Walk in the Spirit — Galatians 5:16; Walk in the light — 1John 1:7. Negative nomenclature: Quench not the Spirit — 1Thessalonians 5:19, the production of human good; Grieve not the Spirit — Ephesians 4:30, the production of personal sins.

12. Emotion or ecstatics does not characterise spirituality in the Church Age — 2Corinthians 6:11,12; Romans 16:17,18. When the Holy Spirit controls the life He does not produce ecstatics.

a) Only in the Millennial dispensation does ecstatics characterise the filling of the Spirit.

b) In the Church Age the believer represents the absent Christ in the devil's world, therefore no ecstatics.

c) However, in the Millennium the believer filled with the Spirit appreciates the present Christ, therefore ecstatics.

d) Believers in the Millennium are also indwelled by the Spirit — Ezekiel 36:27; 37:14; Jeremiah 31:33.

e) Believers in the Millennium are filled with the Spirit — Isaiah 29:19; 32:15; 44:3; Ezekiel 39:29; Zechariah 12:10.

f) Ecstatics characterises spirituality in the Millennium because of the personal presence of Christ — Joel 2:28,29.

13. The royal family is in partnership with the Holy Spirit — Philippians 2:2.

14. Confidence regarding the filing of the Spirit comes from knowledge of pertinent doctrine — 1John 3:20,21.

15. The clarification of the means and results in spirituality: the power, the means of that power, and the results. The power is the indwelling Holy Spirit. The means of having Him control the life is the rebound technique. The result is yieldedness to the plan of God and the will of God at any or every point.

16. Pseudo-spirituality: the things that are used as substitutes for the filling of the Spirit or spirituality by grace.

a) Spirituality by yielding. This system assumes that the believer is spiritual because of something he does such as yielding himself or dedicating himself to God, doing a certain amount of praying or witnessing or giving. This is putting the cart before the horse because yieldedness of Romans 6:13,19; 12:1 is the state of being filled with the Spirit and therefore positive toward doctrine. No one has ever been filled with the Spirit by yielding.

b) Spirituality by personality imitation. This consists of imitating some believer whom you admire, associating some superficial mannerism with spirituality. Every believer must learn to distinguish between spirituality and personality. Spirituality comes one way — the filling of the Spirit. The Bible never emphasises changing your nasty personality!

c) Spirituality by self-crucifixion. This system of pseudo spirituality is closely related to the above. It originates from a false interpretation of Romans 6 whereby the believer claims spirituality by virtue of crucifying self. However, ego never cancels ego; self cannot crucify self. Self is crucified by the principle of retroactive positional truth. The believer is identified with Christ in His death. In His death He bore our sins from the area of weakness of the old sin nature but He rejected human good. By being identified with Christ positionally we have rejected human good and that is what self-crucifixion is all about. It is simply the rejection of human good through identification with Christ on the cross. It is not a system of spirituality. So self is crucified by the principle of retroactive positional truth whereby the believer becomes dead to human good through the baptism of the Spirit.

d) Spirituality by tabooism. i) A taboo is a prohibition set up by a religious or social group. Here a taboo is forbidden activity but by our definition a forbidden activity not forbidden by the Word of God. ii) Therefore taboos are legalistic superimpositions on the Word of God. iii) Taboos are customs of legalistic and religious or self-righteous types of believers in groups. iv) Basic taboos of fundamentalism include the following: don't drink, don't dance, don't smoke, don't play with cards, don't go to movies. v) In addition, certain taboos related to geographical locations — no use of cosmetics by the ladies, never go swimming in the same swimming hole with the girls. vi) The principle: Anything the unbeliever can do is not the Christian way of life. Whatever God has commanded you to do is something that no unbeliever can ever do. vii) The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life executed by supernatural means, i.e. the filling of the Spirit, GAPing it to super-grace. viii) No two believers have attained the same degree of growth in phase two. That is the big problem and why people come along with taboos. ix) Consequently the immature do not handle taboos in the same manner as adult believers. Spiritual maturity will eventually force out the truly objectionable things. A mature believer will recognise that a young believer is having problems and therefore does not make an issue of what he does. The self-righteous, legalistic people want to make an issue out of everything. x) Legalistic bullying and/or the imposition of taboos on new believers always has one of two results: response or reaction. Under response the acceptance of the bullying always results in converting the new believer into a legalistic hypocritical individual. Then there is the reaction to this which is rejection of the taboos, resulting in conflict, bitterness, disillusion. Here is where many new believers immediately enter into reversionism. They react, they think the whole Christian life is just giving up a lot of things and having no fun. So making an issue out of the taboos is to destroy the whole concept of spirituality. xi) There is a bona fide place for the observation of taboos: 1. The application of superseding law. There is a time when the law of love, the law of expediency or the law of supreme sacrifice causes you to discontinue something you are doing because of the importance of the spiritual growth or blessing of others. Then, certain things are given up as a result of growth and this is a bona fide give-up situation.

e) Spirituality by relativity. This says I'm spiritual because my sins are more refined and more respectable than your sins. In this comparison a subtle type of sinfulness is compared to an obvious shocking type of sinfulness, resulting in false rationalisation. Included in this notion is the delusion that there are degrees of spirituality. There are degrees of growth but not in spirituality. Any sin, regardless of its category, puts a believer out of fellowship, results in loss of the filling of the Spirit; and no believer can be carnal and spiritual at the same time, therefore the importance of rebound.

f) Spirituality by ecstatics — the function of the holy rollers. It is known as the monopoly of the emotional — I'm spiritual because I have some kind of ecstatic or stimulating experience. Believers evaluate Christian experience by how they feel rather than by what the Bible says. The emotion of the soul is not the criterion for either salvation or spirituality. There is no such thing as feeling saved or feeling spiritual.

g) Spirituality by ritualism. I'm spiritual because I observe certain rituals of the church, such as baptism or the Eucharist, or the observance of "Lent," etc.

h) Program spirituality. I'm spiritual because I conform to the program of the local church, because of my attendance, my giving, because I participate in prayer meetings, because I teach Sunday school, etc. The problem here is obvious. Action has been substituted for the learning of doctrine, everyone must be put to work, and this becomes mass negative volition toward Bible doctrine in the local church. This system always caters to approbation lust, power lust, it ignores the fact that even a right thing done in a wrong way in the energy of the flesh is wrong. The Word of God demands that a right thing be done in a right way.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #83

83 02/07/1974 Ephesians 5:18b Doctrines of indwelling of Holy Spirit, spirituality

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #84

84 02/08/1974 Ephesians 5:19 Music in the church

Verse 19 brings us to a new section where we have the concept of relationship in the royal family, and the paragraph goes from here to chapter 6:9. The chapter break does not follow the continuity of subjects. "No man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself." There is always some other member of the royal family under foot. While you have the right to your privacy and while you have freedom as a royal priest you also must recognise the fact that no matter how raunchy you are, no matter how flaky, no matter how long you have practised the art of being a screwball, there is always someone who is influenced by you. Therefore a passage like this becomes extremely important.

Basic principle: Everything in phase two must inevitably be related to the principle of relationship with God. Some of you have forgotten from whence cometh your regeneration, your new birth. Some of you have forgotten why you are going to heaven. Some have forgotten what it is all about. When you believed in Jesus Christ God did something for you that made a permanent relationship. You are in a permanent plan, and while some may talk about it from time to time and listen to it as taught from the pulpit, they have forgotten the basic fact: Your life on earth is a relationship with God, not with people. And there is the salt in the wound!

Our first point in the paragraph is relationship with God, verses 19-21. What is more important than anything else? Relationship with God. When Bible doctrine becomes more real than anything in your life then God will be more real than anyone in your life. The unseen, invisible God will be more real to you than the visible scene smells people! Things look bad out there, and they do. But look up instead of look out, once in a while. Our attitude toward God is described in terms of worship. Worship is an attitude toward God, it is a soul attitude toward God, a mental attitude toward God, not an emotional attitude. The capacity to worship comes through Bible doctrine in the soul and the expression of worship is related to the vocal cords — singing, witnessing, speaking (not sharing).

Our first word in verse 19 is "Speaking" — present active participle of the verb lalew, used here for the communication or the expression of doctrine, for the expression of doctrine or the viewpoint or the principles of the Word of God is worship. The primary function of worship therefore becomes the communication of doctrine to the congregation on the part of the pastor. In fact, several verbs beside lalew are so used. Another is khrussw, mistranslated "preach." It really emphasises the authority of the one speaking because the word means the king's herald, the king's representative, the one who goes ahead of the king when he is traveling and comes to a town and announces the arrival of the king and demands the best accommodation, and so on. This means a representative with authority, and the pastor-teacher is God's representative with authority. Didaskw is the second word and it indicates the mechanics of communication and these mechanics have to do with one person teaching a group. It emphasises the concentration, the submission of the believer to Bible teaching, to the authority of the one who communicates. Then, lalew emphasises the communication of content of doctrine with resulting application to the function of the congregation. Obviously, lalew is a good verb here. The present tense of this verb is a customary present denoting what habitually occurs or may reasonably be expected to occur. The action of the verb is assumed to be true in the past, in the future, as well as in the present, says the customary present. The active voice: the royal priesthood produces the action of the verb as a part of worship. The participle is used as an imperative. The imperative use of the participle means that this participle is actually a command, so it should be translated "Be communicating."

"to yourselves" — this is not what is says at all. The locative plural of the reflexive pronoun e(autou is entirely different. It should be translated "among yourselves." Actually, what the participial concept develops is the fact that when believers are assembled there must be communication of the divine viewpoint, otherwise there will never be reciprocity known as worship. There can never be on the part of any member of the human race any true or bona fide worship of God without God's viewpoint inculcated. This is a phrase of inculcation.

The phraseology here indicates the result of all this: "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." The word "psalms" is the instrumental of means from the noun yalmoj which is simply the Greek form of the Hebrew for psalms. The psalms refer to that portion of the Word of God often classified as devotional, but what it really means is passages of scripture which deal with God's relationship with man so that man can have a relationship and fellowship with God. So "psalms" is mentioned because if you ever study the Psalms carefully you will find man's failure to have proper relationship with man because man does not have proper relationship with God. Then the Psalms of praise: Man's proper relationship with God leading to the reciprocity of man's worship of God, man's occupation with God, man's love of God, man's appreciation of God, man's attitude toward God — category #1 love. So, "Be communicating among yourselves [in the local church] by means of psalms."

"and" — the adjunctive use of kai should be translated "also" instead of "and." The adjunctive use of kai, meaning "also," begins the description of exhale of worship. The function of GAP is the inhale of worship; the exhale of worship is predicated on residual doctrine in the soul. So by GAP you take doctrine into the soul, and once you have it you exhale doctrine toward God in worship. So you have two phases: worship is the inhale of doctrine; worship is the exhale of doctrine toward God. The incoming of doctrine leads to the output of the attitude of worship toward God. There is no worship of God apart from the in-going doctrine into the soul. This means that all of the organisations which have excluded exegetical teaching on a daily and consistent basis obviously are running on false fuel. They are running on emotion, on doing things like witnessing, and they have lost track. There is nothing wrong with witnessing but they have lost track of the fact you cannot respond to the plan of God apart from the intake of Bible doctrine. If there is anything that describes worship, if there is any thing that describes your life, it is right here: doctrine going into the soul through the function of GAP. This is where the local churches have all fallen apart and failed.

"hymns" — the instrumental plural of u(mnoj, "also by means of hymns." Since music has been invented it has been the most common type of partying. This has been a common expression of enjoyment of people for a long, long time. Singing has been an expression of entertainment, of love, of relaxation. It is the most common form of expression of mental attitude. "Hymn" means the song of praise in honour of deity, of God. It can be God the Father or God the Son. You can sing about God the Holy Spirit but He is not in the business of glorifying Himself. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Son and to reveal the Godhead. It isn't music that carries you, it is doctrine that carries you. The tune appeals to the emotion, the doctrine appeals to the right lobe. It is the perfect combination of the right lobe and emotion when music is handled properly. There is one other connotation here: u(mnoj is never to be written in a minor key! A hymn always means a song accompanied by musical instruments.

"and spiritual songs" — the instrumental plural of pneumatikoj [spiritual] plus the instrumental plural of o(dh which means an ode or a poem set to music. An ode is always characterised by a noble sentiment. We have "odes with spiritual lyrics" rather than "spiritual songs." In other words, doctrinal lyrics is the concept here.

"singing" indicates the fact that this is a legitimate function of worship — the present active participle of a)do.

"and making melody" — yallw means playing musical instruments. So there is two kinds of music here, the singing and making melody, and both are present active participles. Both of them are customary presents denoting what habitually occurs in worship. Both are active voices. The royal priest produces the action of the verb in assembly worship. The participle is an instrumental participle indicating the means by which the action of the verb is accomplished, but more important, it is the imperative participle.

The source of singing or playing a musical instrument: "in your hearts" — the locative of sphere of kardia, indicating a very important principle. In the heart or the right lobe you have to have a frame of reference for playing a musical instrument, you have to have a memory centre for playing a musical instrument, you have to have technical information to play a musical instrument. In other words, you are not up there just to play emotionally, you are to play musically and correctly and accurately in the sphere of your right lobe. Worship must be accomplished in the sphere of the right lobe — doctrine in the heart. This is where the person thinks, and this is the real you, and furthermore, true capacity for singing or playing an instrument in worship comes from Bible doctrine in the right lobe.

"to the Lord" — the dative of indirect object of kurioj, "toward the Lord." The dative of indirect object indicates the one for whom the act of worship is performed. It is done for the Lord.

Translation: "Be communicating among yourselves [in the local church] by means of psalms. Also by means of hymns and odes with spiritual lyrics be singing and playing [musical instruments] to the Lord in the sphere of your right lobes."

Notice there are two sentences here in the Greek. The first sentence gives us the basics for singing or making some form of music through instrumentality. This indicates the basis for everything. This is doctrine, and not only doctrine but doctrine which expresses who and what God is, who and what we are in the plan of God, and how the relationship functions through grace. That is important because doctrine in the soul is going to make the difference.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #85

85 02/10/1974 Ephesians 5:20 Doctrine of authority

Verse 20 — "Giving thanks" merely once again demonstrates the principle of love. When you truly love someone you are thankful for that person. You give thanks for that person, you are occupied with that person. That person is in your soul, in your right lobe, in your frame of reference, in your memory centre, and you are constantly thinking about that person. Giving thanks is a mental attitude, it is a mental attitude of thinking of someone else. It is a mental attitude of love and therefore a mental attitude of appreciation. So we have the present active participle of e)uxaristew which means to be thankful, to give thanks. It is a very strong word for a mental attitude of having a scale of values and of relating that scale of values to a total appreciation for the source. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present which denotes what is begun in the past and continues into present time. This is called the present tense of duration and this is the attitude of any believer who is closing in on the objective of the super-grace life. If you are taking in Bible doctrine on a daily basis you are growing in grace, If you are growing in grace it is inevitable that you will have a mental attitude divine viewpoint and therefore a mental attitude of thanksgiving toward God. The active voice indicates that the royal priest is producing the action of the verb. It is a wonderful thing for members of the royal family of God to be grateful to God in time for all that He has provided, whether it is blessing or adversity, regardless of the circumstances. Therefore it is a wonderful privilege of the royal priest to on a daily basis express in his thinking and in his prayer, in his attitude of love, in his occupation with the person of Christ, this thanksgiving. And where there is growth in grace, and where the believer has the capacity to love Jesus Christ, and where the believer is occupied with Christ, the communion table then becomes a very meaningful and wonderful thing. But if you are not taking in Bible doctrine, if you are not growing in grace, and if on the other hand you are a reversionist moving away from doctrine, then the communion table becomes very painful; ritual without reality is meaningless and you have no ability to concentrate on who and what Jesus Christ is. The participle is used here as the imperative mood. The imperative in the participle is a peculiar idiom to the Koine Greek and is found only in the New Testament and in the papyri which occurred at the time of the New Testament.

"always" is a very strong adverb of time, pantwte. This adverb means "at all time" or "always." We can translate this phrase, then, "Be always thankful." This brings out the participial use of the imperative, this emphasises the function of the royal family. People who are always thankful, always grateful, and who have an object of thanksgiving as well as content of thanksgiving, are the bets oriented people in life, and this is the normal procedure for the royal priest in phase two.

Summary

1. Thankfulness is based on maximum intake of Bible doctrine through the function of GAP.

2. The grace apparatus for perception of doctrine causes the believer priest to appreciate the members of the Godhead, the plan of the Father, the principle of grace. Therefore the believer is in a constant state of thanksgiving regardless of the circumstances of life. The adverb covers all circumstances.

3. Thanksgiving, then, is the state of being occupied with the person of Jesus Christ, oriented to the plan of God, and maintaining the divine viewpoint in the right lobe.

4. Thanksgiving involves grace orientation. This is impossible apart from doctrine in the right lobe and human spirit.

5. Doctrine in the human spirit and right lobe is impossible apart from the daily function of GAP.

6. The greater the spiritual IQ the greater the grace orientation.

7. The greater the grace orientation the greater the thankfulness of the royal priest.

"for all things" refers to a prepositional phrase, u(per plus the ablative of paj. This includes thankfulness for suffering and adversity as well as prosperity and promotion. The rest of the verse, by the way, is in the wrong order in the KJV. It should be "Be always thankful for all things in the sphere of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father." We are not thankful directly to Christ, we are thankful directly to God the Father, says the Greek here.

"in the name of" — comes after "for all things" in the Greek text. This is e)n plus the locative of o)noma and it means "in the sphere of." O)noma means more than name, it also means personality. The key to everything is Jesus Christ. We are what we are because of what Christ is. We are members of the royal family because at the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit picked us up and entered us into union with Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father. We are in union with the King of kings, therefore we are royalty. Only Church Age believers are in this status of royalty.

The rest of this verse says, "to the God, even the Father." This is the recipient of our thanksgiving.

Translation: "Be always thankful for all things in the sphere of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father."

Verse 21 — "Submitting." In the English it merely looks like you just submit to one another. But not at all. This is the present middle participle from the verb

u(potassw, a military word for the exercise of authority. It refers to being subordinate to authority. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs or may be reasonably expected to occur. The act of subordination to the pastor-teacher is assumed to be true in the past and future, as well as in the present, says the customary present. The middle voice: the subject, the believer priest participates in the results of the action of the verb. The active voice emphasises the action; the middle voice stresses the agent. The believer is the agent. This is what is called a direct middle which refers the results of the action directly to the agent with reflexive force. This should be translated "Be subordinating yourselves." You subordinate yourself as an individual, as a member of the royal family of God, as a believer priest, as one who has received at the point of salvation the same 36 things that the pastor received, but there is a difference between the believer and the pastor. One spiritual gift makes the difference, the gift of pastor-teacher.

"one to another" — the dative plural of the reciprocal pronoun a)llhlon. It means one person, yourself, submitting to another person of the same kind but who has authority. The pastor is the "another." This is the dative of indirect object indicating whose interest this submission to pastoral authority is performed. It is to the believer's advantage as a member of the royal family of God and a priest forever to be submissive to the pastor and the local church so that the believer can learn doctrine, not so that the pastor can run the believer's life. There is no such thing as a simple solution. The complexities of doctrine categorically is the simple solution to everything perceptively, is the principle. That takes some submission. This is also dative of advantage. It is to the believer's advantage to have his own pastor-teacher. It is to the advantage of every member of the royal family to be under the authority of a pastor. In the kingdom of priests, the royal family of God, there exists authority on the earth and this authority is vested in the pastor-teacher, as per 1Thessalonians 5:13; Hebrews 13:7,17.

"in the fear of God" — that isn't what it says at all. This is e)n plus the locative of foboj should be translated "in fear of" except for one thing. Foboj means something besides fear. Here it means "awe" and "respect." The word translated "God" here in the KJV is Xristoj, and so it should be translated correctly and literally from the Greek, "in respect for Christ." This is the principle of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. So subordination to the pastor-teacher is tantamount to showing respect for the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the bishop and shepherd of our souls. Bible doctrine in the mind of Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16; the pastor communicates Bible doctrine from exegetical, analytical viewpoint and therefore has the privilege of communicating to the congregation the very mind of Christ. Therefore, it become imperative that each member of the royal family of God exercises his priesthood by fulfilling the principle of GAPing it daily. This is the way by which he becomes spiritually self-sustaining. To receive the doctrine, to accumulate the doctrine in his soul, to live his life privately as unto the Lord on the basis of the norms and standards of Bible doctrine in his own soul. The recognition of the authority of the pastor-teacher and subordination to his authority is the means by which this is accomplished.

The doctrine of authority

1. Definition; Authority is the legal power delegated by God under the laws of divine establishment whereby certain members of the human race have jurisdiction and responsibility for others. Authority exists in both the temporal and spiritual realm under the laws of divine establishment.

2. The principle of authority and the fall. Rejection of authority on the part of the woman contributed to her fall. The woman failed in the garden under two principles of authority. First she failed under the principle of the Word which was taught by Jesus Christ to both of them daily. Secondly, she failed under the principle of the authority of the man who was both divinely commissioned as ruler of the world, as well as the ruler of the woman under category #2 love. Under the original laws of divine establishment Adam was the ruler of planet earth. Not only so, but he was also the ruler of the woman. Both failures are emphasised in 2Timothy 2:11,12. So the first civilisation really began with rejection of authority — revolution.

3. There are certain areas of authority in life which are established by God. These authorities are based upon the laws of divine establishment.

a) The first of these is God's direct authority. God's direct authority today is exercised only through the Word, not through dreams, visions, trances, through the hallucinations of those who claim they hear the voice of God, the delusions of those who are looking for some special revelation from God apart from the Bible — it is only through His Word.

b) The local church, the pastor.

c) The divine institutions of which there are four: volition, the authority in the individual usually defined in terms of human freedom; the husband over the wife; the parents over the children; government over people.

d) There is academic authority, regardless of whether it is a public school, a private school, a college, university, a graduate school, a Christian school.

e) Athletics. Coaches ought to be the best disciplinarians in the world. They ought to have the right to remove people from the team, they should have very strict code standards, dress standards, morality standards, anything the coach wants. And he should be backed up to the hilt.

f) In business. The people who invest the money ought to set up the policy for an individual business — not the government and not the employees.

g) In the military. RHIP (Rank has its privileges). The senior officer has authority over the junior officer regardless of any other set of circumstances.

4. Greek words for authority.

a) u(pakouw means to obey or to be subject to — Matthew 8:27; Luke 8:25; Romans 6:16; Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20,22; 1Peter 3:6.

b) u(potassw means subordinate to or to obey, to be in submission to — Romans 8:20; 1Corinthians 14:32; Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; James 4:17; 1Peter 5:5.

c) peiqw means to obey — Galatians 3:1; 5:7; Hebrews 13:17; James 3:3.

d) peiqarxew which means to obey one in authority — Titus 3:1.

5. Commandments from God. God has certain commandments directed to the believer for obedience — Deuteronomy 11:27; 1Samuel 15:22; Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4,7. These commandments stem from the omniscience and the sovereignty of God and are executed by the believer through the function of GAP.

6. There is also authority over nature. Divine laws have been established to control nature. Nature, in effect, obeys God — Matthew 8:27; Mark 4:41; Luke 8:25.

7. There is authority in the human realm. The pastor is the ultimate authority in the local church — 1Corinthians 16:15,16; 2Corinthians 10:8; 1Thessalonians 5:12; Hebrews 13:7,17. For example, the authority of the right man provides great happiness in the realm of category #2 love — Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18. There is the authority in business which stabilises economy. When you have free enterprise and when management and capital has the authority you always and inevitably have great economic blessing and prosperity — Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22. Another area of authority: freedom through military victory is based upon authority in the military establishment — Nehemiah 4:13-15.

Translation: "Be subordinate in yourselves as one believer to the authority of another [pastor-teacher] out of respect for Christ."

There are three key words for the rest of this passage. This passage has a phenomenal thrust that is often lost in the detail. It is a simple one. Whatever relationship exists in this life, in order for them to be successful, wonderful, having great content to them, it demand self-discipline on the part of one person and authority properly exercised on the part of the other. If the relationship is between God the Father and the member of the royal family on earth, God the Father has the authority. The believer priest not only submits to that authority but does so under the self-discipline provided under the ministry of the Word of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit. In the relationship of the individual to his own volition, freedom, no one ever has that great capacity for life, that enthusiasm for life in adversity as well as prosperity, apart from self-discipline. In the relationship between right man and right woman the authority and responsibility is with the man, and in this case the subordination and the self-discipline lies with the woman. In the relationship between parents and children the authority is vested in the parents. The self-discipline and submission to authority belongs to the children. There never was a child who at some time did not think that his parents were totally unfair. But what children think is of absolutely no consequence. Children have the responsibility of submitting to the authority and the policy of their parents no matter how unfair they think it is, no matter how terrible it is to them personally. They have only one responsibility — submission and recognition of the authority of parents. The same thing is true in business life. All of this is emphasised by the use of three verbs in this passage, beginning at verse 22 and going through 6:9.

The first of these words is u(potassw. It connotes obedience, subjection to the authority of another. It will be used in verse 22, chapter 6:1, 5. The second verb is a verb for obedience — u(pakouw, and the third is fobew which does not mean fear but means respect. Occupation with Christ is its technical meaning but in a general way it means respect.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #86

86 02/10/1974 Ephesians 5:22 Taboos in selection of a husband for singles, divorcees, widows

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #87

87 02/11/1974 Ephesians 5:22 Doctrines of category 2 Love; right man/right woman

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #88

88 02/12/1974 Ephesians 5:22 Woman's soul in response to the right man

Verse 22 — "Wives." A wife is a female person who has made a decision to spend the rest of her life with a man and lives a life of mostly bliss, happiness , ecstatics, and five per cent misunderstanding. A(i, a definite article; gunaikej is the vocative plural from the verb gunh which is the word for the woman. The definite article is used here as a personal pronoun. This is a Classical Greek form. It should be translated "You wives." In principle this refers to the right woman married to the right man. In practice the command of this verse can become intolerable slavery if the woman has married the wrong man. Notice that it never says, if it is wrong, that the man married the woman, but the woman married the man — if it is the wrong man. If it the woman's right man, then he married her! There are some principles to consider before any woman can jump into marriage.

"submit" — actually the verb doesn't occur here in the original. The verb "submit" occurred in the previous verse where it says "submitting yourselves." The verb actually is used for both verses and that is why it is repeated. The syntax of the Greek demands that we recognise once again the present middle participle of the verb u(potassw which is a verb of subordination. "You wives be subordinating yourselves." The present tense is a customary present denoting what habitually occurs. The act of subordination to the right man is assumed to be true in the past and the future as well as the present time. The middle voice is a direct middle referring the results of the action directly to the agent with reflexive force. The participle is actually the imperative used as a participle and is peculiar to the Koine Greek.

Such an all-embracing command demands that the woman stop and consider the problems of marriage before she becomes involved in it, not after. For those who consider the problems of marriage after marriage they are in a very serious problem. For those who consider the problems of marriage before marriage have every opportunity of winding up with the right man and therefore in a state of bliss.

Taboos in the selection of a mate

1. Do not marry an unbeliever. If you are born again you are a member of the family of God, you are not to consort with darkness. You have no right under any circumstance to ever marry an unbeliever.

2. If you are positive toward Bible doctrine do not marry a believer who is negative toward doctrine. Compatibility cannot exist between a growing believer and a reversionistic believer.

3. Do not marry as a teenager. Marriage demands mental and spiritual maturity as well as capacity for life. There is no such thing as a teenager who has it. Sexual and physical maturity always precedes mental and spiritual maturity, and a teenager may have physical maturity and sexual maturity but definitely not mental or spiritual.

4. Do not marry on a wave of libido. A common failure of teenagers is to assume that libido or sex desire is love. There is a vast difference between libido and love — until you catch up with the right one.

5. Do not marry because of social pressures. For example, an unhappy home life and you want to escape. An escape hatch often becomes a source of slavery. Or panic. You are now 21, all of your friends are married and this is your "last chance"! Or heard instinct: all my friends are getting married, I must get married. Do not marry under social pressure of the type called prestige. That is, don't marry someone because they are well thought of, is famous in the papers, etc. Do not marry because of a mistake plus a sin. In other words, shotgun weddings are the worst kind of weddings because you rarely get right man or right woman.

6. Do not marry with the idea of solving your problems. A lot of people think that all they have to do is get married and all of their problems are solved. That is naive. People do not get married and live happily ever after, except in cases of right man, right woman, and even then they have a few problems of adjustment from time to time. Marriage merely intensifies problems.

7. Do not marry a status symbol. a) The man is handsome, a physically attractive creature. b) The good personality type — a salesman type. The personality is designed for selling, it is not necessarily designed for marriage. c) The husband is attractive in other ways — he has a deep voice, he has beauty in some physical feature which is important to you: eyes, hair, face, body, muscles, whatever. These things may be all right as a basis for original attraction but girls don't want to live the rest of their life with a set of muscles. d) The successful type. The smart girls are the ones always looking for the successful type. In this case success may be wealth, a good job, or some status symbol type of success but you marry a status symbol instead of the right man. e) Marry because a man travels, has a good social life. So for the rest of your life you are miserable having a good social life and watching the sea gulls as they attack the ferry at Istanbul! f) The husband represents security because he has wealth and success, but then isn't it nice to be miserable all of your life in security.

8. Do not marry a man unless you can submit to him body, soul, and spirit. This is the importance of u(potassw in our passage. In marriage the woman should have her divinely-designed right man. Her husband has to be the right man because he is the shepherd and the bishop of her soul — 1Peter 2:25 cf. 1Peter 3:1.

9. Do not marry because you love children or dogs or station wagons! In compatibility or desires do not make good marriages. There is no substitute for love.

10. Do not marry a divorced man except under the following circumstances dictated by the Word of God. a) The divorce occurred before salvation, in which case any sin or every sin is blotted out. The believer is never held accountable for sins committed before salvation. Psalm 103:12; Isaiah 42:25; 44:22. b) The man was the innocent party in an adultery divorce — Matthew 5:32. c) His divorce involved desertion of his wife — 1Corinthians 7:15. d) The man was the victim of a divorce gimmick — Deuteronomy 24:1,2. In this case he has the right of remarriage. e) The man's former wife has remarried. In other words, if a man is divorced after salvation from a woman and then finds his right woman, and in the meantime the first woman has married, he is free — Deuteronomy 24:3,4.

An extra set of taboos belong to the divorcee

She is also a(i gunaikej, she has been divorced and the following taboos are for divorcees only.

1. If your ex-husband was your right man, do not marry another man — 1Corinthians 7:11.

2. If your former husband was not the right man, and if you qualify from the five reasons previously given, there is still a right man for you. However, do not jump into marriage again without an intense period of studying the Word of God on a daily basis. GAP it daily for a year, preferably two years, before you ever begin to think in terms of males again.

3. If you have children by your former marriage the situation is more complicated. So remember the five principles related to that problem. a) If the children are still young and must live at home but a parent right man will not accept them, then do not marry him. If there is non-compatibility between your young children and the man you desire to marry, forget the man even if he is your right man, until your children are adults. b) If the children are still young and must live at home and the right man will accept them, and does, then marry him. c) If your children do not respond to the man you propose to marry it does not signify that he is the wrong man, it merely signifies that he is not their father. It means that you have made a mistake in your previous marriage. d) If your children by the previous marriage are adults and no hindrance you can marry your right man without anticipating too many complications. e) If you are one of those mothers completely occupied with adult children do not remarry under any circumstances. You are not a woman, you are a frustrated mother with a guilt complex, and probably emotional problems of a very serious nature. There are some women who never get untangled from their children when their children become adults. A woman's obsessions with failures and successes of her adult children will destroy not only her second marriage but will destroy most of her relationships in life, unless she finds the small group of people who will lie to her about how great her children are; in which case she is living in a dream world.

4. The short-circuit or jealousy problem. Before you remarry make sure that your intended husband is not jealous or short-circuited by your former marriage. You are not coming to him as an alleged or real virgin, therefore some males might have this problem without a lot of doctrine. You must not marry because you are lonely and want a legal sex partner. If you enter the second marriage having had a great deal of sex experience the chances are that unless you have married a great spiritual giant and super-grace hero the things that you thought you were going to have in marriage will never materialise, because your past has already short-circuited him so that he can neither perform sexually nor take the place of a man in his soul knowing that you are occasionally or many times thinking about other men in your life.

5. As the number of marriages increase the possibility of happiness in marriage decreases. This means that happiness in marriage, even to the right man, is severely tested. However, two super-grace believers as right man and right woman have the best chance to work out a second or third marriage. Doctrine in the soul makes the difference.

Six taboos for widows, in contrast to divorcees

1. If you are an older widow married to the right man now deceased, do not marry again — 1Corinthians 7:8; 1Timothy 5:5.

2. If you are an older widow married to the wrong man now deceased you can marry again, but only under very stringent conditions where it is obvious that your right man has now arrived.

3. If you are a younger widow you can remarry, according to 1Timothy 5:14. This verse indicates that there is still a right man for you if you are a younger widow.

4. Young widows must beware of becoming troublemakers in the congregation. The Bible says that the most troublesome people in any congregation are women who are either divorced or widowed, relatively young, still having strong libido. They become maligners, gossipers, judgers, they are filled with mental attitude sins — horsey females.

5. Young widows are prone to reversionism — 1Timothy 5:12.

6. Young widows are prone to marry on a wave of libido — 1Timothy 5:11.

The doctrine of category #2 love

1. There are three categories of love in the human race: category #1 toward God — Deuteronomy 6:5; Romans 8:35; 1John 4:19. Only the believer is capable of this kind of love; category #2 love is between one right man and one right woman — Song of Solomon 8:6,7; category #3 love is friendship — John 15:13; 2Samuel 1:26.

2. The strength of category #2 love is declared in Song of Solomon 8:6,7. It cannot be quenched by any pressure of life.

3. However, death destroys both pseudo love and mental attitude sins — Ecclesiastes 9:5,6. If you die before you seem to have found the right one the pseudo love is gone.

4. The exclusiveness of category #2 love extends to one person of the opposite sex and all others are excluded. Therefore happiness in sex love can only be found in one person — Proverbs 5:18,19. This excludes the following as a basis for such happiness: autoerotism or masturbation, homosexuality or lesbianism, promiscuity or adultery, etc.

5. Category #2 love produces an exclusive and perfect happiness which is self-sustaining as well as partner-sustaining — Proverbs 15:17.

6. Therefore category #2 love is protective. When the right one is absent — Song of Solomon 1:13; 4:6; when present — Song of Solomon 2:4.

7. Category #2 love illustrates the relationship with the Lord. The relationship between Israel and the Lord — Jeremiah chapters 2 & 3; Ezekiel 16 & 23. The relationship between the Lord and the Church — Ephesians 5:23-33.

8. Mental attitude sins attack all forms of true love — 1John 5:18. Jealousy is one of the greatest enemies in this field — Song of Solomon 8:6.

9. Category #2 love is the provision of God's grace — Proverbs 18:22. "Whoever finds his right woman receives grace from the Lord." Divine institution #2 is designed for category #2 love — Ephesians 5:25,28,33.

10. God has set aside time in each life for category #2 love — Ecclesiastes 3:8. However, certain functions in life can destroy this time, i.e. not waiting for the right man or the right woman, adultery, drug addiction, alcoholism, mental attitude sins which destroy right lobe capacity.

11. Women must be taught to love under category #2 — Titus 2:4.

The doctrine of right man, right woman

1. There are three gifts from Jesus Christ given in the scripture. The first is the right woman; He built it. The second is salvation; He did it. The third is doctrine; He thought it. Doctrine is the mind of Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16. Historically speaking the first gift that Jesus Christ ever gave to man was a right woman.

2. Right woman is the oldest gift in human history. When man was created Jesus Christ said, "Not good that man should be alone" — Genesis 2:18. Therefore in grace Jesus Christ constructed a right woman for the man and brought the woman to the man. The relationship was established from the beginning during innocence and continued after the fall. The fall did not change the relationship. It was designed for maximum human happiness and even an unbeliever with failure and otherwise a miserable life can find great happiness in this gift from Jesus Christ. So it is a gift for the unbeliever as well as the believer — Ecclesiastes 9:9. The phrase "live joyfully" is not correct. The qal imperative from raah means to see, but we have with it a plural noun chajiim, and together this phrase means literally, "see lives." However, it is an idiom which means "enjoy life." Here is a command to the unbeliever; the unbeliever can actually enjoy life provided that the rest of this verse is fulfilled — "with the wife whom thou lovest." He keeps on loving her, this is linear aktionsart here. The principle is very important. If a man is a total failure and he finds his right woman he is going to he happier than the man who is a total success and doesn't find his right woman.

3. The greatest attack on the gift and the divine law comes in the soul. Various stages of reversionism such as blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, emotional revolt, are attackers of this principle. The attack comes through fornication or promiscuity — Proverbs 5; 6:20-32; 1Corinthians 11:3-16; Jeremiah 31:22.

4. The perversions of the doctrine. a) Autoerotism or masturbation. In this, self responds to self and that is a perversion. b) Homosexuality or lesbianism — Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26,27. Homosexuals are not sick, they are sinful. There never has been and there never will be a sin for which there is not a solution, a spiritual solution from the Word of God. c) Bestiality, sexual response to animals — Leviticus 18:23. d) The only normal perversion of right man, right woman: fornication. This is normal, it is a perversion of the divine institution — Exodus 20:14; Proverbs 5:20; 6:32.

5. Mental attitude sins are destructive to right man, right woman relationship. Song of Solomon, chapter 8. This passage is dealing with the Shulamite woman who is in love with the shepherd. She is the most beautiful woman in the land. We know that because Solomon has discovered her. He took her into his harem but was unsuccessful in seducing her. In verse 6 we now see that the shepherd lover has rescued her from Solomon who is the villain and he now speaks to the Shulamite woman which is his right woman. They have a category #2 love. God did not use this woman until she had been used to punish Solomon — Proverbs 5. She wore category #2 love in her soul like a chastity belt. Her love for her right man, her shepherd lover, was stronger than anything in her life.

The soul relationship is expressed when the shepherd lover says in verse 6, "Set me as a seal upon thine heart." 'Set me' is the qal imperative of sum and it means impress. The word for 'seal' means a signet ring which the woman had been carrying around her neck. This signet ring signifies waiting for the right man. And just as in category #2 love the woman gives herself soul and body to her right man so she placed the signet ring on his finger to portray the perfect relationship which would exist between them. He is saying in effect, "The ring that you are carrying around your neck, put it on my finger." 'Upon thine' heart refers to her right lobe. Because of the mental attitude love she has in her right lobe the ring goes on his finger. So soul love precedes sex love in this principle. The right man must be in the right woman's soul before she can respond to him and for this reason this woman would never be satisfied with another. That is why she has rejected Solomon in all of his glory. We actually have the principle here of soul climax which is found in 1Corinthians 7:9 as well.

"as a seal upon thine arm" — the arm here means her strength or her power. The word also means fingers, indicating marriage. But the real concept here is that the woman has a great soul strength, great soul energy which can only respond to her right man. A woman's animation comes from the relationship with her right man.

He expresses the principle of category #2 when he says "love is as strong as death." And then he states the great enemy of category #2 love, "jealousy is as cruel as the grave." In a relationship between a man and a woman there is often a great deal of cruelty and this is brought about by the mental attitude sins which attack the principle.

"her flame [love] are flames of fire, the flame of the Lord" [incorrect in the English of the KJV] — in other words, it is the same as the seal upon her arm, she has a phenomenal soul love for this man. Her soul energy is a flame which, of course, causes her body to turn into a flame. The origin of this great soul and sexual response — "the flame of the Lord." So all right man, right woman love is divinely designed.

Verse 7 — "Many waters cannot quench love" is literally, "not able to quench love." Many waters referred to pressures. Many pressures in life are not able to extinguish category #2 love. The flame of verse 6 now takes us to water. What puts out a flame? Water. But many waters are not able to extinguish the love. "Many waters cannot extinguish the love, neither can floods of water drown it." The principle: Mental attitude sins can destroy right man, right woman relationship but apart from this there can be no destruction of it.

6. Negative volition toward doctrine destroys right man, right woman relationship. Jeremiah 15:15-21; 16:1,2; 17:9-11; 12:7-9; 15:8,9.

7. The analogies of right man, right woman: a) Right man, right woman are used to teach many types of doctrine. This is because this is one of the most common relationships in the human race. b) The right man is the shepherd and bishop of the right woman's soul, just as Christ is the shepherd and bishop of the believer's soul — 1Peter 2:25 cf. 3:1. c) The right woman is the glory of the man just as the believer in super-grace is the glory of God — 1Corinthians 11:7.

8. This principle is also related to the laws of divine establishment under the principle of monogamy. Monogamy is ordained of God to remind mankind that there is only one right woman for one right man, and visa versa. 1Corinthians 7:2-4. Under the laws of establishment the right man, right woman relationship becomes divine institution #2, or marriage. Marriage is still the protection of category #2 love, as per Hebrews 13:4; 1Corinthians 7:9; 1Timothy 5:14; Romans 7:2,3; Genesis 2:24,25; Ephesians 5:22,25, 28,31,33. Marriage forms the basis for stability in society and rejects the theory of both anarchy, promiscuity, and communal living. Anarchy and promiscuity comes when there is not a recognised system of marriage. Since the right man, right woman relationship was designed for the ultimate in human happiness marriage is both the protection and the boundary for category #2 love. Marriage is also protected by the divine institution #3 where parents have the responsibility for training their children, not someone else's. The man is the authority in marriage. God protects the woman, however, from tyranny. The man with authority is first a little boy trained and taught by his mother. Mother teaches him respect for womanhood by both her teaching and by her life, and this keeps him from becoming an animal — Proverbs 31:1,2.

9. The relationship at the fall of mankind. This relationship preceded the fall. For a long, long time the man and the woman lived in a state of innocence which means no sin and no sin nature. But after the fall God confirms the fact that the husbands authority is not changed. At the fall, the husband was listening when he should have been talking. The woman did the talking, she offered the fruit and he took it. Even after the man took the fruit God confirmed the fact that in the laws of divine establishment with the old sin nature the man is still in charge — Genesis 3:16; Ephesians 5:22. However, in the fall man and the woman reversed their roles — Genesis 3:6. Until this time sex had been a pleasure and total happiness and now it becomes a means of perpetuating the human race as a secondary role of sex. But it is the secondary role that always gets everyone because without children they have only each other to think of. Once there are children there is something else to think of and a new authority develops in the home, the parents over the children. As a result of this there are some problems in right man, right woman relationship.

10. The right woman is still a great gift from the Lord — Proverbs 18:22 is not correctly translated in the KJV. It should be: "He who has acquired his right woman has acquired the good from the Lord, and he has received the object of his delight from the Lord." The Lord brought the first woman to the first man in grace. Adam, the man, recognised her in his soul. He called her Isha, part of himself. This explains the burning of 1Corinthians 7:9 which is not a wave of libido but the soul climax every compartment of the soul's essence is stimulated by total concentration on the one you love. The word for 'good' here means that he has acquired the original gift from God to man. The original gift was the right woman.

5:22 — "unto your own husbands" is the dative plural of possession plus the definite article used as a possessive pronoun. There are a series of words here, i)dioj, which means "your very own." With it is a)nhr for "man" or "husband," and also the definite article used as a personal pronoun. It should be therefore translated "You wives be subordinating yourselves to your very own husbands." A)nhr stands here for what should be the right man and therefore it connotes a man in the noble sense. The same concept is found in Jeremiah 31:22 — "A female shall fit a hero." When the woman finds her hero [right man] she becomes his glory, as per 1Corinthians 11:7. As the super-grace believer is glory to God who provides for him, so the woman is the glory for her right man, her hero.

"as" is the relative adverb w(j which is derived from the relative pronoun o(j. It is used as a comparative particle here to set up a true norm and standard. A born again woman who is positive toward doctrine is going to submit to the Word of God, and as she is positive toward the Word she has the built-in norm or standard by which she is to be positive toward her own right man.

"as unto the Lord" is a dative of direct object indicating the one, Jesus Christ, for whom the act of submission is performed. Every woman, once she finds her right man, is to submit to him as she submits to the Lord. It is Bible doctrine which gives the woman the capacity to submit to her right man, to appreciate her right man, to fulfill her right man. Therefore this becomes a very important verse. Sometimes men are jealous of their wives going to Bible class when in reality it is the wife who gets here capacity for loving him from Bible doctrine, as well as her capacity to love the Lord. Category #1 and category #2 love ride together in the Christian life. As goes category #1 love, so goes category #2.

Translation: "You wives be subordinating yourselves to your very own husbands, as to the Lord." This can only be obeyed by the filling of the Spirit and a positive attitude toward Bible doctrine.

Summary

1. The woman from her own volition surrenders her freedom to her right man or whomever she marries.

2. Every woman should begin to think in terms of the love test. Notes on category #2 love, Adam's rib, right man, right woman, marriage, so that she has already set up in her soul certain criteria which will cause a person to flunk or pass the love test.

3. Our verb is u(potassw, translated "submit." This asks the question: 'Are you single ladies willing to surrender to the man you propose to marry, your body, your soul, and spirit, creating in him through the marriage vows the ruler, the bishop of your soul.'

4. If you say no to this question, and you are about ready to marry some one and are saying 'I can't quite surrender my soul to this man,' or there is something holding you back some way, then you run from that man and put as much distance between you as possible, and give him a firm no.

5. Are you willing to make this man the Lord of your life, placing at his disposal your body and soul; a permanent servitude. Are you willing to subordinate yourself to this man for life.

6. If not, you have the wrong man.

7. To become one with a man the woman surrenders her volition and her freedom, and even much of her privacy, to the man she marries.

8. In return for this submission — body, soul, and spirit — she receives his love, his adoration, his protection, his companionship, his sex; everything that will make her happy.

9. But if she marries the wrong man marriage becomes the most intolerable slavery in existence.

10. If she marries the right man life becomes unbelievably happy and full of blessing. This is the reflected glory principle of 1Corinthians 11.

11. There is no in between. It is either hell or happiness, it is either misery or ravishing ecstasy.

12. The woman's submission is much more than sexual and physical, it is soulish and mental.

13. The woman's soul must be responsive before her body can be responsive. This is why courtship emphasises the soul and not the body.

What can a man expect by way of response from a woman?

1. In her self-consciousness, before she finally falls in love, every woman is extremely vain. Mirrors were made for girls before they fall in love! This is really an expression of her self-consciousness. There is no such thing as love at first sight. But a woman undergoes a phenomenal change when she truly falls in love. She switches her self-consciousness from herself to a person and becomes occupied with that person. It is quite a transition for any woman to make. A jealous, noble gentleman will always make allowances for a woman's self-consciousness, whether it is his right woman or not. When a woman becomes aware of someone else in the human race more than herself [this is not abnormal] she cuts out all the teasing and all the flirting. She changes in her soul. These changes are quite radical in the self-consciousness. Her awareness of her right man excludes all others from that intimacy for which she was designed. Her instincts change to please him in every way. She can't do it at first and it take a while.

2. Mentality. Remember the two great factors in love: a)gaph love which is strictly mental attitude and filew love which is entire soul love. These both exist in the mentality of the soul. The mental competition between the sexes ceases to exist. He is in the norms and standards of her conscience, he is in her frame of reference, all of her memory now relates to him, she instinctively anticipates his desires and policies and fulfills them. Sex is never a pressure but a desire.

3. Volition. When she says yes to the right man she surrenders her volition to him. Her submission is both soulish and physical. She uses her volition to make thousands of decisions which please him, and which stimulate him, bless him, encourage him, resulting in the woman becoming his reflected glory.

4. Emotion. Appreciation of the right man in the heart or right lobe leads to emotional appreciation of the right man. Up to now, before she has fallen in love, she like certain types of music, certain types of activities. Now she has some with whom she can share the things that she enjoys because her emotion is now linked to his in category #2 love. No man should be such a fool as to squelch a woman's enthusiasm is to start to chip away at her love, at her response.

5. Trends of the sin nature. Every man who is a Christian gentleman should become aware of the trends of the sin nature of his opposite number. For some of them he will be patient, with other he will be intolerant, with other he will assert his authority. But he must understand her areas of weakness, her areas of strength, the pattern of her lust, her trends. He must know when her trend is toward asceticism, when it is toward lasciviousness, or something else. No man is worth his salt if he doesn't learn to know the soul of a woman as he knows his own soul.

There are some women who make a mistake in marriage, or even make a right marriage, and have no concept of slavery. They get in the saddle as soon as the marriage takes place and then from then on they run their husbands completely and totally. There is nothing worse than a female dictator, nothing worse than a woman who controls a man by nagging, by making life uncomfortable for him. So the man who ought the be the enslaver really finds himself the enslaved.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #89

89 02/13/1974 Ephesians 5:23a Doctrine of the church

Verse 23 — The causal conjunction o(ti begins a subordinate clause to this subject. It should be translated "because" instead of "for." This clause is subordinate to the fact that the wife must submit herself to the authority of the husband.

"the husband" — the nominative singular of a)nhr minus the definite article. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the quality of the noun. Therefore a)nhr should be the right man designed by God in eternity past for the right woman. In other words, to avoid the master-slave relationship or to involve the female-bullying , husband-succumbing relationship it is imperative that the woman get the right man for her lord and master.

"is" — present active indicative of e)imi to indicate the principle in the status quo of marriage. The present tense, therefore, is a static present. There is no exception to this, it is always true.

"the head" — the predicate nominative from the noun kefalh, which doesn't mean 'head' here at all. The word means 'head' but it also means 'chief,' the ultimate in authority in a stated set of circumstances. Again, the absence of the definite article denotes the quality of the noun. In the marriage relationship we have a divine institution and God has so appointed the man in the marriage, the husband, as the absolute authority. Kefalh as a biblical term signifies what is first or supreme. In Homeric Greek kefalh connoted head of a man or an animal but in Attic Greek it connoted the top, the end, the point of departure, the top of a wall, the top of a pillar. In the Attic Greek it began to be used for the one that was high on the pillar. Kefalh was also used in secular speech for the whole man. In the Septuagint the Hebrew noun rosh was also translated into the Greek by kefalh. Rosh in the Hebrew means 'head' but it also means 'prince,' for a head or a ruler of people. In the New Testament we find the literal use of kefalh in the veiling of the woman's head in 1Corinthians 11:3ff. Kefalh is also used for the Lord Jesus Christ as the head of the church, and that is absolute authority. So when kefalh is used for the husband, again we have absolute authority. The fact that Christ is the head of the Church has already been studied in Ephesians 1:22ff, 4:15ff. Now once again we get the same thing. So obviously kefalh denotes man's supremacy in category #2 relationship in the field of authority.

"of the wife" is a possessive genitive singular. In other words, man is only entitled to one gunh at a time. As such it also becomes a genitive of relationship. This should be translated, so far: "Because a husband is supreme over his wife." Note that the definite article with the genitive of gunh is used as a possessive pronoun. Whenever you have definite article with a genitive and it is a possessive genitive the definite article then becomes a possessive pronoun. This is Attic Greek in form but found occasionally in the New Testament Koine Greek.

The regular uses of the article in the Greek

Whenever a definite article occurs with a noun in the Greek it denotes an individual, or secondly, it denotes secondly previous reference, or thirdly, it simply is used to indicate an abstract noun developing an abstract principle. This is how we have the article with a)lhqeia which is used for truth or doctrine. The definite article there indicates an abstract principle. It is also used with proper names to indicate a person well-known to the reader. That is why we have so many times, o( Xristoj, 'the Christ.' Fifthly, it is used generically to denote a category. In addition to these five the definite article is often used for a personal pronoun, a possessive pronoun, or demonstrative pronoun. These are special uses of the definite article and they came down to us from Attic Greek. The Attic Greek used the article as a pronoun and the definite article distinguishes the subject from the predicate in a copulative sentence. Sometimes it is impossible to know. For example, in John 1:1 Qeoj and Logoj are used and they are separated by a verb, h)n, which is the imperfect of e)imi. How does one know which is which. It is kai qeoj o( logoj, so we know that even though it says literally, "And God was the Word," we know that "the Word" is the subject because of the definite article. So it is "the Word was God." "God" is the predicate nominative and not the subject. This is very important in interpretation of the Word of God. How do we know which is which? Because the definite article denotes the subject as over against the predicate nominative. Every time the definite article occurs in the Word of God it has a meaning and sometimes even the interpretation of a passage is dependant upon understanding that.

"even as" — the relative adverb w(j used for a comparative particle, plus the ascensive use of the conjunction kai; "Christ" — and here we have o( Xristoj, indicating someone we know: "the Christ." The function of the article in the Greek is to point out an object, to draw attention to Him, and the basic concept of the article is to point out individual identity. There is no more important individual identity in our lives than that of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the definite article marks a specific object of thought. At this point we turn from the subject of marriage to the subject of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the use of the article with Xristoj we have the God-Man personality, the unique person of the universe, the only saviour, the one who is responsible for everything we ever have or ever will have that is blessing, whether in time or in eternity. Without the definite article with Xristoj it would signify His divine essence, but with the definite article it indicates the hypostatic union. However, there is no verb. It says "Christ is the head" in the English; there is no 'is.' The absence of the verb again places great emphasis on the subject, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is said to be the predicate nominative of kefalh. Again, minus the definite article indicates the quality of the noun. He is the absolute authority over the Church.

"of the church" is genitive of possession and genitive of relationship all in one, and the noun plus the definite article is e)kklhsia. Again, the definite article is used as a possessive pronoun. So far we have: "Since an husband is supreme over his wife, even as the Christ supreme over the church." This sets up a direct analogy between right man, right woman and the relationship between Christ and the Church. Christ is the right man, the Church is comparable to the right woman.

The doctrine of the Church

1. Nomenclature. The Church is designated by other words than the Church.

a) Positional sanctification is described under two biblical words: 'saint' and the phrase 'in Christ.' These two words are used to designate the Church as the royal family of God in this dispensation.

b) Two words which form another concept: 'body' and 'bride.' This nomenclature relates us to the angelic conflict. The body is the Church on earth during this dispensation, the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. The bride is the Church in heaven after the Rapture. These two designations are very important and they cover many concepts of doctrine.

c) The English word 'church.' The Greek word, again, is e)kklhsia. Five different meanings of e)kklhsia:

i) The Attic Greek use, since this word first in the Classical Greek of Athens where it was used for the assembly Athenian citizens convened to conduct the affairs of state. The e)kklhsia was all of the citizens of Athens coming together to make a decision.

ii) It was used in Old Testament usage for the assembly of Israel — Acts 7:38. Whenever in the New Testament the Old Testament assembly was mentioned e)kklhsia was used. Every time Moses hauled the people together to chew them out during the period of the Exodus, whenever they were together, they were called e)kklhsia. In other words, 'assembly' which is the literal meaning of e)kklhsia.

iii) Whenever Jews came together in a synagogue they were also known as e)kklhsia or an assembly — Matthew 18:17.

iv) Under Hellenistic culture and the governments that grew out of the Alexandrian empire we have the assembly of a Hellenistic city state, as in Acts 19:25. Again, the citizens are called e)kklhsia.

v) The one found in the epistles of the New Testament and often in the book of Acts in its technical sense. There are two technical concepts. The most important, and the one that we find in Ephesians 5, is the universal church. E)kklhsia is used for the Church universal, that is, for all believers on the earth today — Ephesians 1:22,23; 5:25-27. It actually refers to the residence of the royal priesthood. The second technical use is the local church, the classroom for the royal priesthood — 1Corinthians 1:2; 1Thessalonians 1:1; Revelation 2:3.

2. Dispensational orientation. 'Mystery' is the concept here. The dispensation of the Church is the mystery age. According to Romans 16:25,26; Ephesians 3:1-5; Colossians 1:25,26 the mystery refers to the fact that all doctrine pertaining to this dispensation was unknown in Old Testament times, never revealed. Starting with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and going all the way to the Rapture, and everything in between — the whole concept of the royal family, members of the family of God but royal family, the universal priesthood, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Spirit, the indwelling of Christ, are all doctrines pertaining to this dispensation only and they simply were not known in the Old Testament. The first reference to the Church was the prophesy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 16:18. So this is why we have the word 'mystery', something previously not understood but now known to those who are believers.

3. The beginning of the Church Age.

a) The Church Age interrupts the dispensation of Israel seven years short of its completion. The Church Age is an interrupting dispensation.

b) The reason for the interruption of the Jewish Age is the glorification of Jesus Christ as a part of the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. Therefore the Jewish Age must be interrupted in order to call out a royal family identified with Christ forever. Once Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father He is alone there. He in King of kings, Lord of lords. He is our high priest, He is the last Adam. 'Not good that Adam should ever be alone.' Jesus Christ said this about the first Adam; God the Father says this about the last Adam. So the last Adam isn't alone because He has us, His very own royal family.

c) The Church Age did not begin in Abraham's tent. This was taught by covenant theology; this is the reformed theology system which came from John Calvin, John Knox, and others who started the Church in Abraham's tent. We know this from the very statement of Jesus Christ for the Church was future when He said in Matthew 16:18, "I will" — future active indicative of o)ikodomew — "build my Church."

d) The Church Age begins with the baptism of the Holy Spirit by which the royal family is formed. This is something that happens to us at the moment that we believe in Jesus Christ. Acts 1:5; 1Corinthians 12:13; Acts 2:1-3 which doesn't mention the baptism cf. 11:15,16 which does mention it.

e) The Church Age began on the day of Pentecost in 30 AD.

4. The termination of the Church Age.

a) The Church Age terminates with the resurrection of the Church, called technically the Rapture — 1Corinthians 15:51-57; Philippians 3:21; 1Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1John 3:1,2.

b) By comparing the original text of Colossians 2:15 with Revelation 19:6-8; Zechariah 13:2 plus 1Thessalonians 3:13, it is concluded from the original languages that the body of Christ will be completed when the number of believers in the royal family is equal to the number of demons operating under the command of Satan today. This is predicated on the fact that the believer bumps one demon when he returns with Christ for that glorious victory of the second advent.

c) At the time of the Rapture of the Church it is transferred by resurrection to heaven. That means that the living believers go up, they are changed in the moment of a twinkling of an eye. The body is completed and therefore it becomes the bride. The bride goes through a period of preparation in heaven while the Tribulation runs its course on earth.

d) The preparation of the bride for the second advent is threefold. i) Every believer of the royal family receives at the same time a resurrection body — the dead believers and the live believers on earth — 1Corinthians 15:51-57; ii) The removal of the old sin nature in compatibility with ultimate sanctification — Philippians 3:21; iii) The destruction of all human good accumulated during the believer's life on this earth. It is burned — 1Corinthians 3:15.

5. Synonyms for Christ and the Church are seven. Each one of these synonyms teaches an entire doctrine:

a) The last Adam [Christ] and the new creation [the Church] — 1Corinthians 15:45-47; 2Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15.

b) The head and the body — Ephesians 1:22,23; 2 :16; 4:4,5; 5:23; Colossians 1:18,24.

c) The Shepherd and the sheep — John 10; Hebrews 13:20; 1Peter 5:4.

d) The vine and the branches — John 15.

e) The chief corner stone and the stones of the building — Ephesians 2:20; 1Peter 2:4-8.

f) The high priest and the royal priesthood — Hebrews 7:25; 10:10-14; 1Peter 2:5,9; Revelation 1:6.

g) The Groom and the bride — 2Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:25-27; Revelation 19:6-8.

6. The uniqueness of the Church Age.

a) Members of the royal family of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, leading to positional sanctification, called by the title of nobility 'saints.' This is the only group of believers who are members of the royal family of God forever.

b) The universal priesthood of the believer.

c) The indwelling of the Holy Spirit for every royal priest. Every believer is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit.

d) The indwelling of the person of Christ for fellowship as long as you are growing. If you stop growing and turn into a reversionist He leaves you and starts knocking on the door, as per Revelation 3:20.

e) Instructions to the royal family in writing, the completed canon of scripture. When it comes to the royal family God speaks through His Word.

f) We have a supernatural way of life for the royal family with a supernatural means of execution. This is experiential sanctification. Execution through the filling of the Spirit and the intake of Bible doctrine.

g) Every member of the royal family of God is an ambassador representing Christ on earth.

7. The objective of the Church Age believer is to be filled with the Spirit consistently, to function daily under the principle of GAP so that he reaches the super-grace as quickly as possible. Super-grace is the normal function of the priesthood as well as the spiritual circumstances which glorify God. Super-grace is the tactical victory of the angelic conflict, therefore on to super-grace!

"and" is the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai and it should always be translated "also."

"he" is the intensive pronoun a)utoj. The intensive pronoun has reflexive connotation and emphasises who and what Christ is, and it should be translated "he himself." There is no verb here. The absence of the verb places great emphasis on the intensive pronoun as well as the next word, "the saviour." Swthr here has a number of connotations in addition to salvation. First of all it means that Jesus Christ is the source of eternal salvation for each one of us. He is the saviour of the body, the body here is the Church, not the physical body. It is the soul that is saved, body here refers to the royal family on earth. So when it says that He is the saviour it refers to the fact that He is the only way to enter the palace, He is the only source of regeneration, He is the only source of salvation in this or any other dispensation.

"of the body" is a possessive genitive singular from the noun swma, technical in its use here rather than literal. In the literal use it would refer to the physical body but in the technical use it refers to the royal family on earth. The royal family is formed by means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit resulting in every Church Age believer becoming royalty forever in the family of God. At this point three doctrine are pertinent: the doctrine of the baptism of the Spirit, the doctrine of positional truth, the doctrine of sanctification, and the doctrine of the royal family of God. "Saviour of the body" means that Christ is not only the source of eternal salvation by His work on the cross but it means that He is the deliverer of each believer, the protector of the believer during his stay on earth. During the believer's stay in this world he lives in the devil's world, cosmos diabolicus. This means that against him is opposed great unseen forces of demons under the command of Satan, as well as all unbelievers outside of establishment. Then add to that reversionistic friends. So the believer has about all the opposition that one person could ever stand and survive. Were it not for this phrase, each one of us instead of being a person listening to doctrine would be a grease spot on the street! In other words, none of us could ever survive the devil's jungle. This world is the devil's jungle. We have unseen opposition as well as visible opposition and consequently "saviour of the body" means also deliverer of the body. Every moment that we stay alive in the devil's world we are alive because of who and what Christ is. You are I are here and alive as the guests of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the saviour of the body.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #90

90 02/14/1974 Ephesians 5:23b–24 Doctrine of the enslaved male

Verse 24 — "Therefore" is erroneously translated. The Greek has two words, a)lla w(j, which means literally, "But as." In other words, we have the adversative conjunction a)lla with the comparative adverb for a reverse analogy. The analogy continues with Christ and the Church, then reverts back to right man, right woman.

"the church" — as we move into this verse we are still talking about Christ and the Church. The church refers to the Church Age believers, the members of the royal family of God.

"is subject" — present middle indicative of the verb u(potassw. This is a static present tense representing a condition as perpetually existing. The middle voice is the indirect middle emphasising the agent as producing the action of the verb rather than participating in the results of the action. In other words, the believer as royal family, called here "Church," is actually subordinate to the authority of Christ on earth as well as forever. The static present says phase two, phase three, but the middle voice says now and ever. The indirect middle indicates the action of the verb is closely related to the subject. This is a declarative mood, the mood of dogmatic assertion. "But as the church herself" is the way you translate the indirect middle.

"unto Christ" — the dative of indirect object of Xristoj, used for our Lord; plus the definite article. The dative of indirect object indicates that Jesus Christ is the one for whom the act of subordination is performed. The definite article sets Him apart as the unique person of the universe, it emphasises the hypostatic union — "to the Christ."

"also" — o(utoj kai is literally, "in this way also." This includes the adverb o(utoj, referring to what has preceded, plus the adjunctive use of kai.

"the wives" — the nominative plural of gunh means "all wives."

"to their own husbands" — dative plural of a)nhr plus the definite article. A)nhr means 'man' and it means here noble man in the principle of right man. The definite article is used as a possessive pronoun — "your very own husband." The dative of indirect object indicates the ones, the husbands, in whose interest the act of subordination is performed. So it is in the interest of the man that the woman be subordinate to him.

"in everything" — or "in all things."

Translation: "But as the church itself is subordinate to the Christ, in this way also the wives to their own husbands in all things."

The doctrine of the enslaved male

1. Most men as husbands become more interested in peace than they do in assuming the responsibility and the authority of the home — divine institution #2.

2. Peace at any price is the battle cry of the average husband who has made a mistake in marrying the wrong woman.

3. This attitude results in male enslavement, the reverse of what we have in this passage, just as it does in a national entity. No one wants to live in a country under tyranny and no one wants to live in a marriage under tyranny. Yet, in spite of what is said in this passage many are slaves to their wives. The price that a man pays for peace at any price is complete compliance with the policies, the wishes, the desires, the whims, the bad judgements, and the bad disposition of his wife.

4. Control of the enslaved male is maintained by the behaviour pattern of the woman — nagging, tantrums, sulking, pouting, spreading a pall of gloom over the household, etc. In other words, anything that destroys the peace and tranquillity of the home.

5. Most men by nature are much more complex than the woman. For example, the man is very, very sensitive to this type of behaviour in his wife. He finds it distressing, irritating, incompatible with tranquillity and peace in the household. The results for this man are his own destruction. When a woman enslaves a man she does more than enslave him, she destroys him. A man is much more sensitive than a woman. Authority increases the sensitivity of the soul.

6. Therefore the average male feels that his only defense against a nagging woman, a tantrum woman, a woman who makes life miserable for him, is capitulation. Marriage then becomes a series of manipulation with the strings being pulled by the woman.

7. The wife controls the husband by her behaviour pattern under these conditions. She enslaves him by nagging, by embarrassing him, by making his life miserable; and soon she sets up a policy which includes constant surveillance, curfews, interrogations by unexplained absences, examination of his cheque book, searching his drawers and anywhere else where he keeps anything to see if she can get any clues at to what he has done. In other words, a woman who starts running a man makes him a slave. And slaves have no privacy!

8. Another means of enslaving the male is to ration sex, or ration kindness, unless the male complies with whatever policy the woman has set up.

9. When the enslaving woman is backed into a corner and proved wrongthen immediately she has a number of excuses by which she rationalises her dictatorship. For example, she is either pre, mid, or post-menstrual; she is either pre-menopausal, mid-menopausal, or suffering from some psychosis as a result of the menopause, namely involuntary melancholia. Or, pressure from the kids, or everything went wrong in the house today, as it somehow this was an excuse for becoming a monster and a dictator. Operation patsy leads to rationalising away this enslavement of the husband.

10. Most women have more endurance than men — soul endurance, life endurance. Statistically they live longer, they have unbelievable stamina for whatever their project is.

11. Because of the nature of the man as the divinely-appointed authority in marriage, and as the aggressor, his enslavement is far more tragic and, in our society, more frequent than the enslavement of the woman. In a matriarchal society people loves dogs rather than human beings!

12. No one bemoans the fate of a house cat, but how pathetic to see the king of the beasts, the lion, ensnared in a trap. That is the principle. A right woman can never enslave her right man, even in the most adverse conditions of reversionism. A right woman may start it but she will grow up and will so adjust as to put the man on the spot if he is in the wrong and leave the man in the hands of the Lord. But a right woman will never enslave her right man.

13. A right woman may test her right man's authority by trying to pull a fast one from time to time, but the right man knows exactly what to do and exactly how to handle it.

14. The right man is never afraid of his right woman, but the bravest of brave are intimidated by the wrong woman. It is a compliment, ladies, if a man is not afraid of you.

15. Let's face the facts. Women do enslave men in the framework of marriage. Such a woman is never happy and obviously her husband-slave is miserable.

That is why God ordained marriage to have authority vested in the man.

Summary

1. The authority of Christ over the Church is used to establish the authority of the husband over the wife in marriage.

2. This relationship, like all others, demands the existence of authority.

3. Therefore the woman in surrendering her volition to a man in marriage must be absolutely certain that she has her right man designed for her by God in eternity past. For if she doesn't it is inevitable that either she will enslave him or he will enslave her, and that marriage is a slave factory — one of them is going to be a slave.

4. Otherwise a state of slavery will exist.

5. One wrong decision regarding marriage and the woman has a lifetime of misery either as a slave or as a master of slaves.

6. Therefore no one should ever enter into marriage lightly, erroneously, under the influence of alcohol, or anything else that takes away from the solemnity of the decision and the ceremony.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #91

91 02/15/1974 Ephesians 5:25 Doctrine of the loving husband

Verse 25 — "Husbands" is the vocative plural from the noun a)nhr. It takes more to be a husband than anything else in life, yet this is addressed to husbands as though it is the simplest instead of the most complex of all leadership responsibilities. It is the only leadership responsibility where the squad can be the most dangerous tactical squad in the world, never perhaps the most compliant, and where the squad is made up entirely of female — one. To make a mistake in asking a woman to marry you is probably the worst mistake you can ever make in life, if it is a mistake. To either luck out, or to be graced out as believers should be, and find the right woman certainly gives every man the best command he ever had, the greatest command he ever had, and the greatest challenge of his entire life. Just any idiotic kid can get married, but to fulfill what is spoken here in a brief phrase requires more than any idiotic kid or any male can really fulfill apart from the grace of God. While the noun refers to husbands in general the principle must recognise it from the standpoint of right man, right woman, even as it is with Christ, right ruler, right church. All principles of doctrine related to marriage are based on the concept that God has designed one right man for one right woman, that God in the field of personnel has done exactly right in this field, and therefore the ideal system of leadership should be one right man, one right woman in marriage. The vocative of the definite article is used again for the personal pronoun and it should be translated "You husbands."

"love" is the present active imperative of a)gapaw, demonstrating immediately that this is the greatest of all leadership challenges. How dare any male of the human race be stupid enough to lead with his sex organs in getting married. This is a word for mental love, it is the most confining of all words for love in any of the Greek languages. The present tense is the customary present, it denotes that which should habitually occur. It should be translated, "You husbands, be loving." The active voice: the husband produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a command. Since marriage is a divine institution it is for both believers and unbelievers, but never mixed. The laws of divine establishment apply to all members of the human race, whether believer or unbeliever. In other words, the unbeliever husband is capable of mental attitude love. The words that are not used here include e)raw which means to have sex, and filew which is total soul love. A)gapaw, used here, means metal attitude. There is no basis for marriage unless first of all you have a woman in your frame of reference that won't leave under all conditions, that you have a woman in your memory centre that is there for life, that you have a woman in your norms and standards that is the woman for you, she fulfills those norms and standards; that you have a woman to whom you can express from your very own vocabulary the words and thoughts and concepts of love in a romantic way. There must be soul love.

"your wives" — the accusative plural direct object of gunh plus the definite article has to be translated "your wives."

The loving husband

1. The loving husband must has a soul! A man is a man with what he has in his soul, not the male sex organ.

2. The chief characteristic in his mental attitude love toward his wife must be patience. Nobility is related to patience when it comes to the squad leader and his squad. In this case patience and the relaxed mental attitude are synonymous. There never was a woman who was truly ready for marriage and if a man has patience and nobility the transition will be easy. If he doesn't have this there never will be a really wonderful marriage, one designed under the principles of the Word of God. In other words, no woman is ready for marriage, she must grow up in the relationship.

3. The loving husband must have freedom from mental attitude sins. In Colossians the husband is specifically commanded not to be bitter toward his wife, but that includes also jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability. Leaders cannot afford mental attitude sins and the husband is the leader.

4. There is a sense in which a leader is a protector. Then husband is the protector of the squad, he protects his wife — from gossip and maligning, from all the dangers of life, from the insecurities of life, from any physical harm of any kind. He never trots his wife's failures out in front.

5. He also provides in the physical area for his wife — sex.

6. Leadership means sacrifice, and there is a sense in which the husband must sacrifice for the blessing and pleasure of the wife. That is a part of "love your wives."

7. A husband must be a gentleman — the instincts of thinking about someone else. No man can be an husband and fulfill this principle if he is selfish. Therefore the principle of sacrifice — honour and integrity, instinctive thoughtfulness for his squad.

8. As a result of all of these things this kind of a husband is the source of respect and even awe, but he is never source of discomfort or belittling to his right woman.

"even as" — the adverb kaqwj, used to denote a standard: "just as."

"Christ " — o( Xristoj, "the Christ." The definite article points attention to the fact that this is the unique person of the universe, the God-Man, the absolute ruler of the Church; "also" — the adjunctive kai; "loved" — aorist active indicative of a)gapaw. We have to be doing something that He does instinctively from His deity, from His humanity. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The active voice: Christ produces the action of the verb from two sources: from His deity and from His humanity. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative for an absolute dogmatic statement of fact.

"the church."

The Church

1. This is the accusative singular of the direct object of e)kklhsia.

2. The church here refers to all believers of the Church Age, the royal family of God, a kingdom of priests.

3. The church is analogous to and compared to the right woman.

4. Because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit the believer of this dispensation has a very perfect and very intimate relationship with Christ. This is called positional sanctification.

5. Therefore the church and/or the royal family occupies a very unique place in the angelic conflict.

6. There was no royal family until Christ was glorified at the right hand of the Father.

7. The royal family is directly related to the strategic victory of Christ on the cross, and all the way from the cross to His session.

"and gave" — aorist active indicative of paradidomi which means to betray or to hand over, or to be delivered over. In this case it can't mean to betray because Christ handed over himself. The aorist tense is the constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, namely reconciliation, redemption, propitiation, and so on; everything that was accomplished on the cross. The active voice: Christ accomplished on the cross this delivering of Himself over to. The indicative mood is declarative for dogmatic assertion. And with this we have the accusative singular direct object of the reflexive pronoun e(autou, emphasising the free will of the humanity of Christ in going to the cross.

"for it" — u(per plus the ablative of the intensive pronoun a)utoj should be translated "on behalf of the same."

Translation:"You husbands, keep on loving your wives, just as the Christ has also loved the church, and has delivered himself over to the cross on behalf of the same."

Christ instinctively from His own free will delivered Himself over, the highest possible sacrifice, the efficacious sacrifice whereby we have eternal life. Therefore much is required from any male the moment he becomes a husband. The whole principle here is sacrifice. When you love someone more than you love yourself then you are willing to sacrifice, and that is a mental attitude.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #92

92 02/17/1974 Ephesians 5:26a Doctrine of sanctification

Verse 26 — "That" is the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive. This indicates a final clause which introduces a purpose, a goal, or an objective. Here all three are in view.

"he might sanctify" — aorist active subjunctive from the verb a(giazw. The word means to set apart, to consecrate, to sanctify, and the meaning is always determined by the context. Here the verb means to dedicate or consecrate, to set something special apart. The something special here is not that we are individually special as far as this world goes but we are now, as the result of believing in Jesus Christ in this dispensation, members of the royal family of God. While in the past there has been royalty of many types, nobility of many types, all of this royalty and nobility is canceled out at the point of death. When a king dies he is no longer a king. We are royalty because we live in the Church Age, and because we live in the Church Age we have been sanctified, consecrated. It is a matter of timing, we were at the right place at the right time. The place is the dispensation of the Church. In the Age of Israel there have been some great kings. David was a great king but he is not even a king in heaven because he is an Old Testament believer — like Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar. These people were all famous but they are just peons in heaven because Christ had not yet gone to the cross. But once He did and bore our sins in His own body on the tree, was resurrected, ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father, He was seated there as the last Adam. And God the Father said, "Not good that the last Adam should be alone." The last Adam in the King of kings, the Lord of lords, He is nobility forever, He is King forever. He is King because of the sovereignty of His deity but He is also King because He is the son of David, He fulfills the Davidic covenant. So He was alone, and is alone, as it were, at the right hand of the Father. So God the Father decided to consecrate for Him a royal family. Therefore every person who believes in Jesus Christ in the Church Age receives 36 things, whereas in the Old Testament all the believer received was regeneration so that he would be family of God forever. In the Church Age God the Holy Spirit not only regenerates us but He enters us into union with Christ — royalty forever; He enters us into the palace. He also indwells us, this is the badge or sign of royalty. He seals us for security of royalty. So God the Holy Spirit does five things for believers in the Church Age whereas He did one in the Old Testament. The aorist tense here is a culminative aorist, it views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. God has done some consecrating for each one — there are some exceptions, like the apostle Paul. So here is the principle of the culminative aorist, the whole right man, right woman relationship. Every conversation, every bit of social life together, every bit of sexual life together, everything that right man and right woman have in their relationship with each other produces happiness which causes other things to be wonderful. That is the constative aorist of sanctify. The active voice: Christ by means of the Word consecrates or sets apart the royal family in phase two. Just as the right man and the right woman in their relationship have all these wonderful things, so the royal family — which starts at the cross and ends at the moment you depart from this life is all gathered up into one ball of wax and the results of it are fantastic. Many believers have discovered what it means to be in the royal family, what it means to have maximum doctrine in the soul, and how great in every set of circumstances in life this is. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive used to indicate the final clause. It recognises the importance of positive volition toward the Word of God. It also gathers up the concept of phase two sanctification depending upon volition in the field of rebound and volition toward Bible doctrine. Volition toward rebound means the filling of the Spirit; positive volition toward doctrine means growth into the super-grace life.

The doctrine of sanctification

1. Definition.

a) Sanctification means to be set apart as sacred, to be consecrated to God.

b) It means more than that, it means to be under contract to God forever.

c) The actual death of Christ set aside the old contract, the old covenant, the Mosaic law. We do not have a shadow contract.

d) The old contract, therefore, is annulled or abrogated.

e) The new contract/covenant, called new testament, is for the royal priesthood of the Church Age. It is for royalty, it is for priests.

f) Therefore in the strictest sense of the meaning sanctification connotes the believer of the Church Age under contract to God forever. The contract calls for the believer to be royalty.

g) The contract is provided on the basis of the efficacious once-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

h) You signed the contract the moment you believed in Jesus Christ. Phase one sanctification: baptism of the Holy Spirit; phase two sanctification: filling of the Holy Spirit + positive volition toward doctrine = experiential sanctification and/or super-grace; phase three sanctification: absent from the body, face to face with the Lord in a resurrection body forever.

2. The etymology of the Greek words.

a) a(goij — translated "holy" or "saint." It is used to describe one who is under a new contract forever, member of the royal family of God. All terms of saint and sanctification apply only to the royal family. All believers of the Church Age are royal family.

b) a(giothj — holiness, the state of being under contract under the new covenant to the Church. This is our status quo as members of the royal family. It is called holiness, set apart, under contract, consecrated to God forever.

c) a(giosunh — sanctification or the state of being under consecrate.

d) a(giasmoj — consecration, sanctification, the state of being holy, it emphasises the results of being holy or in the plan of God or under contract.

e) a(giazw, the verb — to set apart, to sanctify, to consecrate, to dedicate, but what it really means is to be under contract.

3. Phase one sanctification. This is a reference to the fact that God the Holy Spirit takes each one of us at the moment we believe in Jesus Christ and enters us into union with Christ. This is called the baptism of the Spirit, the means by which we come under the contract forever — 1Corinthians 1:2,30; Hebrews 10:10,14.

4. Phase two sanctification. This is fulfilling the tactical objective of the contract in phase two. Under the contract God at the point of salvation has assigned us a certain amount of time. He has also broken this assignment down into allotments — time to study the Bible, social life, sex, business, and for everything. So the contract calls for the assignment of time and the breakdown of that assignment into allotments. Under phase two sanctification this time is enjoyed under the principle of the filling of the Spirit — 2Corinthians 2:13, and the daily function of GAP — John 17:17. The royal family on earth is called the body of Christ, the royal family in resurrection is called the bride of Christ, and the body of Christ is therefore under the principle of phase two sanctification.

5. Phase three sanctification. This is ultimate in which the believer is in a resurrection body, minus the old sin nature, minus all of his human good. This is the royal family living with God forever — Romans 8:29; 1Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 3:21; 1Thessalonians 5:23; 1John 3:1,2

6. The agents in sanctification. God the Father is the author of the plan, therefore He is not an agent, but under Him there are three agents. The believer is not an agent. The agents do all of the work under the contract, and since under grace there is no place for human good, no place for works, there is no place for the believer to do anything. The believer is in the contract but he doesn't work under the contract or you don't produce the work. You produce divine good under a grace system.

a) The Son of God — Hebrews 10:10,14.

b) The Holy Spirit — Romans 15:16; 2Thessalonians 2:13.

c) The Word of God, Bible doctrine — John 17:17; Ephesians 5:26. The Word of God is the only source of divine revelation to the royal family.

7. All phases of sanctification are related to the angelic conflict. Phase one: regenerate mankind or royal family is positionally higher than angels. This is why Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is a relationship. God the Holy Spirit enters the believer into union with Christ. We share the life of Christ — eternal life. We share His destiny; we are predestined. We share His election; we are elected. We share His sonship, His heirship, His priesthood, His kingship. We share everything that Christ is. This is a relationship. Religion is man by man's efforts seeking to gain the approbation of God. Christianity is God coming to man with a grace system where man doesn't work. Religion is works; religion belongs to Satan. Christianity is grace, it belongs to God. In the first phase God the Holy Spirit puts us into union with Christ, Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father higher than angels, so that right now positionally we are higher than angels. Phase two sanctification is also related to the angelic conflict — the super-grace believer occupied with the person of Christ, glorifying God, resulting in the tactical victory. In other words, if the believer grows up in phase two that is the tactical victory. The believer is super-grace has capacity for life called the cup, and God pours blessing into that cup. God does the pouring and God gets the glory. So by reaching the tactical victory of super-grace we discover that God is the host and we are His guests in this world. Therefore the angels observe God's blessing the individual in tactical victory. Phase three sanctification: The royal family in a resurrection body is physically superior to angels. This we anticipate for the future in resurrection bodies.

"That he might consecrate/dedicate royalty." In other words, we are in a contract forever. Under this principle the right woman is set apart by responding to the right man only. Marriage is actually a contract, just as our relationship with God is a contract. Our relationship with God, however, is a permanent contract and marriage is the illustration of it in this passage. So just as the contract with God is between God and one believer so marriage is between right man and right woman. That is the way God designed it. Just as the right woman is set apart by responding to her right man so the Church is set apart by responding to the Lord. Jesus Christ makes love to the royal family through Bible doctrine which is the thinking or the mind of Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16. Doctrine is to the believer what a right man's lovemaking is to his right woman. When the believer continues under doctrine he reaches super-grace. The right woman responds to her right man and discovers why God put the body and soul together in the woman to make her something fantastic.

"and" in not correct. The Greek text has a)uthn which is the accusative singular of the intensive pronoun a)utoj. The intensive pronoun is used here as a personal pronoun. So it should be translated, "That he might consecrate [dedicate] her." Both "church" and "woman" are in the feminine gender. This is a reference to phase two sanctification which is accomplished by means of the filling of the Spirit plus the daily function of GAP. It is God's objective to cleanse the believer as he goes through life and we understand the principle by which he does it: rebound. It is also part of the marriage contract that the right man cleanses the right woman. This is accomplished through sex. So the cleansing here has a dual concept.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #93

93 02/17/1974 Ephesians 5:26b How the right woman is cleansed

Verse 26 — "That he might consecrate her." You cannot consecrate someone you can't control. No one can be consecrated or dedicated or sanctified unless he responds to the authority of another. Positional sanctification, phase one: response to the greatest authority when believing in Jesus Christ and receiving Him as saviour. Pride cannot stand authority, it resist authority. We came to the point in our lives when we recognised authority in the form called the gospel. The good news that Christ died for our sins. Phase one sanctification is the authority of the gospel. Then in phase two: the authority of the Word, the authority of the Holy Spirit. That is phase two sanctification.

No man can truly be the husband of his wife unless he can consecrate her, dedicate her, as Christ has consecrated or dedicated the Church. This reference to phase two sanctification has tremendous teaching application in the right man, right woman relationship. In the principle of marriage a right man cleanses his right woman by the rapport of soul that leads to spontaneous sex. Where a woman's soul is in respect and love and awe of her right man she can't wait for her right man to make love to her. That is not biology, that is sanctification in marriage. The key that we are emphasising here is authority. When a woman is not occupied with the right man she also rejects his authority.

"and cleanse" — cleansing is renewing, as with rebound. Kaqarizw means cleansing your face so that the real you emerges. In sex, under the category of marriage, the woman is cleansed. Just as she takes off her make-up and the real face emerges only in bed with the right man does the real person emerge. So spontaneous sex is a cleanser of the woman and if her right man has fulfilled all the principles previously covered she is a very satisfied, relaxed, fulfilled woman after sex. As happy and relaxed as it is possible for a woman to be in this life. She has been cleansed, refreshed, blessed. The ingredients are authority and response. The verb is kaqarizw, the cleanse. Consecration is the one who has the authority concentrating on the one who is the recipient. The cleansing or the purifying is an aorist active participle and here it leads us into the spiritual realm. God makes love to us through Bible doctrine. The doctrine carries the authority and when you receive it, like a woman yielding to her right man in bed — that is positive volition toward doctrine — the doctrine in the soul cleanses and you go away from the Word refreshed, relaxed, satisfied. As a woman can only be satisfied by her right man sexually so you as royal family can only be satisfied by the Word of God in your soul. Our greatest refreshment and happiness and blessing comes from taking in the Word of God. It is the Word of God which is alive and powerful. That is the principle. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety the ministry of cleansing or purifying. It gathers into one entirety salvation where we simply believed, it gathers every time we are positive toward Bible doctrine. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb. He produced it first by His work on the cross; He does it secondly by His Word. The participle is antecedent action. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb is "sanctify" or "consecrate." The dedication of the consecration comes from the fact that we have responded. First we responded to the authority of the gospel, now we respond to the authority of the Word of God.

"with the washing" — the instrumental case plus the definite article of the noun lutron. This is "by means of the washing." Notice that you have to wash many times. You don't wash once and then that's it for life. You have a habit of washing daily, and that is the concept here. Washing daily is your daily intake of the Word of God.

"of water" — the ablative singular of u(dor. Water means first of all salvation — Isaiah 55:1, but that is drinking water. The water is used for the Holy Spirit in John 7:37-39. But here it refers to Bible doctrine. Washing here is refreshment, blessing, from the intake of the Word.

"by the word" — e)n plus the instrumental of r(ema. R(ema means the Word communicated by a pastor-teacher, not what you read or get out of a book. This is a pastor-teacher communicating to you responding to his authority. It is the scripture communicated, the function of GAP.

Translation: "That having been purified he might consecrate [dedicate] her by means of the washing from the water with the word." The Word of God is the water.

Phase two is our bathing time. Why? Because after an elapse of so many hundreds of years of the Church Age we are going to have a wedding. But you have to be clean. A lot of people have to be clean — all the Church.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #94

94 02/24/1974 Ephesians 5:27a Doctrine of the Rapture of the Church

Verse 27 — "That" is the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive used for the final clause again. The final clause denotes a purpose.

"he might present" — aorist active subjunctive of paristhmi. This is where something different happens to us.

Verse 27 — the first word introduces the divine purpose. "That" — the conjunction i(na plus the subjunctive indicates a final clause which denotes a goal, a purpose, or a definition. Here we have a second purpose beyond phase one and phase two. We have already seen how Christ is the saviour of the body — phase one. He died for our sins, took our place, and provided for us eternal salvation. Phase two is the believer in time. He has provided for us in time through Bible doctrine, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now we look into phase three, the believer in eternity. There is a purpose beyond the grave.

"he might present" — aorist active subjunctive of the verb paristhmi. This word has a number of meanings. It means to place or to to put at someone's disposal, to present, as in Romans 12:1 where it really means to yield. It means here to present a bride to a groom. "Present" is a very technical word, it means to present the bride to the groom.The bride's parents presented their daughter to the groom. This means that the contract had all been settled, the dowry had been placed at whatever place the groom demanded, and everything was now set. So presentation meant an official marriage. In the Attic Greek this same word was used by Xenophon is the sense of offering a sacrifice. In the middle voice it means to bring to one's side. It also means to bring before a judge or a magistrate. But here in the Koine Greek the verb is linked with a certain type of thinking. The transitive use of paristhmi means to place one at someone's disposal. The parents had placed their daughter at the groom's disposal for life. This is equivalent to marriage. The intransitive use of the verb means to approach or to stand by. It also is used in relationship to spiritual service to God, and in Romans 6:12 this same verb simply means to yield. But, again, here it means the presentation of a royal bride to a royal groom since in the analogy we are members of the royal family of God and Jesus Christ is the royal groom. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist and it views ultimate sanctification in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. Here we are for all eternity, we have a royal groom, and we are a royal bride — royal family of God forever. This means that God has something great and specific for us in eternity. The active voice: Jesus Christ as the royal groom receives the bride at the Rapture in resurrection bodies. The subjunctive mood indicates this is God's purpose for believers in this dispensation.

"it" — an intensive pronoun, the nominative masculine singular of a)utoj. It is not the object of the verb, it is actually a part of the subject, and it should be translated with reflexive force, "that he himself might present."

Then we have an object in the dative case: "to himself." This is the dative singular of the reflexive pronoun e(autou which means "to himself." It is the dative of advantage as well as the dative of indirect object. The translation: "that he [Jesus Christ] himself might present to himself." The dative of indirect object indicates the one in whose interest the act of presenting the bride is performed. Christ is alone at the right hand of the Father, we join Him in soul only at the right hand. But the time will come at the Rapture of the Church when we will in resurrection bodies join Him. This is a reference to the Rapture of the Church at which time the bride is presented to the groom by the groom. That is ordinarily a violation of the system, but the parents of the bride in effect do not exist here because it is God the Son who purchased our redemption. So Jesus Christ is both the parent of the bride presenting as well as the groom. So He Himself presents the bride to Himself. This means we are never out of the care of the Lord Jesus Christ from the time of our salvation all the way to eternity.

"a glorious church" — the word 'glorious' is the accusative singular adjective e)ndcoj [docoj = glorious] which means honoured, distinguished, eminent, splendid, glorious. Splendid and glorious are pertinent here. The adjective is used here in the sense of splendid clothing. It was often used for the glamorous clothing of a king or royalty — Luke 7:25 gives us that use of it. Each one of us is royalty from the day that we were born again and now royalty forever. So by combining the concepts of the adjectives which are pertinent here we have 'splendid-glorious.' Plus the accusative singular of the noun e)kklhsia referring to each believer in the Lord Jesus Christ in this dispensation. "That he himself might present to himself the splendid-glorious church." The definite article refer here to a possessive pronoun and can be translated 'his splendid-glorious church.'

The doctrine of the manifestation of the bride

1. The body of Christ is formed on earth during the Church Age — Ephesians 1:22,23; 2:16; 4:4,5; 5:23; Colossians 1:18,24; 2:19.

2. When the body of Christ is completed the Rapture occurs — 1Thessalonians 4:16-18; 1Corinthians 15:51-57. By comparing Colossians 2:15 with Revelation 19:6-8; Zechariah 13:2; 1Thessalonians 3:13 it is concluded that the number of believers in the body of Christ will equal the number of demons operating under Satan's command at this stage of the angelic conflict.

3. During the Tribulation on earth the bride is prepared in heaven in three ways. a) Resurrection body exactly like that of the Son of God — 1Corinthians 15:51-57; Philippians 3:21; 1John 3:1,2; b) The bride no longer has an old sin nature; c) The bride is cleansed from all human good.

4. The bride returns with Christ at the second advent. This is the manifestation of the bride.

5. Operation footstool which immediately follows — Psalm 110:1. In operation footstool we have a picture of the triumphal procession in which all demons are disarmed and publicly displayed in the triumphal procession — Colossians 2:15. Satan is imprisoned for 1000 years — Revelation 20:1-3. Church Age believers cast demons into prison — Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15; 1Corinthians 15:24,25.

6. The coronation of the groom — Revelation 19:6.

7. The wedding supper of the Lamb — Revelation 19:6-9. There are four categories involved: the groom, the Lord Jesus Christ; the friends of the groom, the Old Testament saints and the Tribulational martyrs who receive their resurrection bodies at the second advent. They are the friends of the groom. John the Baptist (John 3:29) is called friend of the groom; the friends of the bride, the Tribulational believers alive at the second advent who go into the Millennium. They will not receive their resurrection bodies until the end of the Millennium. The friends of the groom have their resurrection bodies, the bride has her resurrection bodies.

"not having" — present active participle of e)xw plus the negative mh. The static present indicates a condition perpetually existing. We will never have these things in eternity. Why not use o)uk?? O)uk means the door is shut; it is the definite negative. But mh means that a lot of people are not going to understand this invitation even though it is clearly given, so mh merely indicates the present condition of the person who does not understand this doctrine, rather than the actuality and reality of the invitation and how we will arrive. So the bride is going to make it in perfect clothes. The static present indicates the perpetually-existing wedding gown, as it were. The active voice: the Church in ultimate sanctification produces the action of the verb. This is an ascriptive participle which ascribes some fact or quality or characteristic directly to the substantive which in this case is the Church.

"spot" — the accusative singular of spiloj. This noun teaches the removal of the old sin nature at the Rapture as a part of sanctification. So "splendid-glorious" clothes of resurrection body are unstained. The old sin nature stains anything. We carry around an inner stain which is constantly messing up something. But there is no old sin nature in eternity. Ultimate sanctification includes the concept of no old sin nature in the resurrection body.

"or wrinkle — the accusative of r(utij refers to the human good which comes from the area of strength of the old sin nature and its removal.

"or any such thing" — a general catchall to eliminate other manifestations of the old sin nature. No pet areas of self-righteousness. Literally, "any such [category of things]." This accusative singular neuter of the indefinite pronoun tij plus the genitive plural from the demonstrative pronoun toioutoj means any such category of things. That means that the pet area of holiness goes.

"but" — an adversative conjunction to set up the positive approach; "that it should be" — present active subjunctive, third person singular of e)imi — "but that she should be." The subject of the verb is the Church, the feminine noun calls for the feminine pronoun in translating the third person.

"holy" — a(gioj. This time a(gioj is technical for what we are in the future. This means "saints." "Holiness" doesn't mean anything here. 'Saint' is merely a synonym for royal family. All the subjunctive mood is doing in its potentiality here is indicating that now we are plus the old sin nature, then we will be minus the old sin nature, but basically we are the same people. The present tense here is the futuristic present which goes with the predicate nominative 'without blemish.' We are saints now; then we will be saints without blemish. So it should be translated "that we will be." It is so real that it is put in the present tense.

Translation: "That he himself [Jesus Christ] might present to himself the splendid-glorious church, not having stain [osn], or wrinkle [human good], or any such category of things; but that she [church] should be blameless saints."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #95

95 02/24/1974 Ephesians 5:27b Doctrine of the manifestation of the bride

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #96

96 02/25/1974 Ephesians 5:28–31a Right man to right woman as Jesus Christ to the Church

Verse 28 — marriage is for believer and unbeliever alike. The divine institutions belong to the human race, the Christian doctrines to the royal family. However, the emphasis is on the unbeliever and the divine institution of marriage at this point, though the analogies belong to Christ and the Church. The verse begins with the adverb o(utoj, usually translated "so," but here it means "Thus." The purpose of this Greek adverb is to connect up with what precedes for the purpose of application. In this case application to marriage results in further analogy between Christ and the Church. "Thus" introduces application.

"men" — the nominative plural of a)nhr refers to the male in the marriage situation, and as far as one woman is concerned that means noble man to her.

"ought" — present active indicative of o)feilw, a verb of obligation. The present tense is retroactive progressive present which denotes what has begun in the past and continues into the present time. This is also called the present tense of duration which means this is always true, there never will be a time in history which is an exception to this. This is the principle of right man, right woman in marriage. The active voice: the husband produces the action of the verb. This is a potential indicative which is the mood of contingency. It may be associated with three ideas of contingency: obligation, impulse, or condition. Here it connotes obligation. "This you husbands ought."

"to love" — present active infinitive of a)gapaw. Once again, this is a mental attitude, strictly a right lobe activity. This is a retroactive progressive present t denote what was begun in the past and continues to the present time. The husband produces the action of the verb as an obligation from the finite verb which precedes. The capacity for love in the royal family is based, however, upon the intake of Bible doctrine which produces the capacity in category #2. Capacity for love in the unbeliever is based on an entirely different analogy which will also be linked to the Church. The unbeliever is not a royal priest, he does not have Bible doctrine, nor the ability to assimilate Bible doctrine. Therefore when you set up an analogy for the unbeliever, married-to-his-right-woman unbeliever, you have to set up something entirely different. In this case, if a man loves his own body he ought to love his right woman more than his own body. That is the standard for the unbeliever in view of the fact that the unbeliever does not have doctrine, does not have the royal priesthood, and therefore the capacity from it. The infinitive denotes God's purpose. It is God's purpose that in the area of the unbeliever that right man, right woman will have a beautiful relationship compatible with their spiritual condition.

"as" is the relative adverb w(j used as a comparative particle to introduce the analogy. The analogy indicates the manner in which something proceeds. there are two analogies here. First in verse 25, taken from doctrine in the Church to emphasise marriage from the doctrinal viewpoint, and second in this verse to emphasise marriage from the standpoint of laws of establishment. In other words, this is as far as you can go in a marriage between two unbelievers. The husband ought to love his unbeliever wife as he loves his own body. But in setting up this analogy under establishment for unbelievers you also set up again an analogy, a relationship between Christ and the Church. As marriage is a divine institution it is designed for the entire human race, believer and unbeliever alike. The only prohibition is a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever.

"their own wives as their own bodies" — the accusative plural direct object swma. There are some definite analogies here, they have to be related to the fact that if a man loves his own body it will manifest itself in six ways. He will feed it — food; he will provide shelter for it; he will provide clothing for it; he will sleep; he will exercise; and he will look for something in life to stimulate. These six provide an analogy between Christ and the Church.

a) Food. This is analogous to soul provision and rapport. Just as an unbeliever will provide food for his body, so he will provide for his right woman soul rapport. There will be a soul relationship in the category #2 relationship between unbelievers. This has another analogy to Christ and the Church. Our Lord has provided food for us in the area of Bible doctrine.

b) Shelter. If a man loves his own body he provides shelter for the extremes of weather, for cold, and if it is hot he provides some place that is cool. This is analogous to the right man protecting his right woman. The woman finds her shelter, as it were, in her right man. This is a reminder of the fact that in this devil's world our Lord Jesus Christ has provided shelter for the Church — related to Bible doctrine.

c) Clothing. If a man loves his own body he clothes it. This is analogous to physical provision for the right woman on the part of the right man. The provision also carries into the analogy between Christ and the Church. The Lord Jesus Christ has provided through doctrine clothing for us. This is the inner clothing of the soul, the ECS.

d) Sleep. If a man loves his body he will occasionally get some sleep. This is analogous to the tranquility and security that the unbeliever right man provides for the unbeliever right woman. Again, it also is a reminder to us that through Bible doctrine and the use of Bible doctrine in faith-rest tranquillity of soul is provided for us by the Lord.

e) Exercise. If a man loves his body he will have some kind of exercise for it. This is analogous to the right man working by the principle of the sweat of his brow to provide for the right woman. This is a part of the curse which God ordained in the garden. It also is a reminder to us of the principle of grace whereby God works for us.

f) Stimulation. If a man loves his body he provides stimulation for it. This is analogous to the right man initiating a sexual relationship to the right woman. She is under his sexual care. Again, it indicates the principle by a second analogy: Christ initiating doctrine for us. In the expression of category #2 love the bodies of the right man and right woman are also joined in sexual relationship. It is normal for a human being to care for his body. The same principle of being joined in sex is taught in 1Corinthians 6:16 as well as Ephesians 5:31. The body of the right woman really belongs to the man for he is the custodian of her body as well as the bishop of her soul. Therefore the man takes good care of the body of his right woman in both sex and love, just as Christ takes care of His body, the Church.

"He that loveth" — present active participle of a)gapaw. This is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has begun in the past and continues into the present time. It is the present tense of duration which always has linear aktionsart. The active voice: the normal husband produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. "The one who keeps loving his own wife" is the best translation.

"loveth" — the present active indicative of a)gapaw, "keeps loving." In other words, any man who has any self-consciousness, and from self-consciousness self-respect, will obviously as an unbeliever have great love, tender care and thoughtfulness for his right woman. This is a static present representing a condition assumed to be perpetually existing under divine institution #2. This does not infer pride but normal function of male self-consciousness. The active voice: the man produces the action of the verb through the normal function of the soul's self-consciousness. The indicative mood is declarative indicating an absolute principle.

"himself" — the accusative of direct object from the reflexive pronoun e(autou. As a reflexive pronoun this is a normal standard, not mental attitude sin pride.

Translation: "Thus your husbands also ought to be loving their own wives as their own bodies. The one who keeps loving his own wife loves himself."

Verse 29 — the principle. "For" is the conjunctive particle gar. This helps us to relate the previous application to the principle now being advanced. The conjunctive particle gar is used to express cause, inference or continuation. Here it is actually used for explanation.

"no man" — o)udeij is a compound adverb meaning no one; "ever yet" — the enclitic particle of time pote is correctly translated; "hateth" — aorist active indicative of misew. This is a constative aorist gathering up into a single whole the action of the verb. It contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In the negative it means no hate. The active voice: the principle applies to the male of the human race. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the idea from certainty or reality.

his own flesh" — the accusative singular of e(autou plus sarc, translated correctly "his own flesh" or "his own body." "For no one ever yet hated his own body." It must be understood that the statement of this principle is in the normal person.

"but" — the adversative conjunction a)lla sets up a contrast; "he nourishes" — the present active indicative of e)ktrefw and is correctly translated "nourish" but it means a little more than that, it means to promote health and strength — nourishment in that sense. Once again, nourishing here goes back to the analogy of the body. A man in the analogy will recognise certain needs of his body. It is better translated, "but he promotes health." The present tense is retroactive progressive present, he always promotes his own health. The active voice: the man produces the action of the verb. The declarative indicative: this is a fact.

"and cherisheth it" — cherish generally means to love your own body, and there is no narcissus complex involved here. The verb is qalpw, it means to impart warmth, to provide tender care. It should be translated, "but he promotes health and provides reasonable care for it."

"even as" is the adverb kaqwj used as a comparative conjunction. This is going to set up a spiritual analogy. We are now going back into the realm of doctrine for this double analogy.

"the Lord" — the Greek says o( Xristoj, "the Christ." Kurioj or Lord can be used for any member of the Trinity but Xristoj refers only to the second person of the Trinity; "the church" — accusative singular direct object e)kklhsia.

Translation: "For no one has ever yet hated his own flesh [body]; but he nourishes and provides reasonable care for it, just as the Christ also does the church."

The analogy

1. The analogy between the man and his body, as well as Christ and the Church, is emphasised here by two verbs — e)ktrefw, normal nourishment providing food and shelter, and so on, and qelpw which means reasonable care. A reasonable person provides reasonable care. E)ktrfw meant to nourish or rear children originally, but here it means that as Christ to the Church means to provide Bible doctrine for every member of the royal family. How does Christ nourish us in the analogy? He nourishes us by making available to us Bible doctrine.

2. The availability of Bible teaching and Bible doctrine is equivalent to Christ nourishing the Church.

3. The verb qelpw, meaning to impart warmth, to provide tender care, to comfort, also means here reasonable care. And this is analogous to the utilisation of doctrine once acquired in the soul. Once the believer has doctrine in the soul he begins to think divine viewpoint.

4. The two verbs together give a perfect picture of the importance of Bible doctrine in the availability stage as well as in the perceptive stage.

5. The analogy is based on the fact that the right man initiates love toward right woman, just as Christ initiates love through doctrine.

6. Through the function of GAP the believer receives doctrine and he responds to what the Lord has provided, just as the right woman responds to her right man in sex.

7. As the result of receiving the doctrine the believer, like the right woman, as it were becomes pregnant, bears children, analogous to Christian production.

8. In summary, doctrine is the seed that Christ uses for the believer's production. Christ initiates doctrine toward the believer. The believer responds to Christ through the function of GAP, the pregnancy occurs in the human spirit where doctrine becomes e)pignwsij, resulting in doctrine in the right lobe, resulting in the construction of the ECS, resulting in the entrance into the super-grace life and the reception of super-grace blessings. Every objective that God has for the believer comes only through doctrine in the soul.

Verses 30-33, the results inmarriage and a third doctrinal analogy.

Verse 30 — "For" is the conjunction o(ti and should be translated "Because."

"we are" — present active indicative of the verb e)imi. The present tense is a static present representing a condition assumed to be true perpetually. The active voice: we as members of the royal family produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative, it denotes certainty, it is the mood of unqualified assertion, a simple statement of fact.

"members" — predicate nominative plural from meloj, referring to parts of the body, The analogy is obvious. Each one of us is in the royal family, we are parts of His body.

"of his body" — possessive genitive singular swma. Swma is used for the royal family on earth. The next phrase, "of his flesh and of his bones" is not found in the original.

Translation: "Because we are members of his body."

Verse 31 — the analogy. "For this cause" — preposition a)nti which means two things: against or instead of. A)nti plus the genitive singular neuter and the demonstrative pronoun here means "equivalent." So it should be translated, "Equivalent to this doctrine" or "Analogous to this doctrine."

"a man" — nominative singular of a)nqrwpoj. This is a generic term for the entire human race. The man here means no matter who gets married, whether he is believer or unbeliever. The substantive indicates that category #2 love is composed of one man and one woman.

"shall leave" — future active indicative from kataleipw which means to leave behind, to depart. Here it means to leave behind because of assuming responsibility for your own command. The young man must be cut off from the authority of his parents.

"his father and his mother" — two accusative singulars of direct object, pathr and mhter. There are also two definite articles used as possessive pronouns. This is a reference to parents under divine institution #3.

"and shall be joined" — future passive indicative of the verb proskollaw. This is a compound verb [proj = face to face; kollaw = sex]. It actually means, "and he shall have sexual intercourse." The future tense is a gnomic future and is a statement of fact or performance which may be rightfully expected under normal conditions. The passive voice is very deceptive because this is a deponent verb in which the form is passive but the meaning is active. The husband produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative, it denotes certainty, it represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is dealing with the fact that if a man has a soul and in his soul he has love for the woman then he can satisfy a woman.

"unto his wife" — the preposition proj plus the accusative of gunh means "with his wife." When this is translated "with" it means an association in which both volitions are involved, in which the desire of both is involved, in which two people express the love the soul in physical coalescence. The marriage of right man, right woman is consummated by the sex act and sex love is designed by God for maximum expression in he marital relationship.

"and they too" — o(i duo refers to right man, right woman relationship. It views them in the state of marriage; "shall be" — future active indicative of e)imi, absolute status quo. This is a progressive future, it has linear aktionsart in contrast to the Gnomic. It is the use of the future tense with the idea of continuation or progress in future time. The active voice: the right man and the right woman produce the action in marriage. The declarative indicative denotes certainty.

"one flesh" — the Greek says "as one flesh." This indicates that their relationship in marriage is not only one of the soul but one of the body, and it continues to be that way.

Translation: "Analogous to this doctrine man shall leave behind his father and his mother, and shall have sexual intercourse with his wife, and they two shall continue being one flesh."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #97

97 02/26/1974 Ephesians 5:31b–33 Doctrines of the mystery, intercalation

Verse 32 — now comes the doctrine on which the entire analogy is formed. "This" is the nominative neuter singular from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. It refers to the doctrine of union with Christ in the royal family of God, the doctrinal side of the analogy. The establishment side of the analogy is right man, right woman; the doctrinal side is Christ and the Church. The Church is in union with Christ; the Church is royal family on earth.

"is" — absolute status quo present active indicative. This is a static present, always is: "a great mystery" — the word 'great' is the predicate nominative neuter of the comparative adjective megaj. This means great in quality, more important, more prominent, more outstanding. The word 'mystery' is musthrion. This word is derived from an Attic verb, muew, which means to initiate or to instruct in the secret doctrines of an ancient Greek fraternity. The person, after he learned the doctrines and was initiated, was called a musthj. By definition, then, musthrion refers to the doctrine which was unknown in the past but is now known to the Church Age. All doctrine pertinent to the Church Age should be well known to the royal family, but it isn't known outside the palace, i.e. to the unbeliever, and was never known to the Old Testament writers and/or believers. In other words, "mystery" here refers to the doctrines of the Church. The gospel was not a mystery, it was well known by the Old Testament writers. In this verse "mystery" refers specifically to positional sanctification, to the fact that each one of us is a member of the royal family of God, and that our tactical objective is also super-grace. God the Holy Spirit does five things for us at the point of salvation, four of which never occurred before. The Church Age believer, because he is royalty, because he is in union with Christ, because he has a different relationship with God from those who went before, is under a brand new set of doctrines, called here the doctrine of the mystery.

The word mustherion here is a subject, not a predicate nominative. The demonstrative pronoun "This" goes with "mystery" and it should be translated "This mystery is great" or "This mystery doctrine is great." The point is doctrine is great, mystery doctrine is the greatest of all doctrine.

The doctrine of the mystery

1. The Greek word 'mystery' is derived from an Attic noun musthj which refers to a person learning doctrine as a part of his initiation into an ancient fraternity. Each fraternity had its set of doctrines pertaining to its way of life. These doctrines or secrets of the fraternity were only known to those initiated, they were not known on the outside. Jesus used this meaning with the disciples in Matthew 13:11 and Mark 4:10,11. In other words, the Church Age doctrines are known only to the royal family, they were never known before.

2. In the epistles of the New Testament the word 'mystery' refers to some aspect of Church doctrine — Ephesians 3:2-6.

3. Mystery doctrine of the Church Age was not revealed in the Old Testament — Romans 16:25,26; Colossians 1:26.27.

4. Part of the mystery doctrine includes blindness or the hardness of Israel during the Church Age. This is also a part of Israel's fifth cycle of discipline. Romans 11:25.

5. Mystery as Church Age doctrine was part of the divine decrees in eternity past — 1Corinthians 2:7.

6. A new communicator is designed for mystery doctrine. The pastor-teacher is responsible for communicating Church Age doctrine, this is his stewardship in the mystery — 1Corinthians 4:1.

7. The Rapture of the Church is part of the mystery doctrine — 1Corinthians 15:51.

8. Mystery doctrine is always related to the dispensation of the Church and no other dispensation — Ephesians 1:9; 3:2.

9. Mystery doctrine is to be understood by the royal family through the consistent function of GAP — Colossians 2:2; 1Timothy 3:9.

"but" — the particle de is commonly used to connect one clause with another, and in the connecting of these clauses no contrast is intended and when no contrast is intended we translate it "now."

"I speak" — present active indicative of legw, used here for communication. He is now defining what he means. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present, used as a descriptive present and should be translated, "now I am speaking."

"concerning Christ" — or "with reference to Christ." E)ij plus the accusative means "with reference."

"and the church" — the connective kai plus the preposition e)ij plus e)kklhsia.

Translation: "This mystery doctrine is great; now I am communicating with reference to Christ and with reference to the church."

The doctrine of right man, right woman is used as the means of illustrating Christ and the Church, or the King of kings and the royal family.

The doctrine of intercalation

1. The word 'intercalation' means insertion. The Jewish Age was moving along in a normal way as far as the Jews were concerned. Then there was the death of Christ, His resurrection, ascension and session. Ten days after that the Jewish Age was interrupted but not completed. The Jewish Age had seven more years to go. A new dispensation called the Church was inserted in order that Christ, the last Adam, might have His own royal family.

2. A new dispensation is inserted — the Church Age.

3. Intercalation is the intensified stage of the angelic conflict.

4. The Church Age, therefore, is a mystery not known to the Old Testament writers — Romans 16:25,26; Ephesians 3:1-6; Colossians 1:26,27.

5. Doctrines pertaining to the Church Age are not found in the Old Testament. You don't find the baptism of the Spirit, you don't find the Rapture, you don't find every believer indwelt by the Spirit, or Jesus Christ indwelling the believer. Where Church Age doctrine would occur in the Old Testament there is a parenthesis. In other words, God just skipped over.

6. Doctrine pertaining to the Church Age is intercalated by the New Testament, especially the epistles.

7. In the Old Testament where doctrine regarding the Church Age would or should occur a great parenthesis occurred. For example, the Church Age is a parenthesis between Daniel 2:40 and 41. It isn't mentioned, it is just left out. Also between Daniel 7:23&24; 8:22&23; 11:35&36; Hosea 3:4&5; 5:15&6:1; Psalm 22:22&23. Sometimes the parenthesis comes in the middle of a verse such as Isaiah 61 between verse 2a and 2b.

8. The Old Testament reveals doctrine up to the session of Christ then skips the Church Age and reveals Tribulation, second advent, and Millennial doctrine.

Verse 33 — "Nevertheless" is an adverb used as a conjunction, plhn. Then follows an unusual Greek idiom — kai u(meij o(i kaq e(na e(kastoj thn e(autou gunaika. This is an idiom all the way. We have the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai which should be translated "also." U(meij is the nominative plural of the pronoun su, meaning "you." Plus the preposition kata plus the accusative of e(ij which should be translated "with reference to one." Then we have e(kastoj for "each man," plus a reflexive pronoun, e(autou as a possessive genitive in which right woman is defined by the right man as belonging to him and only to him. It goes with the accusative of gunh which means his very own wife. Literally, this phrase says "also you with reference to one woman each man his very own wife." There is a definite article also used as a pronoun here and the verb fills in the missing part of the idiom with the word "love," the present active imperative of a)gapaw. The present tense is a customary present denoting what habitually occurs between right man and right woman. The active voice: the husband produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a command, so it should be translated "be loving." Then also, not found in the English but found in the Greek text, is o(utoj which means "in this manner." The way it should be translated: "Also with reference to one woman each man in this manner be loving his very own wife as himself." The comparative particle indicates the manner in which something proceeds.

"and" is really a connective use of the conjunctive particle de; "his wife" — not "the wife."

"see that" is "be sure that she reverence" — present middle subjunctive of the verb fobew which means have respect for, have admiration for, or be occupied with. The middle voice is an indirect middle which stresses the agent as producing the action rather than participating in the results. The potential subjunctive means that whether a woman could do this or not is potential depending upon the following factors: a) That she marry her right man. But the fact that she has married a husband whether it is the right one or the wrong one doesn't changed the command; b) If she married the right man it is easier. If she married the wrong man (any old husband will do type of thing) the principle doesn't change; c) The woman is a believer and she married a believer. So as a believer everything depends on whether it is plus or minus doctrine in her soul, because her capacity for love comes from doctrine.

"her husband" — accusative singular direct object of a)nhr. The definite article is used as a possessive pronoun.

Translation: "Also with reference to one woman each man in this manner be loving his very own wife as himself; and his wife be sure that she is occupied [respects, admires] her husband."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #98

98 02/27/1974 Ephesians 6:1 Mother, teaching a male child. Parental responsibility toward children. Children as adults at home

Chapter 6

Verse 1 — we have now come to the result of Bible doctrine in the soul, the result to the family. "Children" is the vocative plural teknon, correctly translated 'children' although the word can be used for students or for someone under the authority of someone. The definite article follows the Attic Greek style of being used for a pronoun and it should be translated "You children."

Principle

1. Under the laws of divine establishment the parents are the authority in divine institution # 3, i.e. the home.

2. The parents are the most basic authority in human life and have been since Adam and Eve were the first parents. As goes your attitudes toward your parents, often so goes your attitude toward authority.

3. Parents are responsible to train the children in both the functions and the principles of life. That means the parents must train both the body and the soul of their children.

4. Therefore parents are not only responsible for food shelter, clothing, and health of their children but parents are responsible foe the thinking, the attitudes, the poise, the manners, the self-discipline of their children.

5. All children must be inculcated in both the fundamentals of freedom as well as the principles of authority in life, and how the two have been merged into the divine establishment for blessing.

6. Children must be trained and taught to respect the freedom, the privacy, the property and the rights of others. (Some adults are never thoughtful of others because they were never taught thoughtfulness in the home)

7. Add to the laws of divine establishment respect for law and the police officer.

8. In addition, Christian parents have the responsibility of evangelising their own children through the communication of the gospel.

9. Once the children are saved by faith in Christ the parents must provide doctrinal teaching for their children under the command of Deuteronomy 6:6-9; 7:9.

10. As children become oriented to the concept of the local church they must be taught to recognise the authority of the pastor-teacher, and they must be trained to concentrate on his message — Hebrews 13:7,17.

"obey" — present active imperative from the verb u(pakouw. This verb connotes both obedience to authority and in the case of communication authority concentration on what is communicated. The present tense is a customary present which denotes that which habitually occurs or may be reasonably expected to occur. The active voice: the children produce the action of the verb during their minority until they leave home. As long as they live at home they are under the authority of the parents. Principle: Basic authority in life and respect for authority comes from the home. As goes the home, so goes any generation. Each generation determines its own role in history on the basis of parental discipline and respect for authority which is taught in the home. Disorientation to life begins when the child either rejects parental authority or is able to overcome it by emotionalism, i.e. you must love the child or he will grow up to be some sort of a misfit. Nothing is more destructive to the individual than to go through life rejecting authority because of the ingrained habit from childhood.

"your parents" — goneuj plus the personal pronoun in the genitive. The dative is dative of indirect object. The genitive of the personal pronoun su is genitive of relationship.

1) The dative of indirect object indicates the one for whom the action is performed. That is, obedience is performed for the sake of the parents training the children, orienting the children to life.

2) This is also dative of advantage. It is to the advantage of children to have one of more parents and to be under the discipline and the authority of parent or parents.

3) Since parents are the original teachers and authority for children obedience, respect and concentration must be demanded by them.

4) The dative of advantage indicates also that parents are God's gift to the children to act as their protectors, teachers, drill instructors, their discernment, until they reach maturity.

5) Children begin helpless and stupid. Parents must provide the training, teaching, and discipline for them.

6) Grooming, manners, poise, decorum, character, are moulded by the parents.

A woman rearing a male child

1. Many male children have been dominated by their mothers through erroneous systems of coercion used to replace normal family discipline.

2. The result is that the male has the tendency to succumb to various types of female domination in marriage.

3. Women in marriage who have no influence over their husbands through love response, category #2 rapport, often resort to divisiveness to control their husbands, or to handle their husbands.

4. These devises include nagging, tantrums, pouting, abnormal and embarrassing public behaviour, designed to force the husband into line and control him.

5. The use of these devises constitutes a female conspiracy against the biblical principle of category #2 love and forms and attempted coup de tat over the husband's authority.

6. Many a husband has been denied sex, bullied, nagged, or brought into a desired pattern by a divisive female who uses a variety of wiles to control the male.

7. Such female activity elicits the reaction of bitterness in the man. This bitterness becomes the reactor factor leading often to reversionism. And many a mother, following the same pattern that she used on her husband, cannot understand why her son becomes reversionistic. By the time he is a teenager he is often reversionistic because she has used the same tactic to control him that she used upon her husband.

8. From here the steps of reversionism follow quickly. It starts with bitterness, a serious handicap in the function of divine institution #2, and children becoming bitter is destructive in preparing them for life as well as for the spiritual realm.

"in the Lord" — e)n plus the locative of kurioj minus the definite article. The absence of the definite article in the Greek emphasises the quality of the noun. Regardless of how unreasonable or how unfair the parental policy appears to be the child must obey his parents as part of his full time Christian service.

"for" is an explanatory use of gar and should be translated 'because'; "this is" — present active indicative of e)imi. This is a static present, it means this is always true.

"right" is the predicate nominative dikaioj, it is right and just.

Translation: "You children, be obeying your parents in the Lord: because it is right [fair, just]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #99

99 02/28/1974 Ephesians 6:2–4 Obedience and respect results in prosperity and long life

Verse 2 — this is still addressed to the children. "honour" is a present active imperative of the verb timaw which means to respect or to honour — honour in the sense of respect. The customary present denotes what habitually occurs when parents do their job as unto the Lord, when parents are fair, when parents have some wisdom and common sense instead of self-righteousness and legalism. Fair administration of discipline in the common sense policies of the home always gain the respect of the children. Active voice: as the child moves into adolescence the teenager produces the action of the verb. We have the present tense of duration indicating that the child who honours or respects his parents as a teenager will also do that when he is an adult. The imperative mood is the mood of command. Good discipline and fair treatment in childhood results in that adolescent love or respect.

"thy father and mother" — accusative singular direct object of pathr plus the accusative singular direct object of mhter. In both case there is also a personal pronoun. In the absence of the father the mother has exactly the same authority as if she were both parents, therefore mother is included.

"which" — nominative singular feminine of the relative pronoun o(stij meaning "for such." This means "for such is." "Such" refers to the principle or doctrine or concept of establishment; "is" — present active indicative of e)imi, and we have the static present which represents a commandment perpetually existing. The active voice: this is a reference to the fifth commandment of the decalogue which produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative of a dogmatic assertion, namely the fifth commandment.

"the first commandment with promise" — in other words, you have four commandments before you get one with a promise hooked on to it. The word for 'commandment' is a predicate nominative of e)ntolh; "with promise" is e)n plus the instrumental of e)paggelia which means a promise of blessing. The specific promise of blessing is stated in the next verse.

Verse 3 — the promise is actually twofold, it includes prosperity and long life. Three principles:

a) This verse is a demonstration that no matter how unfair parents could be or may be, God is fair. God's fairness manifests itself in that if a child is abused under this system where the parents are grossly unfair, the parents being tyrants, and yet the child still respects their authority, in the fairness of God he gets all of his suffering while he is a teenager and from then on he has a life of great blessing and prosperity. This does not exclude other types of suffering from time to time in his life but his life is characterised by great prosperity.

b) The promise of blessing is attached to the fifth commandment of the decalogue. The blessing is both prosperity and long life. Long life is not always a blessing but when it is associated with prosperity long life is a blessing.

c) Parents may be unfair, they may be tyrants, but the children who are amenable to discipline will have a long and prosperous life on this earth. So what this verse is saying is that not only is God fair but it is better to endure hardship in youth and learn discipline so that in later years there might be blessing and long life.

"That" — the conjunction i(na which introduces a purpose clause; "it may be" — a summary of the principle of the promise related to the child's obedience to parental authority, the aorist middle subjunctive of ginomai. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers into a single whole the adult life of a person who in childhood and adolescence respected the authority of his parents. In other words, this constative aorist is the adult life. The aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, the general characteristic of the adult life is one of prosperity and long life. The middle voice, this being a deponent verb: the form is middle but the meaning is active. So the person who in childhood and adolescence obeys parents, respects the authority of parents, will be happy and well adjusted in life. The subjunctive mood goes with the purpose clause and does not indicate potentiality here. "That is may come to be."

"well with thee" — this is an idiom and it means "that you may prosper." Ginomai + you = prosperity; "with thee" is the dative of indirect object from the personal pronoun su. It is also the dative of advantage. This is a principle in the laws of establishment. "That you may prosper" refers to a life of prosperity and happiness based on the principle of respect for authority plus the inculcation of self-discipline in childhood. When a generation of children are reared under permissiveness, without discipline and without respect for authority, that generation suffers intensely and often comes to disaster. This is taught in Judges chapters 19-21; Romans 1:18-32; 2Timothy 3:1-7.

"and" is the continuative use of the conjunction kai; "thou mayest live long" — future middle indicative of e)imi which doesn't mean to live, it should be translated "and you shall be." The future tense is a gnomic future, a statement of fact or performance which is rightfully expected under normal conditions. The middle voice is the indirect middle which emphasises the agent as producing the action of the verb rather than participating in the results. The declarative indicative represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. The word 'long' is where the problem is — the predicate adjective makroxronioj [xronoj = time; makro = long], so it is "long-lived" or "long life" — "and you shall have long life" is the best way to translate it.

"on the earth" — e)pi plus the genitive of gh. It means to be a long time on the earth.

Translation: "That is may come to be well with you [that you may prosper], and you shall have long life on the earth."

When you prosper and have long life this means that there is a third factor involved — health, vigour, strength. It is possible for a person to live 100 years and be sick 99 years out of the 100. But here is prosperity and not only long life but health. All of this adds up to a system of blessing for anyone, believer or unbeliever, who in childhood and adolescence fulfills the principle stated under the laws of establishment.

Verse 4 — "And" is the continuative use of the conjunction kai; "you fathers" — the vocative plural of pathr plus the definite article used as a personal pronoun — "And you fathers."

"provoke not" — the present active imperative of parorgizw which with the negative means to stop doing something which a lot of the parents had been doing. This is the retroactive progressive present, it denotes what is begun in the past and continues into the present time. The negative is mh. The word here connotes Christian parents. The active voice: "fathers" in the plural means father and mother, parents, both parents. It should be translated "you parents." Christian parents produce the action of the verb. The imperative mood with the negative mh is an imperative of prohibition and should be translated "stop." Stop causing anger.

"to wrath" — how does a parent cause anger or exasperate the children? The answer is very simple: unjust treatment, abusive authority, taking your frustrations out on your children. Parents have no right to abuse the authority given to them. When there is conflict in the home between the two authorities it reflects itself in exasperating children by abuse of authority.

"but" is the adversative conjunction a)lla and it sets up a contrast. Here is what you should be doing.

"bring them up" — the present active imperative of e)ktrepw. This means "be training them." It is a day by day thing. If you train people you have to train them daily. The present tense is a customary present denoting what habitually occurs or what may be reasonably expected to occur. The active voice: the parents produce the action of the verb, and they produce it by having a category #2 love relationship.

"in the nurture" — e)n plus the locative of paideia means "in the discipline."

"and admonition" — nouqesia is academic instruction; "of the Lord" is ablative of source and should be translated "from the Lord."

"And, you parents, stop causing your children to become angry: but be training them to maturity and in the discipline and academic instruction from the Lord."

Areas of parental training

The physical realm, providing food, shelter, and clothing. The training comes through teaching them how to properly eat food, teaching them basic systems of grooming, provide recreation, provide training in the principles of health and hygiene. In the mental realm, providing a vocabulary with which to think. Training in the field of self discipline and concentration. Training in the realm of freedom and respect for privacy, respect for property, respect for the rights of others, thoughtfulness. In the spiritual realm evangelisation of children followed by initial doctrinal communication. Academic instruction from the Lord, emphasising the instruction from the local church. Parents that always select a church where doctrine is taught, rather than one that offers young people's programs.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #100

100 03/01/1974 Ephesians 6:5 The issue of slavery

In the paragraph, verses 5-9, we find both the responsibility of labour and the responsibility of management in the field of business enterprise. To the believer whether he is in management or on the labour side it makes no difference. His job, whatever it is, is a part of full time Christian service. Every believer is a member of the royal family of God in the palace forever and no matter what he does in life it is a part of full time Christian service to do the job as unto the Lord.

Verse 5 — "Servants" is the vocative plural of douloj [slave] plus the definite article. With the definite article used as a personal pronoun it is translated "You servants [slaves]." Originally it applied to slaves in the Roman empire. While slavery was a great social evil at this time Paul never became diverted to condemn it or to seek to rectify the problem by social action. He told the slaves that when they received Christ not to seek to be free but to stay as they were and honour the Lord. Should the Lord provide their freedom then and only then they were to use their freedom to glorify the Lord. He never says one word against slavery. But as this applies to us today, it should be "You workers." The application applies to believers of the royal family who work for someone else — employees.

"be obedient" — present active imperative of u(pakouw. Remembering that those to whom this was originally addressed — slaves — notice what the Word of God commands those who find themselves in slavery. Obedience! The slave is not concerned with the rights or wrongs of his circumstances, he is concerned to do his job as unto the Lord. He is concerned to grow in grace. His job is to take in Bible doctrine as a believer and to reach super-grace, and to leave his circumstances in the hands of the Lord. The customary present here denotes what habitually occurs, or under doctrine that which is reasonably expected to occur. The active voice: the believer today, by application, is an employee producing the action of the verb. In the original use of this passage it was a slave producing the action of the verb. This is a command from God to those in the Roman empire who were slaves, just as today it is a command from God to those who are working for someone else.

Principles

1. Authority exists and must exist under divine establishment in the industrial business world.

2. Believers, members of the royal family, who are employees or labour must recognise the authority of management.

3. This means that your job is a part of your full time Christian service. It means obedience to the authority of management.

4. This means working under the policy of the business organisation from which you draw your pay.

5. Prosperity in the economy and the effectiveness of industry demands recognition of the authority of management.

6. Management is the brains and the key to industry, and given freedom to use their ingenuity management will be able to provide more jobs and better jobs for labour.

7. Bad management is no excuse for becoming a loafer on the job.

"to them that are" is not found in the original. All that is there is toij kurioij. In each case the dative plural of the definite article, the dative of indirect object. The principle of the indirect object is to indicate the one for whom this particular command is given. This is given for the sake of labour, for employees, to honour the Lord and to benefit others — the economy, the whole structure of society — by doing the job as unto the Lord.

"according to the flesh" — this is authority in the economic world only. Management has no authority in the local church where the pastor-teacher is the authority. This is kata plus the accusative of sarc. This refers to the principle of authority found in the laws of divine establishment in the area of business enterprise and the economy.

"with fear" — the preposition meta plus the genitive of foboj which means respect; "and trembling" — the genitive of tromoj which means maximum exertion, effort.

"in singleness" — e)n plus the instrumental of a)plothj and it means integrity, probity. The noun connotes the virtue of the believer who is free from pretense, free from dissimulation, free from hypocrisy.

"of your hearts" — the ablative of source of kardia which means the right lobe: " … by means of integrity from your right lobe." With Bible doctrine in the soul no matter how humble your job if you are employed by someone else you are going to do your job as unto the Lord. God is going to be glorified by the way you do your job.

"as" is a relative adverb used as a comparative particle; "unto Christ" — do your job as unto the Lord Jesus Christ. The definite article is used as a personal pronoun and so it should be translated "as to your Christ."

Translation: "You slaves [employees], be obeying your lords [management] according to the standard of the flesh [laws of establishment], with respect for authority and maximum effort, by means of integrity from your right lobe, as to your Christ."

Summary

1. Your job is your full-time Christian service.

2. Therefore do your job as unto the Lord.

3. Capacity for life comes from Bible doctrine in your right lobe.

4. Capacity for life in one fields overflows to other areas. Because you have doctrine in your soul you should have integrity in your soul.

5. A person who does his job as unto the Lord will also be a wonderful friend, a wonderful lover, a wonderful person in time of disaster, He will make permanent lifetime friends.

6. This command in the verse does not include catering to your boss off the job.

7. To respect management's authority on the job does not mean that you have to be nice to him off the job.

8. Nor does this verse imply that you must become involved with anyone in extracurricular activities to hold your job. All you have to do is respect the authority of those over you and do your job as unto the Lord.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #101

101 03/03/1974 Ephesians 6:6–9 Social action vs. bible doctrine; responsibility of labor and management

Verse 6 — "Not with eyeservice." The negative mh is the subjective negative, it recognises that the door can be open by the volition plus the old sin nature of the individual. It is followed by the preposition kata plus the accusative which usually indicates some norm or standard. In this case it is a negative norm or standard. Then we have a compound noun, o)fqalmodoulia [o)fqalmo = an eye; doulia = slave] which means eye slavery, service which is performed only to attract attention, hypocritical function on the job. Literally, this should be translated "Not according to the standard of eye slavery as menpleasers."

"menpleasers" is a coined word, it did not exist in any previous form of Greek, it is simply a combination of a)nqrwpoj and the verb a)reskw which means to please — a)nqrwpareskoj. It refers to someone who tries to please people or butter up people at the expense of principle, someone who holds their job by flattery and fawning. Every believer must do his job as unto the Lord, not whether he is supervised or not, and he does not make up for lack of ability by becoming a sycophant.

"but" is an adversative conjunction a)lla which sets up the positive side; "as the servants" — the word 'servant' is not servant at all, douloj means slaves.

"of Christ" — accept your circumstances, use them to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. If the Lord wants to change your circumstances, that's fine. The dynamics of Bible doctrine comes from utilising your own circumstances assigned to you by God. The possessive genitive of Xristoj says that we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. The possessive genitive means that every believer, regardless of his circumstances, belongs to the Lord. Not only does he belong to the Lord but he is a member of the royal family of God forever.

"doing" — the present active participle of poiew. This is a progressive present of description which indicates what is now going on. It is often called a pictorial present tense since its distinctive force is to present to the mind a picture of the events in the process of occurrence. At the time that Paul wrote this he addressed this to believers who were slaves, whose circumstances were very difficult in many cases. But in spite of that he says, "Do your job as unto the Lord." The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb. This is a telic participle which denotes a purpose.

"the will of God" — the accusative singular direct object from qelhma, which means the will, the plan, the purpose, the design. God has placed believers in every aspect of life. God can bless a believer in any circumstances of life; "of God" is a possessive genitive of qeoj — "of your God." The definite article is used as a possessive pronoun.

"from the heart" — e)k plus the ablative singular of yuxh which means "from the soul."

Translation: "Not according to the standard of eyeslavery, as menpleasers; but as slaves [workers, employees] belonging to Christ, constantly doing the will of your God from the soul." This requires Bible doctrine in the soul.

Verse 7 — "With good will" — meta plus the genitive of e)unoia which does not mean 'good will,' it is a combination of two words, e)u meaning 'good' and noia meaning 'thinking.' It meant originally 'good thinking' but it finally came to be used for loyal enthusiasm. "With loyal enthusiasm."

"doing service" is the present active participle of the verb douluw meaning 'doing slavery.' This was originally addressed to slaves or anyone performing a menial task in life. The retroactive progressive present denotes that the recipients had been doing this in the past and had continued serving as slaves up to the present. The active voice: slaves in the Roman empire produced the action of the verb by interpretation. However, today by application is refers to labour on the job.

"as to the Lord" — dative of advantage. It is to our advantage to be owned by the Lord, to be members of the royal family of God; "and not to men" means that the most menial task or job is a part of our full-time Christian service as members of the royal family of God. The believer with doctrine in his soul, the super-grace believer, does the most menial task with loyal enthusiasm as to the Lord.

Translation: "With loyal enthusiasm performing the duties of a slave, as to the Lord, and not to men."

Summary

1. Notice the approach of the Word of God. The first approach of the Word of God is the fact that revolution and manumission are not recommended.

2. No social action is enjoined either here or to the Corinthians or to the Colossians where slavery was an issue. Doctrine changes things from the soul, not from the function of people seeking change and improvement of environment.

3. Regeneration, not legislation, is the answer to social problems like slavery.

4. After regeneration slavery becomes full-time Christian service to be accomplished through occupation with the person of Christ. This principle turns the world upside down.

Verse 8 — "Knowing that" is the perfect active participle of o)ida used as a present tense for doctrine on the launching pad of the right lobe, doctrine ready to be applied.

"whatsoever" — the nominative singular e(kastoj means "each one." We are treated as individuals by the Word of God, we are never treated as a mass of people.

Not found in the English text but coming next is the word "if" e)an; "good thing any man doeth" — the aorist active subjunctive of poiew is a part of a 3rd class condition. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, it gathers the production of diving good on the job into a single whole. The working believer produces the action of the verb today just as the slave produced the action of the verb in the time of the Roman empire. The subjunctive mood merely indicates a third class condition. The word for 'good' is good of intrinsic value or divine good.

"the same" — the same production of divine good. Divine good is produced on the job by the filling of the Spirit through Bible doctrine moulding the mental attitude.

"shall he receive" — the future middle indicative komizw means to receive back wages in the sense of blessing for long-time faithfulness. The future tense here is a predictive future signifying an event expected to occur in future time, in this case the judgement seat of Christ. The middle voice is the indirect middle emphasising the agent producing the action.

"of the Lord" should be "from the source of the Lord."

"whether he be bond or free" — whether he is a slave or a free man. The reward for living your life as a slave or a free man must be under the ministry of the Spirit, and it must fulfil Colossians 3:16, doing your job as unto the Lord.

Translation: "Knowing that each one, if he has done anything good, he himself shall receive with interest this same production from the source of the Lord, whether he is a slave or a free man."

Verse 9 — "And, ye masters" is the vocative plural of kurioj which means "lords." That is, those who employ or are in management.

"do the same things" — the present active imperative of poiew should be translated "keep doing," the present tense being a customary present. This is expected to occur under normal circumstances. The active voice: Christian management now produces the action. The imperative mood is a command.

"unto them" is 'toward them' — proj plus the accusative of a)utoj. That is, toward labour. This further demands that Christian management be fair and just in the treatment of employees or labour under his jurisdiction.

"forbearing" is a present active participle, the verb is a)nihmi which means to suspend or cease from, to desist. The retroactive progressive present denotes something begun in the past and continuing into the present time, which means that Christian management must be consistent in desisting from threatening, bullying or unfair treatment. Literally, "be desisting from bullying."

"knowing that" — perfect active participle of o)ida indicating something that every believer in management should understand. It is the application of doctrine to management.

"your Master" — literally, "your Lord." This is a possessive pronoun, u(mwn. Every person in management is responsible to the Lord Jesus Christ.

"in heaven" — the static present, always will be; "and there is not respect of persons" — the Greek word means partiality ; "with him."

Translation: "Also, you lords [management], be doing the same things toward them [labour], be desisting from bullying: knowing that both their Lord and yours is in heaven; and there is no partiality with Him."

Principle

1. God is fair, He does not show partiality.

2. He is not impressed with personality of an individual or his ability to enter into flattery.

3. He treats us on the basis of His character.

4. Therefore His integrity is beyond reproach.

5. God plays no favourites, He is fair to all.

6. Therefore, so it should be with Christian management.

7. The super-grace believer in management or authority should emulate his Lord.

The Roman imperial army was the earliest of the world's standing armies in which soldiers were regularly recruited and provided for in training and equipment. The ancient world, outside of Assyria, did not use national armies. They recruited various nationalities. The Romans recruited their own people only, it also recruited born-again believers from Roman provinces.

Outline of the passage 6:10-24

1. The estimate of the situation — vv. 10-12.

2. The equipment for the conflict — 13-17

3. The royal family responsibility — 18-24

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #102

102 11/28/1974 Ephesians 6:10 The Roman soldier

Verse 10 — "Finally" is the adverbial use of a genitive phrase, tou loipou for the adjective loipoj. It means "From now on" or "In the future." In other words, you are still alive so obviously God still has a plan for your life. This is a "from now on" passage. So you have made a mess of it, so you have fouled it up, but from now on things are going to be different. The apostle Paul foresees the impact of Ephesians on the royal family of God. He sees Ephesians as turning people around and moving them in the right direction. He sees Ephesians as the summary basis for anyone getting oriented to the plan of God and entering into the tactical victory of the angelic conflict. Ephesians demands growth. From the time that you start the first chapter and begin to see that you are in the plan of God, and that you are special in the plan of God, and that you live in a special age, from that moment on Ephesians becomes extremely important.

"my brethren" — not found in this verse, it is not in the Greek; "be strong" — in the future be strong, the present passive imperative of e)ndunamow means "keep on becoming strong." The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what customarily occurs or what may be expected to occur under the daily function of GAP. The passive voice: the royal family believer receives the action of the verb through taking in doctrine consistently. The imperative mood is the mood of command.

"in the Lord" is the preposition e)n plus the locative of kurioj reminds us of the fact that we are royal family of God, that we have a higher honour and privilege, that we have greater doctrine, that we have greater opportunity, greater horizons than any group of believers that have ever lived.

"and" is the ascensive use of the conjunction kai which means "even."

"in the power" — e)n plus the instrumental of kratoj which means ruling power — "by means of ruling power." That is the power that runs inside and the ruling power inside is the dictator of your soul, Bible doctrine resident there. The only way that you can get this dictator in your soul is to take in doctrine on a daily basis.

"of his might" — that dictator inside has might. This is a descriptive genitive singular of the noun i)sxuj, it refers to endowed power. It is a very strong word for inner ability. Plus the possessive genitive singular of the intensive pronoun a)utoj. This intensive pronoun places great emphasis on the power of God inside of you becoming the dictator of your soul. It places great emphasis on the fact that you must become spiritually self-sustaining. To the extent that you have a dictator in your soul, an altar in your soul, you are going to have a great life.

Translation: "But from now on, keep on becoming strong in the Lord, even by means of his endowed power."

The importance of Bible doctrine

1. Bible doctrine is the content of the Word of God. It is the communication of the Word of God. Doctrine is the communication of Bible subjects on the basis of the exegesis of the original languages or an analysis and classification of the English text. Doctrine simply means what is taught or Bible teaching. Doctrine therefore refers to the transfer of Bible subjects from the passage of the Word of God by the pastor-teacher to your individual soul as a member of the royal family of God.

2. The word doctrine does occur as a part of Bible nomenclature. We have both Hebrew and Greek words to indicate this fact. A popular word in the Hebrew is the noun emeth which means doctrine and is generally translated that way, though sometimes it is translated simply "truth" — Psalm 31:5. It emphasises true doctrine in contrast to false doctrine if Proverbs 22:21; Psalm 25:5; 26:3; 86:11. Probably one of the most important words is Bible doctrine in the soul under the Hebrew word chakmah. It is the same as the Greek e)pignwsij and it refers to doctrine which is in the soul and therefore usable — Psalm 8:1. A third word is the word shemuah which also means doctrine or what is heard. It emphasises doctrine from the standpoint of concentration — Isaiah 28:9. It refers to the function of GAP with emphasis on the concentration of the believer. A fourth noun in the Hebrew is leqach which is translated 'doctrine' but it really means the poise, the self-discipline which is necessary to consistently assimilate doctrine and to fulfill the tactical objective of victory in the spiritual life — Deuteronomy 32:2; Job 11:4; Proverbs 4:2; Isaiah 29:24. Then there is musar which has the connotation of the communication of doctrine with emphasis on the disciplinary aspect of learning.

In the Greek there are basically four words or derivative systems which present the concept of doctrine. The derivatives of the verb ginwskw, which means to learn or to know, to comprehend, are quite a number. It means intelligent comprehension of an object or matter, therefore it means perception. Gnosis is taken from that verb — Bible doctrine taken into the left lobe, the objective understanding of the doctrine. When it is transferred into the human spirit and then up into the right lobe or the heart it is called e)pignwsij. There are other words like prognwsij which refers to doctrine in the mind or to doctrine understood by the omniscient God in eternity past. It is doctrine which existed before time. It is the concept that doctrine has always existed whether it was written or not, for doctrine is the thinking of God, there never was a time when doctrine did not exist. There is an adjective which emphasises the potentiality of learning doctrine — gnostoj. It is also a word which means "doctrinal" in the adjective form — Romans 1:19. Then there is a word in Acts 26:3, gnosthj, which means an expert in doctrine.

A second area of Greek words is logoj which means speech, word, thinking, and doctrine. In Hebrews 6:1 logoj means doctrine.

A third Greek area is didaxh which means the act of teaching or what is taught — Matthew 7:28; 22:33; Mark 1:22; 1Corinthians 14:6; 2Timothy 4:2; Hebrews 6:2; Revelation 2:14.

There is another word, didaskalia, which is used for what is taught or doctrinal teaching — Matthew 15:9; Titus 1:9; 2:7,10,11.

3. Bible doctrine is the heritage or the legacy of the royal family of God — Psalm 138:2. The word "worship" here is the hithpael [reflexive] imperfect of shachah, and the reflexive concept means your own individual relationship with the Lord expressed in terms of worship, and it demands Bible doctrine in the soul. It should be translated "I myself will worship."

"toward the temple of your holiness" — this refers to heaven as the real holy of holies; the word "praise" is in the hiphil stem of jadah and it has the concept of celebration because of real appreciation; the word "for" is a causal waw meaning "because"; and the word "loving-kindness" is chesedh meaning 'grace.' It should be translated "and celebrate your person because of your grace." Grace is the basis for true celebration.

"and for thy truth" — the word emeth means doctrine. So there are two reasons for celebration: grace and doctrine.

"because you have magnified" — the hiphil perfect of gadal which means to magnify to the utmost; "thy word" — doctrinal teaching; "above your reputation" — more important than the reputation of God is the doctrine of God is what this passage is saying.

Translation: "I myself will worship toward the temple of your holiness [heaven], and celebrate your person [the super-grace believer occupied with Christ] because of your grace and because of your doctrine; because you have magnified your doctrinal teaching over your reputation."

Doctrinal communication is the means of glorifying God, has always been the means of tactical victory in the angelic conflict. Doctrinal teaching is the means of establishing residency of doctrine in the soul. Maximum resident doctrine means not only super-grace status but the normal function of the royal priesthood of the believer in this dispensation.

4. Our heritage of doctrine was perpetuated by the Lord Jesus Christ in His dying words on the cross. The seventh and last recorded utterance of the Lord was mentioned in His dying breath where He made doctrine the spiritual legacy of the royal family. By comparing Luke 23:46 with Psalm 31:5 we have exactly what our Lord said: "Into your hands, O Father, I deposit my spirit; for you have delivered me, O Jehovah, God of doctrine." The last phrase indicates that He was delivered in His humanity buy the doctrine resident in His own soul.

5. Bible doctrine preexisted the human race. Proverbs 8 records how Bible doctrine was with God in eternity past before the creation of the universe.

6. Therefore attitude toward doctrine determines whether the believer is blessed or disciplined in time — Proverbs 8:33-36.

7. Therefore doctrine is the basis for the distribution of super-grace blessings. The daily function of GAP means maximum doctrine in the soul. This is following the colours to the high ground of super-grace, and is the subject of Isaiah 53:12. The plunder of victory is paragraph SG2, super-grace blessings in time. "The many" anticipates the royal family of God in time; "the great ones" are the super-grace believers of the royal family.

8. Doctrine is the basis for the distribution of surpassing grace blessings in eternity. This is determined by comparing Hebrews 11:9,10 with verse 13, or James 1:25 with 2:12,13.

9. There is a principle that comes out of this. For the believer who reaches super-grace Bible doctrine is more real than empirical knowledge — 2Peter 2:12-21. If there is a conflict between what you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, or what you think and what Bible doctrine says, Bible doctrine is more real and Bible doctrine is right. Bible doctrine is the criterion for the royal family of God.

10. Lack of Bible doctrine destroys a nation — Hosea 4:1-6.

11. Bible doctrine is part of the principle of living grace for phase two. Under living grace God provides spiritual and temporal factors to keep you alive in time.

12. The plan of God is both advanced and vindicated through Bible doctrine. Psalm 51:4.

13. The pastor or communicator of doctrine establishes the balance of residency in the soul of the believer.

14. Therefore the importance of the consistency in the function of GAP — Hebrews 10:25. A warning about negative volition is given in Hebrews 10:35. Perseverance of positive volition is taught in Hebrews 10:36; Colossians 2:6,7.

15. The results of doctrine resident in the soul are several:

a) Doctrine produces confidence in life — Job 5:24-27; 2Corinthians 5:6-8; Hebrews 10:35.

b) Doctrine produces the divine viewpoint of life and therefore mental attitude dynamics — Isaiah 55:7-9; 2Corinthians 10:5.

c) Bible doctrine orients the believer to the plan of God — Isaiah 26:3,4; Romans 8:28.

d) Bible Doctrine produces stability of soul — James 1:8.

e) Bible doctrine is the basis for divine guidance and the execution of the will of God — Romans 12:2,3.

f) Bible doctrine leads to occupation with Christ and maximum capacity for category #1 love — Philippians 3:10; Ephesians 3:19; Hebrews 12:2,3.

g) Bible doctrine attains and holds the super-grace status — Philippians 3:12-14.

h) Bible doctrine attains surpassing grace blessing for eternity — Hebrews 11:9,10,13; James 1:25 cf. 2:12,13.

16. The synonyms for Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

a) The central control synonym — Ephesians 6:10. "Be strong in the Lord by means of the inner rule [resident doctrine] of his endowed power."

b) The crucifixion synonym — Matthew 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27: "Take up your cross and follow me." To pick up or take up your cross means to run counter to what people are usually doing in your day, to run counter to what your family thinks, etc.

c) The priestly synonym — Hebrews 13:10, the construction of the altar in the soul.

d) The building synonym — Ephesians 4:12,16, the construction of the ECS.

e) The theological synonym — James 4:6, super-grace.

f) The military synonym — Ephesians 6:11.

g) Language synonyms (see point 2).

h) The time synonym — redeeming the time, Ephesians 5:16-18.

i) The salt synonym — Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34; Colossians 4:6.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #103

103 11/28/1974 Ephesians 6:11a; Psalm 138:2 Doctrine of importance of Bible doctrine

Verse 11 — "Put on" is the aorist middle imperative of the verb e)nduw, used here for a military type putting on his equipment. It means to wear something. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which gathers into one entirety the action of the verb — wearing the full armour of God. The middle voice is a permissive middle in which the agent, the royal priest, voluntarily yields himself to the results of the action, seeking to secure the action in his own interest. The imperative mood is a mood of command.

"the whole armour of God" — the accusative singular direct object from the noun panoplia which means complete field equipment; plus the balative of source from qeoj which is "from God." So far we have: "Wear for yourselves the full armour from our God" — a definite article used as a possessive pronoun. We are commanded as believers to use this equipment.

"that" introduces the concept of a purpose clause but it is really not a conjunction. This is a prepositional phrase proj plus the present active infinitive of the verb dunamai is used to express purpose; plus a definite article and this actually becomes a purpose clause. The definite article makes the infinitive more adaptable to be used with prepositions. For example, proj could means several things depending on the case and the object. The definite article indicates what case and therefore how to translate. Altogether this is "that you might continue to be able." The present tense of the infinitive is a present tense of the continuation of existing results, referring it to what has come to be in the past but emphasising the present reality of it. It is translated like the perfect tense, it has linear aktionsart. The active voice: the believer in the angelic conflict produces the action. We are all in the angelic conflict, therefore this equipment must be worn. The infinitive plus the preposition plus the definite article plus the accusative of general reference constitutes a purpose clause — "that you might continue to be able to stand."

"that ye may be able to stand" is the aorist active infinitive of the verb i(sthmi which means to stand, to stand firm. It is used in the military sense of holding your ground. That is the concept here — "that you might be able to hold your ground." The aorist tense is a constative aorist which gathers into one entirety the action of the verb — holding the high ground of super-grace. The active voice: the royal priest as a soldier is the one who holds the ground. The infinitive expresses our purpose during the angelic conflict. We must put on this armour and hold our ground. Putting on the armour is reaching super-grace. Once you have the armour you must seize and hold.

"against the wiles of the devil" — a prepositional phrase, proj plus the accusative plural of the noun meqodeia which means strategy or tactics, either one depending on the context; plus a possessive genitive singular of the noun diaboloj which means here the devil, it also means enemy — "against the tactics of the devil" really is more in keeping with the context.

Translation: "Wear for yourselves the full armour from God that you might be able to hold your ground against the tactics of the devil."

The tactics of the devil (the devil's seven)

1. Knowing the person of the devil means understanding his strategy and tactics. The devil is the highest of all angelic creatures and is the ruler of all fallen angels — Matthew 8:28; 9:34; 12:26; Luke 11:8,19. The devil is a prehistoric super creature — Isaiah 14:12-17; Ezekiel 28:11-19. The three falls of the devil: Two are described in Isaiah 14 as well as in Ezekiel 28; the third fall comes in Revelation chapters 12 & 20. The devil also has two advents: the first advent to the human race — Genesis 3; the second advent — Revelation 20. The devil is the central antagonist in the angelic conflict — Hebrews chapters 1 & 2; Genesis 6; 1Peter 3:18-22. The devil has a phenomenal organisation. He is a murderer and a liar from the beginning — John 8:44. He is the chief opponent of Bible doctrine — Matthew 13:9,39. The devil is the enemy of the Church, the royal family of God — Revelation 2:9,13,24. The devil is smarter than any of us, he has more power, ability, capability, more organisational ability. He has more of everything.

2. The power of the devil. The devil is the ruler of this world, he has total power — Luke 4:5-7; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2. He has the power to destroy us, to remove us, to discredit us; and only the grace of God offsets all of the tremendous power. Furthermore, he is unseen.

3. Therefore as the ruler of this world the devil has policy and strategy regarding the nations of the world. We see his policies in the function of the United National, in the National Council of Churches, the Word Council of Churches, in the Communist parties of the world, in function under all international types of organisation. We see his policies manifest in liberalism. His policies are anti-Christian and antiestablishment. So we must understand that Satan has policy, strategy and tactics by which he puts his policies into operation — Revelation 12:9; 20:3,8.

4. Therefore the devil has strategy regarding unbelievers in the world. His strategy runs the gamut from blinding the minds of the unbelievers who are exposed to the gospel, to every form of unbeliever reversionism, as in 2Peter 2. The devil's strategy regarding the unbeliever — Luke 8:12; 2Corinthians 4:3,4; 2Thessalonians 2:7-10; Colossians 2:8; Revelation 17. Religion is the devil's ace trump in this area of his policy and strategy.

5. The devil has strategy also regarding believers, the royal family of God.

a) He accuses the believers in heaven — 2Corinthians 2:11; Job 1:6-11; Zechariah 3:1,2; Revelation 12:9,10; 1John 2:1,2.

b) He is the sponsorer of reversionism — 1Corinthians 10:19-21; 11:3,13-15.

c) He frustrates the will of God in three areas: the mental will of God — Ephesians 4:14; the geographical will of God — 1Thessalonians 2:18; the operational will of God — James 4:7,8.

d) To neutralise doctrinal application. Satan does everything he can to have malfunction in our application of Bible doctrine. He does this through worry, anxiety, mental attitude sins — 1Peter 5:7-9.

e) To destroy the believer's focus — getting the eyes on people, Jeremiah 17:5; or he turns you into an arrogant person — getting eyes on self, 1 Kings 19:10.

f) He gets the believer to become involved in improving the devil's world. This means he gets the reversionistic believer in humanistic activities, occupation with temporal solutions, getting involved, social gospel, etc.

g) The inculcation regarding physical death or fear regarding things, adversities, and situations in life — Hebrews 2:14,15.

6. Religion is a part of the devil's strategy. Basically religion was created by Satan to counterfeit the plan of God. Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship with God through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But religion, by way of contrast, is man seeking to gain the approbation of God by his own efforts, his plans, his merits, his systems. Religion is the principal representative of the evil genius of Satan.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #104

104 11/28/1974 Ephesians 6:11b–12a The devil's seven

Verse 12 — "For is the causal use of the conjunction o(ti and it should be translated "Because."

"we wrestle not" — o)uk e)stin h(min h( palh is an entirely different translation. O)uk = not; e)stin = is; h(min = to us; h( palh = a combat situation, battle. Literally, from the Greek, "there is not to us the combat." It should be translated "our combat is not."

"against flesh and blood" — proj plus the accusative of a(ima plus sarc. Proj plus the accusative can mean against but it is first of all a(ima and then sarc. So far it should read literally, "Because our combat is not against blood and flesh." We are not fighting blood and flesh. That is why we must be prepared. We are fighting a great demon army.

"but" — the adversative conjunction a)lla which sets up a contrast between the human enemies which you can always see, and therefore kill, and the invisible enemies which are unseen and therefore demand a different system for eliminating them. So we have a contrast between human, visible enemies and the invisible enemies of the angelic army. This is an army of fallen angels under the command of Satan. It is a large, well organised and well trained army, and it is also a very desperate army. It is an army fighting for its life and losing every step of the way.

Next we have the demon table of organisation of this army. It begins with the phrase, "against principalities." This is the preposition proj plus the accusative plural of a)rxh. Proj plus the accusative can be translated 'face to face with' or 'against.' Both are correct. We can leave it as it stands or we can change it to 'our combat is face to face with.' The word a)rxh refers to the highest rank in the demon army. The word comes from a very ancient participle. It started with Athens and Classical Greek — a)rxonthj. It means being in the highest command. From this the armies of Athens were always commanded by a five-star general, or several of them, called a)rxon. Ancient Athens was actually ruled by nine of these archons. The first one was in the singular, o( a)rxon, the preeminent ruler. Next to him was a second ruler who had the title of basileuj which meant king in Classical Greek. The third ruler was the military chief and he was called polemarxoj. The remaining six archons were simply called qesmoqhtai, they were the political type leaders. Satan has top rulers and the names are taken from the same concept of Classical Greek times: a)rxai were the top officers, the highest and most powerful angels under the command of Satan, and they are the equivalent of the archangels in the elect angel organisation. This can be translated "against the rulers" or even "against the top generals." It is against the highest ranking fallen angels.

"against powers" — the preposition proj plus the accusative plural of e)cousia. These are the commissioned officers in the angelic army. Satan understands the importance of discipline, of authority. His army is highly effective and one reason for it is that they are much better disciplined than 'fundies.' These officers command the millions and millions of demons in the armies of Satan.

"against the rulers of darkness of this world" — incorrectly translated. This is paj plus the accusative of kosmokrator [krator = ruler; kosmo = world] which means world ruler: "against world rulers." It refers to a special corps of demons who might be classified as Satan's ambassadors. He has these in all of the ruling places of the world. These are special ambassador demons whose job is to influence the rulers so that Satan can control history. He has never succeeded in doing so but he never stops trying either. One kosmokrator is found in Daniel 10:13-20, he is called the prince of Persia. At the time of Daniel his job was to represent Satan on the court of the king of Persia. Gabriel was so busy fighting this angel at the court of Persia that there was a three week delay in the answer of Daniel's prayer. Another kosmokrator is called the prince of Grecia in Daniel 10:20. His job was to control Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. The descriptive genitive which goes with this is skotoj which means darkness, very thick darkness or gloom. It connotes religious and moral darkness as well as instruments of darkness. It should be translated, "against world rulers of this darkness." The word "this" is the demonstrative pronoun which emphasises the fact that these are evil. This describes the policy and the function of Satan which is a policy of darkness or evil.

Finally, we have in the table of organisation, "against spiritual wickedness in high places." This is, again, proj plus the accusative of pneumatikoj. It actually means 'spirit forces.' With this we have a descriptive genitive from ponhria and that should be translated "evil" — 'against spirit forces of evil in the heavenlies.'

Translation: "Because our combat is not against blood and flesh [human beings], but against demon generals, against demon commissioned officers, against demon ambassadors of darkness, against the spirit forces of evil in the heavenlies."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #105

105 11/29/1974 Ephesians 6:12b–13 Demon army ranks and discipline

Verse 13 — the necessity for the full armour from God. "Wherefore" — the preposition dia plus accusative neuter of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. It means literally, "Because of this." That is, because of the previous verse in which it was pointed out that our combat in this dispensation of the intensified stage of the angelic conflict is not against human beings but against the entire demon organisation under the command of Satan. Inasmuch as we fight against an unseen enemy, the demons and fallen angels, we need to use special equipment to enter into the tactical victory God has provided in grace.

"take" — the aorist active imperative of the verb a(nalambanw which means to pick up equipment and put it on. The constative aorist gathers into one entirety the action of the verb. In other words, one moment you see a Roman soldier stripped and the next moment he is in full uniform. The full equipment is in view here and the Roman soldier was trained to put it on very rapidly. The active voice: each believer must also be ready to put on his equipment in a moment's notice. This implies that we must have Bible doctrine resident in the soul. The imperative mood is the mood of command and it should be translated, "Because of this pick up your equipment."

"unto you" is not found in the original.

"the whole armour of God" — panoplia. Literally, "the full armour from God." Picking up the full armour from God is your daily intake of the Word until you reach the high ground.

The word "that" is the very strong conjunction i(na which introduces a final clause. "In order that" is the best translation.

"ye may be able" is the aorist passive subjunctive of the verb dunamai. This is very important this verb because it says we have the ability to fight these demons, we have the ability to be successful in the angelic conflict. The culminative aorist views the event in its entirety (putting on the full armour) but it regards the action from the viewpoint of its existing results. So the result of maximum doctrine in the soul is the ability to enter into this tremendous conflict. The passive voice: this is a deponent verb which is passive in form but active in meaning. The royal priest, the member of the royal family in this age, produces the action of the verb. Because of doctrine resident in the soul the super-grace believer is able to oppose demons and gain the tactical objective. This resident doctrine is called here panoplia or 'full armour.' It is called in Hebrews 13:10 'the altar.' The altar is the inner residency of Bible doctrine. The subjunctive mood is the potential subjunctive. It implies future reference as the element of contingency, and the element of contingency is the believer's attitude toward doctrine.

"to withstand" — aorist active infinitive from a)ntisthmi which means to hold your ground. It means to be able to resist a very difficult tactical situation. We translate it 'to resist.' The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers up into one entirety the action of this verb which is the believer's successful opposition against the demon forces. The active voice: only the super-grace believer can produce the action of the verb, he is the only one with the full armour on. The infinitive is the infinitive of intended result. It should be translated "to resist in the evil day."

The "evil day" refers to the time when you are attacked. Sooner or later the believer will be under demon attack and when that time comes it is no problem at all provided he has the full armour. Fallen angels or demons are not only invisible but they are much more powerful than human beings. The royal believer must possess the inner resources of resident Bible doctrine to resist the attacks of the unseen forces.

"and having done all" — aorist active participle of katergazomai. The word means to accomplish, to achieve, and we have here "even after having achieved." This is a temporal participle and it indicates the accomplishment of super-grace. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action. This is a culminative aorist which views GAPing it daily to the point of super-grace from the standpoint of its results.

"to stand" — aorist active infinitive of the verb i(sthmi. The constative aorist gathers into one entirety the opposition of the unseen forces. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action of the verb in the full armour of God. The infinitive expresses the purpose of God for each one of us: "even after having achieved everything, to oppose."

Translation: "Because of this [the angelic conflict] pick up and put on the full armour from God, in order that you might have the ability to resist in the evil day, even after having achieved everything, to oppose [the forces of Satan]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #106

106 11/29/1974 Ephesians 6:14–15 Doctrine of witnessing

Verse 14 — body equipment. "Stand" is the aorist active imperative of i(sthmi which means here to resist, to stand fast, to oppose. It was used in the Roman world for a Roman soldier standing fast in ranks under attack from the enemy. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety the action of the verb. In other words, it takes the believer under pressure, understood or misunderstood, calculated or miscalculated, and he is able to stand up under this pressure regardless of not understanding the source of it. It takes the action of standing fast under attack, regardless of its duration, of its intensity, and gathers it up into a single whole of success. The believer can only stand fast or resist under attack when he utilises the grace equipment from God. The active voice: the royal family fulfills the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a command. The point is that no one can stand fast unless he has achieved super-grace status.

"therefore" — the post positive use of the conjunction o)un, in view of what has already been said, the estimate of the situation, all has been pulled together by this conjunction.

"having your loins girt about" — aorist middle participle of perizwnnumi which means to fasten a belt around the body, but we say in modern English, "buckle on"; plus "loins" — the accusative singular of the direct object of o)sfuj which is the waist. The aorist tense is the constative aorist gathering up into one entirety the action of the verb which is a the constant function of GAP until you reach the high ground of super-grace. The middle voice is the permissive middle in which the agent [the believer] voluntarily yields to the results of the action in his own interest and for his own benefit.

"with truth" — e)n plus the instrumental of a)lhqeia. This is the same as the Hebrew chakmah or emeth. It refers to doctrine and it should be translated "by means of doctrine" or "by doctrine." The instrumental can also be translated "with doctrine."

"and having on" — the aorist middle participle of e)nduw means putting these on at the same time, they went on together.

"the breastplate" — the same word we have for 'door" in the Greek, qorac. Because of the shape of the Roman shield they called it the door; "of righteousness" — dikaiosunh which means righteousness in the sense of fulfilling divine standards from the inside out. So it is not self-righteousness, not legalism, it is a genuine relaxed inner righteousness that accompanies super-grace. The breastplate is held in place by the belt and it becomes obvious that this righteousness it totally dependent upon Bible doctrine in the soul. It is the righteousness, therefore, of the royal family of God. This type of righteousness is very important because it stands anywhere on its own. It is not an evil type of righteousness. So virtue is probably a key word — inner virtue. In refers to the integrity and inner virtue of the individual believer with maximum doctrine resident in his soul.

Translation: "Stand fast, therefore, after having buckled around your waste the belt with doctrine [doctrine in the soul], also having put on the body armour of righteousness."

Verse 15 — "And your feet shod." This is the adjunctive use of kai which means here "Also," plus the aorist middle participle from the verb u(podew which simply means to tie on or bind on the combat shoes. This can be translated, "Also put combat boots on your feet."

"with the preparation" — e)n plus the instrumental e)toimasia which means "with the equipment."

"of the gospel" — the word for gospel here means good news, e)uaggelion; "of peace" — literally, "even peace" which is the doctrine of reconciliation.

Witnessing

1. Witnessing is the royal family communicating the gospel to the unbeliever on a personal basis. It is personal evangelism. Therefore witnessing is providing good news, not bad news. You must deal in terms of solution and you must do so without intruding upon the privacy of the individual. He needs information, he doesn't have to be told what he is and isn't, he needs to know who and what Christ is. Witnessing is not salesmanship, it isn't selling soap, it isn't pressure, begging and pleading. The character of witnessing — 1Thessalonians 1:4,5.

2. The Holy Spirit is the sovereign executive in witnessing. The unbeliever is minus his human spirit, he has no frame of reference for the gospel, the gospel is spiritual phenomena. Therefore only God the Holy Spirit can take up the slack. When we are born into this world we are born minus the human spirit, the frame of reference for spiritual phenomena. Because we are all born with an old sin nature we are born spiritually dead. The spiritually dead person cannot comprehend spiritual phenomena. This means that he cannot comprehend the gospel and that the only possibility for comprehension is for God the Holy Spirit to act as the human spirit in order that gospel information might be understood. The good news that we have to tell sinners is not the fact that they are sinners but that their sins were judged on the cross.

What does the Holy Spirit emphasise? The answer is in John 16:8-11. When the Holy Spirit comes he will "convince the world" (doctrine of common grace) of three things: "concerning sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement."

What sin? "Concerning sin, because they do not believe on me." The only sin that sends a man to hell is unbelief in Christ/rejection of Christ as saviour. No one is ever going to hell because he is a sinner, the reason that people go to hell is because they reject Jesus Christ as saviour. Anyone who rejects Christ as saviour inevitably depends upon his own human good or his own human ability. But Jesus Christ did not die for human good, that is reserved for the last judgement where is becomes the basis of the indictment. At the last judgement sins will not be mentioned, expect one: the sin of rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour. John 3:36. God the Holy Spirit does not preach personal sin to the unbeliever, only the fact that he is a sinner and Christ was judged for his sins.

"Concerning righteousness" — this is talking about +R. God credits to our account His righteousness.

"of judgement because the ruler of this world is judged" — the ruler of this world is Satan and the lake of fire was prepared for the devil and his angels. Certain people are going to join Satan and his angels — all unbelievers.

Why does the Holy Spirit have to do this? — 1Corinthians 2:14. The unbeliever is called the soulish man. He does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness to him. He is not able to understand information concerning the gospel because it is discerned by means of the human spirit. He has no frame of reference, there is no way he can understand it. So God the Holy Spirit acts as a human spirit taking whatever of the gospel is true and making it a reality in the soul.

3. Pertinent Bible doctrine, which is the gospel, is the weapon of witnessing. It is always important to use the Bible. You don't have to quote scripture but you must present Biblical truth.

a) The gospel is the power of God unto salvation — Romans 1:16; 1Corinthians 1:18.

b) The Bible is the absolute norm for truth — 2Peter 1:12-21.

c) The source of the gospel is the Bible — Luke 16:28-31; 1Corinthians 15:3,4.

d) The Bible is the mind/thinking of Christ — 1Corinthians 2:16.

e) The Bible is the divine power of God — Hebrews 4:12.

f) The Bible never returns void — Isaiah 55:11.

g) The Bible enduresforever — Luke 21:33; 1Peter 1:25.

4. Every believer priest is God's agent for witnessing. Witnessing is the responsibility of every member of the royal family of God — Acts 1:8; Ephesians 6:15,20; 2Timothy 4:5. This means that at some time in your life you are going to have the opportunity and the privilege of communicating Bible doctrine. The two areas of responsibility for this witnessing are generally the witness of your life — 2Corinthians 3:3; 6:3. This isn't always pertinent but there are times when it will be. Also there is the witness of the lips which is verbalising of the gospel — 2Corinthians 5:14-21; 6:2. Knowledge of pertinent doctrine is necessary for effective witnessing, the believer has to witness in wisdom. This means the use of doctrine. He must be filled with the Spirit. He must make the issue clear and avoid human persuasiveness and salesmanship. The believer's ability to witness depends upon a number of things. His emphasis on the gospel, especially reconciliation — Ephesians 2:14-17. He must have correct and accurate gospel information from Bible doctrine — 1Peter 1:18; Hebrews 4:12. He must be filled with the Spirit, therefore current on rebound. He must have the right mental attitude. Witnessing is paying a debt to the unbeliever — Romans 1:14. "I am ready" — Romans 1:15, preparation means a maximum understanding of doctrine in the soul. Verse 16 explains the attitude of the super-grace believer, "I am not ashamed." Witnessing, therefore, belongs to the royal priesthood and is an extension of our ambassadorship. Every believer is an ambassador, you are born again and ambassador — 2Corinthians 5:18-20.

5. The principle of making the issue clear. John 3:18 and 3:36 are two perfect illustrations of how easy it is to make the issue clear. You must give the unbeliever pertinent information regarding salvation. Christ is the issue; attitude toward Christ is the issue. Therefore avoid any false issues of legalism, salvation by works, jumping through psychological hoops, and so on. 6. The effectiveness of witnessing therefore depends upon the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit directed toward the believer is spirituality, like Acts 1:8; 2Corinthians 3:3; toward the unbeliever it is convincing — 1Corinthians 2:14; John 16:8-11.

7. The clarity of witnessing depends upon the believer's understanding of the judgement of human good. Human good was rejected at the cross. It will be judged for the believer at the judgement seat of Christ — 1Corinthians 3:11-16; for the unbeliever at the last judgement — Revelation 20:12-15.

8. Summary.

a) The prerequisites for witnessing: knowledge of pertinent doctrine.

b) Effectiveness of witnessing depends upon the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

c) The responsibility for witnessing belongs to every member of the royal family of God.

d) Dynamics of witnessing depend upon the believer's mental attitude related to his spiritual growth and the inner residency of Bible doctrine.

e) Clarity of witnessing depends on the believer's accurate understanding of certain doctrines, especially the catchy ones like the two deaths of Christ on the cross, the judgement of Christ on the cross.

f) Areas of witnessing include the life and the verbalising of the gospel.

g) The challenge for witnessing comes from the doctrine of unlimited atonement. We are challenged to witness to the entire world because Christ died for every person who ever lived.

9. The reward for witnessing is included in the believer's paragraph SG3, his surpassing grace paragraph.

10. The biblical pattern for witnessing is found in great detail in 1Thessalonians 2.

11. The postulates of pitfalls in witnessing. When a pitfall is defined it means avoid it.

a) Avoid argumentation. You are not trying to win a debate, you are trying to win a soul for Jesus Christ.

b) Do not be sidetracked by false issues, i.e. Is the Bible the Word of God? What about the heathen who have never heard? What about social problems?

c) Deal with the individual alone where possible. Witnessing in front of other people may create embarrassment and loss of prestige and the person won't even listen.

d) Avoid getting into a rut and using the same approach in every case. Never get into a stereotyped way of witnessing. Flexibility comes with maturity.

e) Avoid the false concept that you must speak to a certain number of people every day about Jesus Christ or you are not spiritual. Witnessing is not spirituality, it is the result of the balance of residency in the soul.

f) Motivation for witnessing must come from doctrine resident in the soul, not human pressure, spiritual bullying, or approbation lust.

g) Avoid bragging about your experiences in witnessing.

h) Do not judge other believers for their apparent failure to witness. This is a matter between them and the Lord. Such judging is maligning and can only bring divine discipline on yourself.

12. An analogy to witnessing. Matthew 4:19.

a) A fisherman must have a desire to fish.

b) A fisherman always goes equipped to fish.

c) A fisherman goes where the fish are.

d) A fisherman must also keep out of sight.

e) The fisherman must be patient.

13. The principle of prayer in witnessing. You can't pray for their salvation but you can pray that they will get the message. Romans 10:1.

14. Effective witnessing always belongs to the mature or super-grace believer — Proverbs 11:30.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #107

107 11/30/1974 Ephesians 6:16a Doctrine of witnessing (continued)

Verse 16 — the defensive equipment for the Roman infantry. "Above all" is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the locative of paj. This is actually a Greek idiom which means "in addition to these."

"taking" is the aorist active participle of the verb a)nalambanw which means to pick up and put on. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the accumulation of doctrine resident in the soul and relates to the function of the faith-rest technique. The active voice: the Christian soldier prepares the action by picking up his own shield. We must carry our own shield, and in contact with the enemy we must use our own shield. The participle is circumstantial, it also has antecedent action to the main verb which is to "hold our ground" in verse 14.

"the shield of faith" — accusative singular direct object of the noun qureoj which means a door-shaped shield; plus the descriptive genitive singular from the noun pistij. Ordinarily pistij can mean one of two things. It can mean faith or doctrine, what is believed or active faith. Here it refers to the principle of faith in itself. Under the principle of faith, faith is a system of thinking. Faith = thinking. It is the system of thinking by which we learn. Someone tells you something and you believe it. Rationalism and empiricism are the only other two systems of thinking. Rationalism always, makes what you think in your mind the criterion; empiricism is what you see, smell, taste; and when you put it all together you accept as reality your conclusions. Faith has always been the basic system of thinking.

The classification of objects of faith is very important to the believer. The first object of faith is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is salvation — Acts 16:31. After salvation the Word of God becomes the object of faith. All the faith in the world secures nothing but condemnation. However, a tiny little bit of faith in Jesus Christ secures eternal salvation. So the efficacy of faith always lies in its object. We learn this through salvation and we apply it in our spiritual lives. All efficacy of faith is related to either the written Word or the living Word.

The doctrine of faith-rest

1. Faith-rest is that function of the believer in which he utilises Bible doctrine, Bible principles, Bible promises — everything he has ever learned about the Bible. Faith-rest is not only claiming God's promises, claiming doctrines and principles but it is, at the same time, thinking divine viewpoint. Faith-rest, therefore, is everything by which a believer utilises Bible doctrine.

2. The mechanics of faith-rest are found in Hebrews 4:1-3. That is the part where we claim certain promises, utilise certain doctrines, and mix them with our faith to launch them. Faith is the launcher and doctrine in the launching pad is actually fired by means of faith.

3. Faith-rest was the basic system for spirituality in the Old Testament among believers — Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 4:17-21; Hebrews chapter 11. The indwelling ministry of God the Holy Spirit is the basis for spirituality in the royal family but this did not occur in Old Testament times and therefore there is a contrast.

4. The inner dynamics of faith-rest. Faith-rest produces in the believer both a relaxed mental attitude and freedom from mental attitude sins — Isaiah 26:3,4 which says literally, "A sustained purpose you will guard in perfect prosperity, because he trusts in you [The believer who is advancing, who has doctrine resident in his soul sustains the purpose and the will of God, and he does so in perfect prosperity — SG2]. Trust in Jehovah forever; for in Jehovah is a rock of ages." The sustained purpose in this context is the daily function of GAP producing the ammunition that is fired from the right lobe of the heart in the believer.

5. The production dynamics of faith-rest is described in numerous passages. For example, faith-rest is absolutely necessary for dynamics in prayer — Matthew 21:22; Mark 11:24. Everyone will face in their lifetime fear, fear of adversity, of danger, of death. There are many types of fear but faith-rest overcomes all of them — Psalm 56:3. This is the faith-rest technique overcoming a mental attitude sin called fear. The overcoming of worry is the function of faith-rest — 1Peter 5:7. Benefit to others is related to the faith-rest technique — Matthew 8:13, the centurion who came to Jesus asking Him to heal his son.

6. Faith-rest is related to super-grace and occupation with the person of Christ — Psalm 37:4,5. The desires of the right lobe are based upon reaching super-grace. You will have not only the capacity for life, not only all of the blessings necessary in the spiritual realm, but you will also have desires compatible with your station.

7. Faith-rest is the modus operandi of the royal priesthood — 1Corinthians 2:5; 2Corinthians 5:7.

8. Faith-rest is related to the function of GAP — Colossians 2:6,7.

9. Faith-rest is related to the victory of the angelic conflict — 1John 5:4, " … this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." This is the faith-rest technique related to Bible doctrine under conditions of residency of doctrine in the soul.

How do you pick up the shield of faith and carry it? The answer is found under the principle of Galatians 5:22 — the filling of the Spirit produces faith. Romans 10:17, the function of GAP produces faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. The picking up the shield of faith would be the function of faith-rest in the various circumstances of life — Hebrews 4:1-3; 1Peter 1:7,8; Hebrews 12:2. One way or another it is all related to Bible doctrine.

"wherewith" is a prepositional phrase — en plus the instrumental of the relative pronoun o(j is literally "in which." The antecedent to the relative pronoun is the word "shield" and we can translate it, therefore, "with which shield."

"ye shall be able" — future active indicative of the verb dunamai, the verb for ability. The future tense is a progressive future denoting progress in future time. The active voice: the believer with the shield produces the action of the verb. Many times soldiers were killed when they were caught without their shield, and many times believers become casualties in the angelic conflict because they do not have their shield. They have no doctrine in their soul, they have no build-up of faith by which they launch their doctrinal missiles throughout their life on this earth. The indicative mood is the cohortative indicative, it is used with the future tense to express a command — "with which you shall have the ability." This is really a command.

"to quench" is the aorist active infinitive of the verb sbennumi which means to extinguish or destroy rather than to quench. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the action of the verb in its entirety. When the demon armies start throwing these fiery darts at you, you have had enough doctrine through the function of GAP, you have accumulated doctrine in the soul, you have built an altar in the soul, you have put on the full armour from God, and the result is that you are able to meet all of the attacks of the unseen enemy, the demon army. The culminative aorist is the result of the accumulation of doctrine resident in the soul. And who does the quenching? The super-grace believer who has grown in grace and who is now a mature individual. The infinitive is the infinitive of actual result from the use of the shield of faith.

"all" — the accusative neuter plural of paj means everything that Satan fires at you; "the fiery darts" or literally, "flaming missiles." The word "fiery" is a perfect passive participle of the verb purow which means to burn, and in the perfect passive participle used as an ascriptive adjective it means "flaming." The word "darts" was used for all kinds of missiles — beloj. This word was used for rocks that could be fired a half mile but it is used here primarily in the sense of an arrow, a flaming arrow or a flaming missile.

"of the wicked" — the ablative of source in the singular of the noun ponhroj. Although the noun means "wicked" it means more than that here, it is a reference to a specific evil person, Satan himself. It should be translated "from the evil one."

Translation: "In addition to all these, having picked up and carried the shield of faith, which [shield] you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one."

In other words, the combination of Bible doctrine plus that firing pin of faith that we have in our souls becomes the basis of protecting us against Satan's super weapons. The great overall principle of this verse: there is no power which belongs to Satan which is great enough to destroy any believer who is holding the shield of faith. You must carry doctrine with you wherever you go.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #108

108 12/01/1974 Ephesians 6:16b–17a Doctrine of faith–rest

Verse 17 — "And" is the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai and it should be "also." The word "take" is the aorist active imperative of dexomai means to receive it or to welcome it.

"the helmet" — if you are going to move forward offensively you must have a helmet that protects the head, that is the location of the soul and where you do your thinking. We have the word dexomai in connection with this instead of a)nalambanw. Man has traditionally despised something heavy on his head in combat until he becomes to appreciate it, but the light equipment for going into combat has always been considered great. In the ancient world the helmets on most ancient armies were very light, made of cloth, heavy leather. The aorist tense of dexomai is a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence of salvation and gathers it up into one entirety. Under the constative principle you have the helmet of salvation in which you have 36+ things which you receive at the moment of salvation. They are all in view at this point. It takes the occurrence of salvation which is a momentary action and it gathers it up into a single whole. The active voice: the human race produces the action of the verb resulting in becoming a member of the royal family of God, a royal priest, an ambassador for Jesus Christ. You put on the helmet first because all believers at the point of salvation are in full time Christian service. The imperative mood is the imperative of entreaty, this is not an order or a command. It does not convey the finality of a command but the force of urgency. You can't command a person to believe in Christ, this is the concept of entreaty which expresses an appeal to the free will of mankind to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. No member of the human race can assume the offensive against the ruler of this world, Satan, and against his mighty demon army, apart from becoming a member of the royal family of God forever. "Also welcome the helmet." The accusative singular direct object of the nun perikefalia which means something put around the head.

"of salvation" — the descriptive genitive of swthrioj referring to being saved. Only the believer in Christ is involved in this great spiritual conflict against Satan. The unbeliever is inevitably on the side of Satan.

"and is the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai and it should be translated "also."

"the sword" — the accusative singular direct object from the noun maxaira. There were many kinds of swords in the ancient world. People were often impressed by the size of swords or by the strength of swords. The sword was the basic weapon of the ancient world for close combat. The Roman sword was the greatest of all weapons and it had a number of things going for it. First of all it was short, only 18 inches long. It also had two sides, both edges were very sharp as well as a very sharp point. It also had a good hand guard so that the hand didn't slip off. This sword was quite in contrast to the four, five, and even six-foot swords used by the barbarians.

"of the Spirit" — the ablative singular of source from pneuma and should be translated "the sword from the Spirit."

"which" is the nominative neuter singular from the relative pronoun o(j; "is" — present active indicative of e)imi, the static present indicating the fact that Bible doctrine is perpetually existing. The active voice: the sword from the Spirit produces the action of the verb, and the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of fact.

"the word" — r(ema is used here because of the importance of getting the Word of God out of its place in the scripture and into the soul. R(ema means "word" but it means the Word sent forth." The word "doctrine" is a good translation for it here, doctrine which must become resident in the soul.

"of God" — the ablative of source from qeoj should be translated "from God."

Translation: "Also receive the helmet which refers to being saved, also the sword from the Spirit, which is the doctrine from God."

Principles

1. Since the sword is the offensive weapon at this particular point the sword from the Spirit is doctrine from God, and this obviously must be transferred to the soul. The sword is the offensive weapon but only as it resides in the soul.

2. The believer cannot take the offensive until he actually possesses maximum doctrine in his soul.

3. Bible doctrine becomes resident through the daily function of GAP. Therefore the ablative of source, pneuma [translated "from the Spirit"] refers to the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the function of GAP.

4. Only doctrine in the soul of the believer takes the offensive against the demon forces.

5. Only by means of offensive action can victory be gained while we are on the earth.

6. The tactical victory of the angelic conflict is maximum doctrine in the soul resulting in super-grace status. In other words, super-grace believers handle the sword the best. With doctrine in the soul you are never off-balance and you are consistently putting pressure on Satan in this condition. The only effective way to fight the enemy is always to take the offensive. The believer takes the offensive by daily positive volition toward Bible doctrine. The defensive is no good for combat. The best thing the defensive can do is to avoid defeat and the royal family was not designed for defeat.

When a Roman fell in for duty he was always shaved. Shaving in analogous to rebound. When the believer falls in for duty he must always rebound and be cleansed, be back in fellowship. Everything that is accomplished for the Lord must be accomplished in fellowship.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #109

109 12/01/1974 Ephesians 6:17b–18 Offensive weapons of the believer

Verses 18-24, the royal family responsibility.

Verse 18 — the importance of prayer. Prayer represents everything that is involved in self-discipline. "Praying" is the present middle participle from the verb proseuxomai. The present tense is the linear aktionsart of the retroactive progressive present. The middle voice: it is reflexive [you do it]. The participle is used as an imperative, it is a command.

"always" is literally "on every occasion" — e)n plus the locative of kairoj. This means that practically every occasion has some opportunity for prayer. But that isn't the way it is in the Greek which has dia pashj proseuxhj kai dehsewj proseuxomenoi. You advance six words into the Greek text before you come to this verb. All of that adds up to the fact that literally from the Greek this verse begins, "By means of every prayer and petition be praying on every occasion in the Spirit." 'By means of every prayer and every petition' means that there will be some type of prayer apropos for almost every occasion. The words "be praying" is a customary present with all the strength of linear aktionsart, it means this is what you should do. The middle voice: you do it yourself. But you can't do it yourself unless you have doctrine in the soul.

"in the Spirit" — in the filling of the Spirit.

"and watching" — kai is "also," plus a present active participle of a)grupnew which means to be on alert. This alertness comes from doctrine in the soul and expresses itself in that doctrine being functioned in effective prayer. The retroactive progressive present of this participle denotes what you have begun to do in the past and now do much more effectively because you have much more doctrine in your soul. The active voice: the royal priest produces the action. Prayer is prerogative and privilege of the royal priest. The participle is the imperative use for a command.

"with all perseverance" — e)n plus the instrumental of proskarterhsij which means determination, persistence determination. The instrumental with proj — "with all persistent determination."

Then we have the word "supplication" or "petition," followed by the first scope for prayer, "for all saints" — peri plus paj, plus the genitive of a(gioj which means "royal family."

Translation: "By means of every prayer and petition be praying on every occasion of prayer in the filling of the Spirit, also with reference to this prayer, be on the alert with all persistent determination and petition on behalf of all saints."

Principle

1. The effectiveness of the believer's intercessory prayer is based on being attired in full armour. The sooner you get to super-grace the better things will be.

2. The super-grace believer should be most effective in the priestly function of prayer.

3. Prayer is the responsibility of every royal priest during the course of the Church Age. And prayer is a test of your alertness.

4. The believer is constant red alert in the field of prayer.

5. Persistence or perseverance in prayer is one of the greatest ministries of the royal priest in phase two.

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #110

110 12/02/1974 Ephesians 6:19–20 Doctrine of ambassadorship

Verse 19, the responsibility for witnessing. "And for me" — the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai, correctly translated "also," plus the prepositional phrase u(per plus the ablative singular of the personal pronoun e)gw in the ablative form. It means, "Also on behalf of me." Paul is now requesting prayer for himself during those last days when he will spend in Rome before his release from the Roman imprisonment. Next he gives some reason for this.

"that" is the conjunction i(na. This introduces a final clause denoting purpose, aim, or some sort of a goal.

"utterance" is the nominative singular of logoj, not always easy to translate as it has so many different connotations. They are all related to speech' The word means "word, speech, doctrine, even thought." Here it means doctrine.

"may be given" — aorist passive subjunctive of the verb didomi. The aorist tense here is a culminative aorist viewing the possession of doctrine in the soul in its entirety. It regards all of the doctrine that you have resident in your soul but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, namely using pertinent doctrines of salvation with freedom and boldness. The passive voice: doctrine which is the subject receives the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood merely indicates the purpose clause.

"unto me" is the dative of indirect object from the personal pronoun e)gw and indicates the one in whose interest the act is performed.

"that I may open my mouth" is incorrect. It is e)n a)noicei tou stomatoj mou. All this means is "in the opening of my mouth with confidence and courage." So we have e)n plus the locative of a)noiceij which doesn't mean to have your mouth open. It means to be uttering something, saying something — something significant, something important.

"boldly" — e)n plus the instrumental of the noun parrhsia: "with confidence."

"to make known" — aorist active infinitive of gnwrizw. The constative aorist gathers into one entirety the action of the verb. It takes the occurrence of witnessing and regardless of how long it takes it gathers it up into one entirety, emphasising the objective of witnessing which is making the issue clear. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb. The infinitive is the infinitive of intended result, and the result is indicated as fulfilling a deliberate divine objective. Therefore it is a blending of purpose and result. Both the purpose and the result is so declared to communicate the gospel by making the issue clear.

Translation: "Also [prayer] on behalf of me, in order that doctrine might be given to me in the opening of my mouth with confidence, to communicate the mystery of the gospel."

The gospel is called the mystery because it was hidden from the unbeliever. The unbeliever does not understand the gospel because the gospel is spiritual phenomena. Furthermore, he is incapable of understanding the gospel — 1Corinthians 2:14. So the word musthrion is used in the sense of something that the believer should understand thoroughly, but the unbeliever does not understand at all.

Verse 20 — "For which" is the preposition u(per plus the ablative of the relative pronoun o(j, is "for the sake of which [gospel]."

"I am an ambassador" — present active indicative from the verb presbeuw. The retroactive progressive present denotes what has begun in the past at the point of salvation and continues throughout our time on this earth. As we live on this earth we are an ambassador. As long as the believer lives on this earth he represents the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore he is just as much in full time Christian service as any clergyman, missionary, or any other activity. The active voice: this refers to you. You are an ambassador for Jesus Christ. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic and absolute statement of reality. This is final, you are in full time Christian service. Therefore you don't ever 'dedicate' yourself to full time Christian unless you are ignorant. There is no reason to do so because you've always been in full time Christian service.

"in bonds" — the preposition e)n plus the locative of the noun a(lusij. This is a locative singular which means "a chain," not bonds." "For the sake of this [gospel] I am an ambassador on a chain" — one single chain. Regardless of circumstances you and I are also ambassadors, we just don't happen to be on a chain.

The doctrine of ambassadorship

1. An ambassador is a high-ranking minister of state or a member of royalty or nobility sent to another state to represent his sovereign. This definition fits perfectly into the spiritual realm and into our ambassadorship. We represent the Lord Jesus Christ, we are royal family of God forever. The Church Age believer is an ambassador to this world. He is sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to the world to represent the King of kings and Lord of lords. Each ambassador is nobility. Ambassadorship is used to emphasise the fact that each believer is in full time Christian service.

2. The profile of the ambassador.

a) He does not appoint himself. We were appointed by God at the point of salvation.

b) He does not support himself. The support for the royal ambassador is the grace provision of God for each one of us in our own circumstances.

c) An ambassador's instructions are in written form. So it is with us, ours are in written form which must be mastered and therefore transferred to the soul. An ambassador always learns his instructions in written form and transfers them to his own soul.

d) He does not belong to the country to which he was sent or where he serves. We are a heavenly people and we belong to heaven forever and therefore we only have temporary residence on this earth. This does not imply that we are not citizens of our own country under the laws of establishment; we are.

e) Therefore the ambassador does not live in the country for his own personal interest.

f) The ambassador for Christ does not treat any insult to himself as personal. Because we are the Lord's representatives we often get a lot of flack from the Satanic hosts; this is a part of the angelic conflict.

g) His recall is tantamount to a declaration of war. The recall of the ambassadors will take place at the Rapture. The moment we are removed there is going to be warfare on the earth such as never was from the beginning of the earth. That is why the period of called Tribulation.

3. Ambassadorship is related to a number of functions. It is related to witnessing — 2Corinthians 5:20. The doctrine of reconciliation is the key to witnessing and the most important doctrine in understanding the function of witnessing and in the clear presentation of the gospel. Ephesians 6:20.

4. Not all ambassadors are effective. The principle is brought out in Proverbs 13:16,17 — "Every wise man [believer] acts with doctrine, but a fool spreads foolishness. A wicked witness falls into adversity [discipline of reversionism], but a faithful ambassador brings healing [reconciliation]." Effective witnessing always includes making the doctrine of reconciliation very clear. Effectiveness in the royal family of God on earth depends on whether the believer is positive or negative toward doctrine and whether he understands reconciliation, and whether under the power of the Spirit he communicates it in witnessing situations.

5. The perspective of the royal ambassador includes the fact that the believer is the personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. This means that every believer is in the plan of God and lives under the concept of full time Christian service.

6. The weeping ambassador, Isaiah 33:6,7 — "And wisdom [Jesus Christ] shall be the stability of your times [Jesus Christ controls history], a wealth of salvation; a wisdom of knowledge." Jesus Christ will be the stability of your times means that any time in history, if there is any blessing in history, it always comes because who and what Christ is. "Behold, their brave men cry in the streets" — the crybaby ambassador is the reversionistic believer. They were the ambassadors of peace and "the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly." Who is a crybaby ambassador? It is the born again believer who has become "involved." He is involved in the social gospel, social action, more interested in helping the downtrodden than doing his job as an ambassador.

7. The successful ambassador is the super-grace believer. He follows the colours to the high ground of super-grace, he constructs an altar of doctrine in his soul, he puts on the full armour from God, he picks up his cross and follows Jesus Christ. Therefore he becomes a successful ambassador. All of these synonyms reflect reaching or attaining Christian maturity. Under Christian maturity the believer is effective in the production of divine good.

"that" introduces a purpose clause — the conjunction i(na, "in order that."

"therein" is incorrect, it is the preposition e)n plus the locative of the intensive pronoun a)utoj used as a demonstrative pronoun to emphasise something: "in order that in this [sphere of ambassadorship]."

"I may speak boldly" — aorist middle subjunctive of parphsiazomai which means to speak with fearlessness and confidence. The constative aorist gathers up into one entirety witnessing with confidence and boldness. The middle voice: this is a deponent verb, middle in form but active in meaning. The subjunctive mood introduces a purpose clause, it goes with i(na the conjunction.

"as I ought" — the apostle Paul recognises that up until now he has been in reversionism. He has spent his time in reversion recovery and has not been fully effective. This is what the comparative particle o(j plus the present active indicative of the personal verb of obligation, dei, means. By using the comparative particle o(j he also recognises that with their prayers plus his own reversion recovery he is now going to be effective in witnessing for the Lord.

"to speak" — aorist active infinitive of the verb lalew which in this context means to communicate.

Translation: "For the sake of which [gospel] I am an ambassador on a chain: in order that in this sphere [of ambassadorship: witnessing] I might speak with confidence, as I ought to communicate [the gospel]."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #111

111 12/03/1974 Ephesians 6:21 Faithful Pastor (plugger) and the congregation

Verse 21 — the responsibility for faithfulness. "But" is the post positive conjunction de which is mistranslated, it means here "now." It is transitional, not adversative. Then comes the conjunction i(na which denotes a purpose clause — "Now in order that."

"ye also may know" — 'also' is the correct translation of the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai; plus the perfect active subjunctive of the verb o)ida. The perfect tense is an intensive perfect for completed action with existing results. The active voice: the Ephesian believers and other believers in the Roman province of Asia Minor produce the action of the verb by learning from the verbal report of what Paul is doing in Rome. The subjunctive mood goes with i(na to indicate a purpose clause. "Now in order that you also might come to know."

"my affairs" is the Greek idiom ta kat e)me — ta is "the things," accusative neuter plural; kata with the accusative singular pronoun of the personal pronoun e)gw. It means literally, "the things pertaining to me," but it is an idiom for one's circumstances in life.

"how I do" — the nominative neuter singular of the interrogative pronoun tij means "what" here, fulfilling the concept of cognisance; plus the present active indicative of the verb for doing or practicing, prassw. The retroactive progressive present denotes what has happened from the time of the first Roman imprisonment right up to the time that Paul writes. The active voice: Paul in Rome produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of a report on what is going on in the life of Paul.

"Tychicus" — the bearer, both of the Ephesian and the Colossian epistles. He is a member of Paul's team obviously, from Colossians 4:7,8.

"a beloved brother" — this means worthy of love or esteemed, or even admired. The word is a)gaphtoj plus a)delfoj. It doesn't mean love in the sense of an emotional connotation, it means to truly admire someone. It is love which includes admiration and respect. It could actually be translated, "esteemed member of the royal family." That is exactly what Tychicus was.

"a faithful minister" — kai pistoj diakonoj. Kai = "and, also, even." Here it means "even." Pistoj = faithful. There is the secret, the stability, the thing that counts. Diakonoj has so many meanings. It is sometimes transliterated and when it is, it is called "deacon." Sometimes it is translated and is then called "minister." So just what is this?

Diakonoj

1. Diakonoj is used in a political sense. When used in this connotation it refers to a head of state, a political ruler, one who has the authority to administer capital punishment — Romans 13:3,4.

2. The universal ministry of the believer. In this sense every member of the royal family in the Church Age is a minister and in full time Christian service. Therefore it emphasises the Church Age believer as a royal priest and as an ambassador — 2Corinthians 3:6; 4:1;6:1,3.

3. The administrative use of diakonoj. In this case the Greek word is generally transliterated "deacon." This is helpful because it helps to distinguish between the administrative use and the universal ministry of every believer. It is used here for the ministry of administration in the local church and refers to male believers only. There is no such thing as a deaconess. Philippians 1:1.

4. The pastoral use of diakonoj. The same noun is used for pastor-teachers in the sense of being the servant of the congregation. The pastor is the waiter, his job is to bring the food — after he has cooked it. The control room or the command post of your life is constructed through the food that the pastor serves — 1Corinthians 3:5; Ephesians 3:7. Communication gifts always connote the concept of the minister of the minister or the pastor-teacher. Colossians 1:7; 1Thessalonians 3:2; 1Timothy 1:12; Hebrews 6:10.

5. The evil use. Diakonoj is used in the Satanic concept as well — 2Corinthians 11:13-15. Even Satan has his own ministers.

Tychicus is more than just a minister, he is pistoj diakonoj, a "faithful minister." There is nothing more important than to be faithful, plugging away, doing what the Word of God requires.

Why plod along?

a) Self-discipline is the key to capacity for life.

b) Anything that the believer does it should be mastered. It should be practiced.

c) The combination of these leads to stability in life. Stability is more precious than diamonds or gold.

The plodding principle is the only one compatible with grace. God doesn't use self-made men, talented people, smart people, or dumb people. The name of God's plan is grace and that means that God will do the providing. God requires faithfulness to Him in the function of the responsibility. Where faithfulness exists God honours it. Those who are faithful in this responsibility are eventually going to get a hearing. God provides the hearing.

"shall make known" is the future active indicative of the verb gnwrizw which means to communicate. The gnomic future states the fact of a report and Bible teaching from Tychicus which may be rightfully expected when he arrives. They will want to hear about Paul and they will want to hear doctrine. The active voice: Tychicus is faithful, and as a faithful pastor he will make the verbal report and teach doctrine.

"to you" is the dative plural of advantage from the personal pronoun su — "to you all."

"all things" covers the entire realm of doctrine which will be taught.

Translation: "Now in order that you might come to know about my circumstances, what I am doing, Tychicus, an esteemed member of the royal family and faithful minister, will make all things known to you."

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #112

112 12/04/1974 Ephesians 6:22; 1Cor. 1:19–2:16 Doctrine of GAP (revised pts. 1–5)

1972 Ephesians	Lesson #113

113 12/05/1974 Ephesians 6:23–24; James 1:19–25 Doctrine of GAP (cont.)

END OF SERIES

Verse 23 — "Peace" is e)irhnh and here means "prosperity," prosperity which comes from the super-grace life, paragraph SG2.

"to the brethren" means that this belongs to the royal family only, the dative plural indirect object from the noun a)delfoj. This is dative of advantage, and also the dative of indirect object indicates that it is to the interest and blessing of super-grace believers of the royal family to have this prosperity.

"and love" — the relaxed mental attitude of a)gaph; "with faith" — meta plus the genitive of pistij which here means doctrine — "and love with doctrine resident in the soul." It refers to the balance of residency. The balance of residency is composed of three different principles: a) Indwelling of the Holy Spirit [indwelling of the body] — 1Corinthians 6:19,20p; b) The filling of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills the soul of the believer — Galatians 5:16,22. This produces a)gaph type love; c) Maximum residency of Bible doctrine in the soul creating a balance or stability of the soul — Ephesians 3:14-22.

"from God the Father" is a)po, the preposition of ultimate source, plus the ablative of qeoj referring to God; "and the Lord Jesus Christ" — God the Son. Notice that we have the first and second persons of the Trinity mentioned. The second person of the Trinity is the object of our glorification in super-grace. God the Father is the provider of all of these things. Jesus Christ is mentioned not only as our saviour, our high priest, the head of the Church, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, and the manifest person of the Godhead — according to John 1:18; 6:46; 1Timothy 6:12. The Holy Spirit is not mentioned according to the policy of John 16:14. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus Christ in this dispensation.

Translation: "Prosperity to those members of the royal family [super-grace believers], and love with doctrine resident in the soul, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

Verse 24 — "Grace" is actually h( Xarij, "The Grace." This is the title for the plan of God as well as God's policy to fulfill all of these things.

"with all them" — meta plus the genitive plural of paj which refers specifically to super-grace believers. Plus the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun for the super-grace believer.

"that love" is the present active participle of a)gapaw, mental attitude love used here for the mental attitude dynamics of the super-grace believer. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has happened in the past and continues into the present time — super-grace. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action. The participle is circumstantial for the super-grace status of occupation with the Lord Jesus Christ.

"our Lord Jesus Christ" — ton kurion, the accusative of direct object from kurioj; h(mwn I)hsoun Xriston. "Our" is a possessive genitive of the personal pronoun. In other words, Jesus Christ belongs to us as of the moment of salvation.

"in sincerity" — this does not occur. Sincerity is never a virtue in the Christian way of life, it is a shallow hypocritical facade to whitewash the old sin nature and the functions of evil in the Satanic system. We have here the preposition e)n plus the instrumental singular of a)fqarsia which means incorruptibility — "with incorruptibility."

Translation: "The grace with all those who constantly love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptibility."

To love with incorruptibility is the super-grace status. It is maximum category #1 love based on maximum doctrine in the soul.

"Amen" is the Hebrew form for "I believe it."

There are two sets of notes on Ephesians 4; this next set is probably the most extensive, and I do not know exactly where it came from. Perhaps the Ladies class?

Notes from Ephesians chapter four

P-T: Joint of the body analogy

All members of the royal family are linked together, not by similarity of personality, not by conformity to standards of legalism, not by human rapport concepts, not in conformity to false standards of one kind or another, but the doctrinal teaching of the pastor and the resultant advance to spiritual maturity. All co-ordination in the body is based then on the function of its joints and ligaments which represent the pastor fulfilling the ministry of teaching the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Joints are the basis for exercise and building strength in the body. Without the faithful function of the pastor-teacher the body of Christ or the royal family of God would lack spiritual growth and retrogress from lack of spiritual food, vitality and power. The word joint refers to the pastor-teacher and that gift only. Repetition and beneficial exercise involves the consistent and constant function of the joints and ligaments analogous to the consistent, faithful Bible teaching by the pastor.

In the development of strength the joints function against pressure and as you learn the ten problem-solving devices and use them under the pressures of adversities and tragedies and difficulties in your life, then you begin to grow and utilise the doctrine that you have learned. Therefore perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine, the function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation is absolutely impossible without the pastor-teacher. And as a result the congregation is consistent in learning doctrine, consistent in growing up, and this is how the congregation puts on muscle.

Joints provide body action. By analogy every function and action in life must be motivated by thought energy, the divine viewpoint printed on the brain in the form of metabolised doctrine. There are two kinds of doctrine that cause you to grow spiritually: e)pignwsij and sofia. E)pignwsij is the doctrine going in, the metabolised doctrine; sofia is the doctrine on the launching pad being applied to every experience in life. Those two categories can only come through the function of a prepared teacher communicating Bible doctrine and the Holy Spirit metabolising that doctrine so that it might become e)pignwsij and sofia and usable for growth and application and everything that makes your life wonderful. But there would be none of this were it not for the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 begins the paragraph dealing with the function of the pastor-teacher. It also has a great deal to say about everyone involved in the protocol plan of God, either negative or positive.

Corrected translation: "Then he gave spiritual gifts [a reference to our Lord Jesus Christ in the triumphal procession, tantamount to His resurrection, ascension and session, and the calling out of a royal family]."

We are in the post-canon period of the Church Age and all of the temporary gifts are gone and we have permanent spiritual gifts. The various categories are represented only in one way in verse 11. We have two spiritual gifts: The gift of apostles — the apostles are pre-canon — and the gift of prophecy. Those two spiritual gifts no longer exist. Since 96 AD there are two communication gifts left: the gift of evangelism and the gift of pastor-teacher. The temporary spiritual gifts were designed to implement the plan of God before the completion of the NT canon.

In verse twelve we have the purpose of the pastor-teacher: "For the purpose of equipping the saints." This is the inculcation of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age by the pastor-teacher; "for the work [accomplishment or production] of Christian service." There are four categories of Christian service: related to your spiritual gift, related to your royal priesthood, related to your royal ambassadorship, related to the laws of divine establishment. And the third prepositional phrase: "for the edification of the body of Christ." This is the individual connotation of the final phrase and it means the execution of the protocol plan of God resulting in the manufacture of invisible heroes for the glorification of God.

In verse 13 we have a phrase which is very important: "until we all obtain the objective." It refers to the fact that every believer has the same opportunities and the same privileges for executing the protocol plan of God for the Church Age.

How do we fulfil God's plan? "Because of the system from doctrine" — perception, metabolisation, and application of Bible doctrine. This is a reference to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

Again, verse 13 — "Until we all obtain the objective because of the system from doctrine, and by means of the e)pignwsij knowledge of the Son of God, resulting in a mature believer." The mature believer comes in three classifications related to his very own palace, the operational type divine dynasphere. Gate 1, the filling of the Holy Spirit; Gate 2, Basic knowledge of doctrine and basic problem-solving devices; Gate 3, Enforced and genuine humility, objectivity, teachability; Gate 4, The function of epignosis in momentum; Gate 5 (The first category of spiritual adulthood), Spiritual self-esteem, cognitive self-confidence; Gate 6, Spiritual autonomy, cognitive independence; Gate 7, Momentum testing; Gate 8, Cognitive invincibility.

"to the measure of the maturity of the fullness of Christ" — and that refers to the standard for execution of the protocol plan of God. Spiritual maturity is the standard and the standard is the spiritual maturity of the humanity of Christ during the dispensation of the hypostatic union. The humanity of Christ occupied the prototype divine dynasphere. When we are in fellowship we occupy the operational type divine dynasphere, the only place of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord was born into the prototype divine dynasphere; we are born again into the operational type divine dynasphere in the Church Age only. Our Lord had the filling of the Spirit to sustain His humanity; we have the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the mystery doctrine of the Church Age to execute the protocol plan. When it talks about the fullness of our Lord it is talking about the fact that through the virgin birth He did not have a sin nature, and therefore when life was imputed to Him at birth He entered into the prototype and He remained in that.

Verse 14 — "In order that we no longer be childish or fragmented, destabilised [failure to use the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan] in heavy seas [adversities, problems pressures, sufferings, catastrophes and disasters of life], and driven out of control by every wind of false teaching, by the trickery of men, by cunning deception, for the purpose of deceitful scheming;

Verse 15 — "But by teaching doctrine associated with virtue-love, that we [pastors] may cause them [congregations] to grow up with reference to the all things [at least four things: the unique characteristics of the Church Age, the protocol plan of God for the Church Age, the manufacture of invisible heroes in the Church Age, the glorification of God through the tactical victory of Church Age believers], with reference to him who is the head, Christ."

Jesus Christ is the ruler of the Church by virtue of His strategic victory of the dispensation of the hypostatic union. He is the ruler of the Church by virtue of His third royal patent which He received at the moment of the session of Jesus Christ. He is the ruler of the Church as the royal family of God which He purchased with His own blood on the cross.

Verse 16 — "Because of whom" — a reference to Jesus Christ as the head of the Church; "the entire body having been joined together" is a reference to the results of the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation through personal faith in Jesus Christ. It includes the concept of different spiritual gifts but equal privilege and equal opportunity for the execution of the protocol plan of God; "and being inculcated [repetitious teaching of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age resulting in consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation by which the believer becomes an invisible hero and glorifies God] by every joint of supply [ "joint" refers to the function of the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher; "supply" is a metaphor emphasising the fact that God provides the gift of pastor-teacher for every generation of believers and always enough to cover positive volition and an overage to cover negative volition, for negative volition is condemned in every generation]."

Principle: The spiritual gift of pastor-teacher is not only the means of inculcating the mystery doctrine of the Church Age but a vital link in the perception, metabolisation and application of that doctrine as the only means of spiritual growth and of glorifying God.

kata e)nergeia is literally, on the basis of the operational power. There are two categories of operational power in view in this passage:

A. The availability of the three categories of divine omnipotence to every Church Age believer: 1. The omnipotence of God the Father related to our portfolio of invisible assets; 2. The omnipotence of God the Son related to the preservation of the universe and the perpetuation of human history; 3. The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit related to residence, function and momentum inside our very own palace — the operational type divine dynasphere.

B. The operational type divine dynasphere, the place of the filling of the Holy Spirit, the location for the execution of the protocol plan of God.

Identification and preparation

God has designed for the Church Age a measuring rod for history. The secret to that measuring rod is the amount of positive volition among believers. God honours positive volition; God provides for positive volition in grace, always and inevitably.

We now come to God's measuring rod under the principle of election in every moment of history:

The preposition e)n plus the locative of sphere from the noun metron. It means "in measure." It is followed immediately by the adverbial genitive of measure from a numeral e(ij. Now we have a measuring rod that explains all of history from the time of 30 AD to the present: "in measure of one" (one — e(ij, refers to the pastor-teacher). It is followed by the genitive of advantage singular from two words, an adjective e(kastoj [each] and a noun meroj [part]. It is translated, "in measure one pastor-teacher for each part." This a part of logistical grace support for the royal family during the Church Age. In addition it explains all of the concepts of history, for all concepts of history revolve around a pastor and a congregation. The response of that congregation to Bible doctrine determines the course of history in the client nation and the course of history in non-client nations related to the principle of missionary activity. If we have a situation where a large group of people are evangelised in a given generation and only a small part are positive, God still provides the gift of pastor-teacher to cover all believers. That means that the demand for pastor-teachers is going to be minimal, and so only a few will actually function.

What about all those to whom God has given the gift? They perform the function of condemnation at the Judgement Seat of Christ, but because they are not able to function as pastor-teachers God provides for them special blessing.

Principles

1. An excess of pastors without a ministry in an apostate generation will serve as the basis for the condemnation of the apostate generation at the Judgement seat of Christ.

2. All positive volition toward Bible doctrine in a given generation will be honoured by the logistical grace provision of a pastor-teacher to satisfy the desire to know the will, the purpose and the plan of God.

3. No positive believer is ever left without the opportunity of hearing the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. It is available in every generation.

4. Every segment of positive volition will have a prepared pastor to satisfy the need and longing for understanding God and His plan, purpose and will.

"he himself" poiew [pres. mid. indic.] to cause. He himself, the pastor-teacher, causes the royal family to advance spiritually to maturity and become invisible heroes and thereby glorify God as well as having that fantastic invisible impact on history.

"increase" — a)uchsij refers to growth; "body" — swma, referring to the royal family of God under the analogy of a body.

Principles

1. The function of the pastor is to teach, to inculcate the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. This is the means by which the royal family of God not only orients to this dispensation but is caused to grow and attain spiritual maturity. In spiritual maturity invisible heroes are manufactured and God is glorified.

2. The pastor cannot teach what he does not know. Therefore the importance of the pastor's cognition of the following concepts: a. Precedence for the Church Age is taken from the dispensation of the hypostatic union, not from the Mosaic law and not from the dispensation of Israel; b. The believer must understand his portfolio of invisible assets; c. The unique divine provision for the Church Age becomes absolutely necessary; d. The protocol plan of God and how it is executed inside the operational type divine dynasphere; they must understand the mechanics; e. The problem-solving devices of the Church Age; f. Spiritual momentum through suffering for blessing; g. The spiritual impact of the invisible hero.

"for" — e)ij indicates the result of attainment of spiritual maturity, the construction of the edification complex of the soul.

What happens to the men whom God the Holy Spirit has given the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher?

1. Some believers never recognise the gift for it can only be identified by spiritual growth.

2. Some male believers recognise the gift but negative volition toward doctrine ends any use of that spiritual gift.

3. Other believers recognise the gift but are never properly prepared to use it.

4. Other believers identify their spiritual gift as pastor-teacher and begin a somewhat lengthy and often very painful function of preparation.

5. Of those male believers who are properly prepared a certain number never find pulpits in which they can communicate and express their spiritual gift.

6. Lack of placement is no reflection upon the prepared person but on the apostasy of any given generation. Nevertheless, God honours their preparation and blesses them in the other activities of their life.

7. This category stated will act as condemnation on that generation at the judgement seat of Christ.

8. Other male believers with the gift of pastor-teacher and proper preparation are placed in pulpits and cause spiritual growth through faithful teaching of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age and the mechanics of the protocol plan.

There are two prepositional phrases in the closing part of this verse. The first phrase indicates the result of the attainment of spiritual maturity, the construction of the edification complex of the soul. The second phrase indicates the means of attainment of spiritual maturity which is the function of all ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan. Both prepositional phrases emphasise spiritual momentum in the protocol plan of God, and obviously this spiritual momentum depends on accurate teaching of pertinent Bible doctrine by the pastor.

"building" o)ikodomh with the absence of the definite article. The absence of the definite article in the Greek emphasises the qualitative aspect of the noun rather than its mere identity. With this we have a possessive genitive singular from e(autou the reflexive pronoun which modifies the noun. When the action expressed by the verb is referred back to its own subject it is classified as reflexive. In this case e(autou is translated by the word "its." Lit. "resulting in

its edification".

The second prepositional phrase is en plus the instrumental of means from the noun a)gaph. The noun is not used for love in the ordinary sense, it is a reference to virtue-love. It is translated, "by means of virtue-love" .It refers to three of the ten problem-solving devices.

The Doctrine Of The Edification Complex

1. We are dealing with the word o)ikodomh. It is always used in a technical sense. There are two connotations: collective and individual. The collective connotation is a reference to the formation of the royal family of God in the Church Age. This is the way the royal family of God is formed. Once it is completed then it is removed from the earth by the Rapture of the Church. The individual connotation is a reference to spiritual growth. Those believers who attain spiritual maturity build a structure, an edification complex. When the collective connotation of o)ikodomh is used it should be translated "construction" or "building up" or "building process." When the individual connotation is used we translate it "edification."

2. The importance of the pastor-teacher in the construction of the edification complex. Your life is either going to be one of spiritual growth or failure. If you grow in grace you will attain spiritual maturity, you will become an invisible hero. You will then have an edification complex. But the only way anyone can have an ECS is by sitting under the ministry of a pastor-teacher while he communicates the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

3. Motivation. Positive volition as a motivation is taught in Romans 14:19 "pursuing those things." There is also the importance of humility and mental attitude in the construction of the ECS, Romans 12:2-5. Edification is the status of the invisible hero and edification is impossible without humility, objectivity and teachability.

4. Edification is the key to the proper function of the local church. 1 Cor. 14:12 — "seek to abound in the spiritual gifts that edify the church." 1 Cor. 14:26 — "when you assemble let all things be done for edification." Everything has an objective in assembly worship, and that is edification. Therefore the objective is to communicate doctrine which has the purpose of producing edification. The key to the modus operandi of the local church then is this word "edification."

In the concept of the pattern for the manufacture of the ECS we go right back to an old principle. Priority number one, the perception, metabolisation and application of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Therefore, priority number one means that you must concentrate on priority number one. By concentrating on priority number one you, under the ministry of the Spirit, are learning doctrine. Therefore you organise your life around priority number one. As you do you expose yourself to the teaching of Bible doctrine, and as a result of doing so you begin to think in terms of the mystery doctrine and you organise your thinking around priority number one. What you do in effect when you organise your thinking around priority number one is to use the ten problem-solving devices of the Church Age. As a result you concentrate on execution through the doctrine that you have learned. That is how the ECS is constructed.

The Structure Of The Edification Complex

1. The foundation is eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. A structure is then built on this foundation — operation Z, the first floor of the ECS, the teaching of Bible doctrine which becomes gnwsij and then e)pignwsij. Only e)pignwsij has momentum in the spiritual life.

2. The unique characteristics of the Church Age. Understanding, for example, the baptism of the Spirit, the protocol plan of God, your portfolio of invisible assets, the equality factor, your unique royal commissions (royal priesthood, royal ambassadorship), the mystery doctrine, the indwelling of the three members of the Trinity, the unique availability of divine power, the Church Age is a dispensation of no prophecy, the objective is to become an invisible hero. The principle is that no believer ever advances in the plan of God apart from dispensational orientation.

3. The problem-solving devices. Rebound, the filling of the Spirit, the three stages of the faith-rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, personal love for God the Father — motivational virtue in the protocol plan; impersonal love for all mankind — functional virtue of the protocol plan, +H or actually sharing the happiness of God, a personal sense of destiny, occupation with the person of Jesus Christ, the priority solution to the problems of life.

4. Spiritual self-esteem. This is cognitive self-confidence, this is the first stage of spiritual adulthood; this is the time when suffering for blessing begins, spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering equals spiritual autonomy.

5. Spiritual autonomy, the second stage of spiritual adulthood. This is the place of cognitive independence. There is also suffering for blessing, spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing equals spiritual maturity. All of the great areas of suffering for blessing really begin with spiritual adulthood.

6. Spiritual maturity, the third stage of spiritual adulthood. Cognitive invincibility. There is also a category of suffering — spiritual maturity plus evidence testing equals glorification of God to the maximum as a witness for the prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan's appeal trial which runs co-terminously with human history.

7. The function of the invisible hero. We have the distribution of escrow blessings for time; we have historical impact and the anticipation of the escrow blessings for the eternal state.

This is why we are here. We are gradually building, under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, an ECS. Once it is constructed we have the tiger by the tail for this is the devil's world, but you will never know it once you put that seventh floor on it.

It is necessary to define some of the problems which hinder the believer from executing the protocol plan. Basically there are two problem classifications: categorical problems and problems of modus operandi — functional problems. Categorical problems are defined as those relating to sins and emotions in the life of the believer. These problems are caused by two things: ignorance of Bible doctrine and therefore ignorance of the ten problem-solving devices. Therefore categorical problems emphasise the sins of Christians and emotional malfunction in the spiritual life. Emotion is given far too great a role when in reality emotion has no role at all except as the normal function in response to things you appreciate. The problems to note are distractions, related to self and to others, and the problem of fear which covers a realm of emotional problems. Then there are the problems of rejection, dying, timing, promises vs integrity.

There are four problems of modus operandi. The believer's emphasis on relationship with people over against relationship with God; the believer's attempt to execute God's plan in the energy of the flesh rather than through divine power; thirdly, the ignorance of the biblical subject of love; fourthly, the malfunction of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

Solutions are understood when problems are defined. Hence the importance of having a general concept of what are the major problems in life.

Categorical Problems

1. Distraction. Two categories: distraction related to self and distraction related to others.

Distractions related to self begin with the fragmented life. Every believer is a walking grenade with the potential for a fragmented life. All the believer has to do is to use his own volition to pull the pin. Fragmentation is the state of being fragmented; the disintegration, the collapse, the breakdown of your motives, your thoughts, your norms, your standards, your behaviour pattern The analogy in this biography is the fragmentation grenade. Fragging is an army (US) slang term for assaulting, attacking an unpopular officer with a fragmentation grenade. However, in the analogy we frag ourselves. This is a major distraction and is the number one categorical problem of the Christian life. The pin of the grenade is the arrogance complex — jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, implacability, self-pity, hypersensitivity, motivational and functional revenge (gossip, slander, maligning, judging others). Inevitably we blame someone else.

Ephesians 4:31 is the mandate to utilise the problem-solving devices which are very important in any recovery from fragmentation. Notice it begins with the pin of the grenade: "all bitterness" .Everything that follows is a fragment of the grenade. "Anger" — the emotional sin of anger, "wrath" — which means fury, bitterness, bitter resentment, the mental attitude sin of anger expressed through hatred, etc., "must be taken away from you" — beginning with the rebound technique — "along with all malice."

Two thoughts about malice: Malice is the motivation and desire of the fragmented believer to inflict suffering on others; malice is motivated by such sins of the grenade as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, implacability, revenge.

Distraction is something we do to ourselves, not what someone else does to us. Ephesians 4:32 says: "But become kind [perform many acts of grace. A believer who performs many acts of grace is one who uses the ten problem-solving devices] one toward another [interaction of impersonal love], compassionate [the capacity for impersonal love through personal love for God, PSD 6, and occupation with Christ PSD 10]." Notice: In doing something the right way it is not a change of personality.

We have noted many times Romans 12:3: "For I say through the grace which has been given to me, to every one who is among you, stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance [The problem of self-distraction] beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine." That standard of thinking from doctrine are the problem-solving devices which are absolutely necessary for the advance to spiritual maturity.

Distraction related to others

It is inevitable that a fragmented believer whose trend is toward self-righteousness will begin to judge others. And with this judgement of others comes slander, maligning, gossip, unrealistic expectations, role-model arrogance. The fragmented believer becomes pre-occupied with the sins and the failures of others, whether they are real sins or imagined. The others, by the way, are distracted by his attitude. Hence, such a fragmented believer is distracted under two categories: the sins or the failures of others; he becomes a distraction to others through the modus operandi of moral degeneracy.

Principle: You cannot be occupied or pre-occupied with the sins or the failure of others and at the same time advance in the protocol plan of God. Spiritual advance requires consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. That means the perception, metabolisation and the application of doctrine. It means life in the divine dynasphere and life in the divine dynasphere is not fragmented. You have to pull the pin of the grenade and fragment your life in the cosmic system.

Spiritual advance then requires understanding and utilising the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God. In this dispensation the sins and the failure of other believers must be left in the hands of the Lord for judgement, for discipline, for any punitive action that God may take. The exception of course is that parents have the authority to punish their children, and the state has the authority to punish criminals. The problem of distraction from others comes from the fragmented life.

Principle: If believers were more concerned about learning the mystery doctrine of the Church Age they would be less concerned about sticking their nose in to the lives of other Christians. We fragment our own lives once again by intruding on the privacy of other believers.

In John 8:3 we are introduced to the most self-righteous, fragmented people who ever lived! The scribes and the Pharisees represent the trend toward self-righteousness, they are religious types but unbelievers. The woman was caught in the act of adultery and immediately we ask the question: Why was the woman caught in the act of adultery? To catch someone in the actual act means you have to snoop! Also, anyone who knows anything about life knows that it takes two to tango! Where is the man? Why did they just bring the woman? Because some of them were bitter, vindictive, implacable, full of hatred and jealousy; and therefore they didn't even bother to bring the man. And that in itself is a violation of the Jewish law which demanded that both parties must be brought in — Deut. 22. They made the woman stand before a crowd, they didn't take her into a court. This again shows terrible vindictiveness and the fragmentation of life. Furthermore they were full of their own sarcasm, v4: "Rabbi," a title used as a respectful vocative addressed to a teacher, but used here by the scribes and the Pharisees in sarcasm. They have no respect for Christ, they are trying to prove Him to be a liar. They are trying to discredit Him. And so we see a second failure of the fragmented life: an attempt to discredit the legitimate God-Man, the Son of David. Also here there should be a man but they didn't want him brought into this case at all. They wanted the woman stoned to death.

Immediately they quote the law, v5. "What do you say?" they then ask the Lord. Well Deut. 22 states certain conditions under which the woman could have been executed but the man would have to be executed with her. They were to be tried. But that is not the case here. Obviously someone is trying to get revenge on this woman. The scribes and Pharisees were not interested in justice, they were interested in two things: they wanted revenge on the woman and they wanted to discredit our Lord's ministry, v6. They were using this question as a trap in order to have grounds to accuse Him.

The important thing in what follows is that He changed His posture and did not speak. When you speak to some people and even give them the truth, they are there to distort. Jesus ignored them because He already knows they are self-righteous, arrogant, and fragmented. The interesting thing is that they are sinning while they speak. They caught the woman in a sin, she is now just standing there, and now they are doing all the sinning. Why did Jesus stoop down to write? Probably because He was not even concentrating on what they say. He is isolating Himself from them in the crowd. He is not leaving but by writing He is showing them He is not listening any more. Jesus, in effect, is isolating Himself from their fragmentation. (Lesson: When you're judged, maligned, slandered, ignore it.) Jesus has no intention of compromising with evil or condoning self-righteous arrogance. And He is not condoning the adulteress either. He is just not saying anything.

Verse 7 — "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first one to throw a stone at her." There He again isolates Himself from their sins, v8. He is dealing with the worst sinners first.

Verse 9 — the religious crowd begins to leave. In verse 11 notice the woman's answer: "No man Lord." The woman's viewpoint: "Lord," no one can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. They called Him Rabbi; she called Him Lord. They were unbelievers; she was a believer. "And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: from now on stop this category of sinning." Jesus recognised that the woman had sinned and He recognised the fact that He had a right to condemn her but our Lord also recognised that the scribes and the Pharisees, her would be judges, were guilty of far greater sins related to a fragmented life. The woman was now a forgiven believer and would shortly live in the dispensation of the Church where precedence was not based on the Mosaic law but the grace policy of Jesus Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union.

Application: When you see too much of other people's sins you have a tendency to be blind to your own sins. You compare yourself to others and to you they look gross. In your own eyes you look great and so you confuse grossness and greatness and you become blind to the fact that you sin and you fail, and that the mental attitude sins are the worst sins, except for one overt sin — murder.

Principle: You cannot be occupied with the sins and the failures of other people and at the same time advance in the protocol plan of God.

A good representative of the emotional sins is fear. The problem of fear represents, therefore, the entire concept of the emotional sins. Emotion is not sin in itself but emotion does produce sins under certain conditions. Fear is lack of thinking under pressure and therefore a good representative of the emotional sins. Fear is also irrational and therefore follows the same concept, that is, it is irrational as far as the believer is concerned because the believer has all of the answers in the problem-solving devices. Ignorance of the problem-solving devices means failure to utilise and therefore the function of fear in the life. For the believer, then, fear is failure to apply Bible doctrine to the problems of life and, specifically, the ten problem-solving devices. Fear is actually a system of sins just like arrogance; and it includes worry, anxiety, incapability of doctrinal application, and ignorance of and failure to use the problem-solving devices. In other words the loser is bogged down with fear, worry anxiety and other sins of emotion.

The principle: The more things that you as a believer surrender to fear the more things you come to fear. To the extent that you surrender to fear you increase the power of fear in your life. The more things that acquire the power of fear in your life the greater your capacity for fragmentation.

Arrogance, fear, worry, anxiety, and other emotional sins, are all related to irrationality, and irrationality is a major contradiction to the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. In 1John 4:18 we read that fear does not exist in virtue-love. Remember that three out of the ten problem-solving devices are related to virtue-love. But virtue-love (problem-solving devices) drives out or expels fear for fear causes punishment. Fear actually causes two categories of punishment: self-punishment and divine discipline. The person who is afraid has not been matured by virtue-love.

The Church Age believer cannot think doctrine, apply doctrine, or solve problems through fear. Fear is emotional. Emotion cannot think, cannot apply doctrine, cannot learn or use the problem-solving devices, and therefore fear or emotion cannot function as the criterion for the Christian life. In fact fear is the emotional means by which people fail under any kind of pressure or even normal circumstances. Courage on the other hand is thinking doctrine under pressure, claiming promises from God in adversity, understanding and thereby utilising the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan for the Church Age.

It becomes necessary to understand emotional sins to first of all understand emotion. Emotion is defined as the status of the believer who does not have the ability to think doctrine or to use the problem-solving devices. The status of spiritual self-esteem in the Christian way of life begins the grace function of cognitive self-confidence. Cognitive self-confidence, of course, is the antithesis of fear and therefore thinking in terms of metabolised doctrine — cognitive self-confidence — the function of the ten problem-solving devices puts fear in its proper place and also gives a legitimate function to emotion. It is emotion out of order that is the problem, emotion dominating the soul.

The believer in spiritual adulthood eliminates emotion as a criterion for Christianity since emotion cannot think, emotion cannot apply doctrine, emotion cannot rationalise, emotion cannot estimate a situation, and it was never designed for these things. When emotion is out of line in the soul the result is irrationality. Emotion, also, is not capable of using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan. The right lobe of the soul is called kardia. There are a lot of good reasons for it because of the "heart." There is a tremendous analogy between the circulation of the blood, which is related to physical life, and the function or circulation of doctrine in the soul and in the life of the believer.

Kardia has eight compartments in which there are two kinds of spiritual information: 1. E)pignwsij — metabolised doctrine going in; 2. Sofia — the wisdom which comes out, the wisdom which is related to the ten problem-solving devices. You have to remember that the emotions in the Christian way of life are to be subjective to the kardia. "Heart" is never used in scripture for emotion, it is used for the right lobe of the soul. This is where the doctrine that gives you momentum and wisdom is located.

The Bible "heart" has eight different parts

1. The frame of reference, the area for retention of metabolised doctrine.

2. The memory centre which circulates e)pignwsij doctrine to the various parts of the right lobe under the principle of recall.

3. The vocabulary storage which is the new language of biblical theology learned after salvation.

4. Categorical storage where classification of doctrines are located.

5. The conscience, the storage compartment for individual norms and standards.

6. The momentum department which is the mental area for spiritual growth, the function of metabolised doctrine in both normal and accelerated growth. It is in the momentum department that you have the function of the ten problem-solving devices, along with the seventh part, wisdom.

7. The wisdom department, the launching pad for the application of doctrine to experience.

8. The subconscious which is storage for impressions, thoughts, emotions, which do not exist in the conscious mind or in the emotions of the soul.

The "heart," kardia, has the important function of master of the emotions. The emotions are to be subordinate to what is in the right lobe of the soul.

Proverbs 23:15-17 David is speaking to Solomon. "My son, if your right lobe or your heart is wise [chakmah = metabolised doctrine], my own heart or right lobe will be glad [a normal function of the emotion]."

"My emotions will rejoice [here is happiness when emotion responds to something in the right lobe] when your lips speak what is right [when you hear truth you have norms and standards in your soul and therefore you rejoice]."

"Do not let your right lobe envy sinners [if you start to envy you start to pull the pin of the grenade — envy] but live in respect for the Lord all of the day [the tenth problem-solving device or occupation with the person of Jesus Christ]."

Emotion as a problem

Romans 16:17-18 — emotional pattern as a distraction to the plan of God. They obey their own emotions.

2Corinthians 6:11,12 — emotions as a hindrance to the perception of doctrine.

Philippians 3:18,19 — for those who have emotional revolt of the soul, emotions become the god of that believer.

There are emotions good and emotions bad. Fear and emotion are inseparable; you cannot have one without the other. Fear is an emotional sin. Courage is the ability to think under pressure; cowardice is dominance of emotion under pressure. Emotion is irrational arrogance using feeling or emotion as the criterion for life instead of Bible doctrine. There are, however, two categories of emotion in view: 1. Normal emotion, which is under the authority of the right lobe and responds to the thinking of the epignosis doctrine in the right lobe; 2. Abnormal emotion which is the emotion controlling the right lobe or the mentality of the soul. Abnormal emotion produces sin: fear, worry, anxiety, anger, hatred, and is the motivation for all sorts of other sins such as gossip, slander, maligning, judging, murdering etc.

Emotion does not have

1. The ability to reason

2. A content of thought

3. Common sense

4. Vocabulary as a tool for mental function

5. Doctrinal content

Principle: Emotion is never the criterion for Christian experience.

Emotional arrogance includes the following blasphemies:

1. You are not saved unless you feel saved.

2. You are not spiritual unless you feel spiritual.

Emotional arrogance results in constant fear, worry, anxiety, insecurity. Emotion is defined as that complex biochemical, physiological process or function concerned with somatic expression of feeling. There are two functions of emotion: the conscious sensation of emotions in the soul and the effects of emotions on the organic functions of the body.

Principle: Under the protocol plan of God emotions are not adequate guides for motives, thoughts, decisions, or actions on the part of the believer. Emotions are not tools of cognition nor criteria for life. 2Timothy 1:7; 1John 4:18.

The last half of the fourth chapter of Ephesians deals with the biography of the fragmented life, how believers fail. Categorical problems are defined as those which are related to sins and emotions of the believer. These problems are caused by two things: ignorance of Bible doctrine through lack of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, and ignorance of the divine provision and human mechanics of the ten problem-solving devices. Therefore categorical problems emphasise the sins of Christians and emotional malfunction.

The problem of rejection

This problem has to be explained in terms of the rejection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ during the dispensation of the hypostatic union was rejected by the religion of the day, He was rejected by the Jewish people even though He was their Messiah, He was rejected by God the Father on the cross. Cf Psalm 118:22 — Jesus Christ as the stone was rejected by the nation; Isaiah 53:3 — He was despised and rejected by men. There was a double rejection during the incarnation, the first advent, mentioned in John 12:48, "He who rejects me and does not receive my doctrine" — First of all there was rejection of the Person of Jesus Christ who is the only saviour. They rejected Him by refusing to believe in Him. Secondly there was the rejection of doctrine. This applied to those who personally believed but who failed to execute God's plan.

What sustained our Lord's humanity during the time of the cross? cf 1Peter 2:20-24. Three things: In v23 He kept entrusting Himself to Him — the function of the faith-rest drill, problem-solving device number three; The filling of the Holy Spirit, Heb. 9:14, problem-solving device number two; He was sustained by +H and a personal sense of destiny related to His perception of doctrine.

The rejection of Bible doctrine. This is the greatest problem after salvation that the believer has. Without post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation through perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine, it is impossible to execute the protocol plan of God.

Rejection: Nothing is more discouraging to a believer than to be rejected. Nothing causes more reaction which further complicates the life. The believer can be rejected in many areas of his life: friendship, romance, marriage, by his peers, in his social life, society in general, in a business or professional way. When a believer is rejected by those with whom he associates, or with those he admires, respects or loves, that believer has a tendency to react. Reaction to being hurt is a sign of malfunction. It is a sign that you have failed to use or even understand the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan. All rejection by mankind is designed by God for your ultimate blessing.

Principle: Rejection is one of the greatest opportunities to utilise the ten problem-solving devices and to accelerate spiritual growth in your life. This means also that rejection alerts the believer to change his perspective in life from people emphasis to God emphasis.

The Christian way of life is divided into two categories: the living part and the dying part. The living part begins at the moment of salvation. Then there is the point of dying when we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. In the living part of the Christian way of life the believer has the use of his volition to fulfil one of two categories. He can be a winner and an invisible hero or he can be a loser and be fragmented throughout his life. It is the day by day intake of doctrine or the rejection of it that determines which category. The winner having executed the protocol plan of God through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation is in the position to have a wonderful life and a wonderful experience in dying, unless the rapture occurs first. The loser fails to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church Age and becomes involved in a fragmented life. His life is miserable and as a Christian his dying is miserable because he goes out under the sin unto death. He is, of course, included in the resurrection of all believers but minus escrow blessings for time, minus escrow blessings for the eternal state.

The principle: Every believer has equal privilege and equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan under the computer assets of election and predestination.

In dying God has saved the best until last. Dying is part of Christian experience which does not depend, however, on the volition of the believer, but on the sovereignty of God. And it fulfils the concept that if you like living as a Christian you will love dying.

In the living phase of God's plan the believer has control over his life for success or failure, for execution of God's plan or failure to do so. Therefore the believer faces dying as either a winner or a loser, as an invisible hero or one who has fragmented his life. In the dying phase then the believer has no control over the time, the place, or the manner of his death. The death of the believer is a matter of the integrity, the wisdom and the sovereignty of God.

The integrity of God, which is often called holiness, is composed of His righteousness and justice. And because divine integrity cannot be unfair, it cannot be unjust in time or manner or in place of our death. And because of the infinite and eternal wisdom of God He cannot be wrong in any decision He makes. And for all of us, apart from the rapture generation, there will be a time when we will die. Therefore it is not a question of our design in the matter, it is a question of the wisdom of God combined with His sovereign decision. For the believer who has the ten problem-solving devices dying is the ultimate experience of all. All decisions from the sovereignty of God are made in perfect and eternal wisdom, including the time, the place, and the manner of dying. Furthermore, apart from the rapture generation, we are all going to have this wonderful experience. The problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God are just as pertinent in dying as they are in living. And for the person who has been using these problem-solving devices he is ready to die. After dying comes the problem of timing, one of the great problems in life. Timing is defined as the selection of the best time or speed for doing something in order to achieve the desired effect and have maximum results. For the Church Age believer timing is a matter of synchronisation with the protocol plan of God. Good or bad timing is a matter of utilisation of the problem-solving devices. Good decisions from a position of strength cause the believer to be in synchronisation with God's plan and God's will; bad decisions have an antithetical effect. Bad decisions from a position of weakness causes the believer to be out of synchronisation with the protocol plan of God.

Every detail of life is involved in timing, such as being in the right place in the right time. Timing is a problem when incompetent people are promoted because they are in the right place at the right time but definitely not qualified. Others who are better qualified are sometimes passed over because they were neither in the right place nor the right time. And what often passes for luck or good fortune is merely a matter of timing. Human timing may be related to luck but God's timing is related to doctrine.

In God's plan for your life bad timing is a matter of the fragmented life, pulling the pin of the grenade in one of the areas of the arrogance complex. Indifference, apathy, rejection or antagonism toward Bible doctrine, causes the believer to be out of synchronisation with God's plan, God's purpose, God's will for your life. Principles: God's will is perfect, therefore His timing is perfect. Believers are imperfect, therefore our timing is imperfect.

The principle of timing can be reduced to the simplest of terms: bad timing — arrogance in life; good timing — humility, objectivity, teachability, resulting in perception, momentum and the utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices. Timing in the Christian life is the issue of doing the will of God or doing your own will. God promotes the believer who is in synchronisation with His plan. Good timing is the matter of execution of the protocol plan. God promotes the doctrinal believer because through synchronisation with the protocol plan he advances to spiritual maturity and he becomes an invisible hero. It is the invisible hero who has maximum impact in every generation of Church history.

As a result then of spiritual self-esteem and cognitive self-assurance from metabolised doctrine the believer relies on God for good timing, which is the execution of the protocol plan. Grace orientation is one of the factors in problem-solving devices. It relies on God's timing. Enforced and genuine humility is the basis for grace orientation. God promotes the humble which means that enforced and genuine humility leaves the matter of timing in God's hands. This avoids inordinate ambition and inordinate competition. Wrong timing in life can be out of synchronisation with God's protocol plan. Wrong timing in dying can be out of synchronisation with God's will and therefore we have such illustrations as the believer committing suicide.

Your life only has significance, now that you are a believer, only as it is related to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age and the ten problem-solving devices.

There are two categories of timing in the protocol plan. There is good timing in which the believer's life is synchronised with the will, plan, and purpose of God. And there is bad timing in which the believer pulls the pin of the grenade and frags his own life. Until the believer's life is synchronised with the protocol plan of God through consistent function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, timing will always be a serious problem. Timing ceases to be a problem after you learn and use those ten problem-solving devices.

The next problem is integrity verses promises. The tendency among human beings is to depend upon promises rather than integrity. People who make promises without integrity are the worst possible people. Promises are no greater than the integrity of the person who makes them. Principle: We are benefited more by the integrity of a person than by the promises that we seek to extract from that person.

There are two general classifications of problems related to Christianity: 1, Categorical problems which are related to sins and the emotions of the believer; 2, Functional problems which are related to the modus operandi of believers.

The functional problems: 1. The believer's emphasis on relationship with people taking precedence over relationship with God; 2. The believer's attempt to execute the protocol plan of God through human dynamics and works rather than divine power and omnipotence; 3. The believer's ignorance of the biblical subject of love resulting in failure to execute the divine mandates regarding love which are located in the scripture; 4. The believer's failure to metabolise Bible doctrine, which we classify as the malfunction of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

Principle: Solutions are best understood when problems are defined.

The Problem-solving devices

1. The rebound technique. 2. The filling of the Spirit. 3. The faith-rest drill. 4. Grace orientation. 5. Doctrinal orientation. 6. Personal love for God the Father. 7. Impersonal love for all mankind. 8. Plus H or sharing the happiness of God. 9. A personal sense of destiny. 10. Occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

The problem of the OSN

The old sin nature is genetically formed. This means that God is not the author of sin because human life is not imputed by God until the point of physical birth. The OSN is in the cell structure of the body. It has an area of strength in which we are not prone to sin but it produces human good or what is classified in the scripture as "dead works." It also has an area of weakness where we are prone to temptation and sins are produced from this area of weakness. These sins always gravitate to a trend, so the OSN has trends: 1. To legalism, which is self-righteous arrogance; 2. Lasciviousness and lawlessness. When the sins have a trend toward legalism and self-righteous arrogance they produce what eventually becomes moral degeneracy. Moral degeneracy is the destruction of the freedom of others through self-righteous arrogance. When the trend is toward lasciviousness and lawlessness it eventuates in immoral degeneracy.

What is spiritual death? The very nature of spiritual death at birth eliminates any system of salvation by works. But spiritual death can be characterised by four principles: 1. Total depravity includes both moral and immoral degeneration, or the trends of the OSN; 2. Total separation from God, that is the meaning of spiritual death. The solution is impossible because of a total helplessness to attain a relationship with God. God must provide the work. 3. The status quo of dichotomy. We cannot understand spiritual things because all we have is a body and a soul.

There are three grace functions of divine sovereignty in evangelism: 1. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit in making the gospel understandable; 2. The invitation of God the Father and God the son to believe in Jesus Christ; 3. The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit in making faith in Jesus Christ effective for eternal salvation.

Self fragmentation. Every believer is a walking grenade and he has a potential for the fragmentation of his own life. All he has to do is use his own volition to pull the pin of the grenade. Apart from using the problem-solving devices this fragmentation is perpetuated so that the believer exploits every avenue, every lust, related to the OSN. The pin of the grenade is the arrogance complex. It includes all the sins that are directly related to arrogance such as envy, jealousy, bitterness, hatred, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, egotism, self-centredness, conceit, pre-occupation with self resulting in pre-occupation with others through gossip, slander, maligning, judging, inordinate ambition, inordinate competition. The pin of the grenade is mentioned many times in scripture. For example, Proverbs 11:2: "When arrogance comes [the pin of the grenade] then comes dishonour [fragmentation] but with the humble is wisdom [the metabolisation of Bible doctrine]."

The fragments of the grenade are where we have a tragedy today. We have the trends again of the OSN, the trends of lasciviousness and lawlessness on the one hand and the trends toward legalism and self-righteousness on the other hand. The tragedy of the fragmented life is the fact that God has provided so much to protect the believer from fragging himself and becoming a loser. There are at least five areas of ignorance which prolong and perpetuate the fragmented life. This results in the believer practising his own tragic flaw and polarising with other believers practising under the same tragic flaw. This is given in great detail in Romans chapter 7 verses 1-25, a passage which is describing believers only.

What is this ignorance? Well first it is the ignorance of our portfolio of invisible assets provided by God the Father for each one of us in eternity past; secondly, it is the ignorance of the mechanics for the execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church Age; third, it is the ignorance of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan; fourth, it is ignorance of the ten unique characteristics of the Church Age and how these work into the significance of our lives; fifth, ignorance of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, and that means of course malfunction in post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. All of the fragments of the grenade then are related to the OSN in its three categories: Lust pattern, trends,

The trends of the sin nature results in two tragic flaws: 1. Self-righteous arrogance and legalism which contends that believers who commit sins related to lasciviousness and lawlessness are not really saved; 2. Lasciviousness lawlessness in which believers associate the slander, the maligning, the criticism that they receive, they associate it with Bible doctrine and they therefore react to Bible doctrine.

Principle: Individual fragmentation leads to group fragmentation in the royal family of God. This polarisation has destroyed the unity of the body of Christ in the area of Christian modus operandi. The sin nature is the source of lust and temptation but the sin nature cannot make the believer to sin. Temptation, to be converted into sin, requires the use of the believer's volition.

How does God work in solving problems? For every one of the problem-solving devices there is a manner in which God solves problems through these systems. But the greatest problem that God ever solved is the problem of spiritual death. We have noted how we are born physically alive and spiritually dead. Human life is imputed to the soul at the moment of birth. Adam's original sin is imputed to the genetically formed old sin nature so that we are physically alive but spiritually dead. Under spiritual death we have noted the principle of being totally separated from God in a state of total depravity and of being totally helpless to do anything about it. Consequently the OSN becomes the villain in our lives.

The old sin nature has a lust pattern and trends. All of the sins we will have in our lifetime all have a trend either toward self-righteousness [legalism] or lasciviousness/lawlessness. And when the sins have a trend toward self-righteousness it degenerates into moral degeneracy. But when the sins gravitate toward lascivious/lawlessness then the trend is toward the immoral degeneracy factor.

The problem with people is they are polarised by these two trends. People are naturally self-righteous and being self-righteous they are usually moral and the sins are very subtle. They have sins related to arrogance and jealousy and inordinate ambition and inordinate competition. Therefore they become very critical of those whose sins are in the licentious or lascivious, lawless area. And they spend their time actually criticising these people and judging them. And then their targets react. They polarise and react against them. In their reaction they say "If that's Christianity and if that's the way Christians are I don't want any part of it." Or they can say, "If that's all Bible doctrine can do for them then it certainly can't do anything for me." They bypass the solutions to the problems of life.

How God solves problems

Psalm 22:1. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In the Hebrew we have a repetition here of the word "My God" in the vocative. In the Hebrew it is Eli, Eli, the nominative subject vocative, addressed to God the Father. In fact it is addressed to Him as a call for help, a call for solving a problem. The repetition of the vocative in the Hebrew means perfection. In the singular it is addressed to God the Father only. The repetition of the noun in the Hebrew is an idiom of intensity. It expresses the highest quality of two categories: 1. The highest quality of the person — God the Father; 2. The highest quality of the two attributes of the Father which are used in problem-solving devices — His perfect righteousness and justice.

The righteousness of God cannot accept mankind because +R cannot have fellowship with -R. So God has to solve the problem and He does so with two attributes, His justice and His love. The problem, however, deals with the sins of mankind and all of these sins have been collected in the computer of divine decrees [ROM chip, the sovereignty of God chip, and the PROM chip which is the free-will of man]. In human history the sovereignty of God and the free-will of man co-exist. Inside of this one PROM chip all of the sins of mankind in the history of the human race were kept.

When our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross God the Father called for the print-out of all personal sins of history. Then the justice of God imputed all of those sins to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how the problem was solved. It was solved by the work of God. The justice of God the Father judged all of our sins on the cross. And our Lord began to cry out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" The answer to that question is found in Romans 5:8.

Psalm 22:3 — "Because you are holy," qodosh, absolute perfection. Holiness is a combination of two words: righteousness and justice. The righteousness of God the Father rejects sin in keeping with His perfect character. All of the sins of the world are imputed to Christ on the cross. These sins are rejected by God the Father and that is the function of His righteousness. The justice of God, therefore, does something about it. The justice of God judges every one of those sins — 1Peter 2:24.

In Psalm 22:6 there is another phrase which describes the function of our Lord. "Worm" — tolaath, a reference to a very special type of worm which was harvested and crushed in a large vat. The blood of this worm was taken from the vat and used to manufacture the robes of kings. It was the most beautiful crimson dye of the ancient world. The Lord Jesus Christ was crushed on the cross that we might wear the robes of kings forever.

The omnipotence then of God the Father imputed the sins of the entire world to Christ on the cross. The justice of God the Father judged all of those sins and therefore a problem was solved. Salvation was provided.

There are three categories of love that belong to God

1. God the Father loves God the son because He has a perfect righteousness. God the Father loves God the Holy Spirit because God the Holy Spirit has a perfect righteousness. In other words the object of God's personal love is always +R or perfect righteousness.

2. At the same time God loves His own righteousness which is divine self-esteem. This is true of each member of the Trinity.

3. Then God has a love for the human race; the human race in spiritual death, the human race unable to do anything about the problem of sin and entering into a relationship with God. This love is called impersonal love, emphasising the virtue of the subject rather than the object. cf. John 3:16.

Ephesians 2:8 begins with a post positive conjunction gar. It is an explanatory conjunction, correctly translated "for." Next comes the definite article which is used with an abstract noun to draw attention to the grace policy of God in dealing with spiritually dead people and, of course, sins. God solved the greatest problem in all of history and He did it for man; He did it to provide eternal salvation for mankind. And, therefore, we have the principle that in spiritual death we are totally helpless to do anything by way of human works to attain salvation. It is all accomplished for us — "grace," xarij. Correct translation: for by means of grace.

"saved" — swzw, salvation. The perfect tense emphasises the present state of being. We are now believers in Jesus Christ. The passive voice represents the subject being acted upon by something or someone else. Hence the subject does not produce the action of the verb. In other words we cannot work for our salvation. We cannot add anything to faith.

"through faith" is dia plus the ablative of means pistij. The subject has no merit, the work is already accomplished. When we say: "I believe," Christ is the object; Christ has the merit.

Verse 9 — "boast" — aorist middle subjunctive of the verb kakauomai, which means to boast as a sign of arrogance or subjective preoccupation with self. In other words it was anticipated that after people believed they would become preoccupied with self because in the OSN their trend was toward self-righteous arrogance and legalism. Therefore, in some form of sinfulness they would come to the point of saying, "I had something to do with my salvation. I was good, I was moral, I did something, etc." They want to add to faith.

Once we believe in Jesus Christ we still have the sin nature. That means that we are still going to sin; we are still going to fail. And so the analogy. Every believer is like a walking grenade with a potential for fragmenting his own life. All the believer has to do is to use his own volition and pull the pin of the grenade. What is that pin of the grenade? Well, it is arrogance, jealousy, bitterness, hatred, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, or revenge motivation, etc. All of these are sins related to arrogance.

It is inevitable that the fragmented believer, whose trend is toward self-righteous arrogance and legalism, will enter into the heresy of trying to change other people by bullying them, by forcing them into a course of action, by the demand syndrome. This is why the fragmented believer with a trend toward self-righteousness and legalism enters into the sinful sphere of slander, gossip, maligning, judging, unrealistic expectations, role model arrogance, etc.

In Romans 14 judgement arrogance is the function of the self-righteous legalistic believer who is seeking to superimpose his standards on others and judging them for not accepting these standards. Rom. 14:8 — Here we are told that if we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's .

Verse 9 — For this purpose Christ died and lived that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living believer. Note that at the moment of salvation through faith in Christ we enter into union with Christ, Christ is Lord, therefore Christ is Lord at salvation and always will be. We do not make Christ Lord, He is Lord through that ministry.

In verse 10 we now have the challenge to self-righteous arrogance. "But you, believer, why do you judge your brother? Or you, again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? (Legalism always regards with contempt those whose area of weakness and trend is related to antinomianism.) For we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ." The judgement seat of Christ is for evaluation after the resurrection of the Church.

Romans 14:13 — "Therefore, do not judge one another any more; but rather determine this: not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way." How is this accomplished? By fragmentation of one's life.

The trendy attitude toward legalism: You cannot commit the sins of lasciviousness and lawlessness and be a Christian. (Untrue). Those believers with a trend toward lasciviousness/lawlessness react to the arrogance of legalism and they often renounce or reject Christianity in one of several ways. 1. They associate self-righteous arrogance and legalism with Bible doctrine. Therefore they reject Bible doctrine; 2. They associate self-righteous arrogance and legalism with the local church and therefore they stop going to church; 3. They associate self-righteous arrogance and legalism with Christians in general and avoid Christians in general; 4. They associate self-righteous arrogance and legalism with hypocrisy and become critical of polarised legalism. The result of this polarised fragmentation into legalism versus antinomianism means failure to execute God's plan, God's will, and God's purpose for your life. Legalism versus antinomianism is really a false issue. The true issue is the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. That requires: 1. The understanding and the utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God; 2. Understanding the ten unique factors of the Church Age — the baptism of the Spirit, the unique protocol plan, the unique equality factor in the protocol plan under the computers assets of election and predestination, our wonderful portfolio of invisible assets, our unique commissions, the unique mystery doctrine of the Church Age, the indwelling of all three persons of the Trinity, the unique ability of divine power, a dispensation of invisible heroes.

The trendy attitude of legalism

Legalism is shocked; legalism reacts; legalism says: You can't be a Christian and commit those sins. Legalism wants to help God in salvation and so it gets into "faith plus" .What is faith plus? It is the reaction of the self-righteous arrogant, legalistic believer saying: You, by the very sins that you are committing, are telling me you are really not a Christian. They say, You may have received Christ as saviour but you didn't make a commitment. There is no such thing as a commitment. Commitment is post-salvation modus operandi at best, but it is works. We have noted that it is "By grace are you saved through faith; and that not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." They also want to add "making Christ Lord" (He is Lord already) or they want to add baptism. There is no such thing as faith plus baptism or faith plus feeling sorry for sin or inviting Christ into your heart. Christ invites us to believe in Him. When we believe in Christ we come to Him.

The trendy function of legalism

1. All false concepts of spirituality or life after salvation originate from polarised fragmentation.

2. Often some form of morality is substituted for the filling of the Spirit inside the divine dynasphere. The trendy function of legalism among believers substitutes morality for virtue which can only be produced through residence, function and momentum, inside the divine dynasphere.

Generally speaking the trend toward legalism produces tyranny. This is because the legalist is always trying to superimpose false standards on others. The trend toward lascivious/lawlessness has the tendency to go towards anarchy. Legalists establish tyranny under the principle of authority without freedom is tyranny, whereas the antinomians establish anarchy under the principle of freedom without authority is anarchy. Both polarised groups have distorted and abused both concepts of legitimate freedom.

There are two concepts of freedom which are taught in the Bible. First we have freedom under the laws of divine establishment. We call this temporal freedom. Secondly there is freedom inside the divine dynasphere where we have spiritual freedom. Spiritual freedom is the right to utilise our positive volition under the grace of God and execute God's plan, God's will and God's purpose for our lives.

The Authority Problem

One of the problems with the trendy function of legalism is lack of authority orientation. The legalist has the tendency to be a tyrant. All legalism has some form of tyranny related to it and this tyranny functions under the principle of authority without freedom. Authority without freedom is tyranny. And the legalist, the self-righteous, arrogant person, wants you to comply with his standards and he abuses you for not complying with his standards. On the other hand antinomianism establishes the principle that freedom without authority is anarchy. Both polarised groups have distorted and abused both concepts of legitimate freedom.

There are two concepts of legitimate freedom: 1. Temporal — freedom under the laws of divine establishment. 2. Spiritual — freedom inside the divine dynasphere.

To avoid polarisation of the sin nature with its trends we have 1Peter 2:16: "Act as free men, do not use your freedom as a covering for evil [the trend toward lascivious/lawlessness], but use your freedom as the servants of God."

So God has delegated authority to human beings under two categories. Be sure that you understand them because this is how the principle of separation of Church and State is formed. 1. The divine institutions as authority under the laws of divine establishment. 2. The basis for all authority in the Church is the Word of God.

Each trend of the old sin nature produces its own problems and these problems can only be solved by the ten problem-solving devices.

The trendy attitude of lascivious/lawlessness

This attitude is characterised generally by reaction. As the recipients of gossip, slander, maligning and judging by other believers their trend is toward moving deeply toward lascivious/lawlessness. They react toward doctrine because they associate it with self-righteous arrogance, or they associate some church with self-righteous arrogance and therefore they reject churches, they reject doctrine, they reject a ministry that could be helpful to them. Because this category of believer associates self-righteous arrogance with legalism, and with Bible doctrine, and in many cases with confused pastors who are condemning rather than helpful, they therefore reject all churches, all pastors, and consequently the only thing that could help them — Bible doctrine and, in the framework of that doctrine, the ten problem-solving devices.

The trendy functions of lascivious/lawlessness: Ephesians 4:14: nhpioj — childish. Nhpioj is a word that belongs to legalism and the trends toward self-righteous arrogance; they are nhpioj. And it also belongs to the lascivious/lawless group who are antinomian; they also are nhpioj. And whichever trend one happens to have in their old sin nature and whichever direction they go when they fragment their lives, they still are childish as far as their spiritual lives are concerned.

To understand the fragmentation of the double standard we have to go back to iconoclasm. First of all an iconoclast is a person or persons who destroy icons or idols. Iconoclastic arrogance is defined as subjective preoccupation with other people. This results in disenchantment, disillusion, or what we might classify as the feet-of-clay syndrome. In iconoclastic arrogance an idol is created through excessive or misguided admiration or genuine love for another person. The method is simply this: We have a pedestal, we admire someone, and we place them on that pedestal. But of course the person on the pedestal has the OSN. The area of strength produces human good and dead works. The area of weakness produces sins. Some have a trend toward self-righteous arrogance which we call legalism, and some have a trend which is called lascivious lawlessness which we call antinomianism. And believers commit their sins in these two antithetical polarised regions. As a result the believer who is in self-righteous arrogance condemns the believer who shocks him in the lawless area. So we have a pedestal with the person that a believer has placed on that pedestal. At some point the believer is going to sin and when this happens the feet of clay show. Once the feet of clay are observed, then the person reacts and seeks to destroy the very image or icon that they have created. So the iconoclastic believer discovers a sin, a flaw. He becomes disenchanted with the object of his admiration and he reacts. Iconoclastic arrogance then is divorced from the reality of human relationship.

Principles

1. The arrogant iconoclast never blames himself for what he has done in creating and then destroying his own idol. In fact in his irrational state of arrogance he blames the idol for being created by his own fantasising.

2. Arrogance never takes the responsibility for being arrogant. That is the blind side of arrogance.

3. Illusion created by arrogance becomes illusion destroyed by arrogance.

4. Arrogance creates illusion and the fragmented life destroys that illusion.

5. Iconoclastic arrogance and the feet-of-clay syndrome is the inevitable result of the fragmented life with its polarisation of trends of the OSN.

6. Once you transfer the blame for your own disillusion, disenchantment and disappointment to the idol that you, yourself, have created then you malign or slander or judge or enter into conspiracy and seek to destroy the very idol which you yourself have created.

7. Arrogance destroys what arrogance creates. Therefore the feet-of-clay syndrome is the arrogant irrationality of rearranging the doctrine of sin to suit yourself, to be compatible with your own self-righteousness, your own arrogance, your own trend toward legalism. Role-model arrogance then is a part of iconoclastic arrogance.

There are four post-salvation principles

1. God has a plan for your life.

2. God is perfect, therefore His plan is perfect.

3. Contradictions cannot exist in a perfect plan.

4. Fragmentation is contradictory to the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. (Fragmentation is the greatest spiritual problem after we believe in Jesus Christ.)

Principles related to spiritual promotion

1. If God doesn't promote you you're not promoted.

2. God promotes prepared people.

3. God promotes the humble or the grace-oriented individual.

4. God provides hearers for prepared and grace-oriented people.

It is metabolised doctrine which provides momentum in the spiritual life.

There are six categories of fragmentation which are found in the Scripture1. Personal fragmentation, related to the sin nature's area of weakness. Tantamount to self-fragmentation.

2. Polarised fragmentation, related to the sin nature's trends. It is the old story of legalism versus antinomianism.

3. Fragmentation related to subjective arrogance. There are two categories: a. Unrealistic expectation, which is subjective preoccupation with self; b. Role-model arrogance, which is subjective preoccupation with others.

4. Human relationship fragmentation.

5. Fragmentation related to emotion.

6. God relationship fragmentation, which is, first of all, failure to learn and use the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan for the Church and, secondly, failure to execute the protocol plan.

There are two categories of decisions that we make once we become believers. The first category: Good decisions from a position of strength — metabolised doctrine. The second category: Bad decisions from a position of weakness — pulling the pin of the grenade.

1John 1:9. The position of strength decisions are always related to this verse. "If" — e)an. That particular conjunction plus the subjunctive mood of the verb introduces the protesis of a third class condition. "We" is the subject — believers only, mentioned in the context. "Confess," o(mologew, a word very commonly used in ancient Greece. It was used in a legal sense for a courtroom case, and a lawyer would cite a case that proved his point. Therefore it meant to cite a courtroom case. It also meant to name, to admit, to acknowledge, to make a statement.It should be noticed that in any one of those words one thing is missing: no merit, no feeling, no crying, no weeping, no wailing.

Remember that the verb o(mologew, name your sins or cite your sins, is totally a non-meritorious function.

"sins" — a(martia, a plural noun referring to personal sins. It refers to fragmentation, and specifically it refers to the sins of the born-again believer only. The sins mentioned here are the post-salvation sins of the Church Age believer. Hence rebound deals with the problem of post-salvation sinning, as noted in the context, 1John 1:8,10.

The sin nature's trends toward legalism want to insert some system of penance. Legalism ignores the fact of God's grace policy, which means that God did all of the work at salvation and in the execution of the Christian way of life which is the protocol plan of God, God provides the portfolio of invisible assets and the work will be accomplished by the omnipotence of God the Father related to our portfolio of invisible assets, the omnipotence of God the Son giving us a day at a time, and the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit who provides the means of understanding the mechanics and the execution of the plan.

But there are two verbs which are both non-meritorious. The first of these verbs is pisteuo. The second is o(mologew. Both of them have a subject. The subject of pisteuw is the unbeliever, and the object is the Lord Jesus Christ — "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." But sin is still a problem after salvation. We still have volition, we still pull the pin of the grenade. And therefore, once again, the object is the basis for the function of the verb — "if we admit our sins." We confess them to God, we name them, we cite them, and we are forgiven.

Since God the Father judged our sins on the cross they've already gone to court. The sins that we commit today were judged over 1900 years ago. Therefore post-salvation sins of the believer must be dealt with through a non-meritorious function. The most basic problem-solving device is the rebound technique.

Principle: The basis for the forgiveness for post-salvation sinning is the work of Christ on the cross, not the penance of the Christian. No system of penance is a part of the rebound technique. And just as there is nothing that we can add to faith in Christ for salvation, so there is nothing that we can add to acknowledgement of our sins for the recovery of our fellowship with God and the filling with the Holy Spirit.

Both believing in Christ for salvation and simply acknowledging or naming our post-salvation sins for forgiveness, are non-meritorious. They are totally and completely compatible with God's grace policy. Legalism wants to help God by adding human works — which cancel grace. The rebound technique of 1John 1:9 is the only solution to the problem of self-fragmentation and the life of carnality.

Next comes the apodosis, and in the apodesis we are immediately brought face to face with the fact of the perfect virtue of God. Two of the virtues of God are mentioned: pistoj — faithful. The faithfulness of God "does it in every case"; dikaioj — righteous or just. God is righteous and just because when Jesus Christ was on the cross every sin in the history of the human race was in one PROM chip, and God the Father imputed those sins to Christ and the justice of God the Father judged every one of them. Those sins have already gone to court and the believer simply cites or names those sins and God is righteous in forgiving the believer who commits those sins.

"forgive" a)fihmi — forgive, cancel, pardon. "With the result that he forgives [cancels] our [a(martia] sins."

A second result: When we commit sins of cognisance and confess them, what about the sins of ignorance that we have committed simultaneously? In fragmentation there is always a tremendous number of sins of ignorance. In fragmentation we accumulate sins which we do not know are sins. We call them sins of ignorance. Now we want to do them and the fact that we use our volition to do them means that even though we are not aware that these are a sin we are held responsible for them because we use our volition to do them. What about them?

"cleanse" katharizw — to cleanse or to purify. Jesus Christ was judged for those sins on the cross. He was judged for our pre-salvation sins, He was judged for our post-salvation sins, He was judged for our post-salvation sins of ignorance.

Those who fail to rebound perpetuate their own fragmentation. The perpetuation of self-fragmentation leads to polarised fragmentation, human relationship fragmentation, emotional fragmentation, fragmentation in our relationship with God.

"from all unrighteousness" a)po pas a)dikiaj. "All unrighteousness" refers to the unknown sins, the sins of ignorance.

Corrected translation: "If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and righteous with the result that he forgives our sins, and he cleanses us from all unrighteousness."

Thereare two categories of decisions that we make once we become believers. The first category: Good decisions from a position of strength — metabolised doctrine. The second category: Bad decisions from a position of weakness — pulling the pin of the grenade.

1John 1:9. The position of strength decisions are always related to this verse. "If" — e)an. That particular conjunction plus the subjunctive mood of the verb introduces the protesis of a third class condition. "We" is the subject — believers only, mentioned in the context. "Confess," o(mologew — a word very commonly used in ancient Greece. It was used in a legal sense for a courtroom case, and a lawyer would cite a case that proved his point. Therefore it meant to cite a courtroom case. It also meant to name, to admit, to acknowledge, to make a statement.It should be noticed that in any one of those words one thing is missing: no merit, no feeling, no crying, no weeping, no wailing.

Remember that the verb o(mologew, name your sins or cite your sins, is totally a non-meritorious function; "sins" — a(martia, a plural noun referring to personal sins. It refers to fragmentation, and specifically it refers to the sins of the born-again believer only. The sins mentioned here are the post-salvation sins of the Church Age believer. Hence rebound deals with the problem of post-salvation sinning, as noted in the context, 1John 1:8,10.

The sin nature's trends toward legalism want to insert some system of penance. Legalism ignores the fact of God's grace policy, which means that God did all of the work at salvation and in the execution of the Christian way of life which is the protocol plan of God, God provides the portfolio of invisible assets and the work will be accomplished by the omnipotence of God the Father related to our portfolio of invisible assets, the omnipotence of God the Son giving us a day at a time, and the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit who provides the means of understanding the mechanics and the execution of the plan.

But there are two verbs which are both non-meritorious. The first of these verbs is pisteuw. The second is o(mologew. Both of them have a subject. The subject of pisteuw is the unbeliever, and the object is the Lord Jesus Christ — "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." But sin is still a problem after salvation. We still have volition, we still pull the pin of the grenade. And therefore, once again, the object is the basis for the function of the verb — "if we admit our sins." We confess them to God, we name them, we cite them, and we are forgiven.

Since God the Father judged our sins on the cross they've already gone to court. The sins that we commit today were judged over 1900 years ago. Therefore post-salvation sins of the believer must be dealt with through a non-meritorious function. The most basic problem-solving device is the rebound technique.

Principle: The basis for the forgiveness for post-salvation sinning is the work of Christ on the cross, not the penance of the Christian. No system of penance is a part of the rebound technique. And just as there is nothing that we can add to faith in Christ for salvation, so there is nothing that we can add to acknowledgement of our sins for the recovery of our fellowship with God and the filling with the Holy Spirit.

Both believing in Christ for salvation and simply acknowledging or naming our post-salvation sins for forgiveness, are non-meritorious. They are totally and completely compatible with God's grace policy. Legalism wants to help God by adding human works, which cancel grace.

The rebound technique of 1John 1:9 is the only solution to the problem of self-fragmentation and the life of carnality.

Next comes the apodosis, and in the apodesis we are immediately brought face to face with the fact of the perfect virtue of God. Two of the virtues of God are mentioned: pistoj — faithful. The faithfulness of God "does it in every case"; dikaioj — righteous or just. God is righteous and just because when Jesus Christ was on the cross every sin in the history of the human race was in one PROM chip, and God the Father imputed those sins to Christ and the justice of God the Father judged every one of them. Those sins have already gone to court and the believer simply cites or names those sins and God is righteous in forgiving the believer who commits those sins; "forgive," a)phiemi — forgive, cancel, pardon. "With the result that he forgives [cancels] our [a(martia] sins."

A second result:

When we commit sins of cognisance and confess them, what about the sins of ignorance that we have committed simultaneously? In fragmentation there is always a tremendous number of sins of ignorance. In fragmentation we accumulate sins which we do not know are sins. We call them sins of ignorance. Now we want to do them and the fact that we use our volition to do them means that even though we are not aware that these are a sin we are held responsible for them because we use our volition to do them. What about them?

"cleanse," kaqarizw — to cleanse or to purify. Jesus Christ was judged for those sins on the cross. He was judged for our pre-salvation sins, He was judged for our post-salvation sins, He was judged for our post-salvation sins of ignorance.

Those who fail to rebound perpetuate their own fragmentation. The perpetuation of self-fragmentation leads to polarised fragmentation, human relationship fragmentation, emotional fragmentation, fragmentation in our relationship with God.

"from all unrighteousness" a)po paj a)dikias. "All unrighteousness" refers to the unknown sins, the sins of ignorance.

Corrected translation: "If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and righteous with the result that he forgives our sins, and he cleanses us from all unrighteousness."

The problem of the old sin nature

The OSN is a part of spiritual death, Rom. 5:12. In other words the original sin involved two things: Adam, from his volition, disobeyed the mandate of God resulting in the manufacture of the sin nature. Therefore just as through one man sin nature entered into the world and spiritual death through sin, so death spread through all mankind because all sinned (as it were, when Adam sinned).

The characteristics of spiritual death. (We are not born, then sin, and enter into spiritual death. That is a false doctrine based on over-simplification. When human life is imputed to the soul Adam's original sin is simultaneously imputed to the genetically formed OSN. The OSN came out of biological life. Biological life starts with copulation. But soul life starts with birth. Therefore, we are born spiritually dead. And having an OSN and being spiritually dead we eventually get around to personal sin. So personal sin comes afterwards.)

1. Dichotomy: Spiritual death describes only a dichotomous person. A dichotomous person is a person who has a body and a soul. When we believe in Jesus Christ we become trichotomous. Spiritual death means no human spirit, no relationship with God is even possible. This is why in 1 Cor. 2:14 we are called the yuxikoj [soulish] man.

2. Total depravity: This means that both moral and immoral degeneration is the inevitable result of having a sin nature and moving in the direction of the trends.

3. Complete separation from God. There is no way we can do anything to have fellowship with God or enter into salvation. It is complete separation, total helplessness to establish a relationship with God on the basis of human merit or human works.

The Old Sin Nature: Designations

1. a(martia — this is the basic word to designate the OSN but it is always a(martia in the singular. The plural, sins, generally refers to personal sins.

2. sarc — translated "flesh" because the sin nature resides in the cell structure of the body. The sin nature was passed down through 23 chromosomes which the male provided for the female ovum. The old sin nature came down through the man. We are sold into bondage to the sin nature at birth when the imputation occurs.

3. The Old Man. Ephesians 4:22 — "with reference to your former lifestyle [self fragmentation through post-salvation sinning] you yourselves lay aside the old man [synonym for the OSN]." Laying aside of the sin nature is the rebound technique. The sin nature is called "the old man" because it originated in the Garden of Eden. It is older than anything else.

4. Fleshly or carnal. When the sin nature controls the believer's soul because the believer uses his volition to sin, the believer is classified as carnal, of the sin nature, under the control of the sin nature.

1Corinthians 3:1-3, "unto spiritual persons" -believers in fellowship, inside the divine dynasphere.

(Distinguish: Spiritual growth is relative; spirituality is an absolute).

"unto carnal" — the Christians, believers controlled by the sin nature; "unto babes in Christ" — childish believers.

v2 "milk" — they could only take very superficial things because they were babies. "Babies" here means "ignorant," they didn't know anything. "Not with solid food" — advanced doctrine. They are "not yet able" because they are under the control of the OSN.

v3 "still carnal" — they don't even know rebound. They can't recover fellowship and begin to learn doctrine. The rest of the verse illustrates the pulling the pin of the grenade — fragmentation.

When the sin nature controls a believer's soul through sin or fragmentation the Christian is classified by the Greek noun sarkinoj — fleshly, belonging to the flesh, or of the flesh. It is translated in the King James version by the word "carnal" — Rom. 7:14.

There are six categories of fragmentation

1. Personal Fragmentation, related to the sin nature's area of weakness. It is tantamount to self-fragmentation.

2. Polarised Fragmentation, related to the sin nature trends (lasciviousness/lawlessness or antinomianism; self-righteous arrogance or legalism). Legalistic fragmentation perpetuated results in moral degeneracy; antinomianism perpetuated results in immoral degeneracy.

3. Fragmentation related to subjective arrogance. That includes unrealistic expectation and role-model arrogance. Unrealistic expectation is subjective preoccupation with self; role-model arrogance is subjective preoccupation with others.

4. Human relationship Fragmentation, in the problem of Christian fellowship, in the problem of marriage.

5. Fragmentation related to emotion. The emotional sins that are perpetuating fragmentation: fear, worry, anxiety, anger, hatred, violence, etc.

6. God-relationship Fragmentation.

The two problems: The problem of pre-salvation sin and the problem of post-salvation sin.

The solution to pre-salvation sins comes first. Galatians 3:26 tells us "For you are all the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus," cf Gal. 2:16. Faith stands alone, it is not faith plus. The problem of pre-salvation sinning is solved by personal faith in Jesus Christ.

The solution to post-salvation sinning is found in 1John 1:9: "If we acknowledge [o(mologew, to cite a courtroom case] he is faithful and righteous [dikaioj] with the result that he forgives us our sins [the post-salvation sins of cognisance] and cleanses us from all wrong doing [post-salvation sins of ignorance]."

Every believer in Jesus Christ must take the responsibility for his own decisions. There are two categories of decisions: good decisions from a position of strength [the position of strength is metabolised doctrine in the soul]; bad decisions from a position of weakness [includes pulling the pin of the grenade]. Self-fragmentation occurs when we make bad decisions from a position of weakness. Every time the believer uses his volition to pull the pin of the grenade he fragments his own life. This is a bad decision form a position of weakness. And the pin of the grenade or the position of weakness are all of the sins related to the arrogance complex — envy, jealousy, bitterness, hatred, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, hypersensitivity, motivational and functional revenge, inordinate ambition, inordinate competition, malice, slander, gossip, maligning, judging, etc. This personal or self-fragmentation is perpetuated unless the believer utilises the ten problem-solving devices.

Number one problem-solving device is the rebound technique and to confess or name or acknowledge in the privacy of our priesthood our sins to God is a good decision from a position of strength. Only the rebound technique of 1John 1:9 can check fragmentation and hinder its insidious growth in our lives. Perpetuation of self-fragmentation results in polarised fragmentation — the fragmentation of subjective arrogance, human relationship fragmentation, emotional fragmentation, God-relationship fragmentation.

When Christianity is highly accepted in a society it has the tendency to become apostate. Part of it we can lay at the door of polarised fragmentation. Polarised fragmentation is defined as the conflict between two categories of carnality — legalism versus antinomianism. The trends of the sin nature are the source of the problem. They are the trend toward self-righteous arrogance and the trend toward lascivious lawlessness. Most people have, in the area of sinning, a trend one way or the other. Self-righteous arrogance is classified as legalism. When fragmentation is perpetuated in one's life legalism eventuates in moral degeneracy. In the trend toward lascivious/lawlessness, which is classified as antinomianism, when fragmentation is perpetuated we have immoral degeneracy. Unless believers get some doctrine quickly after salvation they are going to fall into one these two camps.

Two principles: a. No one sins apart from human consent. Therefore, human volition is the source of sin. Denial of this principle means that people are not taking responsibility for their own sins. This results in failure to rebound and blaming others. If you don't take responsibility for your own sins you will never grow up. b. The sin nature is the source of temptation. Human volition or self-determination is the source of sin. So once you pull the pin of the grenade the OSN which dwells in the cell structure of the body moves up into the soul so that you have a conflict.

Seven principles related to polarisation

1. The believer after salvation sins under two categories of self-determination: a. The sins of cognisance in which the temptation from the sin nature was recognised as a temptation to sin and volition decided to commit the sin; b. The sins of ignorance in which the sin nature was not recognised as a temptation to sin. But the believer wanted to do it and did it.

2. When the believer uses his own volition to sin he fragments his own life. Clear thinking is not restored until rebound occurs and is supported by the other nine problem-solving devices.

3. This self-fragmentation is called in scripture carnality and is tantamount to living in the cosmic system and entering into the stages of reversionism.

4. Self-fragmentation follows the trends of the sin nature and these trends are solidified as we stay out of fellowship.

5. The trend toward self-righteous arrogance is classified as legalism and if fragmentation is unchecked it will result in moral degeneracy.

6. The trend toward lascivious/lawlessness is classified as antinomianism and when perpetuated results in immoral degeneracy.

7. Self-fragmentation perpetuated, unchecked, means moving in the direction of the trend of your sin nature and polarising fragmentation in legalism or antinomianism.

Moral Degeneracy

Moral degeneracy is always related to the sin nature trend of self-righteous arrogance or legalism. Moral degeneracy expresses itself in the sins of arrogance, the function of arrogance like revenge, gossip, slander, maligning, crusader arrogance, spirituality by asceticism.

Moral degeneracy is a distortion, it combines morality with arrogance in the fragmented life and contends that such modus operandi is spirituality. In rightly dividing the word of truth then the believer must distinguish between morality which is related to laws of divine establishment, and virtue which is related to the protocol plan of God, and especially the function of the ten problem-solving devices.

Immoral Degeneracy

Immoral degeneracy results from the sin nature's trend toward lascivious/lawlessness [antinomianism]. It is a part of the fragmented life and is manifest in sexual sins, chemical sins [drug addiction or an alcoholic problem], sins related to crime. In the status of fragmentation believers are capable of the sins of antinomianism. Perpetuation in the fragmented life results in the Christian committing the sins of antinomianism and entering into a state of immoral degeneracy. In other words if you don't check fragmentation you are going to end up in what the Bible calls corruption.

The reaction of legalism to antinomianism results in the heresy of faith plus, or salvation by works, and spirituality by works. Legalism erroneously contends that believers who commit the sins of antinomianism and perpetuate this fragmentation are really not saved in the first place because they didn't add something to faith.

Then we have the problem of judgement arrogance, the function of the self-righteous legalist who seeks to impose his standards on others and judges them for not accepting these false or non-pertinent standards.

Loneliness is one of the easiest of all problems to resolve. Any time you are lonely you can thank God for it because loneliness is often a means of accelerating your spiritual growth. Once you have reached a certain point and you have a greater capacity for love, for friendship, for happiness, when you are using the problem-solving devices, all of a sudden that loneliness comes to a halt and you find yourself involved in wonderful relationships with people as a result of your momentum in the protocol plan of God.

The third category of fragmentation: Subjective arrogance fragmentation

It all begins with unrealistic expectations. This is because all people, and especially it is true of believers, are involved sometime or other in the subject of unrealistic expectations. Very few people are loved the way they want to be loved and very few people are treated the way they want to be treated. And when this attitude is combined with the arrogance of unhappiness or subjective preoccupation with self the result is the arrogance of subjectivity. The principle is a fragmented life is an unhappy life and one reason is the arrogance of subjectivity. The fragmented believer who is not loved the way he wants to be loved is frustrated and does not have the solution to the misery and frustration he encounters. The believer who is not treated the way he wants to be treated is unstable and often becomes what we call a church tramp, hopping from one church to another looking for someone who will give him enough attention. All this adds up to unrealistic expectation in which the believer seeks to solve his frustration by adding arrogance to arrogance. This adding arrogance to arrogance is preoccupation with self. For first there is the arrogance of preoccupation with self and secondly there is the arrogance of preoccupation with others. And in this subjective arrogance phase of it the great tragedies of the spiritual life develop.

We have a bad combination which comes out of this. The unrealistic preoccupation with self or unrealistic expectation forms a bad combination with role-model arrogance. Unrealistic expectation is the state of unhappiness in which the believer blames others for his unhappiness and his misfortune. Unrealistic expectation never takes the responsibility for one's own decisions, mostly bad decisions from a position of weakness, i.e. he is using his own volition to pull the pin of the grenade to fragment his life.

The arrogance of subjectivity is constantly trying to change other people to conform to one's unrealistic expectations. Consequently unrealistic expectation never realise that you can only change yourself and actually no one else.

The ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God are designed to change self and not others. So the arrogance of unhappiness or subjective preoccupation with self is associated with unrealistic expectation. Unrealistic expectation intensifies the problem of the fragmented life to the point of no return apart from the ten problem-solving devices. And under the problem of unrealistic expectation the fragmented believer involved with subjective preoccupation with self assumes that certain things will bring happiness. Actually only Bible doctrine will bring happiness, or +H as one of the problem-solving devices. People cannot make you happy, only perception of Bible doctrine can produce +H or sharing the happiness of God.

Principles: You are not happy because you are free to do what you want. You are free to use your own volition to fragment your own life and become frustrated, unhappy, and miserable.

We have the problem of subjective preoccupation with others and, therefore the problem of role-model arrogance. We have to begin with iconoclastic arrogance because all of us at some time in the arrogance of our soul are going to make an image or an idol out of someone else. An iconoclast is defined as a person who destroys icons or images. And iconoclastic arrogance is defined as subjective preoccupation with others resulting from disenchantment, disillusion, and the feet-of-clay syndrome. In iconoclastic arrogance an idol is created through the excessive or misguided admiration or love for another person. This is apart from realism; this is unreal expectation.

The object of admiration is often a believer with attractive qualities but, like all believers, possesses the same OSN. When iconoclastic arrogance discovers some sin or some flaw he becomes disenchanted with the object of his admiration and he reacts to it. Often this is a part of the problem of polarisation where the self-righteous, legalistic believer becomes disenchanted with the believer whose trend is toward lascivious/lawlessness. The arrogant iconoclast reacts and seeks to destroy the idol which he has created.

Nine principles

1. The arrogant iconoclast never blames himself for what he has done in the creating and then destroying of an idol. In fact in his irrational state of arrogance he blames the idol for being created by his own fantasising. This is a tragic flaw.

2. Arrogance never takes the responsibility for being arrogant. That is the blindness of arrogance.

3. Illusion created by arrogance becomes illusion destroyed by arrogance.

4. Arrogance creates illusion and the fragmented life then destroys that illusion.

5. Iconoclastic arrogance, the feet-of-clay syndrome, is the inevitable result of the fragmented life with its polarisation of the trends of the OSN.

6. The arrogant reaction of idolising and rejecting your own icon is the vanity of transferring the blame of your fragmented life to an innocent party.

7. Once you transfer the blame for your own disillusion, disenchantment, and disappointment to the idol that you yourself have created, then you malign, slander, judge, enter into conspiracy, seek to destroy the idol.

8. Arrogance destroys what arrogance creates, always.

9. The feet-of-clay syndrome is the arrogant irrationality of rearranging the doctrine of sin to be compatible with your own self-righteous arrogance and legalistic trend in the sin nature.

Role-model arrogance is a part of iconoclastic arrogance. "Role" is defined in this study as the proper or customary function of an individual. When anyone departs from his role-model he is slandered, maligned, criticised and rejected. People in society in general have a predilection for demanding that everything in life be in its proper place. Consequently society resents any deviation from an assigned role-model. The conclusion then: society has a double standard.

Human relationship fragmentation

Two problems in this connection: The first has to do with the problem of Christian fellowship. Christian fellowship, like any area of social life, is a wonderful thing or it is a very detrimental thing. It all depends on with whom you associate. This is just as true before salvation as afterward.

Fragmentation always destroys the advantages and the blessing which comes from Christian fellowship. Christian fellowship can only be a blessing where believers are consistent in post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation and executing the protocol plan of God under those two problem-solving devices we call doctrinal orientation and grace orientation.

However, a serious problem arises when fragmentation becomes a substitute for perception of Bible doctrine and Christian fellowship then becomes the social life of fragmented believers, and often the social life of polarised fragmentation. A by-product of Christian fellowship in the status of fragmentation results in people emphasis taking precedence over God emphasis. Fragmentation then not only means neglect or rejection of Bible doctrine but it inserts a very serious problem into human relationships. And that includes Christian fellowship.

Polarised fragmentation causes Christian fellowship to become a battleground among believers and as a result of this the outside world of unbelievers are laughing at fragmented believers because they always want to air their dirty linen in public. The privacy of the royal priesthood is one doctrine that has totally escaped this category.

Principles

1. Christian fellowship is never a substitute for fellowship with God.

2. Christian fellowship is never a substitute for perception of Bible doctrine.

3. Christian fellowship is destroyed by the various categories of fragmentation.

4. The assembly of believers in the local church is designed for worship, which emphasises perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine.

5. Fellowship or friendship with other believers is optional, it is never mandatory.

There are at least six disadvantages to Christian fellowship

1. The establishment of wrong priorities in the Christian life through the influence of confused or fragmented Christians.

2. Distraction from Bible doctrine through preoccupation with friendship, romance, or marriage.

3. The polarisation of the sin nature's trend toward self-righteous arrogance and legalism through association with legalistic believers.

4. The polarisation of the sin nature's trend toward lascivious/lawlessness and antinomianism though association with antinomian believers.

5. Using Christian fellowship as a means of advancing self in business in business or a profession.

6. Fragmentation of the life through interaction with other believers.

It should be noted that positive believers will always be provided with Bible doctrine, but not always provided with Christian fellowship (It's nice to have it if it's right; it's a distraction if it's wrong). Christian fellowship really isn't necessary for your spiritual growth.

Christian fellowship can be very stimulating and very enjoyable if there is no detrimental influence from fragmentation. Christian fellowship cannot advance the believer in God's plan, God's will, or God's purpose — only the mystery doctrine of the Church Age can do that.

Social life in the form of Christian fellowship can be a refreshing interlude but it can never replace fellowship with God through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. Therefore Christian fellowship cannot replace the execution of the protocol plan. It cannot replace becoming an invisible hero and thereby glorifying God. The real problem is beware of assigning to Christian fellowship a role it can never play.

The other problem is a little more extensive. In interaction with people there is no greater dramatisation of the problems than the subject of marriage.

The reason why marriage becomes a problem manufacturing device is people are no better in marriage than they are as individuals. It isn't the divine institution of marriage that is at fault. Only the plan of God and problem-solving devices really have the answers. In the problems affecting marriage you can only change yourself you cannot change your spouse. People are no better in marriage than they are in single bliss.

Happiness in marriage depends on virtue-love in three categories: 1. Personal love for God the Father (problem-solving device number 6); 2. Impersonal love for all mankind (problem-solving device number 7); 3. Occupation with Christ (problem-solving device number 10). These three problem-solving devices are the road to recovery from the fragmented life, and also the road to solving the problems of marriage. They function effectively at the point of spiritual self-esteem and even more effectively at the point of spiritual autonomy, and fantastic at the point of spiritual maturity.

The arrogance of unhappiness seeks to control in two ways

1. Make the person feel guilty for alleged neglect. Hence motivate attention though guilt. This intensifies the problems of marriage.

2. Motivate attention through the arousal of pity. Motivate others by making them feel sorry for you.

The arrogance of unhappiness seeks to dominate, control, and enslave the opposite number in marriage.

The illusions related to the arrogance of unhappiness are many

1. You can't build your happiness on the details of life.

2. You can't build your happiness on pleasant environment.

3. You can't build your happiness on that fragment of the grenade called crusader arrogance, social engineering, Christian activism, civil disobedience, etc.

4. You can't build you happiness on someone else's unhappiness or by hurting someone else.

5. You cannot build your happiness on a moment of time.

6. You cannot build your happiness on self-gratification.

Principles

1. Marriage cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine.

2. Sex cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine.

3. Prosperity and power cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine.

4. Money cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine.

5. Health cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine.

6. People cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine.

7. A friendly church cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine.

You cannot solve the problem instantly for you cannot learn all the doctrine you need in a few minutes. Desperate and instant solutions, therefore, are no solutions at all.

Principle: When you have lost control of your life through fragmentation and neglect of Bible doctrine there is no instant solution outside of rebound and keep moving while you're learning the doctrine. Perpetual fragmentation involves too many bad decisions from a position of weakness, and the position of weakness includes your neglect of Bible doctrine and entering into the various stages of reversionism.

Therefore we have what might be classified as the aspirin panacea. The aspirin panacea says: Desperate people want simple solutions. Divine solutions require the time it takes to learn pertinent doctrine which can be applied to the situation. So the principle: You cannot recover in a day what you lost over a long period of time.

Principles

1. Marital problems are symptoms; fragmentation is the disease.

2. Only the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan can solve the disease of the fragmented life of the Christian.

3. People are no better in marriage than they are as people.

4. Marriages fail because believers fragment their own lives. Therefore marriages fail because people fail as human beings.

5. Marriages fail because people believe that marriages are panaceas and the solution to all their problems.

6. Actually marriage intensifies the problems of life by merging the problems of two people.

7. Marriage is not designed for happiness but for virtue.

8. Virtue is designed for happiness.

9. Therefore happiness in marriage depends on learning as quickly as possible and utilising the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

Luke 11:26

In the context our Lord Jesus Christ is giving a dissertation on demon possession. He is explaining how when the unbeliever is demon possessed (the believer cannot be demon possessed) and the demon is removed, and that person becomes a very sweet person with a nice personality. They have cleaned up their house as it were. Jesus goes on to explain that once you sweep and clean the house then the demon decides to come back but he brings seven more demons worse than he is, along with him. And therefore Jesus says at the end of Luke 11:26: "… and the last state of that man [an unbeliever] is worse than his first state".

At this point our Lord Jesus Christ was interrupted by a woman in the audience with a loud voice. Luke 11:27: "Now it came to pass, while he was teaching these things, a certain woman from the crowd interrupted him and shouted with a loud voice, Blessed is the woman whose womb carried you, and whose breasts you have sucked" .What she didn't say is what is important. Biological life begins at conception and none of us would have a human body apart from biological life. But biological life in itself is not a human being.

In responding to the woman our Lord did not address the problem of the womb directly. But He did address the problem of the womb indirectly for He replied to her: Menoun — Wrong, on the contrary, incorrect. Then He addressed the problem of happiness, not the problem of the womb, and He said: "Happiness belongs to those who keep hearing and keep guarding the Word of God." This woman did not understand the Word of God as it then existed, she did not understand the Old Testament scriptures. So He dealt with her problem. She was making an issue out of the womb. He made a very important issue out of the fact that the problem of the womb, and every problem in life, is addressed in the Word of God.

Several things the woman did not understand

Exodus 21:22. If two men fight and one strikes a pregnant woman so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury to the woman, what happens to this person?

Answer: He will be fined, not tried for murder. It isn't even a criminal trial.

Every demonstrator carrying a sign in front of an abortion clinic saying, "murder", is wrong as far as the Word of God is concerned.

Since there is only biological life and not soul life in the womb there can be no death penalty for murder, since miscarriage or forced abortion is definitely not murder. However, if during the struggle the woman is killed then the death penalty for murder is applied in that case — but not in the case of the foetus being aborted because of being struck. Miscarriage or abortion involves biological life and therefore damages are paid according to this passage.

Isaiah 42:5. " … he who giveth breath." Lit. who gives the spark of life. The word in the Hebrew is neshamah. The spark of life is not developed in the womb. " … to people on it."

The womb is defined as the uterus of the human female, the place where biological life is formed and the OSN is transmitted. The womb did not come into existence until after the original sin of Adam and the woman, Genesis 3:16. In other words when the man was created Adam had trichotomous life, a body, a soul, and a human spirit. The spirit was designed for fellowship with God, the soul was designed for man having fellowship with mankind and perfect Adam as a rational creature ruling the world. The body was designed for a home for actual human life.

In original creation there was no womb. After the original sin the soul is totally apart from sin and totally apart from the womb. The soul is not a part of the womb, ever. Never has been, never will be. There are certain functions related to the mentality of the soul that we call format soul but they are related to biological life. And as of the original sin soul life was never inside of the womb.

This means that God did not create the womb in original creation.

It was not until after the fall that the woman received the womb for two purposes: for the development of biological life; and secondly, the womb is the basis for the transmission of the OSN.

God created man "out of the dust of the ground [biological life was created] and he breathed into the nostrils the breath of lives, and man became a living soul" .Biological life by itself is not a human being, there must be soul life added to it.

Death — Ecclesiastes 12:7. "Then the dust [biological life] will return to the earth as it was [the decomposition of the body that was biological life] and the breath [the soul life] will return to God who gave it." God gave soul life. Soul life is not formed in the womb, it is given by God at birth.

Job 33:4 — "The breath of God [ruach-el — soul life] has made me, and the spark of life from the almighty gave me life." What is the spark of life? — neshamah.

Principles

1. While biological life begins at conception soul life begins at birth, given directly by God.

2. Biological life is the transmitter of the sin nature. Consequently the sin nature resides in the cell structure of the body.

The problem-solving devices always depend on learning a lot of Bible doctrine around them. They are not simply isolated mechanics; they depend upon a full knowledge of certain categories of doctrine. If your number one priority is not Bible doctrine there is no way you can effectively use the problem-solving devices. Reason: the problem-solving devices are encapsulated in Bible doctrine. The people who do not get the encapsulated doctrine that goes with these problem-solving devices never use them effectively, are never consistent, and they fall back on everything that destroys their spiritual life and makes them function like an unbeliever would in any crisis of life. The only way for the problem-solving devices to work is to make priority number one to be Bible doctrine and to be consistent in the intake of doctrine.

The problem-solving devices

1. Rebound.

2. Filling of the Spirit.

3. The faith-rest drill.

4. Grace orientation.

5. Doctrinal orientation.

6. Personal love for God the Father

7. Impersonal love for all mankind.

8. Plus H or sharing the happiness of God.

9. Personal sense of destiny.

10. Occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

The rebound technique is problem-solving device number one. The reason is because in the OSN the area of strength produces dead works — human good. Production of dead works is the worst thing that could happen to you because it gives the impression that you are doing something for God when in reality you are creating wood, hay, and stubble which will be burned at the judgement seat of Christ. The OSN's area of weakness which produces personal sins follows the trend toward self-righteous arrogance [legalism] which if not checked will eventuate in moral degeneracy. The OSN's trend toward lascivious/lawlessness [antinomianism] when unchecked results in immoral degeneracy.

The trouble is if both of these systems of fragmentation are polarised, and the legalist is criticising and judging the antinomian, and the antinomian is reacting and saying "If that's what they believe in that church I'll never go back," etc.

The importance of the rebound technique

1. Without rebound as a problem-solving device it would be impossible to utilise your portfolio of invisible assets. You cannot learn without the Holy Spirit.

2. Without rebound as a problem-solving device number one it would be impossible to learn and use the other nine problem-solving devices.

3. Without rebound as a problem-solving device number one it would be impossible to execute the protocol plan of God. No one has ever fulfilled God's plan for the Church Age unless he is consistent in the use of the rebound technique.

4. Without the problem-solving device of rebound it would be impossible to become an invisible hero and therefore a member of the pivot.

5. Without the rebound technique as a problem-solving device it would be impossible to be filled with the Spirit.

6. Without rebound as a problem-solving device it would be impossible to reside in the palace God has provided — the divine dynasphere.

7. Without the rebound technique as a problem-solving device the believer will end up being at least nine things: a. He will be an enemy of the cross, Phil. 3:18; b. He becomes an enemy of God, James 4:4; c. Believers become haters of God, John 15:23; d. Believers become double-minded, James 4:8; e. The use of the word "antichrist" to describe believers who are unchecked in the fragmented life, 1John 2:18,22; 4:3; 2John 7; f. Believers are called "carnal" and g. a "disciple of the devil," 1John 3:8,10.

Post-salvation sins fragment our lives unless there is the use of the rebound technique as problem-solving device number one. Ephesians 4:22: " … with reference to your former lifestyle, you yourselves lay aside the old man [OSN]" — the function of the rebound technique.

Philippians 3:13 — Whenever you rebound forget that sin. If you don't you will have repercussions in your thinking that will put you out of fellowship. It will affect others. " … forgetting those things which are behind." Acknowledge, isolate, and forget.

The sin nature is transmitted at conception by the 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum. This is because the woman was deceived in the original sin — taught in Genesis 3:13. "The serpent deceived me and I ate." In 1Timothy 2:14 "It was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." There we have the fact that Adam committed the sin of cognisance and the woman committed the sin of ignorance, in the original sin. In the imputation at birth it is Adam's sin that is imputed. In 1Timothy 2:15 the first part of that verse is a part of a parenthesis. "And the woman shall be saved in the bearing of children." That is where the parenthesis ends, the rest of the verse does not belong. Our original parents did not have any children in the Garden of Eden. There is an obvious reason why they didn't, the woman was not ovulating. No ovulation or pregnancy occurred until after the original sin and the fall of mankind.

After man acquired the sin nature the woman began to ovulate, pregnancy occurred, and biological life plus the old sin nature occurred in the womb. And those are the only two things that have ever been in the womb. Biological life minus soul life is not a human being and soul life has never been in the womb. Soul life is created by God at birth.

Two things must be learned: Biological life was developed in the womb; human life was developed outside the womb. Any one who says that there was human life in the womb is saying that God is the author of sin. God is not the author of sin, God is the author of human life. How can God be the author of human life? By keeping human life out of the womb. God is not the author of sin because soul life is not imputed to biological life until the foetus emerges from the womb. Then soul life is imputed to biological life called the foetus.

Principle: Biological life minus soul life is no human being. For a human being to exist biological life plus soul life equals a human being. And there never has been a human being in the womb. After mankind acquired the sin nature the woman began to ovulate, pregnancy occurred, and biological life plus the OSN occurred in the womb.

There were two mandates given prior to the fall; they were not executed until after the original sin and the acquisition of the sin nature. Original sin plus the acquisition of the sin nature means to us spiritual death. The mandates were given before the fall but they were never executed until after the fall.

Mandate number one: Genesis 1:28 "Be fruitful and multiply." They couldn't be fruitful until ovulation occurred. They couldn't multiply. In fact there was no need for the perpetuation of the human race until after sin occurred. And when it says "rule over the earth" we know that at the moment of original sin Adam lost rulership of the earth. But that isn't what this mandate says, it says "subdue the earth" and is then amplified in the middle of the verse and it means control or rule lower creation, which is not rational. Rationality belongs to homosapiens.

Mandate number two: Genesis 2:24 [This is before the fall] "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother." Adam and the woman didn't have a father and a mother. In fact they would turn out to be the first father and mother. So it is quite obvious that certain mandates related to mankind were designed for after the fall even though they were given before the fall.

No ovulation, no pregnancy. In other words the womb was there but dormant during the amount of time that the man and the woman lived in the Garden. What is a dormant womb? No ovulation, that's all. The incubator was there but not being used.

Part of the judgement of the original sin was ovulation and pregnancy, Genesis 3:16 "To the woman God said [Two things], I will multiply your pain" — pain related to menstruation — "and pregnancy." The dividing line is a conjunction — AND. The pain is related to menstruation and then to giving birth. Ovulation is how conception occurs and birth is how biological life [the foetus] comes into the world and God then imputes soul life to that biological life of the foetus, that is when a person becomes a human being. Biological life is not a human being. It cannot be without soul life and God gives soul life directly.

Because of ovulation and the function of the dormant womb after the fall, Adam changed the name of the female. The female was always called Ishah, which is translated "woman." Don't ever call the woman in the Garden "Eve." She was never "Eve" in the Garden. But after the fall, after the woman ovulated, just before the first pregnancy occurred, in Genesis 3:20 "Adam called the name of his Ishah, Chawua." Why is it Chawua? Because it is based on a Hebrew word which means "life" .All it means is life. Chawua is life. Her life? No, she has already been alive for a long time, she wasn't Chawua in the Garden. She is now called Chawua because she ovulates, she is going to become pregnant, and she will carry biological life in the womb and the OSN contributed by Adam. And when the foetus emerges she will call it Cain. So Adam called her name Life because she carried the equipment by which biological life becomes human life at birth.

There are two categories of biological life: In the uterus biological life is developed so it is ready to be the basis for receiving soul life at birth. That is biological life in the womb. The, when the foetus emerges from the womb, God then creates the soul life and imputes it to biological life. That is what God did to Adam. God breathed into his nostrils, soul life, and man became a living soul. Man was not a living soul until biological life, which in the original creation came from the dust, received the breath of life. Man became a soul having life.

Soul life is given by God — outside the womb. Biological life is developed in the womb, along with the OSN. If human life was in the womb then God would be the author of sin, which is blasphemous and unthinkable.

That is the first stage of biological life — in the womb. The second stage is: biological life is then the human body until death. At death the soul departs either to be with God or to go to Hades in preparation for the Lake of Fire. But is departs from the body and, as we see in Ecclesiastes 12:7, biological life returns to the dust and the soul goes to God WHO GAVE IT.

Just as there are two categories of biological life — in the womb and as a part of a human being when God imputes soul life — so there are two categories of soul life: from birth to death in the human being and in eternity either in heaven or in Hell.

The eventual disposition of the soul is heaven or Hell, depending on attitude toward Christ. John 3:18 "He who believes in him is not judged, but he who does not believe is judged already because he does not believe in the unique Son of God." There is one exception to this: the humanity of Jesus Christ. We have a virgin pregnancy because the Holy Spirit provided 23 perfect male chromosomes which fertilised the ovum. Now you have a virgin pregnancy minus the old sin nature. When the foetus emerges there is the fulfilment of John 3:16,

"… he gave his uniquely-born son — monogenhj u(ios." U(ioj is deity; monogenhj is humanity. God the Father made the greatest decision in our favour that you could ever imagine. He knew that His Son would go to the cross and He would judge our sins as He imputed them to Him. But God the Father created neshamah, soul life, which is also called nephish ruach and He imputed to the foetus, to the biological life, that emerged from the womb. And at that point Jesus Christ became the God-Man. This is the point of the hypostatic union. There is no hypostatic union in the womb. The hypostatic union began with the birth of Jesus Christ. The virgin pregnancy provided biological life minus the sin nature; the virgin birth provided a human being who was like Adam — trichotomous. Jesus Christ was born trichotomous, the only one who ever was.

Where the soul life resides in eternity is very important. You have to believe in Jesus Christ for soul life to reside with God forever. So the merging of biological and soul life at birth has two results. 1. A human being now exists in dichotomous state by the imputation of soul life to biological life; 2. The human being is under spiritual death by the imputation of Adam's original sin to the OSN that emerged from the womb with biological life, genetically formed.

Spiritual death includes at least four things: 1. A dichotomous status quo of soul and body; 2. Total depravity related to the functions of the sin nature; 3. Total separation from God — he is yuxikoj man, the human being under spiritual death, he has a body and he has a soul; 4. Man can do nothing about entering into a relationship with God, he is totally helpless.

The genetic perpetuation of the sin nature. Both male and female homosapiens possess the sin nature but only the male can transmit it. The male transmits the sin nature in copulation through the 23 chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum. This is because Adam committed the original sin of cognisance, while the woman committed the original sin of ignorance. In conception the sin nature is transferred to the womb, along with biological life. Remember that pregnancy occurs in the uterus and pregnancy means two things in the uterus or the womb: biological life and the OSN. The sin nature does not become active until birth, until there is a yuxikoj person.

Principle: Biological life without soul life is not human life. Biological life exists in the womb; human life exists outside the womb — and God must step in for that to occur. Biological life became mother-dependant in the womb; soul life is God-dependant at birth.

God is never the source of sin, temptation, or the sin nature. The sin nature originated by Adam's original sin in the Garden, Romans 5:12 ff; biological life begins at conception; soul life begins at birth. Soul life is a human being. The sin nature is part of biological life, therefore the sin nature and biological life reside in the womb. But because there is no soul life in the womb God is not the author of sin.

Principles

1. Biological life and the sin nature begin at conception; soul life begins at birth.

2. Because the sin nature originates from the 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum at conception the sin nature is transmitted through biological life.

3. Biological life begins with mother-dependence in the womb; soul life begins with God-dependence at birth.

4. If there was any soul life in the womb then God would be the author of sin, which is blasphemous and unthinkable.

5. But because there is no soul life in the womb God is not the author of sin.

6. The sin nature, however, is formed in the womb along with the rest of biological life.

7. Human life does not exist until birth when God imputes soul life to biological life at the point of birth. 8. Biological life minus soul life is not a human being.

The Bible distinguishes between two things: conception and birth. The distinction emphasises two different categories of life: biological life which begins at conception and soul life which begins at birth. Biological life is formed in the womb so that at birth a body is prepared for mankind. Along with biological life being formed in the womb the sin nature is transmitted in a dormant state. While biological life is formed in the womb, soul life is formed entirely outside the womb. Biological life is not human life until birth when God imputes soul life to biological life to form the human being. Biological life minus soul life is never a human being and therefore the Bible constantly distinguishes between the life at conception manufactured by man and the life at birth manufactured by God.

Psalm 51:5 in corrected translation should read: "Behold I was born sinful." Immediately we have no human being until birth, hence birth is mentioned first. When soul life is imputed to biological life at birth simultaneously Adam's original sin is imputed to the genetically formed OSN. David is saying that he was born physically alive and at the same time spiritually dead. Then he adds: " … and in sin did my mother conceive me." Sin refers to the origin of the sin nature. The sin nature originates from the 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum in conception. In other words the sin nature is transmitted in biological life. Therefore the womb contains both biological life and the sin nature.

The same distinction between life at birth and life at conception is given in Psalm 139:13: " For you created my innermost being [soul life given at birth]; you covered me in my mother's womb" [occurred at conception. The womb is the covering, the incubator for biological life].

Isaiah 44:2 — The beginning of human life. "Thus says Jehovah who made you, who formed you [mi beten]." First of all we have a preposition in the Hebrew — min (In its full form). It means separation, removal out from and away from. We have in the Hebrew min plus beten. (The word beten is the word for the womb) It should be translated: "Thus says Jehovah who made, who formed you away from [separated from, removed from, out from] the womb." This is comparable to the Greek preposition e)k plus the ablative of separation. The human being was not formed in the womb but away from the womb.

Isaiah 44:24 — "Thus says Jehovah, your redeemer, even the one who formed you out from the womb" [mi beten].

Psalm 22:10 — A messianic psalm referring to our Lord Jesus Christ, speaking at His incarnation in verse 10. "I was cast upon you out from the womb" — the true doctrine of Kenosis, our Lord's dependence on God's power and the fact that He did not use His own divine essence; " … you have been my God away from my mother's womb" — separated from my mother's womb, removed from my mother's womb, out from my mother's womb. There was not God dependence in the womb, not until He became a human being at the virgin birth.

Principles

1. Biological life and the sin nature begin at conception; soul life begins at birth.

2. Because the sin nature originates with the 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum at conception, the sin nature is transmitted through biological life.

3. Biological life begins with mother dependence in the womb; soul life begins with God dependence atbirth, outside the womb.

4. If there was any soul life in the womb then God would be the author of sin, which is blasphemous and unthinkable.

5. Because there is no soul life in the womb God is not the author of sin.

6. The sin nature, however, is formed in the womb with the rest of biological life.

7. Human life does not exist until birth when God imputes soul life to biological life.

8. Biological life minus soul life is not human life.

Exodus 21:22 — "If men who are fighting, hit a pregnant woman so that she has a miscarriage, [expulsion of the foetus before it is viable — Hebrew word is the qal perfect of jatsa — to go out]."

Principle: Why translate it miscarriage rather than premature birth? Because Isaiah 44:2 & 24 and Psalm 22:10 — human life begins separated from the womb.

" … and yet there is no further injury [to the mother]; he will surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand from him; therefore he will pay damages as the judges render a decision.

v23 — "And if there is any further injury [to the mother], then you will appoint as the penalty a life for a life." If the woman dies, capital punishment for the crime of murder — Genesis 9:5,6; Exodus 21:12; Numbers 35:30; Matthew 26:52; Romans 13:3,4.

Obviously these things do not apply to a non-viable foetus; they apply to the mother. The foetus is never on an equal basis with the woman. Since there is only biological life in the womb, and never soul life or human life, there can be no death penalty with regard to the foetus, since miscarriage or forced abortion from violence is not murder.

Conclusions

1. There is no soul life in the womb; furthermore there has never been soul life in the womb.

2. Soul life or human life existed before the function of the womb in ovulation and conception.

3. Soul life or human life is always the creative act of God at birth, which means that God is never the author of sin.

4. Soul life or human life develops in the body after birth, while biological life develops before birth in the womb.

5. There is no human being in the womb for mankind does not exist until birth.

6. Soul life or human life begins with mankind in the status quo of being physically alive and simultaneously spiritually dead.

7. Biological life minus soul life is not human life.

Psalm 22:1 — Why was Jesus Christ forsaken? Because He was perfect, He was trichotomous, He was qualified to be judged for the sins of the world. But more than that this phrase that was uttered on the cross repeatedly indicates that the Psalm 22 is a messianic psalm. Why was He forsaken? Ps. 22:3 "Because you [God the Father] are holy" God the Father has justice and righteousness [that is what holiness is] and the justice of God called for a printout of all of the sins of the world and they were imputed to Jesus Christ on the cross. Qualified to be judged for those sins, He is the last Adam, He is perfect , He is trichotomous, but the justice of God judged those sins. In justice He is forsaken. Why? Justice and holiness is judging the sins of the world, the basis for salvation.

Psalm 22:10 — How did Christ get to the cross? The humanity of Christ in hypostatic union — "I was cast upon you [God], mi beten, out from the womb." This is the humanity of Jesus Christ. " … you have been my God [This is His humanity speaking], mi beten, away from my mother's womb."

Note: In the incarnation, which began with the virgin birth, he was God-dependant. In His mother's womb there was only biological life and it was mother dependant. He became incarnate "away from my mother's womb."

Luke 11:26 — Jesus was giving a dissertation on demon possession. He was explaining that a demon had been cast out of an unbeliever but the person did not become a believer. He swept out his house, he merely cleaned up his life, so that the demon finding that the house was now clean gathered up seven other demons and they all went back and possessed it.

Verse 27 — "Blessed is the woman whose womb carried you and whose breasts you have sucked." This woman was confused. How do we know? Because she could not distinguish between biological life and soul life. She talked about the womb carrying Him. The one who sucked the breasts, that was human life; the biological life in the womb was not human life. And no distinction was made by this woman.

Verse 28 — What did He say to her? "You're wrong!" — menoun, on the contrary. He is now going to make an issue out of human life, out of soul life: "Blessing belongs to those who keep hearing and keep guarding the Word of God." Bible doctrine, not what is in the womb, is the true issue.

Review

Biological life is not human life, it is the basis for the structurising of the human body and the transmission of the old sin nature. There are two categories at the point of conception: biological life and the sin nature which is transmitted with biological life. Biological life without soul life is not human life. In the womb the sin nature is genetically formed and becomes active at birth. Then the justice of God imputes Adam's original sin to that OSN.

Isaiah 44:2 — "Thus says Jehovah who made thee, who formed thee [out from] from the womb [mi beten]." In the Hebrew mi(n) means separated from, away from, removed from, and out from.

A little bit of grammar on the preposition min: It may stand alone or it may be prefixed to a substantive or a noun. Before a non-guttural (like the "b" in beten) you drop the "n."

Job 1:21 — Job's response to the death of all of his children: "Then he said, Naked (The biological foetus) I came [mi beten] separated from [immi] my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there [When biological life ends with physical death]." Principle: Biological life minus soul life is not human life.

Job 33:4 — "The breath of God hath made me [The breath of God is soul life; breath of God, ruach el.] and the spark of life [neshamah] from the Almighty gives me life" .The word ruach is defined as breath, wind, spirit, and even soul. Biological life plus soul life equals human life; biological life minus soul life means no human life.

Psalm 51:5 — In the womb we not only have biological life but the OSN is transmitted in that biological life. Just as the womb was dormant before the fall, no ovulation, so the sin nature is dormant until birth, but it is there. Since the sin nature is a part of biological life it resides in the womb until the viable foetus emerges. At birth the justice of God imputes Adam's original sin to that genetically-formed sin nature so that human being is spiritually dead. That is what David mean't when he said: "I was born sinful [awon]." Since there is no human being until birth, birth is mentioned first. He is going to start from the foetus emerging from the womb.

Why was he born sinful? Because the sin nature is transmitted in biological life and when biological life emerges from the womb it brings the sin nature along.

" … and in sin [chataah] did my mother conceive me." Sin refers to the origin of the sin nature.

Psalm 139:13 — "For you created my innermost being [soul life imputed at birth resulting in a human being]; … " Biological life is now activated because soul life has been added to it. " … you covered me in my mother's womb." The word for cover is sakak and it simply points out that the womb is an incubator. The womb is a covering then for biological life in its developing stages.

The Bible distinguishes between biological and soul life

Biological life originates at conception and is mother dependant; soul life originates at birth and is God dependant.

1. Biological life and the OSN begin at conception; soul life begins at birth.

2. The content of the womb is twofold: biological life in the process of development; the sin nature in the process of transmission.

3. There is no human life in the womb.

4. Human life is formed at birth by that imputation that combines soul life and biological life.

5. Since the OSN resides in the womb but human life does not reside in the womb, God is not and cannot be the author of sin.

6. The conflict between volition of the human soul and the OSN does not exist until after birth because there is no human life in the womb.

7. Biological life minus soul life is not human life; biological life plus soul life equals human life.

The ten unique factors of the Church Age

1. The baptism of the Holy Spirit.

2. The protocol plan of God.

3. The equality factor of the protocol plan in both election and predestination.

4. Our portfolio of invisible assets.

5. Two royal commissions: Every believer is a royal priest; every believer is a royal ambassador.

6. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

7. For the first and only time in history every member of the Trinity indwells the believer.

8. The divine power available to the believer: the omnipotence of the Father related to our portfolio of invisible assets, the omnipotence of the Son giving us a day at a time and seeing to it that history will continue until the end of the Millennium, the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit by which we execute the unique protocol plan of God.

9. This is the only dispensation in which there is no prophecy.

10. This is the dispensation of invisible heroes. (We are designed for low profile and invisible impact. Our invisible impact comes through executing the protocol plan of God.)

Verses 17ff — the story of negative orientation. In other words there are literally millions of believers who have never heard of the protocol plan of God and these believers are going to commit every sin, be involved in every failure, live fragmented lives, and will not be distinguished in their modus operandi from the unbeliever. In vv17-19 we note that the protocol plan of God is designed to avoid the maladies of the soul. Soul maladies continue as a part of post-salvation sinning.

In verse 17 we note the subject: The vacuum of the mind.

v17 — "therefore," o)un introduces an inference from what precedes. It resumes an exhortation which was begun in verse 3: "Be motivated to maintain the unity from the Spirit [baptism of the Spirit] by means of the bond of peace."

"I say" present active indicative of legw plus the accusative singular direct object of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. Literal translation: "Therefore I communicate this," a powerful message to avoid the pre-salvation thinking, the bad habits we had before salvation.

"and testify" kai marturomai, and insist, "in the Lord" e)n plus the instrumental of cause from kurioj, "because of the Lord" — "henceforth" mhketi, no longer. It is dividing between life before salvation and life after salvation. The Ephesian believers could not distinguish between before and after and the reason they couldn't is because they are negative toward doctrine and therefore in a state of ignorance. They do not understand the protocol plan of God; they have yet to enter into consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation; "walk" present active infinitive of peripatew — has to do with lifestyle, modus operandi, what you think, what you do. The retro-active progressive present denotes an action that began in the past, before salvation as an unbeliever, and continues into the present. No change because of no doctrine; no doctrine because of no positive volition. So we have a carry-over of pre-salvation modus operandi into post-salvation modus operandi.

Failure to execute the protocol plan of God is based on either indifference or active rejection of the mystery of the Church Age. Whether it is apathy or rejection the result is the same — ignorance of the protocol plan of God.

"as" is the comparative adverb kaqoj plus e)qnoj — unbelievers. A reference to pre-salvation modus operandi. These believers are Gentiles in Ephesus who are living exactly the same way they were before they were saved — "walk" peripatew. Ignorant believers functioned just like they did before they were saved. They haven't learned anything about the principle: After salvation, What?

"in vanity" — e)n plus the locative of sphere from mataiothj. With this we also have, to indicate that this is a very personal factor, a possessive genitive plural from the intensive pronoun a)utoj. A)utoj is simply an intensive pronoun but it is used as a personal pronoun since in the Koine Greek at the time of the writing of the New Testament there was no third personal pronoun still functioning in the Greek language. So it is translated: "in the vacuum of their." Then there is the descriptive genitive from the noun nouj which refers to the mind, especially to the left lobe.

Correct translation of verse 17: "Therefore I communicate this, and because of the Lord I insist that you no longer walk even as Gentiles [unbelievers] walk, in the vacuum of their mind."

The unbeliever is represented by the word "Gentiles." They have a vacuum in the mentality of the soul and into that vacuum every false concept is drawn. Therefore there was tremendous amount of confusion at that time, even as there is today among believers. The principle is, the believer minus Bible doctrine is exactly like the unbeliever. He possesses a vacuum in the mind which draws into his mentality everything that is void of truth, everything that is futile, everything that is worthless and empty. When the believer thinks like an unbeliever, acts like an unbeliever, sins like an unbeliever, he is classified as a reversionist. So both the believer and the unbeliever and the reversionist each use rationalism and empiricism to understand God. Neither system of thought is capable of anything but relative concepts.

At the time of the Ephesian church believers were failing to fulfil their function, they were failing to divide the word of truth, they did not distinguish between their responsibility to God in the execution of the protocol plan of God and their responsibility to their civil government and the whole concept of freedom being involved. For freedom to exist there must be certain principles that are well delineated in the scriptures. For example, in Romans 13, there must be freedom and freedom protects the volition of the individual so that he has the right to say Yes and No to certain things in life. Freedom must exist for evangelism to exist, for believers to accept or reject the plan of God after salvation. This is the whole issue of the angelic conflict, there must be freedom.

The key to everything historically in the Roman empire depended upon Ephesus and the surrounding territory. This Ephesus became the true "Holy City" because of the effectiveness and impact of the Ephesian epistle. As a result, between Paul's time around AD 60-61 when this was written, in 30 years there would be one of the greatest pivots of all time which would come from the ministry of three people — Paul, Timothy, and John.

In verse 17 there are certain key words. For example, peripatew, which means to walk but is rarely used for walking. Occasionally it is used for literal walking but actually it is used for modus operandi of both unbeliever and reversionistic believer, in this passage for example.

The believers were not executing the Christian way of life; they didn't even understand God's will or God's purpose in sustaining them. How did they walk? It isn't their modus operandi that is important first, it is the way they think. This is because the way you think determines the way you are going to live, and therefore the apostle says, "they walk in the vacuum of their mind."

Another key word is mataiothj, it refers to a vacuum, the vacuum of the mind. And where the vacuum of the mind [nouj] exists, it draws in everything that is false, everything that is erroneous, and it makes an issue that there is no such thing as absolute truth; that only relative truth can exist.

How does this vacuum of the mind exist? The vacuum of the mind comes through negative volition toward truth. Truth comes in two forms: the Gospel and doctrine. People say No to the Gospel and therefore a vacuum is formed in their mind. That is how they accept Marxism, that is how they accept all kinds of false concepts and get involved in everything that is contrary to the laws of divine establishment. In the other form of truth, doctrine, which refers to the believer (the protocol plan of God), the doctrine is rejected and the believer has a vacuum in his mind.

The doctrine of reversionism

Definition and description: It is an act of reversing or turning in the opposite way, or a state of being so turned. As believers in Jesus Christ we were designed to execute the protocol plan of God but in reversionism we turn the other way. And while we still have eternal salvation we still cannot be distinguished from our pre-salvation status or from unbelievers who are functioning under the modus operandi of their old sin natures.

Reversionism is the result of fragmentation. The thinking of the reversionistic believer is exactly the same as the thinking of the unbeliever who possesses the vacuum of the mind. That is because the vacuum is first of all created by negative volition but it draws every system of erroneous thinking, every system of false doctrine into the mentality of the soul, and it leads to practices which result, with unbelievers, in demon possession and demon influence, and with believers, demon influence.

Reversionism

1. Reversionism is defined as an act of reversing or turning in the opposite way, (In the case of believers, in the opposite way to God's plan, God's will, God's purpose.) or being in a state of being so turned, which means believers thinking human viewpoint.

2. Reversionism may also be defined as reverting to a former state, to a former belief, to a former practice, hence the practice of fragmentation.

3. Reversionism is the status of the believer who fails to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church Age.

4. The reversionistic believer is classified as a loser in the Christian way of life.

5. Reversionism is lack of spiritual growth, apostasy, failure to attain the three stages of spiritual adulthood, failure to possess spiritual self-esteem, failure to reach the point of spiritual autonomy and spiritual maturity.

6. Reversionism is the believer's retrogression because of negative volition toward the mystery doctrine of the Church Age which both defines and reveals God's plan, God's will and God's purpose for our lives.

7. Reversionism then is a technical theological term from rejecting absolute truth and therefore drawing into the mind or accepting relative truth. Relative truth without an absolute premise of some kind is disastrous to the one who thinks it, to the one who practices it, and to the government which adopts it, the result is tyranny.

8. Reversionism then is a technical theological term for the results of fragmentation.

9. Reversionism, of course, must be distinguished from carnality. Carnality is an absolute, the believer out of fellowship and in a state of sin under the control of the OSN. Reversionism is a relative thing. It is a relative state of the believer which emphasises the various categories of retrogression.

The believer cannot be demon possessed but he can be demon influenced. In demon influence the soul of the unbeliever or the soul of the reversionistic believer is infiltrated by false doctrine, called in 1Timothy 4:1, doctrine of demons. This comes through a vacuum of the mind that opens up. Just like a vacuum cleaner it picks up all the dirt in its vicinity. That is the concept.

Stage 1 of reversionism: reaction and distraction

There are many who believed in Jesus Christ in their youth. They lived in a Christian home. At their parents' insistence they attended certain services — maybe evangelistic services — and they believed in Christ. But as they began to advance in age, and as they came into contact with peer pressure, and as they got into the educational system, they began to become "sophisticated" and they began to change their thinking and to reject everything that their parents had accepted. Even though they are still believers and still have eternal life they are thinking in an entirely different way to the absolute concepts of Bible doctrine. So there was a point in their life when they reacted to Christianity.

For one reason or another distraction from the protocol plan of God is based upon reaction. That reaction takes us right back to fragmentation. In the fragmentation the first thing one does is start to react to everything that was once important. Therefore there are various expressions of negative volition which result. First of all there is apathy or indifference. Secondly there are wrong priorities. But most of all there is arrogance involved.

In Romans 12:2-3 we see something of how this reaction is formed. Literal translation: "Stop being conformed to this world [e.g. peer pressure], but be transformed by the renovation of your thought [consistent post-salvation rehabilitation], that you may prove what the will of God is [the execution of the protocol plan], namely, the good of intrinsic value achievement, the well pleasing to God, the mature status quo [execution of God's plan]."

Verse 3 — "For I say through the grace which has been given to me, to every believer who is among you, stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance [self-fragmentation], beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity [absolute truth is always related to reality], for the purpose of being rational without illusion [the result of the daily perception of doctrine] as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine."

These scriptures verify the fact that fragmentation is the number one avenue which leads to reversionism. The presence of reactor factors in the life result in distraction from doctrine. The reactor factors include many antithetical concepts which follow the trends of the believer's OSN.

Reactor factors

1. Wrong priorities in which the believer can place money, success, pleasure, loved ones, social life, friends, sex, health, material things, etc. ahead of God emphasis. This develops a scale of values that excludes God-relationship.

2. Rejection of authority in general, rejection of the authority of the pastor-teacher, hence the rejection of the message which is communicated regarding God's will and plan for the life.

3. Personality conflict, often coming from hypersensitivity and other forms of fragmentation.

4. A lack of objectivity when reprimanded, either by the scripture or by someone in authority.

5. Reaction to gossip, maligning, or unjust treatment of one kind or another.

6. Frustration, divorce, disaster in life from one kind or another.

7. Drug addiction, a drinking problem, criminality, mental illness, inability to concentrate from failure to learn the problem-solving devices.

8. Bad decisions from a position of weakness.

9. Subjective arrogance, pre-occupation with self to the exclusion of reality.

10. Lack of motivation from a lack of a personal sense of destiny.

Three words we need to understand: 1. Implosion; 2. Explosion (fragmentation); 3. Reversionism. Implosion is bursting inside, within, inwardly. It has to do with collapsing inwardly and, in our study, it means technically, yielding to the temptations of the OSN. The principle is that implosion leads to explosion or fragmentation. Explosion or fragmentation leads to reversionism. Once negative volition sets in there is a vacuum in the soul, and this vacuum is the beginning of reversionism. The beginning of reversionism is always related to reaction and distraction because of negative volition to Bible doctrine, cf. 1Timothy 4:1.

Stage 2 of reversionism: a frantic search for happiness

Once a believer goes negative toward doctrine he becomes frantic in his search for happiness.

1. If you are not content with what you have now you will never be content with what you have in the future. That is what happens in reversionism.

2. Contentment is based on capacity for life from Bible doctrine and not from prosperity. (One thing a reversionist does not have is Bible doctrine, he has a vacuum in his soul.)

3. Prosperity is never the source of happiness.

4. If you are unhappy with what you have at the moment of implosion, explosion, and reversionism, you will be the same if every wish and every desire of your soul were given to you at the moment you entered into reversionism.

Point of doctrine: The only truly happy people are born again believers who through the consistent function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation have amassed enough doctrine in the soul to reach the point of +H, one of the problem-solving devices. Doctrine in the soul gives the capacity. And it has to be metabolised doctrine, not just doctrine perceived but doctrine perceived and metabolised, doctrine which is called in the Greek sofia, wisdom — doctrine which can be applied.

Principle: Advance in the protocol plan of God always provides a balance between capacity for what you have and the enjoyment of what you have.

The frantic search for happiness finds the believer going in another direction, going with the trend of his OSN.

If you concentrate on priority number 1 you will organise your life around it. If you do you will organise your thinking around priority number 1 and you have capacity. That capacity increases and there is your contentment, not in the things that you have but in the doctrine resident in your soul. In the frantic search for happiness the priority becomes romance, friendship, business, success, social life, etc. and you concentrate on that so that you organise your life around it; therefore you organise your thinking around it; therefore you are involved in stage 2 of reversionism which is the frantic search for happiness. The vacuum of the soul which produces emptiness, futility, nothingness, creates a demand for happiness in your life, a demand to replace the truth of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. A frantic search for happiness then becomes the alternative to the daily perception of Bible doctrine and the execution of the protocol plan.

The frantic search for happiness follows the trends of polarised fragmentation. The trend toward legalism results in moral degeneracy and no happiness, and the trend toward antinomianism results in immoral degeneracy and no happiness. The trend toward legalism includes crusader arrogance or self-righteous arrogance, or self-righteous arrogance, or personality arrogance, the arrogance of Christian service, or irrational arrogance, the arrogance of unhappiness (subjective preoccupation with self). The trend toward antinomianism is related to motiferous sexual sins, drug addiction, violence, criminality, total self-indulgence of one form or another. Other believers seek their happiness in the false emphasis on experience, the so-called victorious life commitment, pseudo tongues, tithing for blessing.

Stage 3 of reversionism: operation boomerang

The frantic search for happiness boomerangs; it comes back and knocks down the thrower. It intensifies the original reactor factors so that the believer loses control of his life. Frustration becomes greater frustration. Every search for happiness makes happiness more elusive and therefore the believer is bored and disillusioned. Pleasure and social sexual distractions, drug addiction, only intensifies the problem in life. That goes for all of the problems related to legalism as well.

Operation boomerang means loss of control of your life and intensification of fragmentation and reversionism. It destroys any use of the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan. Instead of +H as a problem-solving device the believer has -H and under -H you cannot build your happiness on the details of life. Minus H depends upon involvement with some form of success or stimulation which is related to a moment of time, a moment of pleasure, a moment of success, power, approbation. But all of this boomerangs and the believer discovers that romance, marriage, sex, prosperity, does not mean happiness but an intensification of an already miserable life.

Principle: Promotion can not make you happy for in operation boomerang you are going to be promoted beyond your capacity and you have the unhappiness of knowing your limitations too late.

Stage 4 of reversionism: emotional revolt of the soul

Emotion is designed as a responder but when emotion takes over the soul you have no mental function any more. Emotion was designed to be an appreciator to respond to the functions of the rationality of the soul. Emotion has no doctrinal content, no mentality, no rationality. Furthermore emotion in control of the soul has no virtue. For emotion to be in its proper place it must be under the control of the right lobe of the soul where doctrine is stored.

When emotions become the dictator of the soul and become the aggressor it neutralises or distorts doctrine in the soul and hinders the execution of the protocol plan. Emotional revolt of the soul is described in Philippians 3:19: "Whose destiny is destruction, whose god is their emotion, whose fame comes by means of dishonour, who keep on thinking about earthly things."

Emotion takes over the soul and dominates to the point of disorientation to reality. Emotional revolt of the soul can very quickly become a part of a psychopathic condition. Emotion is a hindrance to the perception of Bible doctrine or consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

Emotions have no capacity for thought, for reason, for discernment, therefore the soul becomes blind, unreasonable, unrestrained, arrogant, immoral, legalistic, antinomian, anti-doctrine. In other words what we have is fragmentation parlayed into reversionism. This emotional revolt of the soul. It means loss of a personal sense of destiny, failure to execute the protocol plan of God, it means failure to understand and utilise the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan, it means failure to understand and apply the ten unique situations of the Church Age.

Stage 5 of reversionism: permanent negative volition toward Bible doctrine

Ephesians 4:22: "With reference to your former lifestyle" — here it means the believer in self-fragmentation, post salvation sinning — "you yourselves lay aside the old man [synonym for the old sin nature. Laying aside is a reference to the rebound technique]." Rebound is the only way to check three things which are a part of post-salvation sinning: 1. Implosion; 2. Explosion; 3. Reversionism. " … on the basis of the lusts of deceit" .Lusts is a reference to power lust, approbation lust, sexual lust, money lust, chemical lust, etc. Deceit refers to implosion, explosion, reversionism, and also cosmic involvement.

To implode means to burst inwardly, to fall apart under pressure. Implosion is a bad decision from a position of weakness whereby the born-again believer uses his own volition to commit a sin. Implosion is the first stage of post-salvation sinning.

Next comes explosion or fragmentation which results from another bad decision from a position of weakness, using your own volition to pull the pin of the grenade. The pin of the grenade includes the entire arrogance complex. Fragmentation comes in six categories: Self-fragmentation, polarised fragmentation, fragmentation of subjective arrogance, human relationship fragmentation, emotional fragmentation, and God-relationship fragmentation.

God-relationship fragmentation

There are four concepts in God-relationship fragmentation.

1. Failure to learn and to use the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

2. Failure to understand and apply the ten unique characteristics of the Church Age.

3. Failure to execute the protocol plan of God through consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

4. Failure to learn and to use your very own portfolio of invisible assets.

The portfolio of invisible assets

There are first primary assets including your escrow blessings and your computer assets. Then there are secondary assets which include volitional assets, production assets, and assets related to undeserved suffering. The there are personnel assets which are related to your spiritual gifts provided at the moment of salvation.

The third part of post-salvation sinning is reversionism. There are eight stages

1. Reaction and distraction.

2. A frantic search for happiness.

3. Operation boomerang.

4. Emotional revolt of the soul.

5. Permanent negative volition or permanent cosmic involvement.

As a result of the first four stages the believer suffers a loss of biblical priorities, biblical norms, and biblical standards resulting in bad decisions from a position of weakness. This means loss of control of the life and loss of a personal sense of destiny. Stage five is the malfunction of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

Only e)pignwsij doctrine is metabolised doctrine and again there has to be positive volition. Negative volition does not metabolise doctrine and negative volition toward Bible doctrine means that the believer can never understand God's will, God's plan, and God's purpose for his life. And if he cannot understand these things then he cannot grow spiritually. All of his works are dead works and all of his good intentions are human good totally unacceptable to God. Therefore he is operating in the energy of the flesh rather than in the power of God the Holy Spirit.

Understanding our destiny depends on our understanding of the mystery doctrine which is pertinent to the Church Age. Through physical birth we have a purpose in life; through regeneration we have a destiny in life. God gave us eternal life at regeneration which means we have a twofold destiny. First we have a destiny in time which means the execution of the protocol plan of God by which we become invisible heroes. Secondly, the destiny in eternity related to our resurrection bodies. Negative volition toward doctrine cancels the fulfilment of our destiny in time. The final three stages of reversionism are the result of permanent negative volition toward doctrine and of course subsequent ignorance of the protocol plan for the Church Age plus ignorance of the ten unique factors, ignorance of the problem-solving devices. Those final three stages are: blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, and reverse process reversionism.

Some of the characteristics of negative volition toward doctrine should be noted

a. Indifference or apathy toward Bible teaching from a pastor-teacher.

b. Wrong priorities. Too busy for consistent hearing of doctrine. There are two problems in consistent hearing of doctrine. The first is the pastor doesn't consistently teach night after night. The second is the people have to be consistent in coming to hear.

Wrong priorities do not mean that the things we like are wrong. Far from it. It means simply that we are putting something before Bible doctrine.

c. Antagonism or personality conflict with a pastor who is actually teaching doctrine. And because of having your eyes on the pastor and resenting him in some way you are not hearing what he is saying and therefore you are missing the content of the message. This is where the filling of the Holy Spirit comes in because He gives you the power and the ability to hear what is said rather than how it is said or who says it.

d. Failure to learn and to use the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

e. Some people have never been taught good manners. Good manners are basically thoughtfulness of other people. Poor manners is a major problem because if you start talking while doctrine is being taught you can't listen at the same time. Furthermore you are distracting other people.f. Inability to cope with prosperity or adversity. When people become prosperous they often say, "Good-bye God, I'll see you in eternity. I know I'll be in eternity but I'm going to have a good time in the meantime." Some cannot cope with adversity and therefore seek psychological solutions.

g. Failure to understand your very own portfolio of invisible assets and how to use them.

6. The blackout of the soul. Based upon one Greek word found in Ephesians 4:17, mataiotes. It means a vacuum that sucks in false doctrine. Through this vacuum comes the doctrine of demons. That includes religionism, liberalism, crusader arrogance, anti-establishment thinking. The false doctrine passing through the vacuum of the soul is called demon influence or being influenced by evil. It is not the same as demon possession. Demon influence comes through false doctrine, false teaching.

7. Scar tissue of the soul. This is prolonged residence in the cosmic system, prolonged fragmentation unchecked, reaction to any form of accurate Bible teaching, strong reaction to those who communicate accurately the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. This is tantamount to freezing the valves of the heart or the right lobe. There is no longer any circulation of doctrine in the frame of reference, in the memory centre, in the vocabulary storage, in categorical storage, in the conscience, in the momentum department, in the wisdom department, and in the sub-conscious mind. This is called in the scripture, "hardness of heart", or in some cases dealing with the Jews, "hardening of the neck," or "hardening the face." Hardening of the neck is insubordination to the point of revolt, failure to be authority-oriented in spiritual things. At this point the believer cannot be distinguished from the unbeliever and he is very anti-authority, not only where spiritual things are concerned, but other things as well.

8. Reverse process reversionism. This is the final stage of reversionism; this is the antithesis of being an invisible hero. Prolonged residence in the cosmic system causes a complete reversal of all mandates, all priorities, all norms and standards related to the protocol plan of God. The believer in reverse process reversionism cannot be distinguished in any way from an unbeliever.

In this stage the believer reverses the objects of his love, the objects of his attention, the objects of his concentration, the objects of his priorities.

This stage is characterised by a reversal of love objects or leaving the first love as described in Revelation 2:4,5. The "first love" is the Lord Jesus Christ, the living Word, and then of course the written Word, Bible doctrine. Both are abandoned.

The believer in reverse process reversionism cannot be distinguished from the unbeliever as far as his modus operandi is concerned. In this stage the believer reverses the object of his love, his attention, his concentration, and his priorities.

Revelation 2:4,5 mentions reverse process reversionism as being characterised by reversal of loved objects. "But I hold this against you, you have forsaken your first love [the Lord Jesus Christ], therefore recall this to mind from where you have fallen and change your mind." The use of rebound and the other problem-solving devices to recover from the disaster of the six stages of fragmentation and the eight stages of reversionism, for the two of them mesh to form the greatest possible disaster that could overtake a Christian — a life of terrible misery as long as he lives, misery which is only changed by physical death in which such a believer would be absent from the body and face to face with the Lord in a place of no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, no more death, the old things have all passed away. " … otherwise if you do not change your mind I am coming to you in discipline …," a reference to the sin unto death.

The seven characteristics of reverse process reversionism

1. Prolonged residence in the cosmic system is the inevitable result of unchecked fragmentation and fragmentation moving into reversionism.

2. Some of the phrases that deal with Christians involved in it. There are six general characteristics:

a. The believer becomes the enemy of God, James 4:4.

b. The enemy of the cross, Philippians 3:18.

c. A hater of God, John 15:23.

d. He suffers from spiritual schizophrenia, he is double-minded, James 4:8.

e. He becomes anti-Christ — meaning against Christ — 1John 2:18.

f. Disciples of the devil, 1John 3:8, 10.

3. Reverse process reversionism is a status quo of unrestrained and perpetual sinfulness, perpetual fragmentation, perpetual reversionism, extensive and continuous cosmic involvement. Therefore, obviously brainwashed by Satanic propaganda.

4. In reverse process reversionism the believer branches out into the various categories of reversionistic activity. E.g. legalistic reversionism, Colossians 2:16-18; Hebrews 5:11-6:16. On the other side of the fence there is phallic reversionism, polarised antinomianism — 2Corinthians 12:21; Ephesians 4:19.

5. The biblical nomenclature for reversionism. There are ten words or phrases found in the Bible that describe reverse process reversionism:

a. Drifting off course from grace, Galatians 5:4.

b. The enemy of the cross, Philippians 3:18.

c. Uncircumcised of heart, Jeremiah 9:25,26.

d. Falling from grace (not loss of salvation) — total malfunction of any grace modus operandi and total ignorance of the grace policy of God in the protocol plan, Hebrews 12:15.

e. The tortured soul, 2Peter 2:7,8.

f. The unstable soul, 2Peter 2:14.

g. Fallen, Revelation 2:5.

h. Left your first love, Revelation 2:4.

i. Lukewarm, Revelation 3:15,16.

j. Shipwrecked, 1Timothy 1:19.

6. Profile of the reversionist is found in Psalm 7:14-16.

v14 "Behold he shall have labour pains of vanity [the whole arrogance complex], because he has become pregnant with frustration [the first three stages of reverse process reversionism], therefore he has given birth to a life of deceit [the rest of the stages of reversionism]."

v15 "He has dug a grave [self-fragmentation, pulling the pin of the grenade], and he has explored it [the eight stages of reversionism], therefore he has fallen into the pit which he made [the sin unto death]."

v16 "His frustration will return upon his own head, and his violence [crusader arrogance, Christian activism] will descend upon the crown of his own head."

7. Hosea 4:1-6. Reverse process reversionism destroys the client nation. Why? We had a pivot and prosperity as a nation from that pivot. Now the pivot has diminished.

v1 "Hear the word of the Lord, you citizens of Israel; because the Lord has a legal case against the inhabitants of the client nation, because nothing of doctrine is being taught and nothing of grace is being applied, there is no knowledge of God."

v2 "Instead there is lying, dishonesty [lack of integrity and virtue], deception, murder, rape, therefore criminal violence [terrorism, total breakdown of establishment freedom in the land]"

v3 "Consequently the land mourns, and all who live in it languish [they have lost their dynamics, their strength], along with domestic animals, birds, fish"

v4 "Yet let no-one find fault [don't start looking for a patsy] let no-one offer criticism, for your citizens are like those who are contending with doctrinal communicators [the Levitical priesthood]."

v5 "Therefore you have stumbled in the daylight [you have had clear doctrinal teaching, you have had fantastic warning], and even the false prophet will stumble with you in night darkness [total reversionism], and I will destroy your mother [nation]."

v6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge [of doctrine], I will reject you from being a priest nation [client nation to God]; since you have neglected the doctrine of your God, I, even I, will neglect your sons [the next generation would be in slavery]."

The policies of Satan as the ruler if this world are called evil. Evil comes in sweetness and light; evil comes in darkness and terror. The policy of God is revealed only in the Word of God; the policy of God is grace. These two antagonistic forces have pre-existed the creation of the human race and the beginning of human history. But they continue in human history. The absolute truth of Bible doctrine versus the relative concepts of Satan are the great battle-ground. (True conservatism is always based on absolute truth. All absolute truth is found in the Bible, whether we are talking about establishment principles for the human race in general or Bible doctrine for the believer specifically. A conservative is one whose premise is always absolute truth; a liberal is one whose premise is always relative truth.) Relative truth versus absolute truth is a part of the angelic conflict which is now perpetuated in human history.

Bible doctrine portrays the grace plan of God while evil reveals the genius of Satan's administration of the rulership of this world. Satan's policy of evil includes, not just sins, but a tremendous amount of human good; and it includes immoral as well as moral degeneracy.

Evil includes all the sins of arrogance, all of the pins related to fragging ourselves — the pins of the grenade. Evil is a major factor then in the function of reversionism. It comes in many forms.

It comes in the form of religion, in the form of putting a good foot forward in human good. remember that Christianity is not a religion. Religion is man seeking to gain the approbation of God by his human works and energy of the flesh; Christianity is God seeking man and finding him through the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Religion and Christianity are antithetical.

Evil comes in the form of socialism. Evil is a major factor in the function of reversionism. Evil then is a factor in religion, socialism, political internationalism, government abuse of power, panaceas of crusader arrogance, various functions of the arrogance complex, just to name a few.

There are four principles to remember about the study of reversionism

a. Both evil and Bible doctrine were here before we came into this world.

b. You cannot change evil, but evil can change you apart from Bible doctrine, absolute truth.

c. The believer who seeks to change evil is changed by evil.

d. Evil produces reversionism.

God removes from this world those who are changed by evil. This is the ultimate divine discipline. Furthermore, when the saturation of evil related to reversionism jeopardises the course of human history, that saturation of evil is removed under the principle: Jesus Christ controls history. For this reason races, empires, nations, organisations, families and individuals, are removed from history as a part of God's grace pruning. Were it not for divine grace pruning there would be no twentieth century. In this dispensation of the Church Age God has provided the means of avoiding evil and subsequent reversionism. Therefore we conclude with the mandate: Romans 12:21 "Stop being conquered by evil, but conquer evil by means of the absolute good [consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation]."

When legalism is perpetuated unchecked it results in moral degeneracy. When antinomianism is perpetuated it results in immoral degeneracy. When the believer reaches either of these categories he cannot be distinguished from his unbeliever counterpart. Furthermore, by that time he has developed tremendous concepts of heresy from prolonged cosmic involvement.

When either of the trends of the OSN go unchecked there is great disaster in the spiritual life. That disaster is either moral or immoral degeneracy.

No-one sins apart from human consent and therefore human volition is the source of sin. The OSN is the influence of sin and the temptation of sin and of course human volition or self-determination is the source of sin.

Self-fragmentation perpetuated means moving in the direction of the sin nature's trends and eventually in polarised fragmentation.

Where the unbeliever is concerned the sins of pre-salvation experience were all in one prom chip in the computer of divine decrees. These sins were all imputed to Jesus Christ on the cross and were judged. That is true of the post-salvation sins as well.

Moral Degeneracy

1. Legalism unchecked results in moral degeneracy.

2. Moral degeneracy expresses itself in various sins of arrogance. E.g. motivational sins such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, self-pity, hypersensitivity, seeking to change others to conform to the pattern of legalism. Secondly there are functional sins such as revenge, inordinate ambition combined with inordinate competition to form conspiracy, slander, maligning, gossiping, judging, crusader arrogance resulting in Christian activism which results in the destruction of property, civil disobedience, violence, and even in Christians committing murder in the name of Christ.

There are the sins of asceticism including the commitment of heresies, extreme self-denial, and self-mortification, abstinence from normality, abnormal austerity.

3. Moral degeneracy substitutes human ability, human energy, human power, for the ability and the energy and the power of God the Holy Spirit.

4. Moral degeneracy justifies sinful and evil action through distorting morality into a system for justifying tyranny and evil.

5. Moral degeneracy follows the pattern of post-salvation sinning in three categories: a. Implode; b. Explode; c. Revert. Degeneracy is defined as decline from standards considered normal, to revert from divine standards, to sink to a state below normal for the protocol plan of God.

If moral degeneracy has any predominant characteristic it is the tendency to judge others. We will classify this tendency as judgement arrogance. Judgement arrogance is the function of the self-righteous legalist who is seeking to impose his false standards on others. He is judging them for not accepting his standards; he is judging them for not being like he is. He is in moral degeneracy.

Romans 14:8 "For if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore, whether we live or die we are the Lord's."

v9 "For this purpose Christ died and lives, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living."

v10 "But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt?" [The one who is in polarised legalism always judges the believer in polarised lawlessness and lasciviousness. He always regards him with contempt.] "We shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ."

v13 "Do not judge one another any more [this is the function of legalism, of polarised self-righteous arrogance]; but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way." What is that obstacle? Legalism. It is a distraction to the Christian way of life. Such judging is blasphemy for it interferes with the disciplinary function of our Lord. Such interfering brings judgement to the legalist.

Matthew 7:1-3. v1, "Judge not that you be not judged." V2 gives us the mechanics of legalism in every dispensation. "For in the manner you judge [the arrogant motivation of the legalist. Verbal sinning that includes slander, gossiping, maligning] you will be judged; and by what measure you measure it out, it shall be measured back to you." Moral degeneracy is under the most awful judgement from God. v3 "Why do you look at a speck of sawdust in your brothers eye and do not notice that you have a log in your own eye?" The log refers to the worst of all sins, the sins of arrogance, the sins of judging.

There are four patterns of post-salvation sinning: a. Frequent sinning. It is the status quo of polarised fragmentation. It is the final stages of reversionism. b. Continuous sinning — the status quo of both unchecked fragmentation and unchecked reversionism, therefore moral degeneracy. Continuous sinning in the field of polarised fragmentation toward the trend of legalism is moral degeneracy. c. Sporadic sinning — both fragmentation and reversionism checked by the rebound technique of 1John 1:9 d. Occasional sinning — both fragmentation and reversionism overcome by the following factors: 1. Perception and application of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God; 2. Learning and applying the ten unique factors of the Church Age; 3. Consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation — perception, metabolisation, application of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age; 4. The advance to spiritual adulthood — spiritual self-esteem, cognitive self-confidence, spiritual autonomy, cognitive independence, spiritual maturity, cognitive invincibility;5. By the impact of becoming an invisible hero.

Immoral degeneracy is polarised fragmentation toward the lascivious lawless trend of the sin nature. Immoral degeneracy among believers is expressed in the various sins of licentiousness, self-indulgence, and lawlessness. For example there are at least three categories of sinning involved in this trend:

* The category of licentiousness which is expressing the polarised trend of the sin nature in sexual sins — fornication, 1 Cor. 6:18; 1Thessalonians 4:3. Secondly, adultery is referred to in this connection, Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18. Mental adultery, Matthew 5:27,28. Incest, Leviticus 18:6-17; 20:14. Homosexuality is mentioned in Romans 1:26,27 and Leviticus 18:22; 20:13. Bestiality is mentioned in Leviticus 18:23; 20:15. Pimping and prostitution, Leviticus 19:29; Deuteronomy 23:17. Rape is found in Deuteronomy 22:25-27.

* Chemical sins is a second category in which believers become involved in drugs.

* The third category is criminality among Christians which includes murder, rape, robbery, burglary, con-games,and so on.

Immoral degeneracy follows the same pattern as moral degeneracy. Three words become the key: 1. Implode; 2. Explode; 3. Revert. Here implosion is used in the technical sense of succumbing to the sin nature's trend toward antinomianism, which is also called lascivious lawlessness. Implosion is the first step toward immoral degeneracy. If unchecked by the rebound technique and doctrinal orientation implosion becomes explosion. Explosion is the second stage of post-salvation sinning and a major step toward immoral degeneration. Fragmentation or explosion occurs in six categories and if unchecked by the rebound technique it will pave the way for immoral degeneracy.

These six categories include:

1. Self or personal fragmentation; 2. Polarised fragmentation; 3. Fragmentation of subjective arrogance which includes unrealistic expectation or subjective preoccupation with self and, secondly, role-model arrogance which is subjective preoccupation with others. (Note that role-model arrogance is related to peer pressure in the function of antinomianism.) 4. Human relationship fragmentation; 5. Emotional fragmentation which includes fear, worry, anxiety, anger, hatred, violence, murder; 6. God-relationship fragmentation which includes, a. Failure to execute the protocol plan of God through perception, metabolisation, and application of Bible doctrine; b. Failure to learn and to use our portfolio of invisible assets; c. Failure to learn and to use the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan; d. Failure to metabolise and apply the ten unique features of the dispensation of the Church is also a factor in this category. This failure includes: Failure to understand the baptism of the Spirit, the protocol plan of God, the equality factor in the computer of divine decrees, our portfolio of invisible assets, unique royal commissions — a royal priesthood and a royal ambassadorship, the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, the indwelling of every member of the Trinity, the unique availability of divine power — the omniscience of God the Father related to our invisible assets, the omnipotence of God the Son who guarantees the perpetuation of human history and guarantees to us a day at a time in history, and the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit which is the means of executing the protocol plan of God, this is the dispensation of no prophecy, this is the dispensation of invisible heroes.

The pattern of post-salvation sinning emphasises the last stages of reversionism in the context of Ephesians 4:17-19. The last stages of reversionism include permanent negative volition which means permanent cosmic involvement. It also means blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, and reverse process reversionism. The blackout of the soul comes from the vacuum of the mind. Negative volition toward truth in two categories: establishment truth for the entire human race and the mystery doctrine of the Church Age for the believer.

When the unbeliever is negative toward establishment truth a vacuum is created that destroys a nation. And when there is a rejection of Bible doctrine on the part of the believer the client nation goes down under the 5th cycle of discipline. Remember the principle: there is a true difference between conservative and liberal in this life, not just politically which is the way it is usually emphasised. But a conservative is any person who establishes his life on the absolute truth of Bible doctrine; a liberal is a person who establishes his life on relative factors.

In Ephesians 4:18, as a result of that vacuum in the mind, "they are darkened in their way of thinking." The vacuum of the mind brings darkness to the soul. They have been alienated or excluded from the life of God — believers excluded from the protocol plan of God because they have entered into these stages of reversionism. They have been alienated from the life of God because of scar-tissue in their right lobes.

So in this context we note three principles: a. Scar tissue of the soul precedes immoral degeneracy; b. Scar tissue of the soul becomes motivation for immoral degeneracy; c. Scar tissue of the soul becomes part of immoral degeneracy, Eph.4:19.

There are three categories involved in Ephesians 4:19. There is normal immorality in scar tissue of the soul which includes fornication and adultery. There is abnormal immorality in scar tissue of the soul which includes homosexuality, and incest. There is criminal immorality in scar tissue of the soul which includes rape, molesting or child abuse, and bestiality. Only the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God can solve the problem of polarised fragmentation. Polarised fragmentation is related to reversionism. The biblical nomenclature for reversionism in itself helps us to understand that this is the stage of degeneracy.

The nomenclature for reversionism: Drifting off course from grace, Gal. 5:4; The enemy of the cross, Phil. 3:18; Falling from grace, Heb. 12:15; Tortured soul, 2Peter . 2:7,8; Unstable soul, 2Peter . 2:14; Lukewarm, Rev. 3:15,16; Shipwrecked, 1 Tim. 1:19.

There are four patterns to post-salvation sinning. There is the Christian who is involved in the category of frequent sinning, the status quo of polarised fragmentation and the final stages of reversionism. Then there is continuous sinning, the status quo of both unchecked fragmentation and unchecked reversionism, therefore immoral degeneracy. Thirdly there is sporadic sinning, both fragmentation and reversionism checked by the rebound technique. Fourthly there is occasional sinning, both fragmentation and reversionism are overcome by the following factors: a. Perception and application of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God; b. Learning and applying the ten unique features of the Church Age; c. Consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation; d. Advance to spiritual adulthood; e. The impact of the invisible hero, which is tantamount to maximum glorification of God.

Immoral degeneracy is defined as the decline from normal standards of the protocol plan of God. Therefore, the believer sinks into such below normal categories as unchecked fragmentation and unchecked reversionism. Immoral degeneracy, then, follows the road of implosion, explosion, reversion.

Verse 17 — "therefore" the inferential particle o)un which denotes that what it introduces is an inference from what precedes. The preceding concept is found in verse 14, the pattern of failure to execute the protocol plan of God. In verse 14 it says "that we no longer be childish" and the whole problem that is brought out by one word, "therefore," is based on the fact that in any generation when the majority of the believers are childish it is a disaster for Christianity. It means the shrinking of the pivot; it means that the principle "as goes the believer so goes the client nation to God" is in trouble. So our little word o)un actually takes us back to another word, nhpioj — childish. Fragmented believers are described by this word.

When it says in verse 14, "that we no longer be childish, destabilised in heavy seas," this is a reference to implosion, explosion, and reversion. And "driven out of control by every wind of false teaching, by the trickery of people [people who teach false doctrine], by cunning deception for the purpose of scheming of deceit,"

Our first word that we note, o)un, means that Paul is going to pick up the subject of verse 14 and amplify it in verses 17-19. When he picks up the thread he is explaining what he is doing in the present active indicative of the verb legw, to speak, to communicate, or sometimes to teach. In anticipation of the context Paul is about to teach the pattern of Christian apostasy, failure to teach the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. We will note this pattern under three words: implode, explode, revert. We have implosion in verse 17, reversion in verse 18, fragmentation and degeneracy in verse 19.

The pin of the grenade for implosion is anything related to the arrogance complex or to the complex of emotional sin. Arrogance is a complex in itself. Every believer is a walking grenade with the potential of implosion and explosion and the pin of the grenade that can only be used by the use of your own volition or self-determination, includes the sins of the arrogance complex and the sins of the emotional complex. The sins of the arrogance complex include everything from jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, guilt, revenge motivation, revenge function, gossip, slander, maligning, judging, inordinate ambition combined with inordinate competition to form the undermining of authority. The sins of the emotional complex include far, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, violence, and even murder. Either group pulls the pin of the grenade resulting in self-fragmentation.

Implosion is the first stage of post-salvation sinning. The second stage is called explosion or fragmentation and is the fragmented life which results from implosion.

4:17b: We now come to the phrase in which we are going to note the principle that all contradictions to the plan of God must be eliminated.

1. God is perfect therefore His plan is perfect.

2. Perfect God can only devise a perfect plan.

3. Believers are imperfect. Therefore the plan of God includes ways and means to resolve our imperfections.

4. We cannot execute the protocol plan of God while we are in a state of post-salvation sinning.

The second phrase in 4:17 begins with a conjunction, kai. It is followed by the present active indicative of the verb, marturomai, to insist or to affirm. Translation: "and I insist."

Then follows the prepositional phrase en plus the instrumental of cause from the noun kurioj. Translated: "because of the Lord." It is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ in hypostatic union as the prince ruler of the Church.

Translation of verse 17 so far: "Therefore I communicate this, and because of the Lord I insist." When it says "because of the Lord" this is a reference to the hypostatic union. All precedence for the Church Age is taken from the previous dispensation.

For the gospels to be interpreted require understanding three things. First of all Jesus Christ, during that particular dispensation, was presenting Himself to Israel as their Messiah, as the Son of David, as the fulfilment of the Davidic covenant. And He therefore gave a message dealing with that fact. This explains Matthew chapters 5-7 which is called the sermon on the mount. It just so happens that this was a presentation of our Lord's policy when He rules Israel. Now He was rejected as the ruler and therefore the sermon on the mount will not be in effect until the second advent of Jesus Christ will rule both Israel as the Son of David, and the entire world. The concepts given in the sermon on the mount are related to the perfect environment of the Millennium.

Then there is a second thing about the gospels. The Messiahship of our Lord is postponed and therefore there are certain parts of the four gospels which are nothing more than eschatology. They are a prophecy about the future, about the Tribulation.

There is a third type of prophecy which is mentioned in the dispensation of the hypostatic union, and that has to do with the Church, the first announcements of the Church. And the first one to talk about anything related to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age was our Lord's message. So we have the upper room discourse, all about the Church.

The gospels set a precedent for the Church Age. We do not get our precedence from Israel, we do not have Sabbath worship, we do not have tithing (a system of income tax), we do not have a specialised priesthood (every believer is a priest), we do not take anything from Israel except the laws of divine establishment. Precedence for the Church Age is taken from the dispensation of the hypostatic union. Precedence means simply this: Our Lord's humanity lived in the prototype divine dynasphere during the 33 years of that dispensation. His humanity remained in the divine dynasphere so that He was qualified to go to the cross and be judged for our sins. And of course everything that the humanity of Christ did was dependant on the provision of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Now we have a precedent, we have the operational type divine dynasphere, and therefore we are mandated to execute the protocol plan of God inside the operational type divine dynasphere.

Now this meant that the apostle Paul often used words that were very strong in the original languages. He said: "I insist." Why could he insist? Because his interpretation was correct, and because he had an accurate interpretation of absolute truth he could follow it up with the various words of command. He did not pull any punches, he spoke in the power of the Spirit, and therefore we have to take what he says as a mandate from God.

"Because of the Lord," i.e. because of the dispensation of the hypostatic union which provides the precedence for the protocol plan for the Church Age, and because the humanity of Christ was victorious in the prototype divine dynasphere the Church Age believer in the body of Christ can be victorious in the operational type.

The victory of the Church Age believer then is based on two facts: either on avoidance of or recovery from post-salvation sinning, and the utilisation of our portfolio of invisible assets, especially the ten problem-solving devices.

Then we have the appeal to abandon or to overcome the pre-salvation pattern of sinning. We begin with the accusative plural of general reference of the personal pronoun su — you. Then we have a negative adverb mhketi — no longer; "walk" — peripatew, often used for modus operandi. The present tense is a retroactive progressive tense because it denotes an action that began in the past when we were unbelievers.

The pre-salvation pattern of sinning remains unchecked by God's grace provision and the believer continues the pattern of implosion, explosion, reversion, in the status of a born-again believer. The retroactive progressive present poses the question then: After salvation, what? A question not answered as yet by some of the believers in Ephesus and in the Roman province of Asia, the place that would eventually become the source of the first great pivot in the Roman empire and one of the greatest pivots of all time. Failure to execute the protocol plan of God after salvation is based either on indifference or on active rejection of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Whether apathy or active rejection the result is always the same, you go back to what you were before salvation.

"even as" kaqoj. "Gentiles" e)qnoj — used here as a term for unbelievers — "even as Gentiles walk." A reference to pre-salvation modus operandi. Hence the believer in ignorance follows the function of whatever his pre-salvation modus operandi was; "walk" peripatew. This time the word is a descriptive present or a progressive present of description. This use of the present tense describes what is now actually taking place. Paul is talking to people who are now believers and this is what they were now doing, what they used to do, following the same pattern. They had not understood the Christian way of life was required after one becomes a Christian and that you have to learn how to execute the Christian way of life.

Principle: The believer who is negative toward doctrine or who is not even interested and fails to learn doctrine from a pastor who is teaching, is not going to change his pattern. He is going to live exactly like an unbeliever.

Principle: You cannot tell the difference between the believer who is negative toward doctrine and the unbeliever who is his counterpart. There is no difference. They are actually following the same pattern.

"in vanity" — e)n plus the locative of sphere, mataiothj. Mataiothj refers to a vacuum caused by negative volition and subsequent ignorance of Bible doctrine; "mind" — nouj, refers to left lobe of the mentality of the soul in contrast to the right lobe which is kardia or the heart. It means mind, sometimes thinking. The believer who does not learn doctrine will never get past the left lobe of his soul. And when he hears Bible teaching it will always be gnwsij; it will be academic. He has no spiritual understanding and therefore he cannot possibly execute the protocol plan.

Ephesians 4:17, corrected translation: "Therefore I communicate this, and because of the Lord, I insist that you no longer walk even as Gentiles walk, in the vacuum of their mind, ..."

Implosion is the volition succumbing to the pressure, temptation from the sin nature in the left lobe of the soul. The implosion is self-fragmentation or succumbing to the sins of the pin of the grenade. The pin of the grenade is pulled by volition or self-determination. Remember that the pin of the grenade is the entire arrogance complex with the emotional sin complex thrown in as well.

To irritate means to cite impatience or anger, to cause or to induce impatience or anger, to exasperate, to annoy, to irritate to the point where self-control is lost. Now the interesting thing about irritation is that it is a good illustration of implosion. Under the protocol plan of God the believer in Jesus Christ cannot be irritated by other people, only by self. In other words there is always an object of irritation and the object of irritation is blamed. But actually what irritation is generally an emotional sin, implosion, you do it to yourself. Implosion then is self-irritation, we do it to ourselves. In reality we as believers must take the responsibility for our own irritation. Always there is an object and we always blame the object, that is where the disaster begins.

The source of all sin is volition so it is the pressure on the temptation of the old sin nature, plus our volition, that produces sin. There are four words in the New Testament for the sin nature: 1. A(martia — sin in the singular; 2. Sarc — flesh, which tells us the location of the sin nature [in the cell structure of the body]; 3. Two words are used for a third nomenclature — __palaioj plus a)nqrwpoj, translated "old man." That is because the sin nature originated in the Garden of Eden, it is as old as the history from the time of the fall; 4. Sarkinoj — belonging to the flesh or belonging to the sin nature. It is translated "carnal" in the King James version.

Polarised fragmentation is the second step toward Christian degeneracy. It follows the trend of the OSN, either lascivious lawlessness or antinomianism, and self-righteous arrogance or legalism.

Reversion is not only the third stage of post-salvation sinning but it is also the final step of moving into degeneracy. Degeneracy for our study is defined as decline from the normal standards of the protocol plan of God through implosion, explosion, and reversion. Therefore the believer unchecked by rebound sinks into subnormal categories of personal sinning.

There are eight categories of reversion

1. The reaction and distraction stage.

2. The frantic search for happiness stage.

3. Operation boomerang.

4. Emotional revolt of the soul.

5. Permanent negative volition where the moral or immoral believer cannot be distinguished from his unbeliever counterpart.

6. Blackout of the soul. [The beginning of Christian degeneracy].

7. Scar tissue of the soul. [The continuation of Christian degeneracy].

8. Reverse process reversionism. [Locked-in degeneracy].

The guide for post-salvation sinning becomes important

There are four categories of post-salvation sinning

1. The believer in frequent sinning — the status quo of the believer who follows the pattern of implosion, explosion, and the first half of reversion. It is characterised by ignorance and therefore failure to utilise the rebound technique.

2. Continuous sinning — the status quo of the believer who follows the pattern of implosion, explosion, and continues in the last half of reversion.

3. Sporadic sinning — occurs when the believer checks implosion, explosion, and reversion, through the consistent utilisation of the rebound technique. He follows up with the use of the other problem-solving devices.

4. Occasional sinning — occurs when the believer checks implosion, explosion, and reversion, through rebound and the other problem-solving devices. It is the status of the believer in spiritual adulthood.

The definition of reversionism

To revert is defined as returning to a former practise, a former habit, a former belief, a former status quo. Hence reversion is the act of reverting to a former practice, habit, belief. In this study it is to return to the former habits of post-salvation sinning, post-salvation thinking, and the modus operandi of implosion, explosion, and revert. It is maximum control of the old sin nature over the life of the believer so that the believer functions under the dictates of the sin nature exactly as he did as an unbeliever. The reversionistic believer then is classified as a loser, not in the sense of losing salvation which is impossible, but failing to exercise the protocol plan and losing escrow blessings for time and for eternity.

Next we note the distinction between carnality and reversionism. Carnality is an absolute status quo of being out of fellowship, of being in a state of sin; reversion, on the other hand is a relative state of decline in which the believer retrogresses toward Christian degeneracy. The carnal believer is generally positive toward doctrine, faithful in the use of the rebound technique, and never loses interest in Christian doctrine. The reversionistic believer follows the pattern of implosion, explosion, and sinks into the various stages of reversion, unchecked by rebound.

While all reversionists are carnal, under the control of the sin nature, all carnal believers are not reversionistic. Carnality can exist temporarily while the believer is advancing in the protocol plan.

Degeneracy is defined as a state of deterioration, a decline to false standards, a decline to inferior standards, loss of integrity, the process of passing from the higher to the lower, to decline progressively. Degeneracy is defined as the decline from normal standards of the protocol plan of God to sink into the subnormal status quo of self-fragmentation and the eight stages of reversionism. Degeneracy then is the decline form the true standards of the protocol plan to the inferior and sinful standards of polarised fragmentation. In polarised fragmentation there are two categories of false standards or distorted standards — the false standards of legalism and the distorted standards of antinomianism. Degeneracy then is the loss of integrity resulting in passing from a higher to a lower level of motivation and modus operandi.

Implosion — inward explosion, inward burst. That inward burst destroys the integrity so while implosion is an inward burst it results in an outward burst. To implode is defined as succumbing to temptation. It is followed by explode in which the believer moves toward one of the trends of the sin nature. We then get into the third category which is reversion.

Moral degeneracy actually begins with blackout of the soul. It actually continues and gains momentum in the scar tissue of the soul, but it reaches its peak in reverse process reversionism.

Implosion: Integrity is used in engineering for a skin or an envelope or anything in a quality or state or being complete. Integrity means that it is unimpaired, unmarred in its status or condition. It means entire, the quality or state of being complete. It is used, for example, of a ship's watertight status — watertight integrity. To implode means to burst inwardly to penetrate the integrity with a greater pressure which forces the inward burst. Therefore implosion is used in the connotation of the believer succumbing to the pressures of temptation from his OSN. This is analogous to self-fragmentation or the believer pulling the pin of the grenade.

Degeneracy means to decline progressively. Moral degeneracy not only advocates salvation by works but confuses morality with spirituality. Morality is the legal function of the laws of divine establishment; it is designed for believers and unbelievers alike. Morality assumes human freedom to both believer and unbeliever — that is temporal freedom — and therefore one of the great principles of morality. Morality is something that the unbeliever can execute in the energy of the flesh. Morality is understanding freedom and its execution — temporal freedom that is. Moral degeneracy does not recognise any category of human freedom. Moral degeneracy rejects temporal freedom for both believer and unbeliever under the laws of divine establishment. And spiritual freedom is also rejected — residence, function and momentum inside of the divine dynasphere. And the Christian way of life of course is a supernatural way of life and therefore can only be executed in the power of the Spirit; it cannot be executed by morality. Morality is the basis for human freedom and that does not mean that immorality is advocated for the believer, but in the execution of God's plan for your life we go into something much greater than any system of morality. Moral degeneracy cannot understand God's grace or God's policy, nor the power of the Spirit-filled life. Moral degeneracy judges and slanders and maligns other believers. One of the greatest areas of arrogance in moral degeneracy is the believer setting aside the prerogatives of God in judgement and using his own prerogatives. Judgement belongs to God and not to believers as far as other believers are concerned.

Judgement is the weapon of moral degeneracy. In Romans 14 this is presented as one of the problems of moral degeneracy:

v8. "For if we live, we live for the Lord [living the Christian life]; and if we die, we die for the Lord [the Lord makes the decision as to when we die]; therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's [regardless of our spiritual status]." (The true evaluation of our lives is in the hands of the Lord).

v9. "For this purpose Christ died, and lived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living.

v10. "But you, why do you judge your brother? [Moral degeneracy sets aside the divine prerogative of judgement.] Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we all will stand before the judgement seat of Christ."

The whole point is: If the Lord is going to judge us in the future, and the Lord is evaluating us now, what are believers doing judging other believers?

v11. "For it stands written [Quotation from Isaiah 45:23], As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall acknowledge the Lord."

v12. "So, then, each one of us shall give an account of himself to the Lord."

v13. "Therefore, do not judge one another any more; but rather determine this: not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in another's way" [How? By slander, by maligning, by judging].

Matthew 7:1 — "Stop judging, that you be not judged.

v2. For in the manner you judge, you will be judged;

(You do three things in the manner of judgement. First of all you have mental attitude sins which are the motivation. Secondly, you have verbal sins in which you express this judgement. Thirdly, you name or cite or express sins that you associate with someone else. So therefore you have a manner of judging.) and by what measure you measure it out, it shall be measured back to you.

Stage 6: Blackout of the soul

The interesting thing about blackout of the soul is that you cannot distinguish the thinking of the believer with the thinking of the unbeliever. This relates to the left lobe of the soul called the nouj. Then we have scar tissue of the soul and that relates to the kardia. These two, when they add up together, they move into stage 8 which is reverse process reversionism, the final stage of Christian degeneracy. We must remember the vacuum of the mind refers to two factors in the decline to Christian degeneracy. The first is implosion in which the vacuum is created by succumbing to the temptations of the OSN, and secondly the fifth stage of reversionism which is permanent negative volition toward doctrine. In the 5th stage of reversionism the thinking of the believer cannot be distinguished from the thinking of his unbeliever counterpart.

When we start v18 it is a continuation of the sentence begun in v17, "In the vacuum of their minds they have been darkened in their way of thinking."

v18. "darkened" perfect participle from the verb skotizw, to become dark, or to be darkened. This verb is only found in the passive voice and would be the word skotizomai. The present state of the believers to whom Paul speaks in verse 18 is blackout of the soul. They arrived at that through implosion, explosion, reversion.

"being" — eimi. The present tense is a durative present. It is also known as a retro-active progressive present for an action that began in the past and continues into the present. The action that began in the past was implosion, explosion, and polarised fragmentation, and is now in the 6th stage of reversion. The action continues to the point of blackout of the soul.

Next is the locative of sphere, also called the locative of influence. It includes two words: first, the definite article toi, and dianoia — understanding or intelligence. Dianoia is an alternative for the noun nouj which is the reference to the left lobe of the soul. Dianoia refers to academic perception, not metabolised. They are darkened in that area, and because they are darkened in that area the vacuum concept continues. That vacuum sucks in everything that is false. This is a reference to the inability to think in terms of absolutes and Bible doctrine. Christian degeneracy also means exclusion from the protocol plan of God, and that is what we have next, another perfect passive participle, and this one indicates what type of thinking is completely blotted out of their mind. The perfect passive participle of a)pallotriw which means to be estranged, to be alienated, excluded. The intensive perfect tense denotes a present state resulting from a past action. The present state is the 6th stage of reversionism. They are now in the first part of Christian degeneracy. In this case it is moral degeneracy because they are very self-righteous, arrogant, and extremely inaccurate in their thinking. The present state is the blackout of the soul, the beginning of Christian degeneracy. They are what they are because they have made all of these bad decisions from a position of weakness.

Principle: Just as unbelievers have been alienated from the life of God, now these believers are exactly like unbelievers. You cannot distinguish between the believer and unbeliever in thinking once the believer reaches stage 6, the blackout of the soul. The only difference is that the believer has eternal life and the unbeliever is under eternal condemnation. John 3:18 says, "He who believes in him is not judged; but he who does not believe is judged already, because he has not believed in the uniquely-born Son of God."

So we can translate: "they have been alienated, been estranged, been excluded." Next we have an ablative of separation from two words: thj, a definite article, and zwh, life. It is translated "the life of God." The definite article is used to identify the protocol plan of God. The word in the ablative denotes that from which Christian degeneracy is separated. It is separated from the life of God. Just as the unbeliever is separated from the life of God, so the Christian in degeneracy is separated from the plan of God.

Ephesians 4:18 in translation (the first part of the verse): "They [believers in Christian degeneracy] have been darkened in their way of thinking [in their left lobes] and they have been alienated from the life [the protocol plan] of God ..."

Christian degeneracy occurs in two categories related to the OSN: moral degeneracy is related to the trend of self-righteous arrogance [polarised legalism]; immoral degeneracy is related to the trend toward lascivious lawlessness [polarised antinomianism]. Christian degeneracy is defined as that believer who has declined from the superior standards of the protocol plan of God and therefore has moved into the sub-normal standards of fragmentation, reversionism, degeneracy.

Degeneracy, then, is defined as a state of deterioration, a decline to false and inferior standards, a decline from the true and superior standards of the protocol plan, to the sub-normal status standard of implode, explode, revert. Christian degeneracy, then, is a state of ignorance as well as a state of experience or practice. The state of ignorance is related to God-relationship fragmentation and the blackout of the soul.

This comes out in the phrase that follows: dia plus the accusative of cause from a)gnoia. It should be translated "because of the ignorance." The accusative of cause indicates the ground or the reason for the action. It explains Christian degeneracy in terms of ignorance of Bible doctrine. Not that people haven't learned it in the past, but once blackout of the soul is reached, everything learned is forgotten. The vacuum in the left lobe draws in so much false doctrine, so much false teaching, so many erroneous concepts, that it completely blots anything that may have been learned that might be helpful.

Now we have a prepositional phrase: en plus the locative of sphere from autoj — in them. Trans. "because of the ignorance which is in them."

V18 "because of the ignorance" in the accusative case indicates the ground or reason for the action. And the ground or the reason for the action is Christian degeneracy in terms here of ignorance of Bible doctrine. Therefore, Christian degeneracy is related to God relationship fragmentation.

"which is in them" — an ignorance first of all manifested in God relationship fragmentation. Secondly an ignorance which is manifest in the vacuum of the soul. Thirdly an ignorance which is manifest in the blackout of the soul.

Principle: Ignorance of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age is a major factor in combining with fragmentation and reversion to produce Christian degeneracy.

God relationship fragmentation is defined as failure to execute the protocol plan of God through neglect of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. Lack of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation means failure to perceive, to metabolise, and to apply Bible doctrine. This means ignorance of your very own portfolio of invisible assets; this means failure to learn and to use the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God; this means failure to understand the mechanics as to how the protocol plan of God is executed; this means failure to metabolise the ten unique features of the Church Age and their significance in human history. Such ignorance of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age means God relationship fragmentation, blackout of the soul. The regenerate Christian is generally ignorant of Bible doctrine under these conditions.

Scar Tissue Of The Soul: No 7 stage of reversionism

This is introduced with another prepositional phrase. While the blackout of the soul relates to the left lobe of the soul or the nouj, the right lobe is of the soul — kardia.

We have a preposition dia plus the accusative singular of cause again from the noun pwrwsij. Can be translated "because of the hardening, because of the callousness, or because of the scar tissue." Here this accusative of cause explains why such believers are involved in scar tissue of the soul. This is followed by three possessive genitives. The first is the definite article, thj. The second is a)utoj, an intensive pronoun used as a personal pronoun. The third is the noun, kardia. Literal translation: "because of the scar tissue which is in their right lobes."

Remember: blackout of the soul — left lobe, nouj; scar tissue of the soul — right lobe, kardia. Left lobe, academic understanding; right lobe, metabolised understanding.

Characteristics of the right lobe include

1. A frame of reference — the entrance of all spiritual phenomena, metabolised doctrine. It enters into the frame of reference. This is the conceptual chamber where doctrines, principles, categories of scripture, are all stored. It is where everything you have learned has the basis for understanding what is now entering. It is the area of retention for all metabolised or e)pignwsij doctrine. Therefore the frame of reference is the location for the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, the ten problem-solving devices, the ten unique characteristics of the Church Age, the edification complex of the soul, the portfolio of invisible assets, the mechanics for understanding after salvation, what?

2. The memory centre — While the frame of reference in the right lobe is the place of retention of metabolised doctrine, the memory centre is the place for recall of that doctrine — of vocabulary, of concepts, recall of mechanics, recall of problem-solving devices. The memory centre is the location of sofia — wisdom, wisdom department or launching pad for application of doctrine.

3. Vocabulary storage — Thoughts are made up of words. You do not understand anything in life until you understand its technical language. E.g. philosophy, theology, engineering, computer science, etc. The Word of God has its own technical language. A baby must learn a vocabulary of a language in which to think, so at the point of regeneration, we born-again believers must learn a new vocabulary of technical, theological and Biblical terms so that we can understand God's plan.

4. Categorical Storage — fulfils the hermeneutical principle of comparing a scripture with scripture. Scripture often has a large number of areas in the Bible where a same subject is presented. It is presented from different angles and therefore different categories develop. Categorical storage is the basis for the classification of Bible doctrine; it is tantamount to the principle of cognitive independence or spiritual self-esteem; it is the basis for conceptualism and the function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

5. The conscience — of our right lobe or heart is the location of our norms and standards extrapolated from Bible doctrine, therefore true norms and standards as over against false norms and standards. From the norms and standards of the conscience comes the individual's priorities in life, and these priorities form the believer's scale of values. false standards in the conscience can cause spiritual weakness as in 1Corinthians 8:7 — divine omnipotence and human power are mutually exclusive. The execution of the protocol plan of God, therefore, cannot be accomplished by any form of human power, energy of the flesh, human good — dead works.

Now these are the first five characteristics of the right lobe, and where you have scar tissue you have no frame of reference, no memory centre, no recall, no vocabulary storage, no categories, no conscience that lines up with the Word of God.

6. The momentum department. Obviously when you have scar tissue of the soul you're in Christian degeneracy and there is no momentum in the spiritual life — retrogression and progressive decline, no momentum, no advance. This then is the department of spiritual growth and hence the function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation in reception and retention and recall. This is the essence of operation Z in which there is perception, metabolisation, and application of Bible doctrine, therefore spiritual momentum. Accelerated growth occurs when suffering for blessing is combined with the function of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

7. The wisdom department — classified as the launching pad for the application of metabolised doctrine only. There is no metabolised doctrine in scar tissue of the soul. Whatever has been learned formerly has been forgotten or buried, and therefore is not usable. Wisdom is the application then of metabolised doctrine and problem-solving devices to the various experiences, adversities, sufferings, and problems in life. Hence wisdom is the application of Bible doctrine to suffering for blessing. The Greek sofia and the Hebrew chakma is the function of applying metabolised doctrine to life.

8. The subconscious mind — a burial plot for many things learned in the past but in the subconscious mind they are not available. All they can do is provide some bad dreams from time to time — causes you to be worried about something but you're not sure what it is.

The subconscious department of the heart, or the right lobe, is the place for the storage of impressions, thoughts, emotions, which do not exist in the conscious mind. The subconscious includes aspects of the mental life which are not immediately, therefore, a part of the individual's conscious mind, since certain emotional factors would not ordinarily permit the content to surface in the conscious mind.

The subconscious mind affects thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, without even entering into awareness. Therefore the subconscious is the impression or mental activity just below the threshold of consciousness. Metabolised doctrine in the right lobe, the use of the ten problem-solving devices, the application of wisdom, can remove obstructive repressions and the content emerges then into awareness — but not in the status quo of scar tissue of the soul. For blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals locked in Christian degeneracy and/or reverse process reversionism. Scar tissue of the soul hinders the proper spiritual function of the right lobe.

A divine mandate regarding scar tissue of the soul is given in 1John 2:15: "Stop loving the cosmic system or anything which is in the cosmic system. If anyone keeps loving the cosmic system, the love of the Father is not in him."

The divine mandate as the enemy of evangelism is found in John 12:40: "He has blinded their eyes [blackout of the soul], he has hardened their right lobes [scar tissue of the soul]; lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their right lobe, and receive conversion, and I restore them." "Conversion" here means recovery from degeneracy.

2Peter 2:22 — the unbeliever inside the cosmic system. Here's the Gospel, shows momentary interest and rejects it. He is compared to the dog returning to his own vomit.

Scar tissue of the soul has eternal repercussions as far as the unbeliever is concerned — Romans 2:5: "But because of your hardness [scar tissue] and unrepentant right lobe you store up and accumulate wrath, even the manifestation of the just judgement of God."

The mechanics of the scar tissue in relationship to the unbeliever is described in 2Thessalonians 2:10-12: V10 "And with every deception of evil for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, so as to be saved." V11 "And for this reason God sends them a deluding influence [something they brought on themselves by an accumulation of bad decisions] so that they might believe the lie." V12 "In order that they all might be condemned in judgement who do not believe the truth, but take pleasure in wrongdoing [has to do with fragmentation leading into reversion]."

For believers, scar tissue of the soul results in malfunction of problem-solving devices. That's why Psalm 95:8 says: "Do not harden your heart, as at Meribah [the Meribah revolution was the result of a maximum number of Jewish believers in the Exodus generation becoming involved in reversionism so that the function of the faith-rest drill was superseded by scar tissue of the soul]."

Ephesians 4:18 "They have been darkened in their way of thinking [blackout of the soul], and they have been estranged from the life of God [the protocol plan] because of the ignorance which is in them, and because of the scar tissue which is in their right lobes".

Romans 9:17: "For the scripture says to Pharaoh, I have caused you to continue in history in order that I might demonstrate my power by means of you, and in order that my person might be proclaimed throughout the earth."

It will be noticed that there are two objectives in this verse in keeping a blasphemous Pharaoh [who was in scar tissue of the soul] alive. They are: "In order that I might demonstrate my power by means of you" and "in order that my person might be proclaimed throughout the earth [world wide evangelism]."

Exodus 9:12: Five out of the ten plagues had already been in function. "And the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart" — scar tissue of the soul. But the problem here is it said the Lord did it. How is that explained?

"and he did not listen to them [Moses and Aaron], just as the LORD had predicted to Moses."

v13. "Then the LORD said to Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say to him, Thus decrees the LORD the God of the Hebrews, Release my people, that they may serve me." This is a reference to the fact that Israel would be the first client nation to God.

v14. "For this time I will send all my plagues [judgements] to your right lobe, both to your servants and to your people, that there is no one like me in all the earth."

v15. "For if by now I have put forth my hand and struck you down and your people with disease, then you would have been cut off from the earth."

This alternative must not enter into the divine decrees because it did not happen and, therefore, is a statement from divine omnipotence showing the alternative. God didn't cut him out; He didn't kill him for his hardness of heart. He permitted him to continue to live.

In each of the five plagues we have the fact that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. So it was his negative volition at the end of the sixth one where you have blackout of the soul and you go on to scar tissue of the soul. In one through six plagues he has used his own volition to get to the point of scar tissue of the soul. Now, it says, the Lord is going to harden his heart. What does it mean? It means simply that he will continue negative volition in each one of these plagues, and the Lord permitted him to live. And by being permitted to live Pharaoh broke the world's record for scar tissue of the soul.

What was entered into the divine decrees then was scar tissue of the soul used by God for two things: First, to demonstrate His divine power and, secondly, world wide evangelism.

v16. "On the contrary, I have established you [permitted you to continue in history knowing that you will say, No], that I may demonstrate to you my power; in order that my person may be celebrated in all the earth."

In the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, or in the continuation of Amenhotep's life on earth, we have the world's record in history, up to that time, of scar tissue in the soul. Human resistance to the divine plan and will always reveals the power of God. This is a principle that must be remembered. When great human resistance exists it is always followed by world wide evangelism.

In the first five plagues Pharaoh hardened his own heart; he expressed his own scar tissue. He was degenerate. It was only beginning with the sixth plague that we have any reference to the Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart. And the pattern for the first five plagues is stated in Exodus 7:13: "Yet Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he did not listen to them [Moses and Aaron]." So after each of the first five plagues Pharaoh demonstrated scar tissue of the soul, total lack of integrity, status quo degeneracy. After each plague he actually was demonstrating the phenomenal power and motivation of degeneracy. Principle: Degeneracy has power and motivation, and it is seen in every generation of history.

Pharaoh had many opportunities for positive volition: cf Exodus 7:22; 8:15,32; 9:34,35. But every message of truth and every demonstration of divine power was unimpressive to Pharaoh. Why? Because he was in scar tissue of the soul. Principle: Scar tissue of the soul says No to God. And the more times scar tissue says No to God it strengthens the scar tissue to the point where the scar tissue of the soul is completed, you have reverse process reversionism, and that person can't even change his own mind at that point.

God kept permitting Pharaoh to live. That's what it meant when it says, He hardened Pharaoh's heart. He permitted Pharaoh to live and say "No" five more times. This is called God hardening Pharaoh's heart. God does not Himself do it; God permits Pharaoh to live and to express to the maximum scar tissue of the soul. God did not coerce Pharaoh's volition; He merely gave him extra opportunity to express negative volition in the status quo of the scar tissue of the soul. So the justice of God provided Pharaoh maximum opportunity to express scar tissue by keeping him a live and exposing him to plagues six through ten. And this extension of Pharaoh's life by divine decree is expressed under the principle: "The LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart."

Godpreserved the life of Pharaoh to demonstrate His divine power. And to demonstrate the fact that even Pharaoh Amenhotep II was one of the three most powerful men in all of the world in his time God's power, God's omnipotence was infinitely greater. All the power that this world had at that time was used to hinder the formation of the first client nation to God. The power of a mighty ruler of a great empire, plus the power of Satan as the ruler of the world, plus the whole system of self-determination — implode, explode, revert — that Pharaoh had used, could not frustrate the plan of God.

Principle: There is no system of degeneracy linked with unusual power that can ever hinder God's plan. The more Satan and Pharaoh combined their volitions to resist the power of God, the greater the demonstration of that power. The ten plagues demonstrate that "greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world." God uses the wrath of man to praise Him.

The combination of Satan's power and Pharaoh's human power and authority not only advanced the plan of God so that in every generation the believer has the application of the essence of God rationales but, even more than that, it is the means of evangelism in any given generation.

When Paul quotes Exodus 9:16 in Romans 9:17 he does so to prove that the Jews living at the first advent — the Dispensation of the Hypostatic Union — and for the century thereafter of the Church age, had broken Pharaoh's record in the Exodus generation.

Revelation 1:8: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." "I am" — perfect active indicative of e)imi plus e)gw, the nominative singular subject, first personal singular pronoun, for it is the Lord Jesus Christ who is speaking. The pronoun is in the emphatic position to emphasise the fact that Jesus Christ is A)lfa and W). A)lfa refers to Jesus Christ as eternal God. There never was a time when Jesus Christ did not exist, co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit. Because of the first advent of Jesus Christ; because of the virgin birth and everything that followed. We are talking here about the hypostatic union: A)lfa, Jesus Christ is God; W), Jesus Christ is the God-Man, the hypostatic union, undiminished deity and true humanity in one Person forever — "I am the Alpha and the Omega."

And that is as close as we can come to that very famous statement in Deuteronomy 6:4: "Shema Israel (Hear O Israel), Adonai Elohenu (Jesus Christ is our God), Adonai Echad (Jesus Christ is unique)."

The deity of Christ = His Alpha glory. Omega refers to our Lord Jesus Christ in hypostatic union. The Omega glory of Christ starts with the virgin birth, the fact that Jesus Christ became true humanity in order that He might be judged for the sins of the world, the fact that He was qualified to be judged for the sins of the world because of His impeccability, and therefore His saving work on the cross, His physical death, His resurrection, His ascension, His session — and after His session the award of His third royal patent: King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Bright Morning Star.

The Omega glory of Jesus Christ indicates two things: not only the fact that Jesus Christ is God, but also that He is the creator of the universe, and as the God-Man, Alpha and Omega, Jesus Christ controls history. This means that the Church Age is a dead spot as far as prophecy is concerned because it is what we have to classify as the only truly historical dispensation — no prophecy.

We have all of the prophecies relating to the dispensation of Israel and how Israel was formed. We have all the prophecies related to the dispensation of the hypostatic union, from the virgin birth to impeccability, to the fact that Jesus Christ was sustained in His humanity inside the prototype divine dynasphere, the filling of the Spirit, the cross, resurrection, ascension, session, ands the award of His third royal title. All of those things were prophesied and fulfilled. Then one prophecy that begins the Church Age, given by our Lord just before He ascended: the prophecy of the baptism of the Spirit.

But you see when our Lord received His third royal title He was minus a royal family. In His first royal title, Son of God, He has a royal family — God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. In His second royal title, Son of David, He has a royal family — the Davidic dynasty. In His third royal title, awarded after the ascension, He has no royal family. The baptism of the Spirit is the means of forming that royal family, and that was prophesied by our Lord. So it belongs to eschatology. Then we go all the way to the resurrection of the Church. And in between, no prophecy. Therefore, our second illustration of scar tissue of the soul is in a period of no prophecy. In the Church Age we have to go by historical trends.

Historical trends in any given generation depend upon the number of believers residing and functioning inside the divine dynasphere, and advancing to spiritual maturity in what we have classified as the doctrine of the pivot. Church Age believers live between the two greatest political events in history, and therefore in between we have a principle: Jesus Christ controls history — Jesus Christ as Alpha and Omega controls history. Alpha — undiminished deity; Omega — true humanity. Historical blessing is administered through client nations to God. Historical disaster results with a maximum number of believers living in the cosmic system. Historical disaster is administered through evil nations who are anti-God. Whenever you see a small pivot of believers as we have today, it means you have a maximum number of believers on the road to Christian degeneracy. And, of course, once you get into a polarised trend you move right into reversionism. When you have a maximum number of believers who attain scar tissue of the soul, you always have a holocaust.

History repeats itself but people act as though the holocaust was something new. It has happened many, many times in history. It is something that happens at least once or twice in every century of the Church Age — and it is directly related to scar tissue of the soul. And we will see the scar tissue of the soul produces the destruction or heavy discipline or destruction of client nations to God on the one hand, and on the other hand has a direct effect on Jewish people. It explains that monstrous evil called anti-Semitism.

We have to see a principle: Jesus Christ controls history, and Jesus Christ in His Omega glory is the key to history. And historical blessing is administered through client nations to God. Historical disaster results from a maximum number of believers involved in the road to degeneracy, with emphasis on scar tissue of the soul. The Omega glory of Jesus Christ includes His uniqueness as the God-Man, His salvation work on the cross — which means He is the only saviour, His royal commission received after His ascension. We are living under the Omega glory of Jesus Christ in this dispensation, and God's blessing and administration of grace to us as believers is based on our Lord's Omega glory.

When our Lord said to John on the Island of Patmos, "I am Alpha and Omega," He was saying, "I am the God of Israel." "Adonai echad" = Jesus Christ is unique — that is Omega! This was the issue the prophets all the way from Isaiah to Zechariah taught — the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. This is the stumbling stone over which the Jewish unbeliever stumbles — Deuteronomy 6:4. What does the next verse (Deut. 6:5) say? "And you shall love the LORD thy God with all thy heart (right lobe, leb, the exact equivalent of kardia)." You love God with your right lobe only. Why? The eight compartments of the right lobe is the only place where spiritual phenomena resides, and you cannot love God without doctrine in your soul. In the left lobe we have academic understanding but it has no spiritual connotation. We can't love Him if the kardia or the leb is filled with scar tissue. That's how the record for scar tissue in the soul was broken in the dispensation of the hypostatic union, and how it is being broken in every generation, resulting in some form of terrible tragedy to Israel, but a tragedy that they bring upon themselves because no Jew can keep saying, "No", "No", "No," to Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad, without coming up with a permanent "No."

If you love the Lord with your right lobe, you love Him with your soul. Because all spiritual phenomena (all e)pignwsij doctrine, all chakma) is in the right lobe. So if you love Him with your right lobe (occupation with Christ) then you love Him with all of your soul, and with all of your power.

When Moses under the ministry of the Spirit wrote Deuteronomy 6 he said in verse 6: "And these doctrines, which I have commanded you today, shall be in your right lobes." That's the only place they can be profitable.

Self-determination is the basis for misery in life long before God adds any punitive action.

Romans 9:1-6. The real Israel is not the racial Jew but the born-again Jew. The Jew today recognises that there is a God of Israel but he does not recognise that He is the God-Man, even though the prophets made it very clear. What Israel is constantly seeking (Romans 11:7) is salvation through the God of Israel but they cannot find that salvation because of scar tissue of the soul. That scar tissue of the soul recognises Alpha but not Omega; it recognises Adonai Elohenu but not Adonai Echad.

The Jews who have recognised the Omega glory of Christ have attained salvation. The others show the manifestation of the scar tissue of the soul (Romans 11:7 — "the rest were hardened").

Romans 11:8 — Documentation by bringing together three verses from the Old Testament: Isaiah 29:10, Deuteronomy 29:4, Isaiah 6:9,10. "The God [Jesus Christ in His Alpha glory, as the God of Israel, as the Shekinah glory] has given to them a spirit of stupor [scar tissue of the soul] …"

A holocaust is not unique, it happens frequently in history. It is a terrible thing that can happen anywhere at any time. All that is needed is the combination of two things: the religious degeneracy of the Jews (their rejection of Omega) and historical degeneracy. A holocaust is simply a combination of religious degeneracy [negative volition of Israel] plus historical degeneracy [negative volition of power]. The religious degeneracy is the scar tissue of Israel in rejecting Christ as Saviour and historical degeneracy is the power that under Satan's influence persecutes the Jew. This will reach its peak in the middle of the Tribulation.

Rom. 11:8 " … eyes to see not, and ears to hear not, down to this very day." In other words the world's record once held by Pharaoh Amenhotep II has been broken in very generation from the virgin birth and the dispensation of the hypostatic union right down to our generation, because of scar tissue on the soul.

Verse 9 — (Psalm 69:22,23). " … Let their table [spiritual food, the doctrine of Israel as found in the Old Testament] become a snare, and a trap, [by means of rejection which builds up scar tissue] and a stumbling block [Jesus Christ is the stumbling block to Israel while the building of the Church is being erected], … "

When you have enough Jews who are negative and are in religious degeneracy, and you have a power on the earth in historical degeneracy [the abuse of power] you always are going to have a persecution of the Jews.Note: The same principle applies to the Gentiles as well.

" … and for a retribution [holocaust]."

Verse 10: "Let their eyes be darkened [negative volition] and see not [build-up of scar tissue of the soul], and bend their backs forever" — i.e. whenever there is a large enough reverse pivot of Jews who are negative toward doctrine their "backs will be bent," they are in slavery to this principle because of their own self-determination, the temporal judgements of history.

Verse 11: "I say, then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? No, definitely not; but by their apostasy [religious degeneracy] the salvation message belongs to the Gentiles [the times of the Gentiles], in order that they might be stimulated to emulation [to faith in Christ]."

right lobe (occupation with Christ) then you love Him with all of your soul, and with all of your power. We have seen how historical degeneracy always persecutes religious degeneracy. Three principles: 1. Blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals religious degeneracy. That comes from religious legalism. 2. Blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals historical degeneracy. 3. Historical degeneracy persecutes religious degeneracy, except where religious degeneracy possesses political or historical power.

Deuteronomy 6:4 — "Shema Israel" [Hear O Israel].

"Adonai elohenu." This is the exact equivalent of Revelation 1:8 where Jesus Christ said: "I am the Alpha." This is the Alpha glory of Jesus Christ as the eternal God.

"Adonai echad" — Adonai is unique [Jesus Christ is unique]. The Jews translate that as the word "one" and because of that they are blinded, for they accept the Alpha glory of Jesus Christ but they reject His Omega glory.

Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet; Omega is the last. Omega refers to Jesus Christ as the God-Man, as undiminished deity and true humanity in one Person forever. And there is a category of people in Israel which always functions under the same category of implosion. The integrity is destroyed through their negative volition toward the dispensation of the hypostatic union. Once the integrity is broken then these Jews move toward religious legalism. This is the trend toward religion.

On the other hand we have another trend of the sin nature related to historical power. Historical power distorted because this is historical power in the sin nature. This explains Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin, etc.

The religious side goes into reversionism which results in religious degeneracy. This is the unbelieving Jews beginning in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. Then we have the rise of historical power distorted — historical degeneracy. When there is a maximum saturation of negative volition there follows one of the principles of divine judgement administered through historical degeneracy. This explains the holocaust.

Romans 11:7-12

Verse 7: "Therefore to what conclusion are we forced?" — an idiom for "How stands the case?" What is Israel constantly seeking? They are seeking the Omega glory, the Messiah. He has already come. And why do they not know this? Because they are in the state of reversionism — implode, explode, and revert — they finally reached the stage six, [blackout of the soul] and with that scar tissue of the soul. They are locked in to a degeneracy that must be dealt with.

So what is Israel constantly seeking? This salvation it did not attain, "but the elect attained it" — they recognised the Omega glory — the Jews who recognised Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the God-Man, the Son of David, Son of God.

"and the others" [the Jews who rejected Christ in His Omega glory] "were hardened" [blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals religious degeneracy]. Religious degeneracy, like historical degeneracy, must be dealt with by God under the principle that Jesus Christ controls history.

Verse 10: "Let their eyes be darkened" — from negative volition they rejected their own doctrine — "so that they see not" — the Omega glory of Christ — "and bend their backs forever" — the temporal judgement of a historical holocaust but it is also an eternal judgement; they have rejected Christ as saviour but it also has to do with the fact that they are spending eternity in the lake of fire.

Verse 11: "I say, then, they did not stumble so as to fall did they? No, definitely not; but by their apostasy [implosion, explosion, revert] the salvation message belongs to the Gentiles [times of the Gentiles], so that they [the Jews] may be stimulated to emulation [by believing in Jesus Christ]."

Verse 12: "Now if their apostasy [religious degeneracy] becomes the riches of the world, and if their failure [religious degeneracy, fifth cycle of discipline, loss of client nation status, the times of the Gentiles] became the riches of the Gentiles [and it did] how much more will their fullness [refers to the restoration of client nation Israel at the second advent of Jesus Christ]."

The removal of Israel means the riches of the Gentiles in two ways: Gentile client nations to God and, secondly, we have many born-again Gentiles who now have equal privilege to the Jews in the body of Christ through the baptism of the Spirit. It is the Gentiles who are the outsiders but who are now equal with any Jew who believes in Jesus Christ.

Isaiah predicted all of these things: the rejection of the Omega glory of Jesus Christ, the Jewish rejection of that final phrase "Adonai echad," in Isaiah 29:9-14:

Verse 9: "Be shocked and amazed;" [result of the discipline which came to Israel from blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equalling religious degeneracy] "blind yourselves and be blind" [blackout of the soul and scar tissue] "they are drunk, but not with wine; [drunk with a holocaust] "they stagger but not from drinking strong drink."

Verse 10: "For the Lord has poured over you [the Jews involved in religious degeneracy] a spirit of deep sleep, [blackout of the soul, scar tissue of the soul, religious degeneracy] "regarding the prophets he has shut your eyes; regarding the seers, he has covered your heads."

Verse 11: "Therefore, the entire vision [first advent, resultant Omega glory of Jesus Christ] shall be like to you the words of a sealed book, and when they give it to someone who is literate, saying, Please read this to us; he will reply, I cannot; for I cannot understand it."

Verse 12: "Then the book will be given to someone who is illiterate, saying, Please read it; but he will reply, I cannot understand it."

Literacy is used here for Adonai elohenu, and illiteracy is used for Adonai echad.

Verse 13: "Then the Lord said, Because this people draw near with their mouth, and honour me with their lips [they recognise the God of Israel], but have removed their hearts [their right lobes with scar tissue of the soul], Furthermore, their respect for me is in the commandments learned by memorising"

Verse 14: "Therefore, behold, I will once again deal magnificently with this people, doing a magnificent thing ..."

Even though Israel has failed throughout the centuries, even though Israel failed in the dispensation of the hypostatic union, God is going to do a marvellous thing, a gracious thing: He is going to restore Israel at the second advent of Jesus Christ. Once again Israel will be a client nation to God in that sublime dispensation of a thousand years of perfect environment.

And in the meantime "the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the intelligence of their intellect shall vanish." This is because they are rejecting Jesus Christ as saviour. Today the hope of Israel is to believe in Jesus Christ as it has been through all of the centuries.

Holocaust means devastation. Holocaust historically is the systematic mass extermination of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps prior to and during world war 2. However, we will expand the concept to include all persecution of the Jews or the violent expression of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is evil and Satanic for it is motivated by Satan himself. The objective of Satan, of course, is to destroy all Jews on the earth prior to the Second Advent of Christ so that God cannot fulfil the unconditional covenants to Israel. It is a part, then, of the angelic conflict.

Degeneracy is defined as the decline from normal or superior standards to inferior or sub-normal standards. It is further defined as loss of integrity resulting in a state of deterioration, the process of passing from the higher to the lower, and therefore degeneracy means to decline progressively. The progressive decline includes three stages: implosion or self-fragmentation, explosion or polarised fragmentation, reversion or the degeneracy of declining progressively. The progressive decline includes the eight stages of reversionism.

The principles we are noting with regard to holocaust include: 1. Blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals religious degeneracy. 2. Religious degeneracy of the Jews is defined as going from superior standards of the Mosaic Law to the inferior standards of fragmentation and reversionism. 3. Blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul also equals historical degeneracy. 4. Historical degeneracy is defined as going from the superior standards of establishment power and authority to the inferior and subnormal standards of distorting authority into tyranny and power, and thereby persecution. 5. Historical degeneracy persecutes religious degeneracy, except where religious degeneracy has historical power. Self-determination is the issue all the way through.

Reverse process reversionism is always the status quo of locked-in degeneracy whether it is moral and immoral degeneracy in Christian degeneracy, or whether it is religious and historical degeneracy. In reverse process reversionism the superior standard is always rejected for the inferior standard through the process of decline. This is true of Christian degeneracy where the superior standard of the protocol plan of God is rejected and the inferior standard of either legalism or antinomianism is substituted as the modus operandi of the degenerate believer. The degeneracy is implode, explode, revert.

So what is true of Christian degeneracy where the superior standard of the protocol plan of God is rejected and an inferior standard is substituted, is also true of religious degeneracy. The superior standard of the Jews was the Mosaic Law; it was rejected for legalism. The prophecies of the Messiah in the Torah were rejected and ignored so that Israel at the first advent broke all records for scar tissue of the soul. Therefore you have religious degeneracy.

This is true of historical degeneracy. Where the superior standards of divine establishment are rejected and the evil functions of implode, explode, and revert results in the destruction of human freedom, the destruction of human power, and the tyranny of persecution. All these things are a factor which explains very simply, holocaust.

Romans 9:17: Pharaoh Amenotep II was permitted to live to break the world record for scar tissue of the soul so that both Egypt and the entire world would be evangelised in that generation.

Exodus 9:12: "And the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart …" That is scar tissue of the soul. In the first five plagues of Egypt it says Pharaoh hardened his own heart. In plagues 6-10 God permitted Pharaoh to continue to live. That is why it says "The LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart," so that there might be a demonstration of divine power such as few generations have ever seen. The pattern of the first five plagues is found in Exodus 7:13 "Yet Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he did not listen to them" .This means that Pharaoh is a case of historical degeneracy and he has come to the place where the scar tissue in his right lobe is tremendous — but it isn't a record, not until we get to the tenth plague. At that time the scar tissue of the soul has destroyed all eight compartments of the right lobe of the soul.

God preserved the life of the Pharaoh to demonstrate a point of doctrine: Divine power is infinitely greater than any human power. "If God be for us who shall be against us?" "Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world."

Exodus 9:27: " … this time I have sinned [no-one has ever been saved by admitting they have sinned. Repentance is a complete change of mind, not about yourself, but about who and what Jesus Christ is] the LORD is the righteous one, and I and my people are evil." That is not repentance; it is not a change of mind.

Exodus 10:16: "Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you" .Not enough. It is "believe … and thou shalt be saved." Talking about sins is adding to faith.

Because the objective of God was fulfilled in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart the new client nation was actually accompanied in the Exodus by a mixed bag of Gentile believers. Paul quotes Exodus 9:16 in Romans 9:17 to demonstrate a fact of history: that the Jews living in the dispensation of the hypostatic union, and the next few years of the Church Age until 70 AD, had now broken Pharaoh's record for scar tissue of the soul. And to this very day the record for scar tissue of the soul is held by those who Jews who have rejected Jesus Christ as Lord, saviour, Messiah, King, God of the Hebrews.

The divine plan and purpose in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart then was threefold: 1. To liberate the Jews from slavery to form the first client nation to God; 2. The evangelisation of Egypt; 3. The evangelisation of the world.

What a tragedy that scar tissue of the soul used by God to deliver Israel to deliver Israel would some day be scar tissue of the soul in Israel to reject the God of Israel.

The Jewish race is the last racial species in history. We have Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and all Gentiles are descended from these. But from Shem came Abraham, a Gentile. He was a Gentile for 99 years and became a Jew at the point of his circumcision. The new racial species was founded on regeneration. Abraham became a believer in Jesus Christ when he lived in Ur of the Chaldees [Genesis 15:6] and God credited it for righteousness, cf Romans 4:3.

Romans 4:1-5

Verse 1. "What shall we say, then, that Abraham, our forefather [as a Jew] has found according to the flesh?

Verse 2. "For if Abraham were justified by works, he has something to boast about, but never before God.

Verse 3. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed the God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.

Verse 4. "Now to the one who works for salvation his compensation is not credited on the basis of grace, but on the basis of debt.

Verse 5. But to him who does not work for salvation, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly [unbeliever], his faith receives credit for imputed righteousness.

Verse 9. Is this salvation blessing then for the circumcision [the Jews] only, or is it also for the uncircumcised [Gentiles] also? We maintain that faith was credited to Abraham for righteousness.

Verse 10. How then was it credited? When he was in circumcision or uncircumcision? Not in circumcision [when he was a Jew] but in uncircumcision [when he was a Gentile].

At the point of circumcision God created a new race on the earth that had never existed before. That new race is the Jew.

Why did God create a new race? Because by this time all of the old races were incapable of fulfilling God's next plan. There was a lot of internationalism in the world and nationalism was going to be the order of the day because internationalism always leads to Satanic domination of the international organisation. International power is too much for anyone to handle. National power is as far as it goes and under the laws of divine establishment national power is it. Therefore, for the Word of God to spread and for evangelism to occur in every generation there had to be client nations. And the old races at this point were not capable of producing a client nation, so God developed a new race through regeneration. The genetics came through natural generation and the day that Abraham was circumcised a new race existed on the earth. That new race would eventually become a client nation — Israel.

Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear, O Israel [Shema Israel]: The LORD our God [Adonai elohenu], God is one [Adonai echad]."

Literal translation: "Hear, O Israel: Jesus Christ is our God; Jesus Christ is unique." "Unique" started with the virgin birth. The word in the Greek is monogenhj, uniquely born. There is only one Person in all the universe who is undiminished deity and in the same Person true humanity. This is the doctrine of the hypostatic union.

Deuteronomy 6:5: "And you shall love the LORD your God [occupation with the Person of Jesus Christ] with all your heart, and with all your mind, and all your soul." That is the ultimate problem-solving device. "Heart" — leb, the exact equivalent to kardia, the eight categories of the right lobe of the soul. The left lobe of the soul is academic understanding which is not capable of this kind of love.

Verse 6: "And these doctrines, which I am commanding you this day, shall be in your right lobes [metabolised doctrine — chakma, e)pignwsij]."

Verse 7: "And you shall teach these things diligently to your children, and you shall talk about them [you learn by conversation] when you sit in your house, and when you walk down the road, and when you lie down, and when you get up."

Blackout of the soul is failure to recognise Jesus Christ as the God-Man; scar tissue of the soul is rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour; blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals religious degeneracy.

Revelation 17:16 — The beast and the prostitute! Political degeneracy persecutes religious degeneracy.

The beast dictator of the revived Roman empire is the sponsorer of ecumenical religion of the Tribulation. He uses this as a means of extending his power and his influence — the picture of the prostitute riding on the beast. During the last half of the Tribulation both the beast dictator of the revived Roman empire and Babylon the prostitute reach degeneracy — implode, explode, and revert. The beast dictator represents historical or political degeneracy; the prostitute of Revelation 17:1 represents religious degeneracy. And it was inevitable that in the last half of the Tribulation historical degeneracy or political degeneracy would persecute religious degeneracy in one of the greatest holocausts of all time.

Rev. 17:16: "Both the beast and the ten horns which you saw will despise the prostitute, therefore they [the ten-nation confederation of the revived Roman empire] will destroy her [holocaust], and she shall be naked [stripped of her powers, glamour, influence], they will both devour her converts and destroy her with fire."

Verse 17: "For because of their right lobes [scar tissue is always in the heart or the right lobe of the soul] God has permitted them to execute his purpose, therefore to give their power [ecumenical religion] to the beast dictator [political or historical degeneracy], until the doctrines from God shall be fulfilled."

This suggests seven things

1. God uses evil to destroy evil. [Evil is always a function of self-determination].

2. Holocaust occurs in the last half of the Tribulation when the beast — political or historical degeneracy — persecutes and destroys the prostitute representing religious degeneracy.

3. Political degeneracy of the revived Roman empire at the end of the Tribulation [the beast] persecutes and destroys religious degeneracy of the Tribulation [the prostitute]. This pattern is always the same; it is the pattern of holocaust.

4. In this holocaust situation no human volition is violated. God simply uses evil to destroy evil, and evil is always the product of human volition.

5. Holocaust judgement in which evil destroys evil, dramatises the fact that mankind is simply the product of his own volition.

6. Evil is the product of human volition and God uses the wrath of man to praise Him. Psalm 76:10-11.

7. Jesus Christ controls history, and He often uses the volition of evil to destroy the volition of evil. Political or historical degeneracy persecutes religious degeneracy.

Romans 9:1-6. We note that when we talk about religious degeneracy related to Israel we are not talking about regenerate Jews.

Verse 2: The greater the accumulation of metabolised doctrine the greater the sensitivity to the suffering of others. Whether it is deserved or undeserved suffering the believer with doctrine never makes that distinction — compassion should be for those who are suffering whether they deserve it or not. Bible doctrine in the right lobe produces compassion.

Religious degeneracy emphasises the fact that the Jews rejected the Omega glory of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union. In fact scar tissue is built upon that third line: Adonai echad.

Jesus Christ was qualified to be judged for our sins. He had to become true humanity; He had to be the last Adam; He had to be perfect as Adam was before sin in order to carry our sins in His own body on the cross — "This is my body which is given for you" .It is a human body; not His deity.

Jesus Christ had to become true humanity to be the mediator between God and man. Job 9:33 "Who will be a mediator between us?" In Job 9:32,33 we learn a great principle: the mediator must be equal with both parties in the mediation. That means that Jesus Christ has to be equal with God and He has to be equal with mankind if He is going to be a mediator.

1Timothy 2:5,6: "There is one God [in essence] and one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus."

Jesus Christ had to become true humanity to become our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus Christ is in the line of Judah, and the priestly line in Israel is Levi. So Christ's priesthood is a royal priesthood because He is descended from David, and David was a king. And the pattern for His priesthood is taken from Melchizedek who was king of Salem, the original Jerusalem. But Jesus Christ is a King-Priest. But a priest is a man who represents man before God and Jesus Christ had to become true humanity to become a priest — a royal priest.

Jesus Christ had to become true humanity to fulfil the unconditional Davidic covenant of 2Samuel 7:8-16; Psalm 89:20-37. David is going to have a Son who will reign forever- That Son is Adonai echad, the Omega glory of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 10:5: "Therefore when he entered the world [first Christmas — the beginning of the dispensation of the hypostatic union] he said, You [God the Father] do not require sacrifice and offerings [Codex number two was but a shadow pointing to the reality], but you have prepared for me a body; [A human body has to bear our sins]"

Verse 6: "You have not been propitiated by whole burnt offerings [propitiating offerings] nor by sin offerings."

These animal sacrifices were shadows, they looked forward to the reality of the cross, and therefore animal sacrifices were not capable of propitiating God the Father.

Verse 7: "At that time I said, [First Christmas eve, the beginning of the dispensation of the hypostatic union which would terminate in the Omega glory of Jesus Christ] Behold I have arrived (in a scroll of a book it stands written about me) to accomplish your will [Jesus Christ speaks from His humanity] O God."

There are three elections in history: the election of Israel related to the ritual plan of God, the election of Christ related to the incarnation plan of God, and the election of the Church related to the protocol plan of God.

Each election has a significant factor of emphasis: the election of Israel is related to the new racial species, but true Israel is born again; the election of Christ is related to the hypostatic union so, that our Lord has two glories — Alpha glory as eternal God, Omega glory as the God-Man; the election of the Church is related to the new spiritual species.

Now the problem with the election of Israel is that it requires regeneration for compliance. You are not elected as a Jew unless you believe in Jesus Christ. "All Israel is not Israel."

Verse8: "After the saying of the above, Sacrifices and offerings, and whole burnt offerings, and sacrifices for sin, you have not desired, nor have you been propitiated by them, which sacrifices are offered according to the law."

Verse 9: "Then he said, Behold, I have arrived to execute your will, O God. This means he has taken away [abrogated] the first [the first covenant, the Mosaic law], that he might establish the second [the protocol plan of God for the Church Age]."

"Establish the second" means five things

1. That this plan means regeneration for both Jew and Gentile, both must be born again.

2. When any Jew believes in Jesus Christ during the Church Age he becomes a member of the royal family of God through the baptism of the Spirit.

3. God has a plan for regenerate Jews in every dispensation.

4. When any Jew rejects Jesus Christ as saviour he implodes, explodes, and reverts, and therefore is a part of the world record for scar tissue of the soul.

5. Religious degeneracy is persecuted by historical or political degeneracy. Hence throughout all of history in the Church Age there have been a series of holocausts.

Verse 10: "By which will [purpose, plan] we have been sanctified [to God forever] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all." The true meaning of Christmas is the cross.

Isaiah 29:9 — "Be shocked, be amazed; blind yourselves [blackout of the soul, the function of human self-determination], and be blind [implosion through rejection of Christ as saviour, explosion, reversion, religious degeneracy]; they are drunk, but not with wine [prophecy of the holocaust judgements of Israel resulting from religious degeneracy]; they stagger, but not from strong drink."

Verse 10 — "For the Lord has poured over you [Israel] a spirit [or life] of deep sleep [recognises the apostasy of the Jews in the reversionism stage]; regarding the prophets he has shut your eyes [those who were communicating spiritual truth, allegedly, actually were communicating religious false doctrine which only shut their eyes and strengthened the scar tissue of the soul] …"

The shutting of the eyes is a synonym for negative volition toward Bible doctrine, therefore the willingness to listen to false doctrine.

" … regarding the seers, he has covered your head [scar tissue of the soul]." The are false prophets and false preachers or false seers.

Verse 11 — "Therefore the entire vision [the first advent of Jesus Christ, the dispensation of the hypostatic union, the time of the Omega glory] shall be to you like the words of a closed book [they read the Torah and they do not see Jesus Christ even though He is found in almost every chapter of the prophets], …'

Verse 12 — "Then the book will be given to someone who is illiterate, saying, Please read it; but he will reply, I cannot read it."

Verse 13 — "Because this people draw near with their mouth, and honour me with their lips [ritual without reality], but they removed their heart [right lobes] far from me, furthermore their reverence for me consists of traditions learned by memorising them [or traditions that are being passed on from one generation to another]." The last part of this verse could be translated this way: "their worship of me is made up of rules taught only by men."

Verse 14 — "Therefore I will once again deal graciously with this people [at the second advent], doing a magnificent thing [restoration of Israel at the second advent]; but in the meantime [under scar tissue of the soul] the wisdom of their wise will perish, and the intelligence of their intellectuals shall vanish [from history]." This is always accomplished by holocaust judgements.

Romans 11:7 — "To what conclusion are we forced? What Israel is constantly seeking this it did not attain, but the elect [Jews who have believed in Christ] have attained salvation, and the others were hardened [scar tissue of the soul].

Verse 8 — "(And just as it stands written, God has given to them a life of stupor, eyes to see not, ears to hear not) down to this very day."

Verse 9 — "David also says, Let their table [doctrine, spiritual food] become a snare [negative volition], and a trap [blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul], and a stumbling block [the first advent of Christ was a stumbling block], therefore for a retribution to them [holocaust, which appears periodically];"

Verse 10 — "Let their eyes be darkened and see not [blackout of the soul], and bend their backs forever [two categories of judgement to the unbelieving Jew: temporal judgements and the eternal lake of fire for rejecting Christ as saviour]."

Verse 11 — "I say, then, They did not stumble so as to fall did they? No, definitely not; but by their apostasy salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them [the Jews] jealous." In other words, some will be stimulated by this motivation to re-examine the dispensation of the hypostatic union and to believe in Jesus Christ.

Verse 12 — "Now if their apostasy [scar tissue of the soul] becomes the riches of the world, and if their failure [religious degeneracy] the riches of the Gentiles, how much more will their fullness? [reference to the Millennium, when the fullness of the Jew will be reflected in the great Jewish client nation of the Millennium]."

The fragmentation of subjective arrogance is divided into two categories: subjective pre-occupation with self and subjective pre-occupation with others. Subjective preoccupation with self is also divided into two categories:

1. Unrealistic Expectation.

Very few people are loved the way they want to be loved, or treated the way they want to be treated. Unrealistic expectation is a state of frustration and unhappiness in which the believer often blames others for the fact that he is not loved, not appreciated, not treated the way he wants to be treated or the way he wants to be loved or appreciated. Unrealistic expectation then is a part of the fragmentation of subjective arrogance and is divorced from reality by never taking responsibility for one's own decisions. In unrealistic expectation the believer blames others for his own self-fragmentation; the believer uses his own volition to pull the pin of the grenade and frag himself but he never seems to understand that.

The arrogance of unhappiness is subjective pre-occupation with self associated with unrealistic expectation.

2. Unrealistic Self-image.

This creates a hero or role model out of self as long as the arrogance of subjective fragmentation continues. This pseudo self-respect or pseudo self-esteem becomes the basis for disorientation in life. It follows three principles: 1. Disorientation to relationship with God; 2. Disorientation to relationship with self; 3. Disorientation in relationship to others. Subjective preoccupation with others has three inter-related concepts: role-model arrogance, the feet of clay syndrome, and iconoclastic arrogance.

It is inevitable that when the believer in subjective arrogance creates a hero image or a hero role-model out of himself, that self-image will all too often construct a counterpart which will overflow to others in role-model arrogance. In other words, role-model arrogance creates an unrealistic image out of someone else. Then comes the feet-of-clay syndrome. You discover that the role model that you have created has feet of clay. The feet-of-clay syndrome is simply discovering someone else's failures, flaws. The believer in subjective arrogance then seeks to destroy the very own image which he himself has created. That is what we call iconoclastic arrogance.

Two things can be devastating to the creation of an unrealistic self-image or a hero image about self. First of all you can often discover your own feet of clay and therefore become disillusioned about yourself. Someone else can also bring you face to face with your feet of clay, in which case you can either react or respond. If you react you cling to your hero image and permanently divorce yourself from reality. This tragic flaw will result in everything from mental illness to one of the categories of Christian degeneracy. If you respond, on the other hand, you will turn to Bible doctrine and this will remove the cobwebs of unreality in your life and eventually produce an invisible hero, a product of the grace of God. But unrealistic self-image always results in unrealistic expectation.

The fragmentation of subjective arrogance produces a tremendous number of spiritually self-inflicted wounds. These are divided into two categories: subjective preoccupation with self and subjective preoccupation with others. Subjective preoccupation with self is the tragic flaw of arrogance divorcing the believer from reality — through unrealistic self-image created from arrogance and from unrealistic expectation created from subjective arrogance. Subjective preoccupation with self produces a sequence of arrogant functions and these accompany the progressive decline into Christian degeneracy.

Iconoclastic arrogance represents the inconsistency and the instability of subjective arrogance — you create the image; you destroy the image. But the greatest inconsistency of all is when arrogance destroys, not the hero image of another, but when you destroy your hero image through becoming distraught. The same arrogance which preserves the hero image of self under unrealistic expectation destroys a hero image of someone else.

Ephesians 5:1: The corrected translation has two concepts in this verse: 1. There is the solution to the problem of subjective arrogance of creating a false image in your mind of yourself, of seeing yourself in the mirror of arrogance rather than in seeing yourself in the mirror of the Word of God. 2. This solution is for believers only.

"Be ye therefore" — an inference from what precedes. What precedes? Ephesians chapter four verses 17-32 — mostly negative. Here in 5:1, which is a transitional verse, we go from the negative to the positive, and the last two chapters of Ephesians are generally positive.

"Be" — present active imperative of ginomai, which means to become something you were not at the time. It should be translated "become" — become something else. Here the word indicates an action mandated by God but at the moment not taking place.

"followers" mimhthj — imitators (plural). It implies that there is a true role model for Christians. However, that role model is not either self creating the hero image of self or self making a role model out of another person.

The role model is found in the genitive of relationship of two words: First of all the definitive article tou used here for a possessive pronoun and translated "your." Then the genitive of relationship from Qeoj.

Translation: "Therefore become imitators of your God." "Your God" is a reference to our Lord Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega (Deity and hypostatic union) of Revelation 1:8. We can imitate the true humanity of Christ in the hypostatic union during the time between the virgin birth and His death, burial, resurrection and ascension, for all of that time He resided in the prototype divine dynasphere under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. So it is possible to become an imitator of God and in becoming an imitator of our Lord Jesus Christ we fulfil the tenth and final problem-solving device — occupation with the Person of Christ.

In some cases when a person is reprimanded the reprimand is useless because the individual involved has developed an unrealistic self-image, a hero image which makes him unteachable. The person would cling to that image and in their own mind justify self so that all benefit from reprimand was useless. This incorrigible attitude of being impervious to reprimand or punishment is a manifestation of fragmentation of subjective arrogance. The unrealistic self-image of arrogance is unteachable, untrainable, and therefore unimprovable, a problem that some parents have had with children. By "unimprovable" is meant not developed to the full potential of the divine resources provided for the execution of the protocol plan of God. Furthermore, the arrogant self-image or hero image never recognises its limitations. And failure to recognise one's limitations means failure to look into the mirror of the Word of God and see one's self as they really are, and consequently to evaluate self objectively. And by looking into the mirror of arrogance a self-image is created that is false, but by looking into the mirror of the Word of God the self-image, the hero image is destroyed and the believer under enforced and genuine humility can execute the protocol plan of God. In other words he is teachable.

Remember the principle found in Proverbs 3:34 which is quoted in James 4:6 speaking of believers, "He gives greater grace. Therefore it says, God makes war against the arrogant, but He gives grace to the humble."

The unrealistic self-image creates a hero or a role-model of self through arrogance, specifically the fragmentation of subjective arrogance. The fragmentation of subjective arrogance includes two things: subjective preoccupation with self and subjective preoccupation with others. There are two categories of subjective preoccupation with self: unrealistic self-image and unrealistic expectation. Unrealistic self-image always creates a hero or a false image of self from subjective arrogance. This is tantamount, of course, to pseudo self-respect or pseudo self-esteem — this causes distortion and disorientation in the life. The tenacity of clinging to the self-image created by arrogance means that the believer is flawed with the following results: 1. He does not grow up as a person — childish for life; 2. He does not grow up as a believer; 3. He is totally unteachable, he cannot learn Bible doctrine; 4. He does not learn from reprimand from legitimate sources; 5. He does not learn from reprimand from Bible doctrine.

Under the fragmentation of subjective arrogance it is inevitable that if the believer has created a hero image of self, which we might call a role-model of self. He also constructs a counterpart in relationship with others. There's where we get subjective preoccupation with others which has three inter-related functions: role model arrogance, the feet-of-clay syndrome, and iconoclastic arrogance. It is role-model arrogance, of course, that creates an unrealistic hero image or an idol of someone else. The feet-of-clay syndrome follows and one of two things can occur: The image created by one's own arrogance is discovered and one reacts by seeking to destroy the image. Or the image you have created by arrogance either reprimands or offends you in some way and you react by seeking to destroy that person. And in seeking to destroy the idol or the image you have created from your own arrogance you have fulfilled the fragmentation of subjective arrogance under the concept iconoclastic arrogance.

By way of summary the fragmentation of subjective arrogance produces a number of spiritual self-inflicted wounds. These wounds include two general categories which we have noted: subjective preoccupation with self and subjective preoccupation with others.

Ephesians 5:1 — "Therefore, become [ginomai, to become something you were not before] imitators [mimhthj] of your God [a reference to our Lord Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega of Rev.1:8 — Alpha as His deity, Omega as His hypostatic union]."

Our role-model cannot be the deity of Christ but it is the humanity of Christ as He lived on the earth during the first advent in the prototype divine dynasphere. The command to be imitators is a mandate to grow in grace through residence, function and momentum inside the divine dynasphere. The principle then: Precedence for the Christian way of life is taken from the dispensation of the hypostatic union. Note that we are not to imitate other believers or other persons whom we admire. Nor are we to create a self- image, a hero image of self which hinders becoming imitators of our God — our Lord's humanity during the incarnation.

"as [o(j — comparative particle which introduces a true analogy. Who can become an imitator of our God? Only the believer. So we have a nominative plural of apposition from two words: a)gaphtoj and teknon which refers to children who need to learn.] beloved children."

"Beloved" — a)gaphtoj — was first used as a title for Jesus Christ in the hypostatic union, during the time that He resided in the prototype divine dynasphere. It is a title for our Lord Jesus Christ with emphasis on His humanity in the hypostatic union. And because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and resultant positional sanctification every believer is not only a member of the royal family of God and the new spiritual species but because he is in union with Christ and because Christ is called beloved" now God the Father regards us in exactly the same way. Therefore the word "beloved" is used for believers, it becomes a title for believers in recognition of positional sanctification, cf. 2Corinthians 7:1; Hebrews 6:9; 2Peter 3:1,8,14,17; 1John 3:1,2; 4:1,7,11.

Jesus Christ as God cannot be imitated but Jesus Christ as true humanity can be imitated, but only through residence, function and momentum inside the divine dynasphere. As true humanity inside the prototype divine dynasphere our Lord's humanity was sinless and impeccable. This we cannot imitate, we have an old sin nature and we come under the category of post-salvation sinning. Our sinning is accomplished outside the divine dynasphere but when we are inside the divine dynasphere we are filled with the Spirit and motivated to learn doctrine. Imitation is therefore accomplished through residence inside the divine dynasphere under the filling of the Spirit, with momentum from metabolised doctrine. Imitating our God is the execution of the protocol plan of God through consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. The humanity of Christ was constantly filled with the Holy Spirit in the prototype divine dynasphere. This is taught extensively in both testaments.

Inside the divine dynasphere the believer imitates the humanity of Christ during the incarnation in two ways: 1. The filling of the Holy Spirit; 2. The teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Immoral degeneracy is related to reversion in the first two words of Ephesians 4:19. We have a nominative masculine plural from a qualitative relative pronoun o(itinej, indicating a person who belongs to a certain category, believers in this case who are in reversionism. Blackout of the soul is the start of it; scar-tissue of the soul is the perpetuation of it; reverse process reversionism is the finalising. The second word is a present passive participle from the verb a)palgew — to become callous, and it is used for scar tissue of the soul. "Who because they have become callused" is the way we translate the first two words. The present tense is an intensive present for a present state resulting from a past action. The past action includes implosion, explosion, reversion. This is a reference to scar tissue of the soul, the seventh stage of reversion, the status of Christian degeneracy.

This verse is the scar tissue of the soul as the status of immoral degeneracy. Scar tissue of the soul can be the status of either moral or immoral degeneracy. Illustration: Zedekiah who was the last king of the southern kingdom, destroyed in 587 BC — 2Chronicles 36:12: "And he (Zedekiah) did evil in the sight of the Lord, his God, and did not humble himself [lack of objectivity, lack of teachability] before Jeremiah, the prophet, who spoke for the Lord [He rejected the message of Jeremiah]."

Verse 13: "Then he also revolted against King Nebuchadnezzar, [In that arrogant self image he thought of himself as a hero who would deliver Israel by getting out from under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar.] who had made him sware allegiance by God [He took an oath before the God of Israel that would be an ally of Nebuchadnezzar — all that was required]; but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against the Lord God of Israel."

In starting a revolution against Nebuchadnezzar he was in the status quo of scar tissue of the soul. The result of the scar tissue of the soul was the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline.

Ephesians 4:19b — [immoral degeneracy is related to polarised fragmentation], aorist active indicative of the verb paradidomi, to give one's self over. " … they have given themselves over [believers in Christian degeneracy make all of the decisions to get there] unto [toi — used to denote a category. The category is immoral degeneracy.] lasciviousness [a)selgeia — licentiousness or debauchery], …"

Prohibitions against adultery — Exodus 20:14; Deut.5:18; Acts 15:20; 1 Cor, 6:18; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 4:3.

Against incest — Leviticus 18:6ff; 20:14; Deut. 27:20; 1 Cor. 5:1-7.

Against homosexuality — Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27.

Against bestiality — Leviticus 18:23; 20:15; Deut. 27:21.

Some observations regarding sexual activity

1. The sanctification of category two love (an intimate relationship between a man and a woman) is marriage. 1 Thess. 4:3,4; Heb.13:4.

2. We should note that the glory of category two love is described in the analogy between marriage and the relationship between Christ and the Church. 1 Cor. 11:7; Eph.5:25-28.

3. Adultery is a bonafide basis for divorce. Matt. 5:32; Luke 16:18.

4. Adultery and fornication are often used in the scriptures as analogies or illustrations of apostasy. Jeremiah 3:8-10; Ezekiel 16:23-43; 23:24-28; Rev.17:1-5.

5. Promiscuity and fornication is forbidden as a part of the protocol plan of God. Ephesians 5:3; Hebrews 13:4.

6. The principle of scar tissue of the soul is the status quo of immoral degeneracy.

7. Scar tissue of the soul is also motivation for immoral degeneracy and is part of immoral degeneracy.

In the final phrase of verse 19 we have the fact that immoral degeneracy is related to reverse process reversionism: eis plus the accusative singular of result from e)rgasia — should be translated "resulting in the practice ..." Then we have the accusative of result which indicates that that which takes place or occurs is a result of the action of the main verb, and the main verb is "who have given themselves over to licentiousness."

" … resulting in the practice of every kind of immorality" — the adjective paj — "every kind," plus a)kaqarsia, "immorality."

Immoral degeneracy is related to other categories of lust: e)n plus the instrumental of manner from pleonecia — greediness, insatiability, grasping beyond, covetousness, lust, hunger for power. The noun means greed in three categories: lust for power and approbation, or lust for sex, or lust for money, wealth and success. Generally pleonecia must be associated with degeneracy since it connotes snatching beyond the sphere ordained for a person in society. Translation: " … with insatiable lust."

Principle: Immoral degeneracy is related to insatiable lust in three categories — related to sex, related to power and approbation, related to money and success.

This verse is where inordinate ambition ties in to immoral degeneracy.Scar tissue of the soul is the status of Christian degeneracy in two categories. In our verse, immoral degeneracy related to the trend toward antinomianism and polarised fragmentation. But don't forget moral degeneracy related to the trend toward legalism in polarised fragmentation.

So in this verse the category of Christian degeneracy is immorality. And the principle, scar tissue of the soul, is the motivation for immoral degeneracy. Scar tissue of the soul is the function of immoral degeneracy. Immoral degeneracy reaches its peak by passing from scar tissue of the soul to reverse process reversionism.

Definition and description: Strictly speaking, adultery means the voluntary act of sexual intercourse of a married person with someone other than his or her lawful spouse. However, we are using the term right now in the broadest sense of sexual activity outside the divine institution of marriage, and we are also using it as the first of three illustrations of immoral degeneracy. The divine institution of marriage provides the boundaries for legitimate sexual activity.

Principle: All too often sex is a meaningless physical encounter.

The biblical prohibition of illegitimate sex: Physical adultery is prohibited in Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18. Corrected translation: "You will not commit adultery." Mental adultery is prohibited in Matthew 5:27,28.

Fornication is also prohibited. It is defined as sexual intercourse between two persons who are not married to each other. 1Corinthians 6:18 — "flee fornication." There are two ways that this command is executed. If a person finds himself getting mentally involved in adultery or fornication he flees mentally. 1Thessalonians 4:3 — " … abstain from fornication"; Colossians 3:5 — "Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to the following: fornication, unnatural sexual vices, degenerate passion, evil desire and lust which is idolatry [referring to the phallic cult], ..."

Illegal sex is an expression of immoral degeneracy; it is the function of reverse process reversionism — the final stage of Christian degeneracy, the locked in stage where people rarely, if ever, recover. Reverse process reversionism reverses all of the mandates, priorities, norms and standards, related to the protocol plan of God. And in this stage the believer reverses the object of his love and gravitates toward pseudo love objects — Rev. 2:4: " … you have forsaken your first love ..."

Principle: Losers are not believers who fail but believers who never do anything about their failure.

Marriage principles

1. Marriages fail because believers are failures as human beings.

2. Most people try to solve their marital problems by changing partners.

3. Changing partners means divorce, and generally for the wrong reason.

4. You cannot change your partner in marriage and solve anything. You can only change yourself.

5. Counselling is a waste of time. All it does is provide individual attention, stimulate arrogance, and give an excuse to drop someone you can't stand.

6. You cannot go through marriage walking on crutches, depending on the counselling of someone else.

7. IMPORTANT: Most people approach marital problems from the standpoint of subjectivity. They want to justify themselves.

It never occurs to people that no solution to marital problems will be permanent because they are failures as believers.

Many marriages fail for a lot of different reasons

1. Bad decision in the selection of a mate — getting married for the wrong reason: sex, security, etc.

2. Inability to handle your personal problems. If you cannot handle your personal problems in single status quo you will never handle them in marriage.

3. Taking one's frustrations out on the other partner in marriage — result of #2. If you can't handle your personal problems you're frustrated. And who is the closest person to take out your frustrations on? Your mate!

4. You think you have found a better deal and you want to get rid of the present spouse.

5. No woman can be successful in marriage until she has learned to entertain herself. It is inevitable that the man is not always going to be there and the woman who can't entertain herself is possessive.

6. No man can be successful in marriage and as the lover of his wife and at the same time live in the arrogance of self-love.

7. People fail in marriage because of that inflated self-image.

Our second paragraph deals with the basic problem of neglect or indifference to Bible doctrine. When we get to verse 20 we have Christian degeneracy is contrary to Bible doctrine, the protocol plan of God. Christian degeneracy is contrary to the will of God, the plan of God and the purpose of God.

"but" — de. This conjunctive particle emphasises the contrast between Christian degeneracy and the mandates of the protocol plan of God which called for advance, for spiritual growth, for the attaining of spiritual maturity, for becoming an invisible hero, for becoming a part of the pivot. So consequently we have quite a change here. There is a great contrast between executing the protocol plan of God and the concepts of Christian degeneracy.

Next we have the nominative plural subject from the pronoun su, referring to certain believers, not only living in Ephesus but in the Roman province of Asia. "But all of you," emphasising the fact that certain believers in Ephesus were in violation of the protocol plan of God and they had now attained spiritual degeneracy.

The pattern of degeneracy followed by so many believers not only contradicts the protocol plan of God but emphasises several major problems in Christian experience. The first is the rejection of Bible doctrine with special emphasis on the stages of reversionism. The second is having the wrong priorities in life. Whatever the priorities are they are in conflict with Bible doctrine. The third problem is the problem of lust. There is power lust, approbation lust, success lust, sexual lust, money lust, social lust, etc. The lust problem always takes the focus off Bible doctrine for believers who are functioning under their old sin nature rather than inside the divine dynasphere under the Holy Spirit. The fourth problem has to do with the creating of a self-image, the creation of a hero image from the fragmentation of subjective arrogance.

"learned" is the aorist active indicative of manqanw and with it the negative o)uk. The two words together describe the various categories of Christian degeneracy and the fragmentation of subjective arrogance. Manqanw means to learn from someone as a teacher, to learn through instruction, to learn in the sense of coming to know or understand something that you previously did not know or understand. The negative particle o)uk is used with the indicative mood to state a negative fact which is both objective and final — "But you have not so learned."

The morphology of manqanw is rather important. This is a culminative or resultive aorist tense. It contemplates negative volition toward Bible doctrine in its entirety — negative volition taking you through implosion, explosion, and reversion — but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, which is the apostasy of Christian degeneracy, the apostasy which ends up in reversionism. There can only be two results of this culminative aorist tense: one is moral degeneracy emphasising the trend toward legalism and the other is immoral degeneracy emphasising the trend toward atinomianism.

With this we have the accusative singular, direct object from two words: ton Xriston. The definite article calls special attention to the proper name, it does not have to be translated. The noun Xristoj, proper noun for our Lord Jesus Christ, the only saviour, the God-Man, undiminished deity and true humanity in one person for ever. So we translate: "but you have not learned Christ."

The word "Christ immediately introduces the subject of precedence. What is the precedence for the Christian way of life? What is the precedence for the protocol plan of God? The precedence is taken from the previous dispensation which is the dispensation of the hypostatic union.

One more Greek word, the adverb o(utoj refers to what precedes. What precedes is the description of reversionism which results in immoral degeneracy in verse 19. It is translated "in this manner." The corrected translation of our passage: "But you have not learned Christ in this manner."

What does it mean to "learn Christ," or to learn even from Christ? Remember that Bible doctrine is called the thinking or the mind of Christ in 1Corinthians 2:16. We are said to have the mind or thinking of Christ, a reference of course to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, the doctrine directly pertinent to the dispensation in which we live.

The degenerate Christian has believed in Jesus Christ as his personal saviour and in doing so became the possessor of eternal life. But he was not interested in getting any information on what he was to do after salvation. After salvation what? was something that didn't interest him and therefore for one reason or other he became negative toward Bible doctrine. So the degenerate believer has believed in Jesus Christ for his salvation but by rejection of Bible doctrine after salvation he has rejected Jesus Christ as the Ruler of his life, and the one who is his Lord and saviour. He has rejected Jesus Christ as the head of the royal family of God. Rejection of Bible doctrine is tantamount to rejection of the plan, the purpose, and the will of God for your life.

The inconsistency then is obvious. You have to believe in Christ for eternal salvation but you have rejected the way of life Christ mandates for His royal family. This is tantamount to saying that you trust in Jesus Christ for eternal life but you reject Him for temporal life which is your time on earth — between salvation and death or the resurrection/Rapture, whichever occurs first.

Remember that the verb manqanw is a technical term for the academic study of scripture and it is so used in John 7:15; Galatians 3:2; 1Corinthians 14:31; Philippians 4:11. "But you have not learned Christ in this manner."

Principles

1. The correct and accurate teaching of the Word of God never encourages any category of degeneracy. It does not encourage implode, explode, or revert.

2. The correct and accurate teaching of the Word of God rejects both legalism and antinomianism — the two polarised trends of the sin nature.

3. The status of Christian degeneracy is always the fault of the individual believer who makes too many bad decisions from a position of weakness. We do it to ourselves.

4. The believer who implodes, explodes, reverts, blames others for his condition. He always finds a scapegoat and typically never assumes responsibility for his own negative attitudes, decisions and actions.

5. Inevitably Christian degeneracy blames other people, and even God, which is why some people never recover from their degeneracy, stages of reversionism.

6. By taking the full responsibility for your own apostasy, your own degeneracy, your own cosmic involvement, you can use your volition to rebound; you can check the action and get on the road to recovery.

7. Recovery demands consistent function of perception, metabolisation, and application of Bible doctrine (post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation).

8. Recovery demands learning and using the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

9. As long as you are alive you can recover from Christian degeneracy.

So this verse has a dual connotation and refers to two major principles of dispensational theology. The first principle is precedence: from what source do we as believers in the Church Age derive precedence or post-salvation modus operandi? The second: what is the function of the protocol plan of God in the Church age?

Precedence: The first thing we have to remember is that dispensational theology is not dead. For those attending the funeral, the coffin is empty. The Reformation did not settle the question of: What is the Christian way of life? What is Christian responsibility after salvation? The only answer is found in the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. It must be defined in terms of the uniqueness of the two Christological dispensations and their relationships to each other. The first Christological dispensation is the hypostatic union — the incarnation which began on the first Christmas with the virgin birth of Christ. Secondly, the dispensation of the Church recorded in two categories, the pre-canon period which is found basically in Acts, and the post-canon period which is the New Testament epistles collected and finally canonised.

A royal family of God and a new spiritual species can not be ignored. Never before in history was there a royal family of God; never before in history was there a new spiritual species; never before in history was there a baptism of the Spirit; never before in history was there a protocol plan of God; never before in history have all three members of the Holy Trinity indwelt the body of every believer; never before in history has there been a portfolio of invisible assets for every believer; never before in history has so much divine power been made available to the individual believer: the omnipotence of God the Father related to our portfolio of invisible assets; the omnipotence of God the Son related to the preservation and the perpetuation of human history; the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit related to our execution of the protocol plan of God.

Jesus Christ is the God-Man and through the virgin birth He came into the world as true humanity to take away the sins of the world, that's the meaning of Christmas. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes (death clothes), clothes which are prepared for a corpse, significant because the cross must come before the crown and the shadow of the cross was hanging over that place in Bethlehem. We understand the purpose and the significance of all this because it means Jesus Christ went to the cross and there He was judged for the sins of the world.

There are three concepts to the true meaning of Christmas, the first of which is the love of God. God is sovereign, therefore His love is self-motivated and totally compatible with His divine essence and character. God is infinite and therefore He possess infinite love. God is eternal and therefore God possess eternal love. God is immutable, and therefore His divine love is unchangeable and can never be corrupted in any way. God is holy, and therefore His love is perfect; it is compatible with His perfect righteousness and also His justice, which means that God's love is always fair. And since eternal, infinite and holy God possess both self-consciousness and self-determination He always acts rationally in the function of His love. God's love exists with or without an object since His eternal and infinite love is a part of His divine essence. This means that God's love is not sustained by attraction, rapport or any category of human merit or worthiness.

Romans 5:8 — "God demonstrates His love …" The love that He demonstrates is impersonal love toward us. " … in that while we were yet sinners Christ died as a substitute for us." It is to our advantage that God has impersonal love toward us. Impersonal love emphasises the integrity of the subject and recognises that the object has nothing to recommend it.

John 3:16 — "God loved the world so much [impersonal love] that he gave his uniquely-born [monogenes — the unique one] son [u(ioj — deity] …"

The true meaning of Christmas can never be divorced from the cross. And even on that first Christmas day in Bethlehem the cross was present.

Luke 2:8 — "And in the same region there were shepherds living out in the field …" These shepherds, by the way, were under a ban from the Pharisees because they didn't observe the Sabbath. Therefore legalism had persecuted these shepherds and rejected them. Religion rejected them to whom the message came; … "keeping watch over their flock by night." They worked around the clock and observed no legalistic activity and therefore they were banned by the religious crowd of the day.

It was to these people "the Angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shined around them: and they were terrified." It is said that this occurred near a famous tower built in David's day called Migdal-eder [the tower of the flock]. That particular tower was built for one particular reason, for defence of Bethlehem. This was a very rugged piece of country and therefore a very fine place for the shepherds and the sheep.

Verse 10 — "And the angel said to them, Do not be afraid: for behold, I bring to you [plural, not to the scribes, the Pharisees, not to the people celebrating Hanukkah in the Temple in Jerusalem that very night — the deliverance through military victory, the Maccabeans defeating the great forces of the Hellenistic monarchy of Syria. But there was no grace in their celebration. It was ritual without reality and, therefore, where could the message be taken to someone to whom it had significance. It was taken to the shepherds] good news of great joy, which shall be for all people [not just for the Jews]."

Verse 11 — "For today in the city of David there has been born for a substitute for you, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord [the good news is that there is now a Saviour born into the world, someone who will provide salvation]"

The word "Lord" is kurioj in the Greek, referring to His deity; the word Xristoj refers to His humanity. In His humanity He is the Son of David; in His deity He is eternal God, the God-Man, the hypostatic union.

Verse 12 — "And this shall be a sign for you [how do you know which one it will be?]; You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes [accusative singular, perfect passive participle from the verb sparganaw — "the baby will be wrapped in spargana," not swaddling clothes but the bandages used to wrap the dead].

We know a great deal about spargana from a noun sparganoma which means to be bandaged. There is another word, sparagma, the word from which it is all derived, and it means a mangled corpse, but a mangled corpse that has now been wrapped in spargana. In the singular spargana refers to the bandages used to wrap the dead.

Jesus Christ, as a baby, was not wrapped in swaddling clothes. He was wrapped in the bandages of death, clothed in death clothes. Wrapped for death, as it were. That is the meaning of this phrase and that is how they would identify the baby. Hanging over Bethlehem was the shadow of the cross at the very Christmas day of the virgin birth.

Verse 13 — "And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army praising God [because here is the ultimate in the manifestation of His love. God loved the world so much that He gave His Son, the unique One, knowing that the One whom He had loved from all eternity past and would love through all eternity future would have to be judged at the cross. Therefore God gave. There's Christmas, the giving of the One, that indescribable gift, Jesus Christ who makes the difference between eternal life and eternal condemnation.

At the birth and the giving of life God gave — that's Christmas. And at the cross God judged. God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died as a substitute for us. He was judged for our sins. So God gave Christ true humanity so that as true humanity, and remaining perfect and resisting all temptation He could go to the cross and be judged for the sins of the world. That is love. That is the demonstration of His love.

And so it is not surprising that on the first Christmas the angels had to do the praising and the appreciating because the religion of the time, Judaism, couldn't appreciate anything. Religion doesn't appreciate; religion is ritual without reality. Therefore an army of elect angels was called out on the first Christmas to render the proper praise and recognition because human beings were not so doing. And it has been that way ever since.

Why is it necessary for heaven to turn out for Christmas on a parade of praise? Because it is something very few believers do.

Verse 14 — "Glory to God in the highest, [no manifestation of glory greater than God the Father gave the Lord Jesus Christ to us] and on earth prosperity among people with whom he is well pleased" — corrected translation.

That prosperity is logistical grace; it is the reason we are alive. That prosperity goes right back to the love of God on Christmas. Before salvation we were spiritually dead, even our righteousnesses were as filthy rags. And yet God said to us when we were unbelievers: I love you. What kind of love is it? A love that emphasises the integrity of the subject — impersonal love, the greatest virtue in the human race today. Even though we were spiritually dead God loved us. The two demonstrations: Christmas and the cross.

Here is the point. Now you have believed in Christ; now you receive the imputation of God's righteousness; and now instead of being loved with impersonal love, you are loved with the personal love of God. Why? Because you possess His righteousness.

What is the true meaning of Christmas in relationship to love? Now that you are a believer you should appreciate Christmas. God's righteousness has been given to you and it is mentioned in the last part of verse 14:

" … and on earth prosperity among people with whom he is well pleased." And He is well pleased with those who have His righteousness; He is well pleased with the believer. And the integrity of God is made up of two characteristics, justice and righteousness. And every day you are alive because God sends life support to you and to me as believers in Jesus Christ.

Righteousness demands righteousness; justice demands justice. Before we believed in Christ that meant condemnation. Justice condemns -R — the unbeliever.

The Mosaic Law has nothing whatever to do with the filling of the Spirit, the indwelling of all three members of the Trinity, the protocol plan of God, the baptism of the Spirit — all of the unique factors related to the Church Age. And these unique factors were not taken from the Mosaic Law but from the dispensation of the hypostatic union which began on the first Christmas day and terminated with the resurrection, ascension, and session of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Mosaic Law has been adopted as the Christian way of life by reformed denominations, by legalistic fundamentalists, by evangelicals, and by almost every group that has come along in the Independent or Protestant circles. This means that there has been a great deal of confused, mixed up activity among those who are Christians. And it means that many generations have been almost totally apostate when it comes to the Christian way of life. Sabbath observance is a good sign of that. There never has been any justification for Sabbath observance in this dispensation and there never will be. We live every day as unto the Lord as members of the royal family of God. Tithing is another one. There is no such thing as tithing as a system of Christian giving. Whatever you give is between you and the Lord and it is not a tithe. Tithing belongs to the Mosaic Law, Codex number three, the Laws of divine establishment for Israel.

Since the Reformation most Protestant groups have taken their precedence from the Mosaic Law which actually belongs to the dispensation of Israel. Therefore, we must look at the Mosaic law.

The Mosaic law is divided into three parts

1. The decalogue which consists of ten mandates called the Ten Commandments. This is a freedom code which defines freedom in terms of morality, privacy, property and authority. Furthermore, the Ten Commandments define freedom in terms of relationship to God as well as relationship to authority and to sin. The Ten Commandments express freedom in relationship to the divine institutions and in relationship to God. There is nothing in the ten commandments that belongs to us unless it is restated as a part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. And many of the things are restated but we take them from the mystery doctrine of the Church Age in the epistles, not from the ten commandments or the decalogue. The Mosaic Law as a total code has been abrogated in the dispensation of the hypostatic union and only what is pertinent to us has to be restated, and is restated in the epistles.

2. The second part of the Mosaic Law is called the ordinances. This is the spiritual code. The spiritual heritage of Israel includes a complete Christology and soteriology. However, it is given in ritual form; it is communicated through ritual and taught through oral messages of both the prophets and the priesthood. The ritual communication includes the structure of the Tabernacle, the delineation of the Holy Days, the modus operandi of the Levitical priesthood, and the significance of the Levitical offerings.

3. The third category of the Mosaic Law is called the judgements. This is the establishment code. Every principle related to the function of the client nation to God includes the judgements in some way. Any civilised nation has picked up on some of these things. For example, freedom is one of the great principles; freedom related to privacy, property and life. Freedom and authority are a part of the establishment code. (Freedom without authority is anarchy; authority without freedom is tyranny). Privacy, marriage, taxation, the military policy (the entire book of Numbers) is the military policy of Israel and is one of the greatest statements of the principle of freedom through military victory. Criminal law, diet, health, quarantine, sanitation, economic principles related to free enterprise, and many other things — but all of these things belong to believers and unbelievers alike and none of them have a spiritual connotation that is in any way related to the protocol plan of God, except by application.

So the principles that are rejected by Codex Number Three: It rejects civil disobedience, and today fundamentalist believers walk in the streets, and they walk in apostasy and confusion. Prayer in the public school is idiotic and has nothing to do with the Christian way of life. We are told when and where to pray — in public, when we sanctify the food — and we are told where to pray in our private prayers: "Go into your closet" or literally: Go into your private bedroom or the privacy of your home and pray. And then there is prayer in church. But prayer in public schools … If they ever get laws for it we will have kids bringing their rugs to school so their Muslim teachers can point to the proper area in the east and they can get down on their knees two or three times a day during school!

The recipients of the Mosaic Law

The Bible is very lucid on the recipients of the Mosaic Law. There are three concepts here: The Mosaic Law was given to client nation Israel only. It wasn't even given to the Jews before Moses; it was given to the first client nation, the theocracy Israel. And the Mosaic Law applied only to the nation Israel, Exodus 19:3; Leviticus 26:46; Romans 3:19; 9:4. Specifically the Mosaic Law was not given to the Gentiles — Deuteronomy 4:8; Romans 2:12-14 — and specifically, it was never given to the Church — Acts 15:5,24; Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:19.

The limitations of the Mosaic Law

The Mosaic Law cannot justify, Romans 3:20, 28; The Mosaic Law cannot provide eternal salvation, Galatians 3:21-26.

The Mosaic Law cannot provide the Holy Spirit and therefore it has no spiritual connotation, Galatians 3:2ff. Here again is the issue of precedence for the Church Age. The issue of precedence is not from the dispensation of Israel and the Mosaic Law, precedence is taken from the dispensation of the hypostatic union; precedence is based upon the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to the humanity of Christ inside the prototype divine dynasphere. We have the operational type divine dynasphere and that is where the protocol plan is executed.

The Mosaic Law cannot, and never has done, solved the problems of the sin nature and spiritual death — Romans 8:2-4. You have to remember that the Mosaic Law can reveal sin but can do nothing about sin. The Mosaic Law is not then a document for the Christian way of life.

The Law and the dispensation of the hypostatic union should be noted. The doctrine of the impeccability of our Lord Jesus Christ includes the fact that our Lord was born under the law; that He is the Son of David as well as the Son of God. And the fact that our Lord kept the law perfectly was the end of the law. "Christ is the end of the law for all who believe as a result of that" says Romans 10:4. And during the dispensation of the hypostatic union our Lord commended to us the fact that He not only kept the law perfectly but that at the same time He condemned every legalistic interpretation of the law, including the rich young ruler and including the scribes and the Pharisees whom He called hypocrites. He actually made it very clear in Matthew 23, His great discourse to the religious people, the Scribes and the Pharisees, that they were hypocrites and that the law was not a spiritual factor. Jesus Christ then is not only the end of the law for those who believe but the modus operandi of the protocol pan of God for the Church Age, therefore, can never take its precedence from something that has been completely and totally abrogated. Therefore we must look elsewhere for the protocol plan, the Christian way of life, and we find it in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. Furthermore, the protocol plan of God for the Church is classified as mystery doctrine and the mystery doctrine was never revealed to the Old Testament prophets; it was never revealed in the Old Testament. By very definition that is what the mystery doctrine is: it is the way of life for the royal family of God in the Church Age. But in every definition of the mystery doctrine it was hidden from the Old Testament prophets — Romans 16:25,26; Ephesians 3:2-6; Colossians 1:25-27. All three of those passages make it very very clear that the mystery doctrine of the Church Age was never revealed to the Old Testament prophets nor is it found in the Old Testament. Therefore, the Mosaic law as an Old Testament subject can be related in any way to modus operandi of the Church which is strictly a New Testament subject.

Legalism and the Mosaic Law

Hebrews 7:19 — we learn that even when the law was operational it did not have a spiritual connotation. In corrected translation we start out with an aorist active indicative of the verb teleiow. With this we have a strong negative adverb o)uden. Teleiow means to accomplish and it should be translated "for the law accomplished nothing." The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist; it states a present reality with the certainty of a past event. In the past the law did not accomplish anything because of the negative volition of Israel in general. The exception would be that many were born again simply by understanding the significance of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world; the Lamb without spot and without blemish, our Lord Jesus Christ who came on that first Christmas day, and that Lamb went to the cross and became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

What does it mean when it says that the law accomplished nothing? Simply this: the Jews took the law and tried to use it as a system of salvation, therefore nothing was accomplished. The exceptions were those who were true believers and followed the pattern of Abraham — "Abraham believed in the Lord and it was accounted to his account for righteousness." He was justified by faith in Christ as He was revealed at that time. The Jews tried to be saved by works; they tried to keep the law for salvation — e.g. the rich young ruler.

"but on the other hand the bringing in of a better hope did." The "bringing in" is a noun e)peisagwgh, correctly translated "the bringing in" if you understand its true significance. The bringing in began on the first Christmas day in history, the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ. Eternal God became true humanity and was virgin-born on that first Christmas day. That was the bringing in of a "better hope." "Better hope" in contrast to what? — the Mosaic law cannot save. Cf. Romans 3:19-22,28; Galatians 2:16; John 3:18.

The legalism of salvation by keeping the law represents all systems of salvation by works. These systems fall into three categories: 1. Salvation by works alone, Titus 3:5; Ephesians 2:8,9; 2. Salvation by faith plus works, faith plus commitment, faith plus Lordship, faith plus repentance when repentance is merely an expression of common grace, changing your mind because God the Holy Spirit provides the necessary Gospel information on which to make a decision, baptismal regeneration (faith plus baptism), salvation by emotion or feeling, etc.; 3. Salvation by works without faith. There are two categories. The first is by "inviting Christ into your heart" which doesn't say anything about faith at all (What does it mean? Jeremiah 17:9).

Degeneracy is defined as decline to a false or inferior standard, the process of passing from a higher to a lower standard with loss of integrity, resulting of course in a standard of deterioration. Degeneracy means to decline progressively, and for our study is defined as decline from the superior standards of the protocol plan of God — the Christian way of life — to the inferior standards of fragmentation and reversionism. Degeneracy means to decline progressively and we have used this under the principle of implode, explode, and revert. And two false standards exist in polarised fragmentation — the false standard of legalism, which is based on the sin nature trend toward self-righteous arrogance, and the false standard of antinomianism based on the sin nature trend toward lascivious lawlessness. Degeneracy is loss of integrity resulting in the passing from a higher to a lower level of modus operandi and modus vivendi.

The law is divided into three parts

1. The decalogue — a freedom code. The ten commandments define freedom in terms of morality, privacy, property, authority; they also express freedom in terms of relationship to God. They provide two categories of freedom in the human race: temporal freedom for all mankind and, for the believer in Jesus Christ, spiritual freedom to grow in grace.

2. The ordinances or the spiritual code. The spiritual heritage of Israel includes a complete Christology and soteriology communicated through ritual as well as through the statement of the prophets. There are the holy days, the modus operandi of the Levitical priesthood, the very structure of the Tabernacle, the significance of the Levitical offerings; all of it adds up to a very wonderful Christology. There had to be a system of teaching and ritual was a great system when there was very little paper and everything was done verbally.

3. The Judgements — an establishment code. Every principle related to the function of client nation to God is included — freedom, authority. Freedom without authority is anarchy; authority without freedom is tyranny. Privacy is a great part of freedom, and of course there is marriage, taxation, military policy, criminal law, diet, health, sanitation, economic principles. Civil disobedience, violence and revolution, is rejected.

The recipients of the Mosaic Law

1. The nation Israel — Exodus 19:3; Leviticus 26:46; Romans 3:19; 9:4.

2. Specifically the Law was not given to the Gentiles — Deuteronomy 4:8; Romans 2:12-14.

3. It was not given to the Church — Acts 15:5,24; Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:19.

The limitations of the Law

1. It cannot justify — Romans 3:20 "Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin," cf. verse 28.

2. It cannot provide eternal salvation — Galatians 3:21-26.

3. It cannot provide the Holy Spirit — Galatians 3:2.

4. It cannot solve the problems of the sin nature or real spiritual death — Romans 8:2-4.

The Mosaic Law in legalism

Hebrews 7:19 "For the law accomplished nothing, but on the other hand the bringing in of a better hope (Jesus Christ) did, through which we draw near to God." The word "hope" (e)lpij), when it is used in the New Testament, means "confidence."

Galatians 1:4: "Who gave himself a substitute for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil age, on the basis of the will of God, even the Father."

Verse 6: "I am amazed that you have so quickly deserted from the grace of Christ [the present passive indicative from metatiqhmi, to desert in battle] to another gospel [another e(teroj gospel — the Mosaic Law]." Codex number two of the Mosaic Law points toward the cross. The cross was camouflaged and Israel couldn't see it until the Mosaic law came along and pointed to it with all of its significance.

Remember that the Mosaic law was abrogated as a total code. Therefore, only what is related to the New Testament is pertinent to the law of God, sometimes called "the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus" — cf. Romans 8:2-8.

While the Jews of the Old Testament lived by the Mosaic Law, Church Age believers live by the protocol plan of God. The dispensation of the hypostatic union stands as a permanent line of demarcation between Israel and the Church. Therefore, during the dispensation of the hypostatic union Jesus Christ fulfilled the Mosaic law on the one hand and through life in the divine dynasphere (filling of the Spirit) established a precedent for the Church Age on the other hand. Principle: The Mosaic law does not define the Christian way of life. Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets: I came not to abolish, but to fulfil." And even though the Mosaic law is not a part of the Christian way of life it is still a part of the Word of God. Romans 10:4 "For Christ is the end of the law for the purpose of righteousness to every one who believes." The entire Mosaic law is a particular expression of God's eternal and holy character, according to Exodus 19. It is given to a distinctively defined group of people, Exodus 19:3; Leviticus 26:46; Romans 2:17-20; 3:19; 9:4. It is given specifically to client nation Israel and is designed for several explicit purposes. While the law regulates the lives of the Jews in the dispensation of Israel, now long past, its primary purpose was to anticipate the first advent of Christ as noted in Matthew 5:17.

After the law was fulfilled by Jesus Christ in hypostatic union, this unified code no longer governs any people or any nation. The regime of the Mosaic law has ended with its fulfilment in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. However, the abrogation of the law by Jesus Christ does not leave either unbelievers or believers in a state of lawlessness.

In summarising, then, why the believer cannot be under the Law

1. A believer under the law makes Christ a minister of sin, Galatians 2:17.

2. The believer has died to the law, Galatians 2:19.

3. A believer has received all the benefits of the Spirit through faith, Galatians 3:1-5.

4. The law brings nothing but condemnation, Galatians 3:10-14.

5. God's promised blessings to Abraham, of which Abrahamic root all believers partake, antedate the giving of the law. Therefore, the law cannot be a prior claim, Galatians 3:15-17.

6. The law has no power to give life or sustain life, Galatians 3:21.

7. The law is intended only for the immature while positionally believers are full-frown sons, Galatians 3:23-4:7.

8. The law is a bondage to the believer, Galatians 4:9.

9. Law and grace are mutually exclusive principles. Therefore, it must be one or the other, Galatians 4:21-31.

10. The believer has an abiding freedom in Christ, Galatians 5:1.

11. The believer must keep all the law if he would attempt to keep even part of it, Galatians 5:2-4.

12. The persuasion to put the believer under the law is not from God, Galatians 5:8.

13. Legalism of the believer does away with the offence of the cross, Galatians 5:11.

14. All the law is fulfilled by the Holy Spirit, Galatians 5:16-24.

15. The life of the believer must be sustained by the same principle as his new birth or regeneration, Galatians 5:25.

16. The believer's proneness to sin calls for dealings of grace and not dealings according to the law, Galatians 6:1-5.

17. All who advocate the law for the believer cannot keep it themselves and there intention is ultimate glory in the flesh, Galatians 6:13.

..… Dr Charles Lee Feinberg.

Our first conclusion: The termination of the Mosaic law does not leave either unbeliever or believer in a lawless status quo. God does not condone lawlessness — Romans 6:15. God's perfect character remains immutable through all dispensations in history. God expressed His perfect virtue or holiness to mankind long before the Mosaic law existed. And He continues to prove ethical norms, morality, virtue, and spiritual instruction after the law has ceased to govern. Before, during, and after the time when the Mosaic law was in effect in Israel divine law functioned among the Gentiles to whom the Mosaic law never applied — taught first in Genesis 26:5 and then in Exodus 19:5; Romans 2:14-16; 1Corinthians 7:19; 9:20,21.

In the Church Age the operational divine law is not the Mosaic law but the law of Christ — 1 Cor. 9:20,21; Gal. 6:2. The humanity of Christ in hypostatic union fulfilled the Mosaic law in the power of the Holy Spirit while He was residing in the prototype divine dynasphere. We have the operational type to execute the protocol plan; He had the prototype to fulfil the law. The Church Age believer obeys the law of Christ by following our Lord's precedent. This means for us by application the execution of the protocol plan of God inside the operational type divine dynasphere under the filling of the Holy Spirit and perception of Bible doctrine. Because the first advent of Christ included both the fulfilment and the culmination of the Mosaic law many practices mandated for the nation Israel are not included in God's plan for the Church.

While the Mosaic law as a total code became obsolete not only was the spiritual code fulfilled and replaced but the temporal portions of the law also ceased to be literally in effect. The temporal aspects of the Mosaic law like Codex 1 and Codex 3 define freedom within the national entity and they institute the laws of divine establishment for Israel specifically. During the dispensation of the hypostatic union our Lord inaugurated new policies for both the Church and the Millennium. In doing so He restated many individual commands found in the Mosaic law but if they were not restated, as noted in the Gospels, for both the Church and for the Millennium they are not pertinent. This continuity existed because the source of all divine law has always been the same immutable essence of God. Although continuity with the Mosaic law exists in both the Church Age and the Millennium the new policy for both dispensations is not the Mosaic law itself. The Church Age derives its doctrine form the New Testament epistles under the classification of the Mystery Doctrine. And the mystery doctrine is defined very lucidly in Romans 16:25,26; Ephesians 3:2-6; Colossians 1:25-27, not revealed to the Old Testament writers but now revealed to the New Testament writers. And the Mosaic law was revealed to the Old Testament writers and only that which is re-mandated is pertinent.

Three great discourses in the New Testament Gospels prophesied divine policies mandated for the Church Age on the one hand, the second advent on the other, and thirdly the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ. For example, the upper room discourse anticipates prophetically divine policies for the Church Age — John chapters 12-17. For example, regarding the 2nd advent the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24 and 25 describes in detail how Jews will survive the last half of the Tribulation in order to become a cadre for the Millennium. And thirdly there is a very controversial area of the scripture, the Sermon on the Mount which is not the Christian way of life but is for the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The sermon on the mount can only be enforced when Jesus Christ rules on the earth personally.

The New Testament epistles provide the divine mandates for the protocol plan of God in the Church Age, and if Old Testament precepts apply they do so not because they belong to the Mosaic law but because they are repeated to the Church as a part of the royal family of God modus operandi.

Regarding the principles of divine establishment found in Codex 1 and 3, some are restated as the law of Christ or the law of God. Others are excluded from Church Age modus operandi. The excluded principles are still divine truth but they do not bare the force of law for any nation except the five Jewish client nations of the past — first the theocracy of Israel, secondly the united kingdom of Israel, thirdly the divided kingdoms (the northern and southern kingdoms), and finally the kingdom of Judah. And in the future there is the possibility that much of the Mosaic law will apply to client nation Israel in the Millennium.

It should be noted, however, that wise political leaders in the Church Age who desire prosperity for their nation will adopt principles in the Mosaic law and integrate them into their culture and heritage. However, these principles adapted from the Mosaic law are not and do not constitute any part of the Christian way of life. During the Church Age the principle of separation of church and state leaves many establishment issues simply to the judgement of civil government. For example capital punishment is restated for the Church Age in Romans 13:4 but some of the specific applications in the Mosaic law are not confirmed today.

Another point which we need to understand: the present value of the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law belongs to the Word of God and still has value for the Church Age believer. Codex number one, the decalogue, is a case in point. It is still the basis for defining human freedom but not spiritual freedom. Spiritual freedom is defined in terms of residence inside the divine dynasphere but temporal freedom is defined in terms of the precepts which are located in the Mosaic law — the sacredness of property, the sacredness of life, the right of self-determination. Hence, like Codex 1 and 2 the Mosaic law contains truth that applies to every generation of history, the principles of freedom, authority, property, jurisprudence, and so on. All systems of freedom are based on absolute truth and that is why most countries will never have freedom in contemporary history. Why? Because you cannot have freedom unless the principles of freedom are based on absolute truth. Relative truth immediately takes you to everything from psychology, sociology, philosophy, etc. all of which are systems of relative truth with a relative premise and relative conclusions which are often very destructive.

When it comes to the freedom of the royal family of God in the Church Age this freedom is related to life in the divine dynasphere and completely excludes the Mosaic law — Galatians 5:1, the "yoke of slavery" refers to the legalistic believer living under the Mosaic law which he erroneously assumes is the Christian way of life. Principle: Temporal freedom is the heritage of physical birth; spiritual freedom is the heritage of regeneration, the new birth — 2Corinthians 3:17.

The Mosaic law is completely excluded from the believer's spiritual freedom but still has value in defining freedom in the human race.

The characteristics of temporal freedom: Temporal freedom is based on the laws of divine establishment which were defined, by the way, for Israel in Codex 1 and 3. Of course it recognises the sacredness of privacy and property and life. But to make them sacred you must have them based on absolute truth which recognises the right of every member of the human race to determine for himself his life. Self-determination, the function of the volition of the soul, is sacred because it is a part of the angelic conflict. And self-determination demands a personal sense of responsibility for one's own decisions and the subordination to establishment authority.

The characteristics of spiritual freedom: a. It is not based on the Mosaic law, Galatians 5:1; b. It is based upon the absolutes of Bible doctrine, John 8:32; c. It is based on the filling of the Spirit inside the divine dynasphere, 2Corinthians 3:17.

The contrast then between temporal and spiritual freedom is very important. Temporal freedom is the heritage of physical birth; spiritual freedom is the heritage of regeneration. Spiritual freedom is only located inside the divine dynasphere and spiritual freedom can function with or without the support of temporal freedom. For example some of the greatest believers in the Roman empire were slaves and Paul said: "Remain in slavery." You can grow spiritually in slavery just as easily as you can in temporal freedom. Temporal freedom is based on human merit; spiritual freedom is based upon divine merit — grace.

Note: 2Corinthians 3:13-18. "Their minds were hardened" — a combination of two things: stage 6 and stage 7 of reversionism. Principle: blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals degeneracy, in this case religious degeneracy based upon the Jewish trend in their OSNs toward religious legalism. The "veil" can only be lifted by faith in Christ. The Jews go through the law and never see Christ — scar tissue of the soul.

"where the Spirit of the Lord is" — inside the divine dynasphere" — "there is freedom" — spiritual freedom, for what reason? For post-salvation, epistemological rehabilitation, for perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine.

"we all" — believers; "with an unveiled face" — why unveiled? Because we now own the glory and it has nothing to do with the Mosaic law; "looking into a mirror" — what is the mirror? The Word of God;"to produce a reflection" — what is that reflection? Spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, spiritual maturity, the three stages of spiritual adulthood in the protocol plan of God. That is the glory.

The veil is scar tissue of the soul and if you look into the Word of God with scar tissue of the soul you get nothing. But if you look into the mirror and you lift the veil and you see something, what you see is the protocol plan of God. And when you see and execute the glory is there.

"the same image" — what image? The image of Jesus Christ who resided in the divine dynasphere during the 33 years of His tour on earth in the dispensation of the hypostatic union.

"from glory" — the glory of the humanity of Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere; "to glory" — the glory of the believer who executes the protocol plan of God inside the operational divine dynasphere.

"as it were from God the Holy Spirit." Remember in Galatians 3 beginning at verse two: the Mosaic law could not give the Holy Spirit to anyone.

2 Cor. 3:18: "But we all with an unveiled face looking into a mirror to produce a reflection, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into that same image from glory to glory, as it were from God the Holy Spirit."

Legalism is the "yoke of slavery." The characteristics of temporal freedom are based upon the laws of divine establishment defined for Israel in Codex 1, the recognition of property, privacy and life, the emphasis on self-determination and a sense of personal responsibility for one's own decisions and subordination to the authority of establishment. The characteristics of spiritual freedom are not based on the law — Galatians 5:1. They are based on Bible doctrine — John 8:32; they are based on the filling of the Holy Spirit — 2 Cor. 3:17.

2 Cor. 3:13 — "And they are not as Moses, who put a veil over his face, so that the sons of Israel might not see it while the glory was fading away." The law has a temporary glory and so that the Jews would not see the fading glory Moses was commanded to put a veil over his face.

Verse 14: "But their minds were hardened:" (blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul equals Christian degeneracy. And the same thing is true of religious degeneracy) " for until this very day at the reading of the Old Testament the same veil remains unlifted because it is only removed in Christ."

The spiritual freedom of the Church inside the divine dynasphere exceeds any freedom defined by the law. The best the Mosaic law could do was to define human freedom in terms of morality. Never before in history has so much freedom, so much privilege, so much opportunity, so much quality been given to believers as in the dispensation of the royal family of God which we call the Church Age. And never have such objectives been given to every believer as in the Church Age; objectives that exceed any objectives ever stated in the Mosaic law. In John 1:17: "The law was given by Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

The principle

1. The Mosaic law has been abrogated as a total code.

2. Only what is restated in the New Testament is pertinent to the Christian way of life as the law of Christ, as the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus.

3. Though abrogated as a code, and not part of the protocol plan, the Mosaic law has a definite purpose for the unbeliever.

4. Though abrogated as a code and not a part of the protocol plan the Mosaic law is a still part of the canon of scripture.

5. Abrogation of the Mosaic law does not mean cancellation from scripture for the law is a teacher of sin and is a reflector of God's perfect standards.

The pre-salvation function of the Mosaic law comes into focus then in the New Testament.

Romans 3:19: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law: that every mouth may be closed and all the world may be accountable to God."

Verse 20: "Because by the works of the law no works shall be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

1Timothy 1:9,10 — an amplification of Romans 3:19,20: "Realising this fact, that the law was not made for a righteous man (not for a believer), but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who murder their fathers and mothers, for murderers in general, for fornicators and homosexuals, for kidnappers and liars, and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine."

Galatians 3:24 — What is the purpose of the law? "It has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith."

Verse 3:25: "But now that faith has come we are no longer under the tutor."

Verse 26: "For you are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

The purpose of the Mosaic law to the unbeliever then is first to reveal sin but not to remove it. Secondly, the law was not to prevent sin but to reveal sin. Thirdly, the purpose of the law was to prove all human beings as sinners, but it was not a standard by which one might prove himself holy. Man does not become a sinner when he sins. We sin because we are sinners. We have a sin nature which means spiritual death. The law was added because of transgressions, it was a minister of condemnation, it was a minister of spiritual death. The believer is not under the law; it is not a part of the Christian way of life.

Precedence

The dispensation of the hypostatic union has two precedence functions. First, it is the dividing line between the dispensation of Israel and the dispensation of the Church. The dispensation of the hypostatic union divides forever the dispensation of Israel and the dispensation of the Church. This is where the Reformation went astray. It tried to go back to the dispensation of Israel for the Christian way of life. Second, the dispensation of the hypostatic union separates Israel from the Church so that all precedence for the Church Age is taken from the dispensation of the hypostatic union, i.e. the fantastic victory of the humanity of Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere. We have the operational type. Principle: No precedence for the Church Age is taken from Israel, which means that the Mosaic law has nothing to do with the Christian way of life.

Three categories of dispensations emerge as a result of this principle

1. The theocratic dispensations. There are two of them and they are entirely different because God provided establishment principles for the dispensation of the Gentiles totally apart from the law. And then in the dispensation of Israel in which the Mosaic law belonged and nowhere else.

2. The Christocentric dispensations. The dispensation of the hypostatic union and the Church Age. These two go together; one blends right into the other. Both are grace dispensations; both are dispensations related through precedence, and both are the unique dispensations of history. The hub of history is the hypostatic union and the Church Age.

3. The eschatological dispensations. The Tribulation and then the Millennial reign of Christ where we have perfect environment on the earth. The challenge to believers under perfect environment on the earth through the reign of Christ is nothing compared to the challenge of the dispensation in which we live because as goes your spiritual life so goes the country in which you live. We are to be an invisible hero and under the principle of separation of Church and state we have responsibility to "render unto Caesar", but our impact is going to come from our spiritual maturity, from the execution of the protocol plan of God.

The protocol plan of God for the Church Age supercedes the ritual plan of God for Israel. Precedence for the protocol plan is derived from the dispensation of the hypostatic union only. Because of this principle the Mosaic law again is not a part of the Christian way of life.

Legalism such as tithing, Sabbath observance, the substitution of morality for spirituality, originate from the erroneous premise that the Mosaic law is a part of the Christian way of life. However, neither salvation nor spirituality are in any way related to keeping the law. And the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross fulfilled in detail Codex 2 of the Mosaic law. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the basis for a new spiritual species and a royal family of God and the protocol plan of God. The protocol plan of God and the Mosaic law are mutually exclusive.

Furthermore, the resurrection of Jesus Christ which occurred at the end of the dispensation of the hypostatic union provides precedence for the Church Age. The omnipotence of God the Father restored our Lord's human spirit from the third heaven to His body in the grave. And the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit restored our Lord's human soul (which was located after His physical death in a compartment of Hades called Paradise) to His body in the grave — Romans 1:4; 8:11; 1Peter 3:18. Therefore the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is now available to every believer — for the first time in history.

The first resurrection occurred in the first Christological dispensation, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was raised from the dead of the dispensation of the hypostatic union, and consequently, all precedence for the protocol plan of God is based on the power or the omnipotence that raised Christ from the dead. This excludes entirely the Mosaic law which could not provide spirituality or resurrection. The Mosaic law provides neither precedence nor authorisation for the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. Furthermore, all doctrine related to the modus operandi of the Church Age is classified as mystery doctrine, hidden from the Old Testament writers according to Romans 16:25,26; Ephesians 3:2-6; Colossians 1:25-27. And the mystery doctrine therefore was not known to the Old Testament writers. The Mosaic law was known.

1 Cor. 10:11: "Now these things happened to them [The dispensation of Israel] as an example [of the law of volitional responsibility], furthermore they were written for our instruction, upon whom the accomplishments of the ages has come" — the execution of the protocol plan of God under the power of the Holy Spirit. There was nothing like this in the Old Testament.

What can we now learn from the Old Testament? We can learn the tragedy of negative volition under the law of volitional responsibility. What we sow we reap. And this is an application, this is not the Mosaic law as the Christian way of life.

Verse 12: "Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" — polarised fragmentation.

That brings up again the problem of the interpretation of the Gospels. In the Gospels Jesus Christ presents Himself to Israel as their Messiah, the Son of David, the legitimate King of Israel. This is taught in Romans 1:2ff: "Which he promised before hand through his prophets in the holy scriptures."

"Concerning his Son who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh", [All prophesied in the Old Testament].

"Who was declared to be the Son of God in an act of power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord."

Once again we have the principle: the Mosaic law fades out. The Mosaic law and the Old Testament advised Israel with regard to the coming of Messiah. They rejected the whole package. The resurrection was the beginning of a new way of life for believers that had never existed before and will never exist after the Church Age. The first advent of Christ was designed to fulfil the unconditional covenants to Israel. They were not fulfilled because the One who was going to fulfil them was rejected. Christ was rejected as Messiah and, therefore, the fulfilment is postponed until the second advent.

In the presentation of His Messiahship the policy of our Lord's kingdom was in amplification of the Mosaic law. And what is the amplification of the Mosaic law? Our Lord said there is something better coming up when I rule on earth and He demonstrated that He related it to the Mosaic law but He said it was better — the sermon on the mount. But when the Messiah was rejected the sermon on the mount is postponed until the Millennium. But if you study the sermon on the mount where it says "the law says this but I say that," you find out something. The Mosaic law will not even be operational in the Millennium. Something far greater will be operational, something that approximates virtue. And the Millennium will be the only other dispensation in history where the believers will have the filling of the Holy Spirit. So the sermon on the mount is not a part of the Christian way of life.

However, there are certain things stated in the Mosaic law that are restated in the epistles. And they do belong to the protocol plan. Unless a principle of the sermon on the mount is specifically restated it is not a part of the Christian way of life. Anything pertinent to the protocol plan of God is restated in the epistles where we have the content of the mystery doctrine.

And in the dispensation of the hypostatic union our Lord anticipated the Church Age, the prophecy of the Church, beginning in John 12 and going through John 17.

Then we have the Olivet discourse, Matthew 24-25, which recognises the rejection of Messiah and the coming of the 5th cycle of discipline to Israel and, therefore, how do the Jews survive in the Tribulation until the second advent occurs? It has nothing to do with the Church Age, it is the antithesis.

In Ephesians 4:20 then "But you have not learned Christ in this manner." What does that mean to us? It means that the Church Age is absolutely unique: the baptism of the Holy Spirit which creates the royal family of God and, at the same time, a new spiritual species that never existed before and never will exist again. The baptism of the Holy Spirit does more for you in one second than the entire Mosaic law did over 400 years for Israel. The equality factor in the Church Age did not exist in the Mosaic law. It is an equality factor where no one makes you equal, you are equal under the principle of your own self-determination.

The equality factor of the computer of divine decrees. For example, under the doctrine of election, election is defined as the expression of the will of God for the believer in this dispensation. And under election we have equal privilege. The Mosaic law had a specialised priesthood — family of Aaron, tribe of Levi. You were born physically into that priesthood and any priesthood where you are born physically into it is no good spiritually because the only thing that counts spiritually must be related to regeneration. We are priests through regeneration. Therefore it is very important for us to understand that every believer is a priest — there is equality. Each one of us represents himself before God; each one of us is a priest. Furthermore, we are royal priests; we are not in any way related to the tribe of Levi or the family of Aaron. We are through the baptism of the Spirit royal family of God and a royal priesthood. That never existed before. And then we have that equal opportunity through logistical grace, that wonderful pipeline that we have. And in this pipeline the justice of God sends to each one of us every day, to divine righteousness imputed to us, everything it takes to keep us alive, not because we are good, not because we are bad. This is given those who are winners and those believers who are losers! We are kept alive equally. We are kept alive on this earth long enough to execute the protocol plan of God. God knows every factor related to it and therefore down that pipeline every day from the justice of God through the righteousness of God comes everything necessary to keep us alive. And blessing as well to losers as well as winners!

Then under predestination which is the sovereign will of God for every Church Age believer. We have equal privilege, union with Christ, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, positional sanctification, equal opportunity, the provision of our very own palace, the operational type divine dynasphere. It is the perfect palace and to live in it requires self-determination, rebound and keep moving. Now the Mosaic law never provided anything like that. We have our very own portfolio of invisible assets provided by God in eternity past. Why does anyone want to go to the Mosaic law? It is a rejection of grace.

We have two unique royal commissions. Every believer is a royal priest, we represent ourselves before God; but every believer is also a royal ambassador, we represent God to the human race. And it is a dynamic thing and its primary emphasis is on execution of the protocol plan and becoming an invisible hero. Never before has there been something written for one dispensation only that includes spirituality; that is what we have, the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Never before in history has God ever indwelt anyone.

God the Father indwells the believer's body, and it is related to glorification of His plan for the Church Age. The indwelling of God the Father provides divine assurance of the Father's efforts on the part of each believer in eternity past. He is the author of our portfolio; He is the grantor of our escrow blessings, He is the mastermind of the protocol plan which is the only plan for the Church Age; He is the designer of our very own palace, the operational type divine dynasphere, and He guarantees all of these things by indwelling us.

Never before in history has Jesus Christ indwelt the body of anyone and it will never happen after the Church Age — Romans 8:10; Colossians 1:27. The indwelling of Christ is both a sign and a badge of the royal family of God at regeneration and also it is a demonstration of the Shekinah glory. The Shekinah glory indwells the believer's body as a guarantee of blessing. Christ also indwells to motivate momentum in the execution of the protocol plan. He indwells as the basis for worship and assigning number one priority to God relationship over people relationship.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit: to provide a temple in our body. Our bodies contain the OSN and, therefore, a temple has to be constructed; the Holy Spirit indwells for that purpose — 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19,20; 2 Cor. 6:16. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit also provides the base of operations for the execution of the protocol plan. "And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the Spirit is life because of righteousness" — Romans 8:10.

Never before in history has divine omnipotence been available to every believer, and never before in history have we had a dispensation in which the dispensation itself has had no prophetic events. There are only two prophecies related to the Church Age: the baptism of the Spirit which began the Church Age and the Rapture of the Church which concludes the Church Age. In between — no prophecy! Only historical trends.

Never before in history has the ordinary believer been given so much. This includes the principle that this is the dispensation of the invisible hero. If you advance to spiritual maturity you may be anonymous as far as society is concerned but you will have a fantastic personal impact wherever you go. You will have an invisible, historical impact as a part of the pivot and an international impact if you go as a missionary to another country. You will have angelic impact. They will applaud because you will be a witness for the prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan's appeal trial in history. And you will have an heritage impact. When you die, those of your loved one's who are left behind will be blessed after your death.

Along with this the believer learns ten problem-solving devices that are absolutely phenomenal. All of this is a part of precedence and all of that precedence excludes completely the Mosaic law.

Eph.421. "e)i gh," e)i plus the indicative mood introduces the protesis of a first class condition, a supposition with the viewpoint of reality. Plus the enclitic particle ge appended to the word to which it refers to emphasise that word. Translated "if indeed."

Then the aorist active indicative of the verb a)kouw — "if indeed you have heard. This is a culminative aorist tense which views the hearing and understanding of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age in its entirety but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results — momentum and the execution of the protocol plan of God. We take the high ground by hearing the teaching of the Word of God. This is how we keep advancing.

"him" is the accusative singular direct object from the intensive pronoun a)utoj — the Lord Jesus Christ who made the first announcement of the Church Age during the dispensation of the hypostatic union. The believers in the Roman province of Asia had never heard Jesus preach and teach. Jesus had His ministry in the middle east and it centred around Jerusalem and Galilee. These believers heard it through the apostle Paul.

"and" kai, continues the protasis of the first class condition, a supposition from the viewpoint of reality.

Then we have the aorist passive indicative of the verb didaskw, one of the great words for teaching. This word calls attention to two aspects: knowledge of doctrine presupposed in the teaching and the insight of the one who is taught the mystery doctrine, for it's built doctrine upon doctrine, etc. his is the momentum in the spiritual life. The teacher forms a bridge through the knowledge of doctrine to the positive believer only. Hearing represents positive volition. Didaskw represents communication to positive volition. The verb didaskw implies a gathering of students to hear the teaching of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. The classroom is generally the assembly of the local church where the pastor teaches and the congregation listens attentively under the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Those assembled to learn are called maqhthj, translated in the King James version "disciples." It really means "student," not disciple. Students are assembled to be taught. Maqhthj is taken from the Greek manqanw — to learn.

Finally there is a prepositional phrase: e)n plus the instrumental of means from a)utoj, correctly translated "by him." You will note that this is called "impersonal means" for a personal agency would have a different preposition. If this was personal (one on one) then it would be u(po, but you do not have u(po here. This is impersonal means, communication from the pulpit and in the privacy of the priesthood of the believer it is heard and utilised. There is no force; it has to be self-determination, not the self-determination of the pastor. The pastor's self-determination ends with communicating accurately what is there. The believer's self-determination picks up on responding to what is there in the privacy of his priesthood in a group.

Believers are either winners or losers. Not one has any less opportunity than anyone else; it is a matter of self-determination, volition, priority.

Jeremiah 18:12 — a description of the loser. "But they will say, It is hopeless, for we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act upon the basis of the stubbornness of his heart [scar tissue of the soul]." That is locked in negative volition. And with locked in negative volition you have equal privilege and equal opportunity, and you are not only destroying your own life but you are making a contribution to the client nation.

Isaiah 57:10 — a description of the winner. "You were tired out by the length of your road; but you did not say, It is hopeless. You found renewed strength; therefore, you did not faint." Those of you who fall into this category are the ones who stand between the prosperity or failure of the nation. As goes the believer, so goes the client nation to God. The "renewed strength" comes from metabolised doctrine and is built up over a period of time — positive volition toward Bible doctrine.

Projections: The year 1989 is going to be a piece of cake. The ingredients in the cake include controversy and conflict, optimism and inflation, divorce and unrest, crime and no punishment. The icing on the cake is self-deceit which leads to diffusion. The American people will ignore both historical and spiritual reality. Controversy will break out in the coming year — controversy which has already begun.

Politically, one of the greatest disasters is going to be the conflict between the executive and legislative branches of our Government, between the President and the Congress. Already the Congress has destroyed some of the checks and balances that out forefathers founded on this continent.

Controversies over economic policies always leads to lack of sound judgement. When we are in an economic James sound judgement is thrown out the window and every goofy thinker with every goofy idea will get a crack at it to our detriment. I see the possibility of our Government even using Internal Revenue for redistribution of wealth — a disaster which only those who are familiar with the industrial revolution can realise. You cannot attack wealth without impoverishing a nation. The redistribution of wealth, then, will utterly destroy any possibility of economic recovery in the United States. Economic recovery always demands strong capitalism, never strong socialism.

And to make matters worse, controversy in the theological realm will shrink the pivot and advance client nation USA to the brink of disaster. Theological controversy will undermine the nation more than anything else. This is because the evangelicals, the fundamentalists and other Christians, will be locked in to horrible legalism — faith plus for salvation, absolute understanding of the protocol plan of God, and substituting the Mosaic law. And unless positive believers are consistent in post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation the US will cease to exist as a client nation to God before the next decade is concluded.

What is even worse, the frosting on this piece of cake is sweet and full of sugar. That is, false hope, optimism, divorcement from reality [the head in the sand syndrome]. Client nation USA is passing the point of no return in divine judgement. And yet we are constantly bombarded with information that things have never been better. That is not true. The USA can no longer depend, therefore, on visible heroes.

Next year will see the emergence of the pseudo hero on the historical scene — the demagogue, the power-mad person in all categories of life lusting to fulfil inordinate ambition. These pseudo heroes become the basis for establishing false hope. For the only deliverance we have left to us is the invisible hero, the believer who executes the protocol plan of God and becomes instantly a member of the pivot.

There are seven principles of hope

1. You cannot buy hope. It is not for sale.

2. You cannot legislate hope. No laws have ever been passed to produce hope.

3. Therefore, government cannot give you hope.

4. Hope is the monopoly of God; hope is a system of absolute confidence [The Greek word e)lpij means confidence]. And the only hope for the client nation is a pivot of mature believers who are classified in our studies as "invisible heroes."

5. Hope in the nation depends on attitude toward Bible doctrine but that attitude must be that of the believer only.

6. Only those believers who execute the protocol plan and become invisible heroes can be the source of deliverance for our country.

7. Therefore, the only hope for client nation USA is to relate to the three categories of hope in the protocol plan of God — Hebrews 7:19 — X+Y+Z.

Principle: False hope permeates the nation where Christian degeneracy predominates.

Today Christian degeneracy, both moral and immoral, is taking over the USA. And what will undermine the nation in 1989 will be moral degeneracy based on the polarised trend of the sin nature which we classify as legalism. Legalism will dominate Christianity in the next year.

1989 will be a year of diffusion. Diffusion is defined as an intermingling of molecules, ions and so on, resulting in random thermal agitation, as in the dispersion of vapour in air. Or it can be defined as refraction of light or other electromagnetic radiation from an irregular surface or an erratic dispersion through a surface. Light doesn't come straight through [analogous to Bible doctrine] but it is refracted and fragmented to the hearer.

By way of illustration, then, light represents absolute truth of Bible doctrine in all of its aspects — relating to salvation, the Christian way of life and to the laws of divine establishment. And it is refracted so that people never put it together and understand.

All of this truth will be diffused, then, through a screen during the coming year. We are going to see truth mishandled, truth distorted, Bible doctrine not properly interpreted, and therefore we are going to see the truth or the light diffused through a screen composed of six things:

1. Controversy.

2. False teaching.

3. Political deception.

4. Avoidance of historical reality.

5. Ignorance of historical trends.

6. The decline of the pivot.

Principle

1. You cannot have prosperity without marital and family stability.

2. You cannot have prosperity where crime goes unpunished and is unrestrained. This means you cannot have national prosperity in a drug culture.

3. You cannot have national prosperity without the potential for freedom through military victory.

4. You cannot have national prosperity where the citizens are over taxed.

5. You cannot have national prosperity when the Government is solving personal problems of individuals and special groups rather than sponsoring freedom for all.

6. You cannot have national prosperity with unsound banking.

7. You cannot have national prosperity without individual patriotism.

8. You cannot have national prosperity without a pivot of mature believers.

Prediction: Confusion (1988) plus diffusion (1989) equals national disaster (1990 and following).

The comparative adjective in the English language for the word "good" is "better." Better is the subject of numerous biblical concepts. Proverbs 15:16: "Better a little with fear or reverence of the Lord than great wealth with misery"; 16;16: "How much better it is to get wisdom than gold! And to choose understanding of doctrine over money"; 16:8: "Better a little with honour than great wealth with dishonour"; 17:1: "A dry crust with peace and quiet is better than a house full of feasting and strife"; 28:6: "Better a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man whose ways are crooked"; 16:19 "It is better to be humble with the lowly than to share the plunder with the arrogant"; 25:24: "Better to live in an attic than to share a house with a nagging wife"; 21:19: "Better to live alone in a desert than with a contentious and argumentative woman"; Ecclesiastes 7:5: "It is better to hear the reprimand of a wise man than to listen to the song of fools"; Proverbs 12:9: "Better is he who is lightly esteemed and has a servant than he who honours himself and lacks bread"; 28:6 "Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than he who is a crook though he is rich"; Ecclesiastes 9:4: "There is hope for him who is joined to the living; for truly a live dog is better than a dead lion"; Ecclesiastes 6:3: "If a man sires a hundred children, and lives many years, yet no matter how long he lives, if he has no capacity for his prosperity, and does not receive a proper burial, better he a miscarriage than he."

The Church as the royal family of God has a better precedence. Heb. 7:19 — "For the law accomplishes nothing, but on the other hand the bringing in of a better hope did, through which hope we draw near to God." The better hope is Jesus Christ in hypostatic union. The dispensation of the hypostatic union is the source of precedence.

Hebrews 7:17 — "For it is testified concerning him [a quotation from Psalm 110:4]." We start with the basis for a better covenant. The Mosaic law has a priesthood based on one tribe, the tribe of Levi, one family in that tribe, the family of Aaron. Aaron had four sons, two of whom survived to form the two lines of the Levitical priesthood. People were born physically into that priesthood.

The Mosaic law was for believer and unbeliever alike in Israel. Codex 1 taught the concept of freedom — the decalogue. Codex 2 — designed to evangelise, a perfect Christology and soteriology but one which was based upon ritual that looked forward to the cross. Codex 3 — the laws of divine establishment. But what kind of a priesthood would administer under such a covenant? It is a priesthood based on physical birth. And any time a priesthood is based upon physical birth or human talent it is inadequate for spiritual things, just as the Mosaic law is inadequate and has no part in the Christian way of life.

" … the order of Melchizedeck" [a royal priesthood]. Historically Melchizedeck was the King of Salem which was the original city founded on the site of Jerusalem. He was also the priest of Salem and therefore he was a king priest. Our Lord came into world from the tribe of Judah, not from the tribe of Levi. The tribe of Levi provided the priests of the family of Aaron; the tribe of Judah provided the kings in the family of David. Our Lord through His physical birth was not qualified in any way to be a Levitical priest. But then it wasn't necessary for Him to be a Levitical priest for the Levitical priest was basically inadequate. It administered a system for believer and unbeliever alike, and a true priesthood must administer a system for those who are born again, for those who are the possessors of eternal life. So when our Lord was seated at the right hand of the Father He was seated as a King Priest. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords and He has also a royal priesthood and so it follows the pattern of Melchizedeck. Now in following that pattern it means that when Jesus Christ sat at the right hand of the Father with His third royal patent and did not have a royal family it was necessary to provide for Him a royal family that followed the pattern of His royalty. That patter requires not only royalty but universal priesthood. The family of our Lord Jesus Christ to accompany His third royal patent is composed of those who believed in Jesus Christ during the Church Age. From the moment we believe two of the forty things given to us — we become members of the royal family of God through the baptism of the Spirit and we become, each one of us, a royal priesthood.

When Jesus Christ rules the world that will be the perfect government in history. The last one thousand years of history will have perfect government because perfect God, Jesus Christ our Lord, will rule. He will rule as a King and He will rule as a Priest. And, furthermore, those who execute the protocol plan of God will rule with Him as royal priests. We have a royal priesthood.

Hebrews 7:18 — "For on the one hand there is the abrogation of a former commandment [the Mosaic law] because if its weakness and its uselessness." The Mosaic law was useless and weak when it came to the administration of spiritual things for its priesthood ministered to believer and unbeliever. And the Levitical priesthood was the administrator of an inferior covenant. The administration included the fact that the priests offered animal sacrifices whether they were born again or not.

Verse 19: "For the law accomplished nothing, but on the other hand the bringing in of a better hope did, through which hope we [believers in the Church Age] draw near to God."

Verse 20: "And inasmuch as it was not without a divine oath." Our priesthood is based upon divine oath. The priesthood of the Mosaic law was based on physical birth.

Verse 21: "For they [Levitical priesthood] indeed became priests without an oath [because they were born into it. Physical birth was the basis of all priesthood], but he with an oath through the one who said, The Lord has sworn and will never change his mind, You are a priest forever [God the Father to the humanity of God the Son] on the pattern of Melchizedek."

Verse 22: "So much the more also [by so much doctrinal evidence] Jesus has become a guarantee of a better covenant."

We know that the Mosaic law is a covenant to Israel. It was a conditional covenant; blessing depended upon its execution. There were also some grace covenants which have yet to be fulfilled. We in the Christian way of life do not deal with covenants. The protocol plan of God is not a covenant as such. Nevertheless, our priesthood is related to a better covenant. So in that sense, the sense of the universal priesthood of the believer, the royal priesthood of the believer, we are under a covenant that is fulfilled every time a person believes in Christ. And this covenant is made between God and the person at the moment of salvation. One of the forty things that God does for us at the moment of salvation is to make us a royal priest. How does He accomplish it? The baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 23: "And the former priests [the Levitical priests under the Mosaic law] on the one hand existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing." The whole priesthood depended on physical birth and so there were a tremendous number coming down in every generation from the line of Aaron and the two sons that survived. And so they existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death — death terminated the priesthood. Not so the believers priesthood which continues forever and ever.

Verse 24: "But he on the other hand, because he abides forever, holds his priesthood permanently." And by union with Christ, that is the priesthood to which we belong. It is a royal priesthood; it is an eternal priesthood; it has certain functions on earth related to the protocol plan, and it has certain functions in eternity related to that wonderful status quo of being in a resurrection body in the presence of the Lord forever.

Verse 25: "Therefore, also, he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him [How do we draw near? Personal faith in Jesus Christ], since he [our High Priest] always lives to make intercession for them."

Principles

1. The Levitical priesthood was based on physical birth. The royal priesthood of the Church is based on regeneration.

2. A priesthood based on physical birth will never be as effective as a priesthood based on regeneration and subsequent eternal life.

3. Therefore, an eternal priesthood demands a new covenant since there is no authorisation for the royal priesthood under the Mosaic law.

4. Note that covenants like the Mosaic law and the new covenant to the Church were based on a priesthood.

5. A priesthood based on physical birth can never be as effective as a priesthood based on regeneration. Therefore we have a better covenant because we have a better priesthood.

Verse 26: "For it is fitting that we should have such a high priest [Why? We are royal family], holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens [a description of His humanity. His priesthood resides in His humanity]."

Verse 27: "Who does not need daily, like those high priests [of the Mosaic law], to offer up sacrifices [like the Levitical priesthood], first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people [Jesus Christ was perfect in His humanity, He did not sin]; because he did this once, as our high priest he offered himself on the cross."

Verse 28: "For the law appoints men as high priests because they are weak [their priesthood is based on physical birth. In physical birth there is spiritual death and a priesthood based on spiritual death can never be as effective as a priesthood based on regeneration], but the word of the [God's] oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son made perfect forever."

Hebrews 8:6 — "But now [Church Age] he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been ordained on better promises." This better covenant is ordained on the promises related to the royal priesthood, on the promises related to the baptism of the Spirit, on the promises related to the protocol plan of God, on the promises based on the portfolio of our invisible assets, on the promises based on the indwelling of Jesus Christ and the other members of the Godhead, based on divine omnipotence directly available to each one of us.

Verse 7 — "For if the first covenant [Mosaic law] had been faultless [but it was not faultless], there would have been no occasion for a second one [which involves a priesthood]" .We are talking about a contrast between the Mosaic law with its priesthood and the new covenant to the Church with its priesthood.

The quotation which follows from Jeremiah 31:34 indicates that the Mosaic law is abrogated as a total code, including its Levitical priesthood. Never again will there be a Levitical priesthood based on the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron, for the new covenant to Israel supersedes the Mosaic covenant and in the new covenant to Israel it applies to believers only — believers in the Millennium, believers in the eternal state. It applies to true Israel and it would be impossible for the Levitical priesthood to administer to believers only. However, the new covenant to Israel does not function until Israel is regathered at the second advent and restored to their client nation status. But never again will there be a priesthood based on physical birth or physical descent. There are only two priesthoods after the abrogation of the Mosaic law — the royal priesthood of the believer of the Church Age and the priesthood of the new covenant to Israel in the Millennium, which is found in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Hebrews 8:8-12. Therefore, precedence for the Church Age believer is not taken form the Mosaic law or the dispensation of Israel but from the humanity of Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. The new covenant to Israel illustrates the fact that the Church must go elsewhere for its precedence; that no precedence is taken from the Mosaic law; that the Mosaic law as a total code is abrogated and what we have is something far better. Therefore, there is a transitional verse in Hebrews 11:40 — "Since God has provided something better for us."

Hebrews 11:40 — "Since God has provided something better [than the greatest in the OT] for us [the Church Age believer], so that apart from us [each one of us as believers] they [Old Testament believers] should not be made perfect [teleiow — be completed or brought to a goal or objective]." In other words, Israel has not reached its goal. There were five Jewish client nations in the dispensation of Israel — the theocracy, the united kingdom, the northern and southern kingdoms, the kingdom of Judah. But they were never completed, in fact the dispensation of Israel was never completed, it was seven years short of its completion.

But the dispensation of the hypostatic union — the time when Jesus Christ, eternal God, became true humanity in one person forever — was terminated by the physical death, resurrection and ascension of Christ.

Then comes the Church Age. And when our Lord was seated at the right hand of the Father He received His third royal patent. His first royal patent, His deity and His royal family, composed of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. His second royal patent came at the beginning of the dispensation of the hypostatic union — born in the line of David, called Son of David with a royal family, the dynasty of David.

But when He was seated at the right hand of the Father and given His third royal title He was minus a royal family, and therefore the Church Age is the calling out of the royal family. And when it is completed it will be called out under what we call the rapture of the Church. Once that occurs there will no longer be any Gentile client nations to God. For then, Israel is given its last seven years which we call the Tribulation. During this time Israel will be persecuted; anti-Semitism will reach its peak. Then the second advent, the deliverance of Israel and the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ.

Now we must locate ourselves under the protocol plan of God. We were designed to be winners and the only thing that will keep us from being winners is our own negative volition. Whether we are winners or losers is a matter of self-determination. Therefore when it says in Hebrews 11:40 "Since God has provided something better for us …" etc. we are talking about the fact that Israel's objective cannot be attained until ours is completed. The next objective of God is to complete the royal family and once it is completed then it is resurrected en toto.

After that God will once again deal with Israel but the Mosaic law will not be the issue. New issues are created at this point. There will 144,000 Jewish evangelists and the greatest period of evangelism the world has ever seen, etc.

Notice how this applies to us when it says, "Since God has provided something better for us …" This means consistent hearing of whom ever is your right pastor-teacher and being taught by him. This means that Bible doctrine received number one priority in your life. Secondly it means that the believer must keep in mind that the mystery doctrine of the Church Age is absolute truth, whose source is Jesus Christ Himself, as we have noted in Ephesians 4:20-21.

The believer must never give up even though he may fall into some stage of Christian degeneracy at some time in his Christian experience. [As long as you are alive you should never give up. Just rebound and keep moving]. Cf Isaiah 57:10 which is in contrast to Jeremiah 18:12.

Note: Hebrews 6:1-10 in corrected translation.

Verse 1 — "Therefore graduating from the elementary teachings about Christ [dealing with the dispensation of the hypostatic union which is precedence for the protocol plan of God for the Church Age], let us advance to maturity; not laying again the foundation of basic doctrines, of a change of mind about dead works [the Mosaic law and all forms of legalism emphasise (dead) works], of faith toward God [salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ and, secondly, the three stages of the faith-rest drill],

Verse 2 — "About the doctrines of baptisms [identification — two categories found in the Scripture, real and ritual], and the laying on of hands [Levitical code (Lev.1:4), identification of blessing (Acts 19:3), the ordination to the Gospel ministry (Acts 6:6; 1 Tim. 4:14], and of the resurrection form the dead, and eternal judgement [Two general resurrections: 1. Believers — Christ, Church Age, Tribulation, Millennium; 2. All unbelievers — at the end of human history]."

Verse 3 — "Furthermore, assuming that God allows it [an assumption based upon the fact of logistical grace for everyone has enough time to execute the protocol plan of God], we will begin to do it."

Verse 4 — "For those [legalistic believers] who have once been enlightened [Jewish believers in Jerusalem] and have tasted the heavenly gift [ministry of the Holy Spirit in efficacious grace]."

Verse 5 — "And have tasted the good word of God [they have been briefed on the protocol plan], and the powers of the coming age [Church Age]",

Verse 6 — "And then when they go astray [aorist active participle of parapiptw, to drift off course], it is impossible [a)dunatoj] to renew them again to a change of mind [change of mind was number one on a list of six basics, (v1)] with regard to the basics; so long as they again crucify to themselves the son of God, and expose him to public defamation."

Who was doing this? Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who had gone back to the Mosaic law as the Christian way of life. The Jews of Jerusalem had returned to the shadow worship of Codex number 2, including animal sacrifices, and these Jews were believers living in the Church Age. They had believed in Christ who was the fulfilment of these sacrifices and, in effect, these Christian Jews in their moral degeneracy had returned to the function of the Mosaic law and had substituted the Mosaic law, now abrogated, for the protocol plan of God.

Principle: As long as a believer clings to the Mosaic law as the Christian way of life he cannot execute the protocol plan of God.

The Mosaic law used as the Christian way of life results in two kinds of fragmentation: self-fragmentation from the arrogance complex as implosion and, secondly, polarised fragmentation in the sin nature's trend toward legalism. The inevitable result is that the believer keeping the law in the Church Age enters reversion resulting in moral degeneracy, the ultimate apostasy related to the Mosaic law.

The illustration of the winner is given in Hebrews 6:7 — "For the ground that drinks in the rain [consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation] which so often falls on it, and brings forth a crop which is useful for whose sake it is farmed, they [the winners] receive blessing from God."

The illustration of the loser, verse 8 — "But when it produces thorns and thistles, it is not qualified for escrow blessings, and near to being cursed; whose end [of the production] is for burning [of works at the judgement seat of Christ]."

Verse 9 — "Even though we [pastor-teachers] speak in this manner beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation [the protocol plan of God which can only be executed through reception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine]:"

Verse 10: the communicator of better things — "For God is not unfair to forget your work and the virtue-love you have demonstrated toward his person, because you have ministered to the saints, and you keep on ministering."

So "better things" comes to those Church Age believers who persist in the perception of Bible doctrine. But for the believer who is negative toward Bible doctrine and fails to understand and execute the protocol plan of God, all is hopeless.

We are fighting against the unseen hosts of Satan, against the strongest anti-Christian documentation from two antithetical sources that has ever existed. One antithetical source is religion and the other is anti-Godism which is a combination of atheism and agnosticism. On the one hand the communists are totally anti-God and, on the other, religion has no morality, e.g. the Muslims.

Ephesians 4:22-24 — recovery from the fragmented life. This recovery has to begin with the problem-solving device called the rebound technique. In the King James version we read: "That ye put of concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts."

To translate correctly we begin with a prepositional phrase, kata plus the adverbial accusative of reference from three words. "That" — kata should be translated "with reference to." The three words: thn — a definite article used as a personal pronoun. "With reference to your." Then we have an adjective proteroj — former (but not former before salvation), referring to your lifestyle as a believer in decline — everything related to Christian degeneracy. The we have the noun a)nastrofh. It does not mean conversation, although conversation is certainly a manifestation of some ways of lifestyle. It means "lifestyle." So the first phrase is translated: "With reference to your former lifestyle."

Pre-salvation sinning is not in view here; it is a reference to post-salvation sinning. That takes us into the Christian degeneracy subject. Some people call it apostasy but in reality it is degeneracy because it is taking the perfect and high standards of the protocol plan and rejecting them, and accepting lower standards. The acceptance of lower standards and their application in your experience is degeneracy. Specifically it is a reference to implode, explode, revert.

This verse simply lists the problem with reference to your former lifestyle. The integrity envelope is broken by negative volition, toward temptation, toward the OSN. Once the envelope is broken then the fragmentation keeps going, just like the explosion of a vacuum tube which is really implosion. Explosion is polarised fragmentation in one of two directions, legalism or antinomianism. Once you move into explosion — the fragment keeps moving to a polarised position — then you move into reversionism. In reversionism we have eight stages and at the end of legalism we have moral degeneracy and at the end of antinomianism we have immoral degeneracy, both are very prominent. In fact this is the explanation of the 70 or 80 per cent of all born again believers. All of us sin occasionally but we are talking about getting into a system of degeneracy and apostasy.

From this system of degeneracy there has to be a recovery. Therefore, a verb: an aorist middle infinitive from a)potiqhmi — to take off clothes, but used figuratively here for putting away something or laying aside something. Usually it used for putting away or laying aside something that is obnoxious, something that is detrimental to yourself and something that overflows into being obnoxious to others. Plus the accusative plural of general reference from the pronoun su. A noun in the accusative describes who performs the action of the infinitive. This is in the plural and refers to all believers in this system of Christian degeneracy. The issue is not only of recovery but of advancing in the protocol plan of God. Translation: " … you yourselves lay aside" — the function of the rebound technique which is the first problem-solving device of the protocol plan. The rebound technique is mandated for both recovery from the fragmented life as well as reversion recovery.

The we have the accusative singular, direct object, of two words: palaioj translated "old." The definite article is ton and is used to identify and to note something specific that is old, something that we have that is older than we are. That something is said to be a)nthrwpoj here. The old man is a synonym for the sin nature. And laying aside the old man is the function of the rebound technique which is a problem solving device. The sin nature is classified as the old man because it is much older than we are; it originated in the Garden of Eden with our first parents. The sin nature as "old" means it is as old as the human race. We actually possess something that came all the way from the Garden of Eden.

Corrected translation: "With reference to your former lifestyle, you yourselves lay aside the old man." What does it mean? Well, what is the old man? In context it refers to post-salvation sinning which comes from the sin nature. Post-salvation sinning and the domination of the sin nature is the issue.

Romans 7:14-25.

Verse 14 — "For we know that the law is spiritual [came from God]: but I am fleshly [belonging to the flesh, or under the power of the old sin nature], sold in bondage to the sin [the sin nature].

Verse 15 — "For that which I am doing I do not understand: for I am not practising what I would like to do; but I am doing the very thing that I hate [yielding to the temptations of the OSN resulting in sin].

Verse 16 — "But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the law that it is good. [The law teaches us that we are sinners].

Verse 17 — "But as the case really stands no longer am I doing it [I am not executing God's plan], but the sin nature which is indwelling me [runs the show].

Verse 18 — "For I know that nothing good dwells in me [the sin nature], that is in my flesh [the location of the sin nature]: for the wishing is present in me [I want to do God's will], but the doing of that good is not.

Verse 19 — "For the good of intrinsic value that I desire to do, I do not do it: but the evil which I do not desire to do, I keep on practising it. [Fragmentation plus reversionism].

Verse 20 — "But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish to do [and I am], I no longer accomplish it [I no longer execute the protocol plan], but the sin nature runs the show.

Verse 21 — "Consequently I discover this principle, that when I desire to do the good, evil is present with me.

Verse 22 — "For, along with other believers, I delight in the law from God [the protocol plan for the Church Age], but with reference to my inner man [the operational type divine dynasphere]:

Verse 23 —"But I see a different law in the members of my body, making war against the law of my mind [it is the mind that is captured. Note: the OSN is in the body and cannot control the body apart from human volition], and making me a prisoner to the law of the sin nature which is in the cell structure of my body.

Verse 24 — "I am a miserable man! who will rescue me from the body of this death [the OSN]?

Verse 25 — "Grace belongs to God [God has provided the ten problem-solving devices] through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, on the one hand with my mind [the battlefield] I myself am serving the law of God [rebound and being filled with the Spirit]; but on the other hand with my flesh [OSN] I am serving the law of sin."

The sin nature is designated by certain terms

a. The first of these is called hamartia or sin in the singular. In the singular generally (not always) refers to the sin nature. In the plural it always refers to personal sins.

b. The word "flesh" — sarc. The reason the sin nature is called flesh is because the OSN dwells in the body. It does not dwell in the soul. It takes over the soul when we sin but actually dwells in the body. Because the sin nature is related to biological life and resides in the cell structure of the human body it is called flesh. It is so called in Romans 6:6; 7:14; Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 2:3. The sin nature is transmitted at conception through 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum. However, the sin nature does not become active until birth where biological life is combined with soul life to form human life. Biological life begins at conception; soul life begins at birth. We are not human beings until we have soul life. The sin nature is transmitted through biological life and therefore the sin nature is transmitted through the body, not the soul. Biological life begins with mother dependence; soul life begins with God dependence.

God did not and cannot create the sin nature. God is not the author of sin; such a thought, of course, is blasphemous and unthinkable. Biological life comes from mankind at conception; soul life comes from God at birth. It is the objective of the sin nature through temptation to control the soul. That is why we are mandated in Gal. 5:16: "Keep walking by means of the Spirit and you will not execute the lusts of the flesh." The culprit in personal sin is the OSN.

The culprit for personal sin in Christian degeneracy is related to two factors: a. The OSN which is the source of temptation — but not the source of sin; b. Human volition — which is always the source of sin.

Personal sins occur in two categories: Sins of cognisance in which volition recognises temptation as a sin and commits the sin and, secondly, sins of ignorance in which the volition is not aware that the temptations solicited through the sin nature is sin. It wants to do it and does it. We are responsible for both sins of cognisance and sins of ignorance. The reason being because all personal sin originates from the volition, and if you do not know it is a sin but you still want to do it, you are responsible for your own decisions. The fact that you are ignorant of something being a sin is no excuse before God.

In the final analysis the believer's volition is responsible for all personal sins. Therefore the believer must take the responsibility for his own decisions — all of his decisions. Consequently, this same volition functions in a non-meritorious manner to recover from personal sin. We recover in the execution of the rebound technique. But in so doing it is the one decision that we make that is non-meritorious.

c. palaioj a)nthrwpoj — old man. Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9.

d. sarkinoj — belonging to the realm of the sin nature, or the flesh. (Translated "carnal" in the King James version.)

1 Cor. 3:1: " … but as to belonging to the sin nature."

Romans 5:12 — "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world [personal sin], and death by sin [spiritual death]; so this death passed upon all men, because all sinned:"

Spiritual death means loss of human spirit and therefore we are in a dichotomous state. But the human soul would live on without fellowship with God because it was soul life minus the human spirit. Therefore man was created trichotomous; we are born dichotomous.

God's initial warning of Genesis 2:17 makes a definite distinction between biological life and soul life. The soul never dies physically, only the human body. The soul only dies spiritually through separation from God. Therefore we are born physically alive but we do not have spiritual life.

Only the body dies physically and therefore God warned our first parents when He said: "Dying [spiritual death; the act of original sin] you will die [physical death]" .Physical life died — which means that biological life is not designed to last forever — cf Ecclesiastes 12:7. This is why we will have a resurrection body; it will last forever.

Job 33:4 — "The breath of God has made me, And the spark of life from the Almighty gave me life. (Nothing about conception or biological life in the womb!)

Principle: Human life is a combination of biological and soul life or a combination of body and soul.

Therefore it is important that we distinguish between biological and soul life just as we distinguish between the dispensation of Israel and the dispensation of the Church. Biological life is created at conception by mankind; soul life is created by God at birth.

The sin nature is transmitted through biological life; hence the sin nature resides in the cell structure of the body. The soul resides entirely apart from cell structure. only the biological life actually contains the sin nature. However, the sin nature is not activated until birth when soul life is created by God and imputed to biological life. This means that the conflict between the sin nature and the human soul does not and cannot exist until after birth.

When soul life is finally imputed to biological life at birth, simultaneously Adam's original sin is imputed to the genetically-formed OSN and this results in the activation of the sin nature and spiritual death. This means total depravity — the potential for degeneracy — total separation from God, total helplessness to do anything about it, and dichotomous status quo.

Isaiah 44:2 — "Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you out [separated, removed] from [mi beten] the womb." There is no life in the womb. You were separated from the womb, removed from the womb. Soul life was given out from the womb at birth.

Isaiah 44:24 — "Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the one who formed you out [mi beten] from the womb."

Biological life minus soul life is not human life. Only when biological life emerges from the womb as a viable foetus and God imputes soul life to that biological life does human life exist.

See also Isaiah 49:1; 49:5; Job 1:21.

The law (US) is No. 70-18, Rowe versus Wade who was the District Attorney of Dallas Country. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States from the United States District Court of the northern district of Texas.

In arguing the case the pro-life forces wanted the right to save foetuses. In arguing the case the pro-choice forces wanted the right to terminate pregnancies, especially when the pregnancy jeopardised the life of the mother.

There were three hearings. The case was argued on 13 December, 1971 and reargued on 11 October 1972. The case was decided on 22 January, 1973. In the Rowe case the Justice rejected the major philosophical, theological, and moral arguments pressed by both sides. (No one really brought in the Biblical view. The theology was false theology all the way.) In the Rowe case the Justice rejected the philosophical as well as the theological and moral argument. Instead they chose the ground of the Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy in a scientific and technological situation. To do this the Supreme Court divided the nine months of a normal pregnancy into three trimesters, each one covering a period of three months.

The decision of the first trimester is as follows: during the first three months the mother is paramount, so that no State can regulate or prevent a legal abortion. This means that the pregnant woman has a near absolute right to end her pregnancy during the first three months. Hence abortion during the first three months is a private matter between a patient and a doctor.

This finding was based on the decision that in the first trimester abortion is a safer medical procedure than childbirth. Great wisdom was used here. The Court declined to consider the pro-life argument that the foetus is a human being. (Theologically correct.) Instead the Court reduced the abortion issue to the question of choosing the best treatment — abortion or childbirth for the medical condition of pregnancy. The Rowe versus Wade compromise represents a medical and scientific approach to the subject. Also, it represents the quintessence of understanding human freedom based on privacy. There can be no human freedom without privacy.

The condition of the second trimester: in the middle trimester the Supreme Court rules that the balance of interest exists between three parties — the mother, the foetus, the State. The various States could make reasonable regulations for abortion without totally abandoning abortion. The Sate is included at this point because it was of a general interest to preserve both health and welfare of the people. So in the second trimester Sate government has the prerogative in regulation of abortion but it cannot forbid abortion.

The third trimester: the interests of the foetus at this point becomes paramount because it is in a state that potentially viable. (Great wisdom) That is, the foetus is able to survive outside the womb during the last three months of pregnancy. Therefore the decision of the Supreme Court bans abortion during the last three months of pregnancy. Hence, the State's authority to restrict abortion is related to the last three months of pregnancy.

In summary, then, the Supreme Court of the United States made a decision that permits abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, forbids abortion during the last three months of pregnancy, and leaves the middle trimester to the State. The guiding rule in the Supreme Court decision is related to what is paramount in each trimester.

The strongest argument against abortion was the argument that the foetus is a human being, therefore the State has both the right and the responsibility to protect it. (Not true!) The argument before the Supreme Court said in effect, that the foetus resides in the body of the mother and if her right is terminated by law she will be forced to carry the foetus to term regardless of mitigating circumstances (That is a violation of human freedom).

Pro-life, which is made up primarily of Christians, demonstrates once again the horrible apostasy that has come to this country. People are making decisions on emotion.

Exodus 21:22-23 — The legal problem of the womb

(The word "pro-life" has been taken out of its normal context. By whom? Apostate believers in a state of terrible legalism. This legalism results in moral degeneracy.)

Here (Exodus 21:22-23) is the Supreme Court of heaven ruling on the subject. Two men were fighting and in the fight they hit a pregnant woman "so that she has a miscarriage [expulsion from the womb of a foetus before it is viable], yet there is no further injury [to the mother]: he will surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand; therefore he [the fighter who injures the woman] will pay damages as the judges decide" .There is no trial for murder. The mother is alive and the foetus is not a human being.

Note: Human law always deals with human life. It does not deal with biological life. It does not deal with the foetus because the foetus is not a human being. No human government can ever govern effectively by regulating or enacting laws dealing with the content of the womb. That is outside the prerogative of government. If you set up a system of laws of that sort you will destroy the nation. Governments administer laws to the living; governments do not administer law where life does not exist. The content of the womb is under the personal decisions of the mother. Biological life in the womb is under the control of the volition of the mother. Biological life resides in the womb, not in human life.

Verse 23 — "And if there is any further injury [to the woman beyond miscarriage], then you shall appoint as the penalty a life for a life [capital punishment for murder], …" The Bible mandates capital punishment, first in Genesis 9:5-6; then in Exodus 21:12; Numbers 35:30; Matthew 26:53; Romans 13:3-4. The mother's life is infinitely more important than the foetus.

God is the author of human life; man is the author of biological life. Inside the womb is biological life and the old sin nature which is transmitted with biological life. No decisions are made in the womb and the sin nature is not active. The sin nature is not tempting biological life because biological life has no volition. (All sin comes through human volition which responds to temptation.) When biological life emerges from the womb then God creates soul life which is imputed to biological life, and this is when man becomes a human being. And because emerging at the same time is the OSN we have the imputation of Adam's sin to the genetically-formed sin nature. Man is therefore spiritually dead while physically alive.

This is the basis for our so great salvation. Spiritual death means that we are incapable of having a relationship with God; it means total depravity which means total degeneracy; it means we are separated from God; it means we are dichotomous.

So now we need to develop how our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world and what is the issue there. Note: Isaiah 44:2,24 — no life in the womb, it is (mi beten) away from the womb — 49:1,5; Job 1:21.

The sin nature originates at conception through the 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum. The sin nature is then transmitted in the womb as a part of biological life. The reason for this is the difference between man's original sin and the woman's original sin. The original sin of the man was the sin of cognisance; the original sin of the woman was the sin of ignorance, she was deceived. This difference means that the sin nature is passed down through the human race by the man. Just as the womb of the woman was dormant at the fall (no ovulation) so the sin nature transmitted in biological life is dormant until birth. There can be no temptation from the sin nature until a soul exists. The soul has volition and temptation is designed to reach volition. Sin is the result of volition succumbing to temptation.

Psalm 51:5 — "Behold, I was born sinful;" Since there is no human being until birth — the imputation of soul life to biological life — birth is mentioned first. When soul life is created by God and imputed to biological life at birth, simultaneously Adam's original sin is imputed to the genetically-formed OSN and, therefore, we are born sinful.

"And in sin my mother conceived me." The psalmist goes back to conception. The word for "sin" is chatah — it refers to the sin nature, not to a human being. The sin nature is transmitted in biological life and therefore the womb contains not only biological life but the OSN in its dormant state. Chatah is the sin nature at conception. When he says: "I was born sinful," he uses the Hebrew word awon, the sin nature at birth.

Psalm 139:13 — "You created my innermost being," a reference to soul life imputed to biological life at birth. "You covered me in my mother's womb" — biological life is in the womb. The word for "cover" is very important because it indicates once again that the womb is simply an incubator for biological life.

There are some mistranslated passages in the New Testament, like Luke 1:15 — "He will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Spirit [e)k plus the ablative of separation koilia] yet separated from his mother's womb." You cannot be filled with the Spirit until you are a human being and there is no human life in the womb.

Again in Luke 1:41 — "And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard Mary's greeting, the foetus [brefoj] leaped in her womb" — reflex motility, the functional state of the sensory nerves and their endings plus the function of intermediary and motor nerve cells, but not soul life and not human life. Brefoj is used for a foetus.

Psalm 22:9 — "For you are he [Jesus Christ speaking on the cross to God the Father] who brought me [mi beten] out from the womb" — that is when life began. And then He says: "You caused me to trust on my mother's breasts" — the hiphil participle of batach has to do with the faith-rest drill; "you caused me to trust" — this is nourishment out from the womb.

Verse 10 — referring to the humanity of Christ in hypostatic union. Jesus Christ came into the world trichotomous, body, soul, and spirit. He was born as Adam was created. Therefore because He was body, soul, and spirit there was no transmission of the sin nature. "I was cast upon you from out from birth [mi beten]: you have been my God separated from my mother's womb." We are dealing with the humanity of Christ. There was no humanity at conception; there was no humanity of Christ until He was separated from His mother's womb, away from His mother's womb, removed from His mother's womb. This refers to the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Love is a part of the essence of God; it is a divine attribute which belongs to all three members of the Trinity. Since God is eternal God's love exists eternally, unsustained by Himself or any other source. And since God is sovereign His love is self-motivating and is compatible with all divine decisions. Since God is holy — composed of His justice and righteousness — this is compatible with all points of reference: God is fair, God is just, therefore He is always infinitely and absolutely fair in every function. God is immutable, therefore, His divine love is unchangeable and cannot be corrupted. God is omniscient, therefore, God always acts rationally in the function of divine love. God is veracity and truth, therefore, divine love is rooted in every doctrine and in every form of knowledge which resides in His absolute being. God is infinite, without boundary, without limitation. God unites in Himself those perfections which belong to His character. This means that the love of God cannot tempt, cannot solicit to sin, cannot sponsor evil or human good, and cannot be complicated by ignorance or absurdity. Infinity characterises all that God does, including the function of His divine love, His integrity, His veracity, His infinite energy and power. And because God is immutable His love cannot change, which means that divine love does not improve, does not decline, increase or decrease. In other words God's love always remains the same. Human love has no capacity apart from virtue, integrity, or truth. Therefore, because God is veracity and truth He has perfect capacity for love at all times. Furthermore, divine integrity is maintained by the will or the sovereignty of God. He is incorruptible, unchangeable, infinite, immutable, virtuous, which means perfect capacity for love and no compromise of that love. Divine knowledge and omniscience does not change or cancel God's love; therefore, God gives of Himself whether there is an occasion or not. Since God is love, always has been love and always will be love, God does not fall in love. Nor can His love be compromised or corrupted or bribed by any form of human works. This means that God's love does not increase or diminish; therefore cannot be changed by human sin, failure, evil or the instability and vacillation of those who are believers in Jesus Christ.

Therefore several principles

1. God's love is never frustrated and never disappointed.

2. God's love exists with or without an object since divine love is always a part of divine essence.

3. God's love is not sustained by attraction or rapport or any category of human merit.

4. Neither self-righteousness, human good or morality are the basis for God extending His love to human beings.

5. Since God's love is always perfect virtue and a problem-solving device it cannot be divorced from either His holiness or His divine attributes.

6. Since God is holy He is perfect in both justice and righteousness. Therefore, God cannot be anything less than perfect; God cannot be anything less than fair.

God's love has found a way to provide eternal life for each one of us. John 3:16: "For" is an explanatory use of the post positive conjunction gar. This explains a relationship; it explains a conclusion that is so important to us. It guarantees that under certain conditions that are totally non-meritorious to man, and at the same time are totally compatible with divine essence, we enter into an eternal relationship with God — a perfect relationship with God both in time and in eternity, divided by death.

But in death we are said to be absent from the body and face to face with the Lord; we enter into an eternal state which has phenomenal happiness. Therefore it is contradictory to God's plan for us in time to have unhappiness, to possess problems without solutions. Therefore, we have noted the ten problem-solving devices. God did not design us to walk on crutches spiritually and therefore we are dependant upon the fantastic grace provision which He has made for us.

"God"— Qeoj. There is a definite article in the Greek but the definite article is used to identify the Father as a member of the Trinity. Next we have an adverb o(utoj, so much. Next is the verb a)gapaw, correctly translated "loved." The verb must have an object and the object is developed in the sense of evil or rejection — kosmoj referring to the entire human race. So far should be translated: "For God loved the world so much." This is impersonal love based on the virtue of the subject.

Love produces motivation and this case we have a conjunction to introduce an actual result clause: o(ste, that or so that; "gave," didomi always emphasises two things: firstly, the subject who gives and the virtue of the subject in giving; secondly, what is given. The gift and the subject are always involved in the verb didomi. The dramatic aorist tense indicates the present reality of the hypostatic union. So it was a dramatic moment when God the Father imputed the spark of life to the biological life of our Lord, resulting in Jesus Christ becoming true humanity, perfect humanity, the last Adam, the only saviour.

God demonstrates His love toward us by solving the problem of sin. He solved it by giving something, by giving His Son. The active voice indicates that God the Father produces the action of the verb, and in producing the action of the verb He gave to us His Son, the accusative singular, direct object from u(ioj. Next we have an appositional accusative: monogenhj, the uniquely-born one. What was His purpose? We have the conjunction i(na (that) which introduces a purpose clause. With it we have a nominative singular subject referring to us as individuals. It should be translated "anyone" paj. Anyone means any member of the human race, without exception, and often translated "everyone" — "that everyone who believes," the articular present active participle of the verb pisteuw. There we have the only non-meritorious system of perception — faith. Only the object of faith has merit and in salvation the object of faith is Jesus Christ who was judged for our sins on the cross, who took our place. In other words the salvation work of Jesus Christ is efficacious.

Next: a)pollumi plus the negative me which goes with the subjunctive. Corrected translation: "shall never perish." Once we believe in Jesus Christ we have something which can never be reversed, we have eternal life.

In the final phrase we have a conjunction which sets up a contrast: "but" a)lla. With that the present active subjunctive of the verb e)xw which means to have, to possess. There never will be a time when we do not have eternal life through one simple act of faith in Jesus Christ.

The problem of post-salvation sinning

The culprit for personal sin after salvation and resultant Christian degeneracy is related to the temptation which comes from the old sin nature and human volition. Personal sins occur in two categories: a. Sins of cognisance in which volition recognises the temptation as being a temptation or a solicitation to sin and goes ahead through volition and commits the sin; b. Sins of ignorance in which the volition is not aware that the temptation is sin but desires through the lust pattern to do and does it. We are held responsible for both categories. In the final analysis the believer's volition is responsible for all personal sins.

The importance of the rebound technique

1. Without rebound as the basic problem-solving device for post-salvation sinning it would be impossible for any of us as believers to execute the protocol plan of God. The protocol plan of God is executed in a state of non-sinning which we call the filling of the Holy Spirit.

2. Without rebound as the number one problem-solving device it is impossible to learn and use the other nine problem-solving devices of the protocol plan.

3. Without rebound as the basic problem-solving device it would be impossible to avoid Christian degeneracy.

4. Without rebound it would be impossible to be filled with the Spirit. Without the filling of the Spirit you can't learn Bible doctrine and therefore cannot fulfil the principle of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation — perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine.

5. Without rebound sooner or later all believers enter into the pattern of implosion, explosion, reversion and eventually into the total status of Christian degeneracy.

6. Some of the characteristics of Christian degeneracy include the following: a. Becoming an enemy of the cross, Phil.3:18; b. To become the enemy of God, James 4:4; c. To become a hater of God, John 15:23; d. Double minded, James 4:8; e. To become ant-Christ, 1John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2John 7; f. Carnal (under the control of the OSN), Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 3:1-2; g. Becoming a disciple (student) of the devil, 1John 3:8,10; h. Drifting off course from grace, Galatians 5:4; i. Falling from grace, Heb. 12:15; j. A tortured and unstable soul, 2Peter 2:7,8,14; k. Shipwreck, 1 Tim.1:19.

1John 1:9: "confess" — o(mologew means to confess a crime in court, but it also means to cite a courtroom case, it is a legal term. It means to name, admit, acknowledge a crime. Another meaning is to make a legal statement and always it means to make a statement regardless of how one feels about the statement made. The important fact is that the statement is true.

Putting off the old man is the rebound technique which protects us from implosion, explosion and reversion, or the three stages of entering into Christian degeneracy.

The second result: there are eight principles that we need to know

1. Self fragmentation produces sins of ignorance which intensify the status of fragmentation.

2. Polarised fragmentation produces more sins of ignorance, which intensifies that status of carnality or explosion.

3. In the mechanics of the rebound technique the believer can only acknowledge known sins.

4. This means that we can only acknowledge or confess from the privacy of our royal priesthood the sins we know are sins.

5. During any period of carnality or fragmentation the old sin nature controls the soul.

6. The second result clause in our passage deals with the unknown sins accumulated during carnality, fragmentation, implode, explode or revert.

7. Christ was judged on the cross for both post-salvation sins of cognisance and post-salvation sins of ignorance.

8. Therefore, when the believer from the privacy of his own priesthood acknowledges known sins, simultaneously he is purified or cleansed from the

accumulation of unknown sins.

These eight principles explain our second result clause which begins with the conjunction kai which indicates the continuation of the result clause and introduces a very important second result.

The verb is the aorist active subjunctive from kaqarizw which means to cleanse or to purify. The gnomic aorist tense is for a dogmatic statement of Bible doctrine which is so fixed in certainty, so axiomatic in character, that it is described in the aorist tense as though it were an actual occurrence. This idiom is best translated by the English present tense. The active voice, as in the previous result clause, God the Father produces the action of the verb when the believer acknowledges or confesses the known sins of carnality, fragmentation, cosmic involvement, reversionism, sins related to Christian degeneracy. The principle is that Jesus Christ on the cross was judged for the sins of cognisance and the sins of ignorance.

Those believers who fail to utilise the rebound technique perpetuate fragmentation in their lives and eventually come to the point of Christian degeneracy. Perpetuation of self-fragmentation results in polarised fragmentation with its moral or immoral degeneracy eventuating. Perpetuation of polarised fragmentation results in human-relationship fragmentation and God-relationship fragmentation. So perpetuation of both human and God-relationship fragmentation inevitably results in emotional fragmentation, subjective arrogance fragmentation, fragmentation which destroys the believer.

"And he cleanses us" — the accusative plural direct object of e)gw — us. This translation becomes the basis for handling the unknown sins. The final prepositional phrase is a)po plus the ablative of separation. The ablative of separation is one of the greatest discoveries in the ablative case; it is one in which the word in the ablative denotes that from which the believer is separated. In this case we have an adjective and a noun. The adjective is paj and it means "all." The noun is a)dikia, not just unrighteousness but "wrong-doing." And so the translation: "out from, separated from wrong-doing" .All wrong-doing refers to the post-salvation sins of ignorance. Only the rebound technique of 1John 1:9 can protect the believer from entering into Christian degeneracy. Without the use of rebound or 1John 1:9 the believer inevitably will wind up in Christian degeneracy.

Translation: "If we acknowledge [cite, admit, confess] our sins, he is faithful and righteous [He always does the same thing and He does not compromise His holiness by doing it] with the result that he forgives us our sins [the post-salvation sins of cognisance], and he purifies us from all wrong-doing [the post-salvation sins of ignorance]."

Post-salvation sins of ignorance accumulate to perpetuation of implode, explode, revert. Perpetuation of this system of fragmentation means failure to understand and utilise God's grace provision for us. God has always provided for sin. All of the sins we committed before salvation were blotted out when we believed in Christ. So the solution to pre-salvation sins: faith in Jesus Christ; post-salvation sins: the rebound technique.

There are a number of synonyms for rebound found in the Scripture: 1. Self-judgement of our sins, 1 Cor. 11:31; 2. Yieldedness — Greek: to place yourself under orders to God, Romans 6:13; Romans 12:1; 3. Lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles you, Hebrews 12:1; 4. Be subject to the Father of your spirits, Hebrews 12:9; 5. Lift up the hands that hang down, Hebrews 12:12; 6. Make straight paths [Use the other problem-solving devices. Don't simply rebound and get back in fellowship, once you are there start moving in the right direction, toward the high ground of spiritual maturity.] Matthew 3:3; Hebrews 12:13 — once you have recovered move in the right direction, don't simply jump in and out of fellowship; 7. Arise from the dead [Temporal death], Ephesians 5:14; 8. Lay aside the old man, Ephesians 4:22 — the sin nature is classified as the old man because it originated in the Garden of Eden through the volition of our original parents.

The momentum of the rebound technique should also be noted. There are four parts to it, the first is the rebound technique itself, acknowledge, name, or cite your sins. But once you do take this first step you have to have momentum and you cannot have momentum if you are in and out of fellowship, you are a destabilised believer and eventually this ends up under the concept of "shipwrecked." So you have to isolate that sin — Hebrews 12:15. So, first we name it, then we isolate it. The third part is that you have to forget it. That is what Paul said in Philippians 3:13, "forgetting those things which are behind"; Philippians 3:14, "I keep advancing toward the objective for the prize, that upward call from God in Christ Jesus." What is the prize? They are those wonderful escrow blessings which God the Father prepared for us in eternity past. God the Son makes distribution of our greater blessings for time when we reach spiritual maturity. [If you don't reach spiritual maturity they remain in escrow forever. In eternity you will be able to see how you missed the boat in time by failing to execute the protocol plan of God. You had equal privilege and equal opportunity to do so and the fact that many believers are not going to receive their escrow blessings for time or eternity means simply this: that they [the blessings] will remain on deposit forever as a memorial to failure to execute the protocol plan of God.

The nation that is a client nation to God must always have two categories of freedom. The first category is temporal freedom which has to with the sacredness of property and life, the freedom to function under one's volition as long as no criminal activity is involved. In addition to that there must be spiritual freedom, spiritual freedom to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. This spiritual freedom is based upon life inside the divine dynasphere. The divine dynasphere is the place of the filling of the Spirit, the place of perception of Bible doctrine, the place therefore of spiritual momentum and growth which glorifies God.

A client nation to God also has certain liabilities called the cycles of discipline. There are five cycles of discipline which God administers to the client nation who fails. There are two categories of failure. The first is in the temporal realm: the malfunction of human freedom. Human freedom always produces inequality. That is the whole purpose of freedom, to give everyone equal opportunity. But equal opportunity under freedom means that some will advance and some will fail. People are free to succeed and free to fail. And because these inequalities exist because of the function of freedom there is always, therefore, reaction, and the reaction is always a sign that the client nation is beginning to fall apart. But the saddest thing is that very few born-again believers are interested in the teaching of Bible doctrine.

Today there is very little interest in Bible doctrine, except to prove a point in theological controversy. And one of the signs of the decline of Christians in a nation is the fact that on the one hand there is tremendous theological controversy and on the other there is great indifference. People are simply not interested.

Christian degeneracy is a reverse pivot. In Ephesians 4:22 we have studied so far: "With reference to your former lifestyle [the lifestyle of post-salvation sinning], put off the old man [OSN.,"

The passage goes on, then, with an articular present passive participle from the Greek verb fqeirw which means to destroy, to ruin, to corrupt, to spoil. But in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. 9, p103, it says, degenerate. So it should be translated: "you who are becoming degenerate." This is addressed to believers. In other words, rebound is the only way to stop the road to Christian degeneracy. The definite article of the participle is used for the personal pronoun and it refers to a category of believers, those who are moving down the road of degeneracy in this context. The present tense is durative or progressive for an action or a state of being which began in the past — implosion or self-fragmentation. What is this implosion or self-fragmentation? Every time that you are jealous or bitter or implacable or filled with hatred or self-pity. Or entered into gossip or maligning or inordinate ambition or inordinate competition or revenge motivation, you have pulled the pin of the grenade and have fragmented your own life. This is the first step in moving toward Christian degeneracy. Actually reversionism is a synonym for Christian degeneracy.

Note: Stage six is degeneracy in the left lobe of the soul, stage seven of scar tissue is degeneracy in the right lobe of the soul. Stage eight is reverse process reversionism which is locked-in degeneracy.

There must be a halt in the slide into reversionism otherwise that believer forms a reverse pivot and God often destroys a nation on the basis of Christian degeneracy. Christian degeneracy is the ultimate coup de grace to the client nation to God.

With this we have the lust pattern which is amplified through this Christian degeneracy, one prepositional phrase, the preposition kata plus the adverbial accusative plural from two words. First of all there is a definite article, taj which identifies the categories of lust. Then we have with that e)piqumia — lust (pl). It is translated "on the basis of the lusts." It refers to the lust pattern of the OSN.

With this we have an ablative of source from a noun a)path — deceit. Lusts are very deceitful. You think you are going to have happiness from these lusts but always end up in great misery. So there is self-deceit. Any time that the lust pattern of the OSN controls your life you are in a state of self-deceit. Translation: "on the basis of the lusts of deceit."

Corrected translation of the verse: "With reference to your former lifestyle, you yourselves lay aside the old man, you [believers] who are becoming degenerate on the basis of the lusts of deceit."

Definition of degeneracy: Degeneracy is defined as a decline to false or inferior standards, the process of passing from the higher to the lower. (Therefore, you have to first of all have superior standards, and Christianity has just that.) Loss of integrity resulting in a state which we call degeneration.

"Former lifestyle" is the lifestyle of the born-again believer who enters into implosion, explosion and reversion. "Deceit" is the status quo of the believer who is declining into Christian degeneracy. The lusts of deceit that accompany this pattern include power lust, approbation lust, inordinate ambition and subsequent inordinate competition, sexual lust, social lust, chemical lust (drugs and alcohol), crusader lust and money lust.

The Doctrine of Christian Degeneracy

1. Definition and description: Degeneracy is defined as decline to false and inferior standards, the process of passing from the higher to the lower, the loss of integrity resulting in a state of deterioration. Actually degeneracy means to decline progressively. For our study degeneracy is defined as decline from the superior standards of the protocol plan of God to the inferior standards related to implosion, explosion, reversion. In other words, the inferior standards related to fragmentation and reversionism.

The first stage, implosion: Integrity is a word which is used in many ways. It is used of people characterised by certain virtues. It is also an engineering term for a quality or state of being complete. For example, in naval engineering watertight integrity is a word used in that connection. Integrity means to be unimpaired, unmarred in status or condition. It means to be entire, the quality or the state of being complete. And that is exactly what we are when we are living inside the divine dynasphere.

Spiritual maturity is the status quo of the invisible hero. This is when we enter the pivot. To operate here requires a tremendous amount of concentration on what is important in life, namely Bible doctrine. Every time we sin we go outside of our very own palace and, of course, at that time we have broken the integrity envelope of our palace, we have stepped outside, and there is an implosion.

The integrity envelope is inside the divine dynasphere, the place of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Outside is only grieving and quenching the Spirit. And inside we have volition and positive volition keeps us inside; our negative volition does not. When we receive temptation from the OSN and succumb with that negative volition we break the integrity of this envelope. And when we break this integrity we have the inward burst described by the word implosion. This is the first stage toward moving toward Christian degeneracy. The believer makes a bad decision by using his own volition or self-determination to commit a sin. Therefore, he implodes. To implode means to burst inwardly, hence the decision to sin, to create a vacuum inside so that the OSN pressure outside the envelope is greater than the pressure inside. Negative volition removes that pressure just like the explosion of a vacuum tube and there is implosion. Temptation plus negative volition equals implosion, the destruction of the integrity envelope, the fragmentation bursting inward, the assimilating explosion by the continued velocity that broke the envelope.

What causes us to get into this state? There is the vacuum of the soul and that vacuum means there is no Bible doctrine, no ten problem-solving devices, no understanding of the ten unique factors of the Church Age, and therefore there is no way to equalise the pressure of temptation. The rushing fragments moving inwards from the implosion destroy the integrity envelope so that they continue their progress toward the sin nature trends. And this appears on the surface as an explosion but the fragments keep right on going. The implosion's inward burst to fill the void or the vacuum results in increased pressure which then takes the fragments outward in explosion. This combination of rapid fragmentation and increased pressure cause the scattering of the fragments.

Therefore a second analogy: the grenade. The grenade has a pin. When the pin is pulled and you hold it in your hand you fragment yourself. The pins of the grenade are jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, self-pity, inordinate ambition, inordinate competition, revenge motivation.

These two analogies describe the first step toward Christian degeneracy: implosion resulting from temptation pressures of the sin nature plus the believer's use of his volition to accommodate that temptation; self-fragmentation in which the believer uses his volition to pull the pin of the grenade and frag himself.Self-fragmentation simply means that every believer has a sin nature, therefore every believer is a walking grenade. When you pull the pin of the grenade it fragments or explodes and the pin of the grenade includes all the sins of the arrogance complex. Once the pin is pulled through any part of the arrogance complex the believer immediately frags himself and so fragmentation, unless it is checked, leads to the second stage in the decline toward Christian degeneracy. The second stage is polarised fragmentation which is related to the trends of the old sin nature. The sin nature has two general trends: the first is the trend toward self-righteous arrogance which we call legalism, the second is the trend toward lascivious lawlessness which is classified as polarised antinomianism. If unchecked by rebound, then, polarised legalism means decline into moral degeneracy or immoral degeneracy, depending upon whether the trend is toward legalism or antinomianism.

What happens in implosion or self-fragmentation? We have, first of all, the breaking of the virtue envelope and that means the inward burst. It is caused by the function of negative volition toward temptation. In other words, the temptations from the old sin nature get a negative response which means you want to do those things and you do it. If this is unchecked then what ever your trend is, either toward legalism or toward antinomianism, that is the second stage.

Implosion is described in Proverbs 11:2 — "When arrogance comes, then comes dishonour: but with the humble is wisdom."

Proverbs 16:18 — "Arrogance precedes degeneracy, And before a fall there is a lifestyle of arrogance."

Proverbs 29:23 — "A person's arrogance will bring him low [degeneracy]: but a lifestyle of humility will attain honour."

James 4:6 — "He gives greater grace [post-salvation grace]. And this is why the scripture says, God makes war against the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble."

James 3:14 — "If you have bitter jealousy and inordinate ambition in your right lobe, stop being arrogant and stop lying against the truth."

James 3:16 — "For where jealousy and inordinate ambition exist, there is fragmentation, disorder [implosion, explosion, reversion, degeneracy] and out of that comes every evil deed."

The next point is explosion: the second step toward Christian degeneracy.

Explosion or fragmentation results from another series of bad decisions — bad decisions from a position of weakness. Failure to check fragmentation through the use of rebound is always a bad decision. Getting into fragmentation is a bad decision. Implosion or self-fragmentation is only the beginning of the fragmented life.

As we have noted before fragmentation occurs in six categories. The first one is self-fragmentation or personal fragmentation, synonymous with implosion. The second is polarised fragmentation which is the key to entrance into reversion or into degeneracy. The third is fragmentation of subjective arrogance: unrealistic expectation which is subjective preoccupation with self and role model arrogance which is subjective preoccupation with others. Then the fourth is the human relationship fragmentation. The fifth is emotional fragmentation [the origin of life and the concept problem that comes out of holocaust]. The sixth is the concept of God relationship fragmentation.

God relationship fragmentation refers to: a. The believer becomes a loser through ignorance of pertinent doctrine related to the planned will and the purpose of God. b. The believer functions under the principle of man dependence taking precedence over God dependence. Actually this is simply divine versus human viewpoint. c. The believer fails to learn the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God. There are ten of them. d. Failure to understand and apply the ten unique characteristics of the Church Age. e. Failure to execute the protocol plan of God through lack of consistency in post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation includes failure to expose yourself to Bible teaching, failure to metabolise it once you have, and if you metabolise, failure to apply it — the function of wisdom.

Legalistic explosion: most believers have a trend toward legalism. Most believers who do not understand the Word of God but are serious about practising Christianity always seem to fall into legalism. The polarised trend toward legalism is characterised by self-righteous arrogance — the motivation for judging other people. Antinomianism is the biggest target in the world for the legalist. And the legalist acts as though he never sins at all when in fact his sins are really the worst of all. The sins of antinomianism or lascivious lawlessness actually fall into three categories: polarised sexual sins, polarised chemical sins — drug addiction or alcohol, and polarised criminal sins. These categories shock the legalist who says: "You can't do that and be a believer." He is wrong. The believer can commit any sin that an unbeliever can, including murder.

Polarised legalism: Romans 14:10 — "But you [legalistic believer], why do you judge your brother? [God has the prerogative of judgement] or you again, why do your regard your brother with contempt? [polarised legalism] for we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ." Now it is interesting to have verses like 2Peter 2:12 which talks about moral degenerates. Moral degenerates are believers who went through the legalistic pipe — "But these moral degenerates, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge [legalism reviles where it has no knowledge] will in their destruction also be destroyed [discipline]."

Romans 14:11 — "For it stands written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall acknowledge the Lord." This is accomplished after the Rapture of the Church. Then the judgement seat of Christ follows, the evaluation of every believer's life during post-salvation experience on earth. Hence, this is accomplished in the status of ultimate sanctification or in a resurrection body.

So verse 12 adds: "So then each one of us shall give an account of himself to God."

Verse 13 — "Therefore, do not judge one another any more: but judge rather this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way [legalism and antinomianism does this]."

As a believer continues toward moral degeneracy he has a predilection for judging others. And this judging is tantamount to blasphemy for it assumes the prerogative of God in the administration of divine discipline. So in the status of fragmentation the legalistic believer is guilty of gossip, maligning, judging other believers. God has actually delegated the prerogative of judgement to very few, in fact "very few" can be six categories of human beings: parents in the evaluating of the their children, government has the prerogative of evaluating people related to criminality, capital (management) has the prerogative of evaluating labour (those under its jurisdiction), teachers, coaches, school administrators have the authority to evaluate students, officers have the authority to evaluate enlisted personnel inside the military establishment, pastors and church officers have the right to evaluate those who violate the privacy of other believers. And there again you have gossip, maligning, slandering and other things that might be dangerous to a congregation. Outside of these and similar categories there is no mandate for legalism or self-righteous arrogance to be judging other believers. Such judgements result in both self-induced misery and divine punitive action.

The transition for implosion to explosion

1. The believer in fellowship with God is protected by a virtue envelope. In effect it is tantamount to the operational type divine dynasphere.

2. The virtue envelope can only be penetrated when the believer uses his own volition, his own self-determination, to succumb to the temptations of the OSN.

3. Once volition originates the sin implosion occurs — the inward burst which removes the believer from the operational type divine dynasphere, removes him from the filling of the Spirit, places him in the status of grieving or quenching the Holy Spirit.

4. Once outside the divine dynasphere the believer moves toward the trend of his old sin nature — explosion.

5. The OSN has two antithetical trends: toward self-righteous arrogance (legalism), and toward lascivious lawlessness (antinomianism).

6. If these trends are unchecked by the use of the rebound technique and other problem-solving devices the believer will move from implosion to explosion.

7. This move is synonymous with going from self-fragmentation to polarised fragmentation. Explosion, then, is the second step toward Christian degeneracy; it is synonymous with polarised fragmentation.

Self-righteous arrogance is the motivation for judging other believers. Matthew 7:1 — "Stop judging, that you be not judged." You can't be judging, gossiping, maligning, slandering other people without it coming back to you.

Verse two — "For in the manner you judge, you will be judged:" You will be judged for the mental attitude sins which motivate gossip, slander, maligning. You will be judged for the sins you verbalise. The rest of the verse amplifies this: "and by what measure you measure it out." How does the legalist measure it out? He is motivated by mental attitude sins; he actually functions under verbal sins and he mentions or verbalises other sins. Now he has measured it out. "and by what measure it out, it will be measured back to you." That means triple compound discipline. The most awful type of divine discipline really comes in triple compound discipline.

Verse three — "And why do you look at a speck of dust in your brother's eye, and do not notice that you have a log in your own eye? The polarised trend toward self-righteous arrogance produces every kind of legalism and legalists always are judgmental.

Legalism is defined as the pomposity of the energy of the flesh, the insolence of replacing grace with works, the arrogant pretension of fulfilling God's will and plan through human ability, the blasphemy of substituting so-called Christian service and works for the grace of God. So the ultimate arrogance of legalism is the conceited conclusion that Bible doctrine doesn't work and the plan of God has failed because I have failed.

Legalism is one of the polarised trends of the OSN. The polarised trend toward self-righteous arrogance produces at least nine different categories of legalism. The first is the legalism of salvation by works, usually faith-plus or some other form of salvation by works. Secondly, spirituality by works. And the third is the vanity of the unique experience (some people assume that they are perpetually spiritual because they have had some kind of a unique experience). The fourth is the emphasis on human ability and achievement. The fifth is substituting morality for the Christian way of life (morality is for believer and unbeliever alike. It is the basis for the function of human freedom). The sixth is blessing from God through human good or dead works. The seventh is blessing from God through human achievement or self-sacrifice or some other form of asceticism. The eight is spirituality through health foods, vitamins, good diet, and confusing health as spirituality. The ninth is spirituality through taboos, activism, manner of dress, personality, and so on. Self-righteous arrogance is the motivation while legalism is the function of that motivation from arrogance. Legalism is defined as the pomposity of the energy of the flesh, the insolence of replacing grace with works, the arrogant pretension of fulfilling God's will and plan through human ability, the blasphemy of substituting so-called Christian service for the grace of God. The ultimate arrogance of legalism is the conceited conclusion that Bible doctrine doesn't work and the plan of God has failed because I have failed. Self-righteous arrogance erroneously concludes that the plan of God succeeds or fails on the basis of human works rather than on divine grace provision. Legalism establishes false standards, false measures for spiritual success and legalism always seeks to change others by superimposing these false standards on other believers. The polarised trend toward legalism seeks to dominate people, policy and authority in one's periphery. And therefore the polarised trends toward self-righteous arrogance produce a domineering, bullying believer who assumes that he is never wrong in any form of human interaction.

Remember that legalism is irrational, never satisfied until every believer is a puppet on a string, dancing to the tune of legalism. There are two great attacks from legalism. Legalism always attacks the grace policy of God and legalism attacks the grace communicator of Bible doctrine. Self-righteous arrogance, then, superimposes false doctrine on the teaching of the Word of God and seeks to discredit the pastor who communicates true doctrine from the Bible — 2Peter 2:11,12.

Antinomianism (or lascivious lawlessness) is the other trend of the OSN. This is the gate that leads to immoral degeneracy. The antinomian explosion or polarised fragmentation toward lascivious lawlessness is characterised by three categories: 1. Pre-degeneracy sexual sinfulness; 2. Pre-degeneracy chemical sinfulness; 3. Pre-degeneracy criminal sinfulness.

Sexual fragmentation in explosion.

2Peter 2:13-14, 18 — a description of believers! This is an excellent description of polarised antinomianism, moving into reversion and becoming involved in immoral degeneracy. So one of the areas of immoral degeneracy is sexual and if unchecked by the rebound technique the polarised trend toward antinomianism becomes sexual reversionism which we simply call immoral degeneracy. We have noticed this in Ephesians 4:19 — "they have given themselves over to licentiousness."

What is meant by licentiousness? It refers to born-again believers involved in one or more of three categories of sexual sins. The first category we might classify as normal sexual sins, mental and overt adultery and fornication. Secondly there are abnormal sexual sins, homosexuality, incest, bestiality, necrophelia, voyeurism. The third category are criminal sexual sins, rape, petarasty, pimping, prostitution, mutilation.

"They have given themselves over to licentiousness resulting in the practice of every kind of immorality with insatiable lust" — immoral degeneracy related to sexual lust, criminal lust, power lust, chemical lust. The pre-degeneracy trend begins in antinomian explosion which, if unchecked, leads to the eight stages of reversionism.

So there is a gate that one enters for this particular category. Romans 13:13 says: "Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy." Remember we have studied strife and jealousy as pins on the grenade. Note that in all of this description of born-again believers involved in sexual sins that it is related to two things, strife and jealousy. Sexual sins go together with strife and jealousy.

The second category after antinomianism is chemical fragmentation in explosion. It becomes chemical reversionism and immoral degeneracy. There are two categories of chemical sinfulness and fragmentation. The first is drunkenness. (Careful: The Bible does not forbid alcoholic beverage. It forbids, however, that overindulgence or drunkenness which is a sin.) The second is drug addiction. There is one word in the New Testament that helps us with this, farmakeia, which means drug addiction. It is found in Galatians 5:20; Revelation 21:8.

Reversionism

Reversionism is the actual area of Christian degeneracy. There are eight stages to reversionism.

1. Reaction and distraction

By the time the believer has used his volition to travel through implosion or self-fragmentation and explosion which is polarised fragmentation, he becomes negative toward Bible doctrine. So the first stage of reversion, the beginning of Christian degeneracy, is reaction and distraction. Reaction is linked to polarised fragmentation, the conflict between legalism and antinomianism. Legalism is shocked at the sins of the antinomian believer and draws the erroneous conclusion that a person cannot be saved and commit those sins. Reaction from antinomianism results in negative volition toward Bible doctrine. So both the legalist and the antinomian involved in polarised fragmentation are involved in totally different categories of sin yet both of them react and are distracted from Bible doctrine.

Distraction, on the other hand, is caused by apathy, indifference, wrong priorities in which the antinomian believer places sexual lust, chemical lust, criminal lust first in his scale of values, whereas the legalist places such things as crusader arrogance first and he is always trying to change individuals and society, and he is erroneously doing it for he is attacking the laws of divine establishment and human freedom.

2. A frantic search for happiness

This is described in that phrase of 2Timothy 3:4 — "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." In the frantic search for happiness each goes his own way. The legalist goes toward asceticism, he is "giving up everything for God," etc. Sometimes it is the crusader activity. There are different ways in which they do it but this is legalism. On the other hand we have stage two with antinomianism. He is partying, raising hell, living it up, etc.

The frantic search for happiness is often the search for approbation and that is true of both groups. They are looking for approbation, they are looking for power, they are looking for influence, success, money, pleasure, sex, everything that confuses Christian association with happiness. In other words, the legalist has one idea as to what happiness is and the antinomian has another idea. This works into degeneracy because one of the greatest areas of lust is power lust plus approbation lust. When you take power plus approbation lust you are going to be the best in the church, you are going to be the best in whatever organisation or group, you want everyone to look at you and say what a great Christian you are, etc.

For some the frantic search for happiness is going in the direction of asceticism. For others it is going in the direction of stimulation. Once people go negative toward doctrine then they move toward whatever they associate with happiness. Actually they are moving toward -H. So it is obvious then that this is going to backfire.

3. Operation boomerang.

Every believer searching for this happiness makes happiness more elusive so that the believer becomes bored, disillusioned, frustrated, miserable. And in pursuit of happiness he actually accumulates a number of bad decisions from a position of weakness and this intensifies his unhappiness.

Principle: There is no true happiness for the believer apart from the execution of the protocol plan of God which includes the use of +H or sharing the happiness of God, that's problem-solving device number eight. There is no happiness until you as a believer make Bible doctrine number one priority in your life, perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine.

4. Emotional revolt of the soul.

Emotion is the female part of the soul and is designed to be subordinate to the mentality which is the male part of the soul. Emotion, by the way, has no mentality, rationality, ability to solve problems. It has neither Bible doctrine nor virtue. In revolt emotion becomes the aggressor, taking control of the soul and moving the soul away from mentality and rationality, making the soul a slave to the sin nature. Emotional revolt of the soul divorces the believer from reality, hence substitutes irrationality for application of Bible doctrine and emotional sins for capacity for life.

What are some of the emotional sins? We have studied them under emotional fragmentation. They include fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, violence, and even murder. These are all emotional sins and are a part of the emotional revolt of the soul. Therefore, emotion rather than Bible doctrine becomes the criterion for the Christian way of life. This leads to permanent negative volition to Bible doctrine which means both moral and immoral believers cannot be distinguished from their unbeliever counterpart in their thinking. In other words the moral degenerate believer thinks like a moral unbeliever, an immoral degenerate believer thinks like an immoral degenerate unbeliever. The first four stages of reversionism of course gradually remove any interest, motivation or desire to learn Bible doctrine. And therefore permanent negative volition not only begins the transition to Christian degeneracy but indicates locked-in cosmic involvement as well. Permanent negative volition guarantees progressive decline to degeneracy, the believer's removal from the superior standards of the protocol plan of God to the inferior standards of fragmentation, reversion and degeneracy.

Christian degeneracy occurs in three categories: 1. Moral degeneracy which follows the polarised trend toward legalism or self-righteous arrogance; 2. Immoral degeneracy which follows the polarised trend toward antinomianism or lascivious lawlessness; 3. Historical degeneracy — The believer combining the functions of both sin nature trends in the exercise of power, like the hardness of Pharaoh's heart.

5. Permanent negative volition toward doctrine.

This means that both moral and immoral believers cannot be distinguished from their unbeliever counterpart in their thinking. Therefore in the first four stages of reversion there is gradual removal of any interest or motivation or desire to learn Bible doctrine. At this point Christian degeneracy has entrenched itself in the soul where all of the thought process occurs. Permanent negative volition not only begins the trend into locked-in degeneracy but locked-in cosmic involvement as well. Permanent negative volition guarantees a progressive decline toward the principle of degeneracy. The believer's removal from the superior standards of the protocol plan inevitably means the adoption of the inferior standards of fragmentation, reversionism, degeneracy, and cosmic involvement.

6. The blackout of the soul.

The degeneracy of the left lobe or the nous where we have our academic understanding of things. Blackout of the soul is Christian degeneracy but it is also involved with cosmic involvement. Blackout of the soul is tantamount to God-relationship fragmentation, failure to execute the protocol plan of God through negative volition toward Bible doctrine.

Blackout of the soul is failure to understand and appreciate the ten unique characteristics of the Church Age. Secondly, it is failure to understand and use the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

7. Scar tissue of the soul.

The believer with scar tissue of the soul has not perpetuated Christian degeneracy to a locked-in status quo, but he is close. He is almost there because blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul finally puts it all together. We now have a terrible condition of locked-in degeneracy. The blackout of the soul affects the left lobe (academic understanding) the scar tissue of the soul affects the right lobe where there are eight areas that are very sensitive. And with scar tissue of the soul all eight of these areas are blotted out — frame of reference, memory centre, vocabulary storage, categorical storage, the conscience, momentum department, wisdom department and the subconscious. When all of them are filled up with scar tissue of the soul it is very difficult for such a believer to recover.

So we could almost come to a conclusion that would sound like this: Once you get to blackout of the soul and there is not interested in rebound recovery you could say that blackout of the soul plus scar tissue of the soul almost guarantees the sin unto death for that believer.

The characteristics of reverse process reversionism degeneracy are also described in terms of six statements of the Scripture

1. The believer is described in reverse process reversionism as the enemy of the cross — Phil. 3:18.(The cross is a part of occupation with Christ but in reverse process reversionism you are occupied with the things of this life which are related to polarised fragmentation.)

2. The enemy of God — James 4:4.

3. A hater of God — John 15:23.

4. Double minded — James 4:8.

5. Antichrist (in the sense of against Christ) — 1John 2:18,22; 4:3; 2John 7.

6. A disciple of the devil — 1John 3:8,10.

We are describing a believer. You cannot distinguish a believer in degeneracy from the unbeliever. Reverse means to face in the opposite direction. Reverse process reversionism is the reversal of priorities, concepts, in the status of Christian degeneracy. Reverse process degeneracy is defined as declined from the superior standards of the protocol plan resulting in retrogression into the subnormal status of fragmentation and reversion. We are warned against Christian degeneracy in 2John 7ff: "Because many deceivers have gone out into the world, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh [These deceivers reject the doctrine of the dispensation of the hypostatic union. It refers in the first century, at the time of writing, to gnosticism]."

Verse 8 — "Look out for yourselves, that you may not lose your momentum which you have accomplished, but that you might receive a full reward [the distribution of your escrow blessings for time when you reach spiritual maturity, and at the judgement seat of Christ in a resurrection body the distribution of escrow blessings for the eternal state]

Verse 9 — "No one has fellowship with God who keeps advancing out of bounds [implode, explode, revert and to decline progressively into degeneracy] and does not remain on the playing field through the doctrine of Christ [the mystery doctrine of the Church Age]: he who resides in it [the divine dynasphere] by means of doctrine, he keeps on having fellowship both with the Father and with the Son".

The categories of post-salvation sinning

1. Frequent sinning — probably the status quo of the new believer but it is also the status quo of the believer in implosion, explosion, and cosmic involvement. Frequent sinning includes the two categories of post-salvation sinning unchecked by rebound.

2. Continuous sinning, the status quo of the believer in reversionism and Christian degeneracy. It can only be checked by the use of rebound and the other nine problem-solving devices.

3. Sporadic sinning, believer sins are related either to implosion or explosion but they are often checked very early by the rebound technique. Sporadic sinning is generally related to adolescent believer who is on the verge of spiritual adulthood.

4. Occasional sinning, the status quo of the adult believer who not only checks implosion and explosion through the rebound technique but he has full use of all ten of the problem-solving devices.

Verse 23 emphasises the fact that there must be an exploitation of our recovery to fellowship with God through rebound. Rebound is only the beginning, it puts us back into fellowship inside the divine dynasphere. But we must add to rebound the other nine problem-solving devices if we are going to get out of the pattern of Christian degeneracy. So there must be a continuation of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, which means the perception, metabolisation and application of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Then, of course, there must be an understanding and the utilisation of those other problem-solving devices. This means that every believer should be spiritually self-sustaining, never seeking counsel, never needing help from anyone, but utilising the techniques and handling his own problems. There must be an emphasis on the fact that recovery from Christian degeneracy, the ultimate in apostasy, must come from one's own self-determination.

Verse 23 — "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind." We begin with the post positive conjunctive particle de. Here it means "then." It is followed by the present middle infinitive of a)naneow, to become renewed, to become reinvigorated, to become refreshed. Any of these translations will suffice because we are talking about recovery. The tendencial present in the Greek indicates an action which is contemplated or proposed but is not actually taking place at the moment. It indicates that these believers must first rebound and then recover life inside the divine dynasphere where the filling of the Spirit exists and where we execute the protocol plan of God. Then they can move on.

Gate One is the filling of the Holy Spirit. The forty things that God gave us at the moment of salvation includes the entrance into our very own palace, the operational type divine dynasphere, the same palace that was given to the humanity of Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. The second gate is, of course, the gate of basic doctrine, basic problem-solving devices. The third gate is enforced and genuine humility, objectivity and teachability. The fourth gate is the momentum gate, operation Z, perception, metabolisation, and application of doctrine. Gate five is the first stage of spiritual adulthood, spiritual self-esteem. Gate six, spiritual autonomy. Gate seven, momentum testing in four categories. Gate eight, spiritual maturity, the point of execution of the protocol plan of God, the point of becoming an invisible hero.

When it says to "become renewed" it means to get back inside your very own palace, the operational type divine dynasphere. Once inside you can execute God's plan, God's will and God's purpose. You cannot execute it outside. But while these believers must first rebound and recover life in the divine dynasphere they must then exploit the grace of God in rebound through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. And that means also learning that the filling of the Spirit is the basis for execution.

While verse 22 emphasised rebound, putting off the old man, verse 23 emphasises post-rebound function by which the believer fulfils God's plan, God's purpose and God's will for the Church Age. The middle voice of this verb is a dynamic or indirect middle in which the subject acts for himself with reference for himself upon something belonging to himself. Hence the subject produces the action of the verb. Acting for ourselves we are functioning under divine provision of grace for execution of the protocol plan.

The middle voice describes "after rebound what." After rebound the believer now decides once again then in the operation type divine dynasphere. And two results of living in the divine dynasphere come into focus: the filling of the Holy Spirit which is availability of the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit for the execution of the protocol plan of God and, secondly, the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit which is very important in perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine.

Note two parallel ministries regarding the ministry of the Holy Spirit to each one of us. The first is a pre-salvation ministry called common and efficacious grace. The Gospel is spiritual phenomena, it cannot therefore be understood by anyone who is spiritually dead. For spiritual phenomena can only be understood by the human spirit and then transferred to the soul. And therefore it is impossible for a spiritually dead person to understand the Gospel for he has spiritual brain death. He is called the psuchikos or soulish man and he cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him and neither can he know them because they are discerned by a human spirit. Therefore, when the Gospel is presented whatever is accurate with regard to it the Holy Spirit acts as a human spirit and makes it understandable to spiritual brain death. Once it is understood academically it is moved to the left lobe or the nouj and there it is academically understood. The issue is that to believe in Christ is eternal life and to reject Him is eternal condemnation. This much of the issue, then, is understood. At this point the spiritually dead person has his call from God and the call is the invitation to believe in Jesus Christ. When the individual who is spiritually dead believes in Christ, God the Holy Spirit takes faith and faith and faith alone and makes it effective for salvation. That is the point at which God gives each one of us forty things, a part of our invisible assets, but we must understand these things to utilise them.

After salvation the same thing is true. Now it is Bible doctrine. This time Bible doctrine is communicated by the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher and it is communicated to the believer. Now he has a human spirit for at the moment of salvation one of the forty things he receives: God the Holy Spirit in regeneration created a human spirit and God the Father then imputed eternal life to that human spirit. Now we are trichotomous, now we have a human spirit. So the doctrine goes to the human spirit, the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit when we are inside the divine dynasphere. Once it is comprehended it goes down the pipeline to the left lobe or the nouj and it is then understood academically. It is academic perception of doctrine.

However, there is no benefit yet from academic perception of doctrine. You can know doctrine academically but it does not contribute to growth, it has to be metabolised. When you go into a supermarket and walk by food on the shelf that food doesn't benefit you, it doesn't give you any energy, it is no help to you. Why? Because it has not been prepared, put in your mouth, chewed and swallowed. Eating is an illustration of the non-meritorious function of grace. The food goes into the stomach where it is metabolised. This what the New Testament calls gnwsij doctrine. Gnwsij has no benefit until it enters into the kardia or the right lobe of the soul where it becomes e)pignwsij. All spiritual growth is based upon epignwsij doctrine. How is it metabolised? Once again, the believer says, "I believe it," and the Holy Spirit then matabolises it. Just as He made it possible to be in the human spirit, so He metabolises it.

So it becomes necessary, then, for us to understand the importance of the filling of the Holy Spirit and His teaching ministry. Remember that recovery from Christian degeneracy is tantamount to reversion recovery as well as recovery from life in the cosmic system. Momentum demands, then, the use of the rebound technique. But momentum also demands that the believer keep moving and this is not possible apart from consistent perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine.

The infinitive is the imperative infinitive of command. It is used here to express the modus operandi of the believer after rebound. After rebound the believer must continue under the filling of the Spirit to learn and to utilise the rest of the problem-solving devices. And not only that but the filling of the Spirit is absolutely necessary — operation Z at Gate Four — for momentum that leads to spiritual self-esteem, the beginning of spiritual adulthood. Without spiritual self-esteem it is impossible to utilise such things as a personal sense of destiny — +H, occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. And, therefore, it is absolutely necessary that we log as much time as possible inside the divine dynasphere, the place of the filling of the Holy Spirit.

When we use our volition to sin we go outside the divine dynasphere. We then implode, explode and revert, we go into the cosmic system. And when the believer sins, then, he leaves the divine dynasphere; he can only recover residence in the divine dynasphere through the rebound technique. Therefore, the imperative infinitive is used to express a divine command to exploit God's grace, to exploit the rebound technique with momentum inside the divine dynasphere.

Principle

For the execution of the protocol plan of God the rebound technique must be utilised but it must be supplemented by post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. There must be perception, metabolisation, wisdom for application, and all of that is only possible as we learn Bible doctrine.

Doctrine goes, as it is taught, to the human spirit where it becomes pneumatikoj — spiritual phenomena — and then it goes immediately to the left lobe or the nouj where it becomes gnwsij. Then when it is metabolised through positive faith perception it goes into the eight sections of the right lobe or the "heart" — kardia — and there it becomes e)pignwsij. Only e)pignwsij means spiritual momentum.

Rebound puts a halt to implosion, explosion and reversion. Therefore rebound is the basis for recovery from decline in Christian degeneracy.

Recovery from Christian degeneracy, which is tantamount to reversion, demands residence, function and momentum in the divine dynasphere. Why? Because recovery is only the first stage. Then you must learn the doctrine, the problem-solving devices so that you can continue your momentum inside the divine dynasphere.

That is what we have in the beginning of Ephesians 4:23 when it says: "Then become renewed, reinvigorated, refreshed" .And what is the agency of this? We have the instrumental of agency from two words. First we have the definite article toi and, secondly, we have the noun pneuma. And the definite article in the Greek is used for a proper name. It is actually a reference here to God the Holy Spirit. Now pneuma refers to the Holy Spirit and remember the instrumental of agency expresses a personal agent rather than personal means. Hence the instrumental of agency refers to God the Holy Spirit who provides the enabling power for the perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine. "Then become reinvigorated by means of the Spirit." Ephesians 4:23 gives us how we are going to make a recovery. This is a reference to the filling of the Holy Spirit which only occurs when we are living inside the divine dynasphere.

The filling of the Spirit only occurs when we are living in the operational type divine dynasphere. Two results of life in the divine dynasphere: first of all the filling of the Spirit which is the availability of the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church Age, and secondly, the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit, as per Romans 8:16, and the actual teaching ministry was actually prophesied by our Lord Jesus Christ during the dispensation of the hypostatic union, taught in John 14:26 and again in John 16:12-14, and again in 1Corinthians 2:9-16.

The three Rs of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation

.… or how we assimilate the Word of God, how we learn the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol

plan, how we learn the ten unique factors of the protocol plan and how we learn to apply these things to our lives so that we can have maximum happiness and blessing in this life.

1. Reception.

This is hearing whomever is your right pastor teach the mystery doctrine of the Church Age and other categories of Bible doctrine. 2. Retention.

This is the metabolisation of Bible doctrine.

3. Recall.

This is the application of Bible doctrine to experience.

Basically, then, there are three systems of human perception. Two are meritorious, depending on human IQ and one is non-meritorious, depending on spiritual IQ. Remember that IQ means intelligence quotient. It is the number assigned to a person on the basis of dividing his mental age by his chronological age. The mental age is determined by testing; the chronological age is determined by birth. The result is multiplied by one hundred to eliminate decimals. Generally the cut-off date for IQ testing is between 14 and 15 years of age. The principle, however: human IQ is not a factor in the perception of Bible doctrine for God in His grace policy has provided a system of spiritual IQ based on the filling of the Spirit inside the divine dynasphere.

Under the principle of grace IQ for the royal family of God [GAP] a believer with a low IQ can learn the whole realm of Bible doctrine and execute God's plan and God's purpose for his life. Whereas the believer with a genius IQ who is negative toward doctrine and has entered into implode, explode or revert, becomes a loser because he fails to utilise this grace apparatus of perception inside the divine dynasphere. Human IQ is no handicap in the execution of the protocol plan of God. Since it calls for perception of doctrine God has found a way in His grace policy to provide perception apart from any handicap that might occur from human IQ.

Actually, then, there are three systems of human perception, rationalism, empiricism and faith. Rationalism is a meritorious system of perception depending on human IQ. Under rationalism reason is the source of knowledge, superior to and independent of any sensory system of perception. Reason is the norm and criterion for perception under rationalism.

Empiricism also is a meritorious system of perception depending on human IQ. Empiricism is learning by observation and experimentation. Reality and empirical knowledge depends on the sensory system relying on observation from the frontal lobes.

Faith, on the other hand, is a non-meritorious system of perception which depends on God's grace provision for post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

In rationalism and empiricism the subject has merit in perception. That merit is human IQ but in faith God's grace policy has provided both the means and the object of perception. The means of perception is the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit inside the divine dynasphere. The object of perception is basically the mystery doctrine of the Church Age taught by the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. However, other areas of Bible doctrine are also included.

Faith perception, then, is the believer understanding Bible doctrine academically and believing it. He believes what he has previously understood academically and under the filling of the Spirit, then, it is metabolised into the right lobe. Faith perception is the means by which God the Holy Spirit uses His omnipotence in order to convert gnwsij doctrine in the left lobe to e)pignwsij in the right lobe. So faith perception is the means of metabolising doctrine, while faith-rest is the means of application of that doctrine. We have faith at both ends, faith perception and the faith-rest drill.

1Corinthians 2:4-16 — "Both my doctrine and my preaching were not in the persuasive words of wisdom [primarily a reference to Greek wisdom, to the sophistry of the past — platonism, etc.], but in a demonstration of the Spirit and his omnipotence:

"That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men [not based on human IQ], but in the power of God.

"Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature [winners, invisible heroes, even people who have attained spiritual self-esteem and spiritual autonomy as well as spiritual maturity]: a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the leaders of this world, who are fading out [the leaders of this world have plans which come and go]:

"But we communicate wisdom from God in a mystery which has been concealed [the mystery doctrine of the Church Age was not revealed previously to the Old Testament writers], which God pre-destined before the ages for our glory:

"The wisdom which none of the rulers of this world have understood: for if they had understood [but they did not] they would not have crucified the Lord of glory [a title of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah glory]

But as it stands written, Things which the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard [doctrine understood from a system of perception called empiricism]."

And Bible doctrine which has not entered into the right lobe of mankind [a reference to rationalism],

What things God has prepared for those who love him [loving God is a matter of two problem-solving devices. Personal love for God the Father is the motivational virtue of the protocol plan of God. And the occupation with the person of Jesus Christ is the ultimate problem-solving device. Both are in view here.]

"But to us [Church Age believers under doctrinal teaching, living inside the divine dynasphere] God has revealed them through the Spirit: for the spirit [human spirit — the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit] investigates all things [investigates that spiritual phenomena called pneumatikoj] even the deep things of God [once we have a human spirit we are then able to investigate the deep things of God, the absolutes].

"For who among mankind understands the things of mankind except the spirit [human life] which is in him? even so the things of God no one has known [the unbeliever is incapable of understanding Bible doctrine, he is spiritually dead] except the Spirit of God [the Spirit of God makes these things understandable].

"Now we have not received the world's frame of reference [human IQ for perception], but the Spirit who is from God [the Holy Spirit]; that we might know the things that have been graciously been given to us by God.

"Which things we also communicate, not by teaching doctrine from the source of man's wisdom, but by teaching of the Spirit; explaining spiritual truth to a spiritual apparatus.

"But the soulish man [ yuxikoj, the dichotomous unbeliever] does not receive [or accept] spiritual phenomena from the Spirit of God: for to him it is foolishness; furthermore, he is not able to understand spiritual phenomena because it is discerned in a manner caused by the filling of the Spirit.

"But the spiritual man [the believer residing inside the divine dynasphere, the place of the filling of the Spirit] discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one [in this dispensation, under the privacy of the priesthood, you live your life as unto the Lord. What your real spiritual status quo is known only by the Lord].

"For who has known the thinking of the Lord that he should instruct him? But we have the thinking of Christ [Bible doctrine is the thinking of Christ]."

The grace provision for the perception of Bible doctrine

1. The formation and the preservation of the New Testament canon which contains the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, that is a grace provision.

God the Holy Spirit so directed the human writers of the New Testament canon that without waiving their thoughts, their personality, there vocabulary and other human factors in their written expression, His complete and connected thought toward man was recorded in the original languages of scripture. [That means that Bible doctrine is absolute. That means that whenever a principle of doctrine is taught it is from God; it is an absolute, and whenever an application is given in relationship to that principle that is an absolute application.]

2. The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit available inside the divine dynasphere enabling us to understand [spiritual IQ, grace IQ] the mechanics for the execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church Age.

3. The divine plan for the Church. Hence, the protocol plan of God for the royal family of God.

4. A right pastor for the communication of Bible doctrine.

5. The privacy of the royal priesthood for the perception of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age as the means of executing the protocol plan of God.

6. Logistical grace support by which every member of the royal family of God is kept alive under equal privilege and equal opportunity for the execution of the protocol plan. Remember that logistical grace deals with the holiness of God, His justice and His righteousness.

7. Spiritual freedom which must be distinguished from human freedom. Human freedom is for believer and unbeliever alike. Human freedom goes with the function of man's self-determination and it has certain principles such as the sacredness of privacy, the sacredness of property and life, a system of laws [establishment] by which it functions.

For those who believe in Jesus Christ there is a spiritual freedom inside the divine dynasphere. Inside the divine dynasphere we have spiritual freedom; outside of the divine dynasphere in some parts of the world there is human freedom, but there are places where there is no freedom. Nevertheless, a person can believe in Christ and in the freedom of the divine dynasphere he can grow in grace, and there we have spiritual freedom. Spiritual freedom inside the divine dynasphere is designed for His glorification and God is glorified when we fulfil the protocol plan of God through the advance to spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy and spiritual maturity.

8. The divine provision of a classroom — the local church or its equivalent for the perception of Bible doctrine under the privacy of the priesthood inside the divine dynasphere.

Ephesians 4:23 — "Then become invigorated by means of the Spirit …" Now this is not the way we have the translation in the King James version. But the word "Spirit" is here a reference to God the Holy Spirit. Though there are six or eight different meanings for pneuma this is the instrumental of agency and it expresses a personal agent rather than impersonal means. And because it is a personal agent it refers to the Holy Spirit who provides the enabling power for perception. Human IQ is not the issue here but spiritual IQ. This also means that we must come under grace IQ rather then human IQ.

Principles

1. Learning is understanding; thinking is application.

2. Learning Bible doctrine is understanding Bible doctrine but thinking Bible doctrine is application. It is one thing to learn, it is another thing to think in the realm of what you have learned.

3. You have to learn Bible doctrine before you can think or apply Bible doctrine.

4. Therefore, operation Z precedes the application of Bible doctrine to experience.

5. There are actually three principles in the utilisation of Bible doctrine: a. Perception and metabolisation of doctrine, learning and understanding; b. Application of doctrine which is thinking Bible doctrine after you have learned it; c. Solving the problems of life, understanding the mechanics and utilising the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

6. Application of Bible doctrine is the result of these three principles.

There are three words which are found at the end of this verse, tou nouj u(mwn. We note the ablative of means from the noun nouj. The word nous has several related meanings. First of all it means the mind or the intellect and in that sense we often refer to it as the left lobe. The left lobe is where the human being has academic understanding of things. Secondly, nouj refers to the mind as the faculty for thinking, and as such means the application of doctrine to life. Thirdly, the word means the mind as a way of thinking and, therefore, mental attitude in life. And, fourth, it refers to the mind as a seat of thought and therefore the basis for our opinion. We should translate it: "by means of your thinking."

Occasionally the ablative of means is used to indicate impersonal means utilised in fulfilling or producing the action of the verb. That is exactly what we have here. You see, we have already had the genitive of agent or ablative of agent "by means of the Spirit." Now we are going to see a little change. Agency is the issue in "by means of the Holy Spirit."

The word pneuma is in the instrumental of agency in contrast here to the ablative of means. The instrumental of agency expresses a personal agent. Therefore, when we translate it "by means of the Spirit" we note it as God the Holy Spirit, instrumental of agency, God the Holy Spirit who teaches the believer's human spirit Bible doctrine. So in that phrase "by means of the Spirit" we have the learning of Bible doctrine which refers basically to perception and metabolisation. The Holy Spirit also converts gnwsij into e)pignwsij. That is the process of learning or understanding.

"by means of your thinking." Thinkingis perception and metabolisation of doctrine applied. Thinking, then, is the application of doctrine, the utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices, and it has to be your thinking.

Concept application

1. Learning is understanding and understanding is thinking. Therefore, thinking is the application of understanding.

2. Learning Bible doctrine is understanding Bible doctrine. However, thinking Bible doctrine is the application. Learning is one thing but don't forget the second step, thinking doctrine. (You cannot think what you have not learned)

3. You have to learn Bible doctrine before you can think Bible doctrine.

4. You have to think Bible doctrine before you can apply it. Therefore no believer can apply Bible doctrine until he can think in terms of doctrine.

5. Operation Zprecedes the application of doctrine to experience. 6. There are three concepts in the utilisation of Bible doctrine. a. Learning — perception and metabolisation of Bible doctrine, tantamount to learning and understanding; b. The application of doctrine (thinking); c. Solving the problems of life through understanding and utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan.

7. By way of summary: There are three concepts involved in the application of doctrine. a. Learning; b. Thinking (application); c. Problem-solving (using the mechanical devices) from your own royal priesthood.

"by means of your thinking." Whenit comes to application in any subject it is a matter of thinking. You cannot think in a subject unless you understand it. To understand it you must know technical words.

By learning something from the Bible every day you can develop the capacity for application to your own experience. You can't stop with simply learning doctrine, you must learn to think doctrine in your daily life.

Grace provision for the perception of Bible doctrine

1. The formation and the preservation of the New Testament canon which contains the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Therefore, it is the royal family of God textbook; it is the textbook for the execution of the divine plan, the divine will, the divine purpose for our lives in this Church Age.

2. The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit available inside the divine dynasphere, providing us with a spiritual IQ no matter what our human IQ is.

3. The divine plan for the Church. It is the protocol plan because the Church is royal family. Therefore, God's plan, will and purpose for us is stated in terms of theological protocol.

4. God has provided in grace a right pastor for the communication of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

5. The privacy of your royal priesthood. You must have privacy to learn so that doctrine can be learned with objectivity.

6. Logistical grace support by which every member of the royal family of God is kept alive under equal privilege and equal opportunity.

7. Spiritual freedom inside the divine dynasphere for the glorification of God through the execution of His plan. (That is important because there could be times when you do not have human freedom, yet people who are saved can still execute God's plan inside the divine dynasphere) The only way your spiritual freedom can be taken from you is when you no longer have the ability to think.

The application of Bible doctrine always has a direction. In fact there are three directions: a. Toward God. That includes everything from worship to personal love for God the Father and occupation with the person of Christ; b. Toward people. This demands impersonal love for all mankind; c. Toward self — spiritual self-esteem.

The importance of Bible doctrine

1. Doctrine is important because it is related to who and what God is. It is the study of the attributes of God — Psalm 33:4. "For the word of the Lord is integrity [Justice plus righteousness equals holiness] and all his provision [logistical grace] is in faithfulness." God is faithful to us because we have +R; because God the Father is faithful to God the Son and God the Son indwells us; God the Father is faithful to God the Holy Spirit and God the Holy Spirit indwells us.

2. Doctrine is the basis for all true worship — Psalm 138:2. "I myself will worship toward your holy temple, And praise your person [On what basis can we praise God? You have to know something about God and you have to be able to think — the application of divine essence to your experience] for your grace and doctrine. For you have magnified your doctrine above your person." Does this mean that doctrine is greater than God? Absolutely not. It means that the only way you can understand God and make application is to put doctrine first in your life, for doctrine tells you all about God.

3. By comparing Luke 23:46 in which our Lord said on the cross: "Into your hands I deposit my spirit," with Psalm 31:5 we have what is not recorded in Luke: "Into your hands I deposit my spirit: For you have delivered me, O Lord, God of doctrine." Once again we see doctrine is associated with God. We can't understand God apart from doctrine. And we have to learn before we can apply. The order is learning, thinking, solving.

4. We have a question in Romans 3:3 — "Shall their unbelief cancel the faithfulness of God?" The answer is given in Romans 3:4 — definitely not. "Moreover, let God continue faithful even though every man is a liar [The point is that God only deals with us in truth. God never lies to us. Therefore all faithfulness is based on truth] even as it stands written, That you might be vindicated by your doctrine, and that you might prevail when you are maligned." You can malign Bible doctrine, you can malign the truth, but you can't destroy it. Bible doctrine is maligned in two ways: distortion [false teaching] and ignorance.

Proverbs 8

Verse 1 — "Does not wisdom call." The word for wisdom here is chakmah, it is the equivalent of the Greek sofia and it refers to the application of e)pignwsij doctrine or metabolised doctrine to experience. Chakmah is epignwsij. Wisdom calling is the application of doctrine to experience; "and understanding lift up her voice?"

Verse 2 — "On top of the high places on the street [doctrine was taught in city auditoriums], At intersections she takes a stand." The doctrine was taught outdoors in those days at places where people gathered. "She" refers to Bible doctrine.

Verse 3 — "Beside the gates leading to the city, At the entrance she communicates aloud." They often had small auditoriums at the gates of cities.

Verse 4 — "To you, mankind, I call; And my voice [communication of doctrine] is to all mankind."

Verse 5 — "You who are ignorant, learn doctrine [learning, of course, must precede thinking]; You who are fools [referring to negative volition], learn the importance of understanding [the importance of application of doctrine]."

Verse 6 — "Hear [qal imperative from shamah. You have to hear, concentrate, listen], for I [doctrine] speak noble things; And the communication of my lips is virtue."

Verse 7 — "For my mouth [the personification of doctrine] communicates truth; For my lips detest evil."

Verse 8 — "All the words of my communication are integrity; Nothing is twisted or perverted in them." [Twisting and reversion refers to false application of doctrine or misunderstanding of doctrine or the heresies that are passed for doctrine. If you are twisted in your understanding you are perverted in your thinking. If you are twisted in learning you are perverted in application.]

Verse 9 — "To those who understand [the hiphil participle of the verb bin, causative active voice, which means we are caused to understand. This is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.] they are all to the point, And perspicuous to those who have obtained knowledge [the qal active participle of the verb matsa — to find]".

Verse 10 — " Seize [laqach — to seize or to grab] my instruction, rather than silver [a matter of priorities]; And learning doctrine rather than choice gold."

Verse 11 — "For wisdom is better than precious gems; And all desirable things cannot be compared with her [doctrine]."

The results of doctrine

Verse 12 — "I wisdom have a lifestyle [once you begin to apply doctrine (thinking doctrine. Once there is understanding then there is thinking) that develops a lifestyle] of prudence [amarmar, the ability to regulate and discipline one's self to the exercise of reason and common sense. Reason is learning the principles and common sense is the application of it]. I find [or discover] knowledge and discernment [knowledge is understanding of doctrine; discernment is thinking or application of doctrine]."

Verse 13 — "To respect the Lord is to hate evil: I [doctrine] hate arrogance and pride, and perverted speech."

Verse 14 — "Counsel and sound judgement belong to me [Note: You are not counselled by someone on the outside; you learn doctrine and a part of the application is to self. We apply doctrine toward God, toward people and toward self]: I have understanding and power [understanding is the noun binah, metabolised doctrine. Power — giborah, (strong and intrepid of soul) means application of doctrine]."

Verse 15 — "By me [Bible doctrine and the laws of divine establishment] kings rule [ruling is an application], And rulers make just laws [Application of establishment principles]."

Verse 16 — "By me princes govern, And all honourable judges of the land."

Verse 17 — "I [doctrine] love those who love me [for doctrine to love you, learning it and understanding it isn't enough; it is understanding it and thinking doctrine or learning and applying doctrine. You begin to love doctrine, not by learning it, but by applying it. Love is an application of knowledge.]; And those who diligently seek me [the piel participle of shachar. The piel is the intensive stem and it means concentration. You learn by concentration but you also apply doctrine through concentration.] will find me."

Verse 18 — "With me are riches and honour [escrow blessings for time]; Enduring wealth and prosperity [escrow blessings for the eternal state]."

Verse 19 — "My fruit [production] is better than pure and fine gold; And my profit better than the choicest silver."

Verse 20 — "I walk in the way of righteousness, along the path of virtue:"

Verse 21 — "To give an inheritance [the hiphil infinitive construct from the verb nachal, to cause to inherit] to those who love me [doctrine], And I will make their treasuries full."

The dynamics of metabolised doctrine

Verse 22 — "The Lord possessed me [doctrine] at the beginning of his work, Before his deeds of old [in other words, doctrine was in the mind of God before the creation of the universe]"

Verse 23 — "From eternity past I was established [the piel perfect of the verb nasak — I was poured in a mould. Established categorically would be a better translation. God thinks categorically! Absolute truth lends itself to categorical thinking; relative truth does not.] from the foundation of the earth."

Verse 24 — "When there were no oceans, I [doctrine] was already formed; When as yet there were no springs abounding with water."

Verse 25 — "Before the mountains were settled in place, Before the hills I [doctrine] was formed categorically:"

Verse 26 — "Before he made planet earth, or its fields, Or the sum total of the dust of the earth."

Verse 27 — "When he established the heavens, I was there: When he marked out a horizon on the face of the deep:"

Verse 28 — "When he made the skies above: When he restrained the fountains of the deep:"

Verse 29 — "When he set the sea in its boundary, So that the water would not overflow his mandate: When he marked out the foundations of the earth:"

Verse 30 — "The I [Bible doctrine] was with him, as a designer of the work [creation]: Rejoicing always in his presence [Bible doctrine perceived, metabolised, applied is the true source of happiness in the devil's world];

Verse 31 — "rejoicing in the world, his earth; And having my delight in the human race."

Verse 32 — "Now therefore, human race, listen to me: Blessed [ashere — happiness] are those who guard my ways [the ways of doctrine]."

You have to start with understanding

Verse 33 — "Hear instruction [understanding doctrine] and become wise [thinking doctrine and/or application of doctrine], Do not neglect it."

Verse 34 — "Blessed [happiness] is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates [the place of assembly worship], Waiting at my doors [when you really like it you wait for the doors to open]."

Verse 35 — "For he who finds me [doctrine] finds capacity for life [But remember: capacity for life is not just learning doctrine, it is application of doctrine], And obtains grace from the Lord."

Verse 36 — "But he who misses me [Bible doctrine] injures himself: All who hate me [Bible doctrine] love the sin unto death."

The mandates for the application of doctrine are found also in Romans 12Verse 2 — "Stop being conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renovation of your thought [renovation of thought is necessary for correct application of Bible doctrine to experience], that you may prove what the will of God is, the good [of intrinsic value achievement, the execution of the protocol plan of God through the various categories of thinking, i.e. concentration on doctrine, perception of doctrine, metabolisation of doctrine and application of doctrine] acceptable [glorification of God through the execution of His plan, purpose and will, and the subsequent distribution of your escrow blessings for time] and perfect will of God."

Verse 3 — "For I say through the grace which has been given to me, to every one who is among you, stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance [arrogance hinders application] beyond which you ought to think; but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion, as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine." A standard of thinking is the basis of application; a standard of thinking from doctrine is the application of doctrine to experience.

The principle is that arrogance is the greatest enemy of perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine.

Complaining: An illustration of lack of Bible doctrine to living

The disoriented believer has failed to learn Bible doctrine and obviously, then, he has failed to make its application. You cannot apply what you do not know.

Constant complaining, of course, is disorientation to life, and among believers a manifestation of malfunction in the area of application of doctrine. Complaining is a false application to life, totally inconsistent with God's plan, God's purpose and God's will for our lives under His protocol plan. As a matter of fact complaining is a contradiction to the protocol plan of God. It is often a reflection of a very sour mental attitude, the application of irritated arrogance to things both small and great. It means failure in one or two categories or both — failure to learn Bible doctrine and failure to apply Bible doctrine. Complaining can also mean a failure to understand and utilise the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan.

Complaining becomes a habit of human viewpoint about life, hence the elimination of divine viewpoint as expressed through both promises and doctrine. Application of doctrine will shut down complaining. The thought that causes one to complain is false application, and the thought that gives strength and blessing in every situation in life is a basis for victory on that battlefield. Thinking, then, is either the application of Bible doctrine to life or the application of arrogance, ignorance, irritation. Therefore the battleground of the soul must be dominated by divine viewpoint thinking.

Divine viewpoint thinking requires three functions: a. Learning, the inculcation of Bible doctrine through the perception and metabolisation of the Word; b. Thinking, the application of Bible doctrine to experience; c. Solving, understanding and using the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

The believer can only win the battle of thinking through these three factors which provide the dominance of divine viewpoint in the soul. This will eliminate the false applications to life, which include complaining, griping, harping, grumbling, etc. The sooner the believer attains spiritual self-esteem the sooner complaining will be replaced by divine viewpoint of life — unless it is a carry-over from a bad habit.

The Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, understood the principle of thinking: "Our life is what our thoughts make it."

The real "you" is the thought content of the soul.

Spiritual self-esteem

Spiritual self-esteem is the beginning of contentment or happiness from God. Contentment or happiness from God is one of the problem-solving devices. It is sharing the happiness of God. Contentment, therefore, is tantamount to capacity for happiness, capacity for tranquillity of soul under every circumstance of life.

In 2Corinthians 12:10 we read: "For this reason I find contentment (he has +H or he is now sharing the happiness of God) in weakness, in slanders, in pressures, in persecutions, in stresses on behalf of Christ: for when I am weak, then I am strong." That means that spiritual self-esteem is characterised by the beginning of contentment. But it also means something else: "When I am weak, then I am strong" means that the believer with spiritual self-esteem has grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, and he begins to have a magnificent personal sense of destiny.

Spiritual self-esteem is characterised by mental stability, correct and accurate application of metabolised doctrine to both adversity and prosperity. Mental stability is renovation of thought (Romans 12:2) and it is also the basis for application of doctrine. Romans 12:3 — When you reach spiritual self-esteem you no longer think of self in terms of arrogance. He has a standard of thinking from doctrine.

Another characteristic of spiritual self-esteem is composure marked by self-assurance. This is based on correct and accurate application of metabolised doctrine.

Grace orientation in life is another characteristic of self-esteem. Again it is based on correct and accurate application of grace principles to life without distorting them. And the soul with Bible doctrine is now the master of the body. The body, then, is the slave to the soul so that divine energy is concentrated and converted into spiritual momentum. That is what happens at the point of spiritual self-esteem.

Then there is doctrinal orientation to reality — the fifth characteristic of spiritual self-esteem — the maintenance of humility, the avoidance of inordinate ambition and inordinate competition, the development of spiritual common sense, the development of spiritual independence and with it even a sense of humour.

The sixth characteristic, good decisions from a position of strength. This is based upon divine viewpoint thinking and motivation from personal love for God at gate five of the divine dynasphere.

The seventh characteristic, the beginning of personal control of your life. That is spiritual independence with maximum utilisation of your very own royal priesthood.

The eighth characteristic, the fact that is it able to use all of the problem-solving devices. Spiritual self-esteem solves your own problems of inadequacy, your own problems of fear, your own emotional problems, your own personality identity, your own niche orientation.

The ninth characteristic, spiritual self-esteem is the beginning of a personal sense of destiny. It is the first stage of spiritual adulthood and it is generally characterised by beginning to realise that you have a personal sense of destiny and that you have an important place in history as an invisible hero.

The tenth characteristic, epistemological rehabilitation. Post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation is synonymous with perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine. It means learning doctrine after salvation, learning and applying doctrine so in the privacy of your priesthood you eventually attain spiritual adulthood.

The eleventh characteristic, the believer is in command of himself. This includes the believer's self-control, self-restraint, poise, self-regulation in the concepts of spiritual self-esteem. You cannot accurately communicate with others unless you have command of yourself. All successful relationships in life are based upon good communication and command of self.

The twelfth characteristic, a new attitude toward life. Personal love for God reverses all priorities of life, giving you a new mental attitude, a new scale of values. Entering into spiritual adulthood or spiritual self-esteem causes personal love for God and you now begin to think in terms of occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. The believer with spiritual self-esteem makes his own application of doctrine to experience.

The thirteenth characteristic, the believer in spiritual self-esteem is now qualified to face providential preventative suffering. This advances him to spiritual adulthood. This is the whole story of suffering for blessing.

There are three stages of spiritual adulthood: spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. Each one of these stages of spiritual adulthood is related to a system of suffering for blessing and that system of suffering for blessing is a test which you must pass to advance to the next stage.

There are three categories, then, of suffering for blessing: providential preventative suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing. Each stage of spiritual adulthood is attained through the administration of suffering for blessing. In spiritual self-esteem you have providential preventative suffering. This is the first category of suffering for blessing. And again, then, you need Ephesians 4:23 for you can only pass providential preventative suffering in its four stages by means of the Spirit, by means of your thinking.

When you reach spiritual autonomy by passing providential preventative suffering you have to face momentum testing. And that comes in four categories and your ability to pass momentum testing depends again on the phrase of Ephesians 4:23 — "Then become renewed by means of the Spirit by means of your thinking."

Then finally there is spiritual maturity and in spiritual maturity there is the ultimate in suffering for blessing called evidence testing. This category of suffering glorifies God to the maximum once we pass it.

Principle: No believer can pass a given category of suffering for blessing unless he has understood and acted upon the phrase found in Ephesians 4:23. It requires renewal, refreshment, reinvigoration.

No believer can pass providential preventative suffering without first attaining spiritual self-esteem. Why? Because spiritual self-esteem qualifies you to apply Bible doctrine to that magnificent blessing from God — suffering for blessing called providential preventative suffering.

Furthermore, no believer can pass momentum testing without first of all attaining spiritual autonomy. Why? Because in spiritual autonomy you have that mastery of the ten problem-solving devices that makes it possible for you to face each category in momentum testing, all four categories, and to pass them. Therefore, only spiritual self-esteem is qualified to pass providential preventative suffering and only spiritual autonomy is qualified to pass momentum testing. And then of course there is spiritual maturity, and that qualifies you to pass evidence testing. Therefore, the final characteristic of spiritual self-esteem is the ability to pass providential preventative suffering and to advance to the next stage. Here is the importance of application of Bible doctrine. But remember, no application without perception.

The fourteenth characteristic of spiritual self-esteem is characterised by that phase of the unique life known as "Christ being formed in you." When you reach that stage it is the fulfilment of Galatians 4:19 — "My little children, I am sweating you out until Christ is formed in you." This relates the believer's self-esteem to the self-esteem of the humanity of Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere. This explains John 12:26 — "If anyone serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, [Where is Jesus Christ? He was in the prototype divine dynasphere] there shall my servant also be [the operational type divine dynasphere]: if any one serves me, the Father will honour him." That is a prophecy that believers who advance to spiritual self-esteem are going to be honoured by the Father. Epistemological rehabilitation is, therefore, only the beginning. It is the application that becomes so important. These are characteristics of spiritual self-esteem.

Philippians 1:20 — "On the basis of my confident expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but with all boldness Christ shall even now as always be exalted in my body, whether by life, or by death."

And then the verse that covers application of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age to our experience: Verse 21 "For me living is Christ, and dying is profit."

This application has to be noted under two concepts: First of all "living is Christ" where many hundreds and even thousands of positive decisions are made with regard to assembling to hear doctrine, then perception through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, metabolisation through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and application through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. All of this brings us to "living is Christ." We make the decisions.

However when it says "dying is profit" there is application, for we have to remember that the time, the manner, and the place of your dying is the decision of God. Our decisions have everything to do with living; God's decision has everything to do with dying. Both categories have a panoramic application of our experience from the time that we believe in Christ until the time that we arrive in heaven — absent from the body and face to face with the Lord, in a place of no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, no more death, the old things have passed away.

Occupation with Christ is the ultimate problem-solving device. It is the priority solution of the protocol plan. The application of Bible doctrine in this area of "for me living is Christ" includes, first of all, learning. We have to learn the ten problem-solving devices, we have to metabolise the mechanics and then actually utilise them on a day by day basis. So we start by learning and metabolising the tenth problem-solving device which is occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. Once we have understood the mechanics the application comes in thinking. There are many experiences in life where the application of thinking occupation with Christ is very important. It is very definitely the manner in which we handle stress.

We handle stress with the first problem-solving device which is the rebound technique. But the rebound technique is because of failure to handle stress and therefore the necessity of rebound and recovering the filling of the Spirit. Once we recover the filling of God the Holy Spirit we are now able to begin to utilise again certain promises which relate to the stresses of life. And then after the faith-rest drill and we gradually work our way back into doctrinal orientation and with it grace orientation. Grace orientation becomes a major factor in motivating us to continue. And our motivation, then, takes us to the highest form of motivation in this life — personal love for God the Father. This requires a tremendous amount of perception and metabolisation of doctrine, a lot of exposure to Christology and all that it means. And with that, of course, our portfolio of invisible assets and all of the things that God the Father provided for us in eternity past.

And then we move on to impersonal love for all mankind for a certain amount of stress is related to people. And once we have personal love for God the Father and impersonal love for all mankind, we have reached that point which is spiritual self-esteem. But once we have reached that point we have to move on for spiritual self-esteem is also the beginning of +H or sharing the happiness of God and finding that happiness is not related to things or people or social situations or marriage, or all of the other fallacies in our thinking, but that it is related to occupation with the person of Christ. Now we are approaching that magnificent problem-solving device, the one problem-solving device that removes all stress in life. And with that a personal sense of destiny.

Now we are ready to understand what Paul meant when he said: "For me, living is Christ." Occupation with Christ is the tenth problem-solving device, the ultimate in the application of Bible doctrine. We make a lot of good decisions resulting in application with Christ but remember that God makes the decision on which we utilise every one of the problem-solving devices to fulfil the last part of Philippians 1:21, for dying is profit to the believer who follows this particular pattern.

Occupation with Christ is a problem-solving device as well as a basis for worship. Occupation with Christ is, one of the three problem-solving devices which is related to virtue love. Problem-solving device number six — personal love for God the Father — is our motivation for continuing our momentum in the protocol plan. Problem-solving device number seven is the only way that we will successfully interact with people in life, for impersonal love for all mankind is the ultimate virtue related to people relationship. By functional virtue, of course, we have interaction with mankind. But then there is problem-solving device number ten — occupation with Christ — which is not only the priority solution in relationship with God and relationship with people, but also it is the priority answer to all of the personal problems related to self.

All three of these problem-solving devices begin at spiritual self-esteem. They continue in spiritual autonomy and they reach their peak in spiritual maturity. All three of the love problem-solving devices are fulfilled in 1Corinthians 13:13 which says: "Now abides (or continues) faith (reference to the faith-rest drill, your ability to claim the promises of God under pressure and adversity — and under prosperity), hope (our confidence, the beginning of that problem-solving device of a personal sense of destiny, the confidence we have in God), and virtue-love [three categories of problem-solving devices, and so they are called, "these three"], these three; but the greatest of these is virtue-love." Virtue-love includes, of course, occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

This is because each stage of spiritual adulthood is related to maximum effectiveness in the function of perception and metabolisation of doctrine. Spiritual self-esteem is where we begin to develop the ability to concentrate, to realise that more than one subject in the Bible is important. We have a tendency to focus only on the subject that relates to what it happening to us at the moment. If we are under some form of adversity, if we are in some form of stress, if we have a problem, we are only interested in what the Bible has to say about our problem. But once you reach spiritual self-esteem you find that concentration on every subject is the priority of the moment, and you do concentrate, and you do spend time listening carefully, and you do find it interesting even though it is not a subject you are using at the moment in your life. So spiritual self-esteem begins cognitive self-confidence.

And then when you have passed providential preventative suffering, one of the three areas of suffering for blessing, then you reach spiritual autonomy. And by that time your occupation with the person of Christ and all of the functions of the problem-solving devices have accelerated to maximum mobility, and now you have cognitive independence. (By the way, in cognitive independence you never seek counsel from anyone else).

Finally, by passing momentum testing you reach spiritual maturity which is related to cognitive invincibility. This is the status of the invisible hero. This is the enviable status because there is no problem, no adversity, no difficulty in this life too great for what you have in your own soul. By now you have transferred so many principles, so many doctrines, so many verses, so many concepts into your own soul where they are metabolised that you can face instantly any adversity, any problem, or above all the fantastic blessings in prosperity that come to you in spiritual adulthood. For it takes scripture and problem-solving devices to handle prosperity. Prosperity can become just as much of a distraction as adversity, and because this is true and because prosperity and adversity are antithetical we often think that problem-solving devices are designed only for times of adversity and heartache and trouble. But they are designed for prosperity as well.

There is no greater illustration of this than occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. And so in Ephesians 3:19 we have the phrase, "and to come to know the love for Christ." This implies that occupation with Christ is the result of a lot of exposure to Bible doctrine, and not only exposure but perception and metabolisation so that we are in a position to start making application. Occupation with Christ results in maximum function of continuing in the Christian life and handling the prosperity as well as the adversity. By definition, then, occupation with Christ is defined as personal love for God the Son, but personal love which only comes from the assimilation of pertinent Bible doctrine. Therefore, post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation in the field of Christology. And as we learn more and more about the Lord and as we come to know Him better our love increases. And with the increase of our love there is a co-ordination between the last five problem-solving devices. They all begin to fall into place. So we have 1Corinthians 2:16 in which we begin to think as our Lord thought as He was on earth during the first advent.

What is the thinking of Christ? Specifically it is the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Having the thinking of Christ is designed to lead us to the point where we understand the thinking of Christ. Perception, metabolisation of Bible doctrine results in application of doctrine. As under perception and metabolisation we learn about Christ, under application we learn how the Lord thinks. And that becomes a major issue in our lives for we can in spiritual adulthood, spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, spiritual maturity, come to know how the Lord thinks. But we cannot know how the Lord thinks by merely understanding the doctrine. We must be able to make application.

In Philippians 2:1,2 we have a protasis of a first class condition — "Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ [What is encouragement in Christ? Occupation with Christ. Occupation with Christ comes with spiritual adulthood and it means that eventually we come to know how He thinks.] and there is, if there is any comfort from love, if any fellowship with the Spirit and there is, if there is any affection and mercies … "

Is there such a thing as affection? Is there such a thing as mercy toward people? Yes there is. Where does it begin? With a problem-solving device called grace orientation (problem-solving device number 5).

"Comfort from love" is the use of virtue-love in its various aspects of problem-solving. And it relates to God, and it relates to people, and it relates to self in spiritual self-esteem.

Verse 2 — "Bring to completion my happiness." If we are ever going to understand the Lord's thinking we have to understand the Lord's happiness, and understanding the Lord's happiness is possessing it, +H, sharing the happiness of God.

"that you might be thinking the same things" — thinking what the Lord is thinking, and thinking what the Lord is thinking is knowing the mind of Christ. And knowing the mind of Christ is perception, metabolisation and application of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. And then you have occupation with Christ.

"having the same virtue-love, united in soul, intent on one objective." What is that one objective? Advancing to spiritual maturity, becoming an invisible hero, the execution of the protocol plan of God, and the glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Learning doctrine is a grace function which must have as its final result Bible doctrine in the right lobe of the soul. The right lobe of the soul is called the heart. There are two things in the right lobe or the heart: first of all there is e)pignwsij doctrine, metabolised doctrine; secondly there is sofia which is wisdom, doctrine applied. E)pignwsij is the kind of doctrine you think, and when you think e)pignwsij you get wisdom. Wisdom is what you apply to your experience, if and when you ever get around to application of doctrine. This the whole point of the book of James: don't be just a hearer of the Word but a doer. What is a doer? A doer is a believer who applies doctrine to experience. Listening is only a staging area; it is a means to an end. It is the application that counts.

In Bible doctrine we have sofia [wisdom] in the right lobe. It is the result of metabolisation of doctrine. The more you think doctrine the greater the possibility of having wisdom. The greater the amount of wisdom you possess the sooner you will be able to make personal application to all of your experiences, especially your adverse ones. All of this thinking takes place in the right lobe of the soul where there are eight compartments which help you.

The right lobe of the soul has first of all a frame of reference, and that is the area of retention of metabolised doctrine. After all metabolised doctrine is only helpful if you can retain it. And that is where you have a frame of reference. Furthermore, that frame of reference which starts with basic and simple things must become the basis for learning and metabolising more doctrine. Secondly, you have a memory centre in your right lobe. That is the place for the circulation of metabolised doctrine to the various areas of life. This would be the principle of recall. When you face a certain situation you have to be able to think under pressure, stress, adversity and even prosperity. Therefore, you have to have a memory centre for the circulation of metabolised doctrine. Then the third area is vocabulary storage, you learn technical words that cover paragraphs, e.g the divine decrees, the faith-rest technique, etc. In the right lobe of your soul you make your own dictionary. Part of learning Bible doctrine is to learn the meaning of technical words. With that you have categorical storage, a classification of Bible doctrine according to its subject matter. The fifth area is the conscience where perception and metabolisation of doctrine builds norms and standards. You go way beyond morality into norms and standards that have to do with the spiritual life — what is right and what is wrong. So all of your norms and standards and priorities are located in the right lobe's conscience. The sixth category is the momentum department, mental areas of spiritual growth, especially from the two categories of Bible doctrine, e)pignwsij and sofia, metabolised doctrine and wisdom. This is the department where thinking becomes application to your own life and application to the situations that you face in life. And then the seventh category is the wisdom department where you launch from that launching pad application to every situation in life. Finally there is the subconscious which is the storage department for thoughts, impressions and even emotions which did not exist in the conscious mind or in the emotions of the soul.

There are four principles that we need to use to focus our attention on application of doctrine

1. The believer cannot think, apply Bible doctrine, or solve problems through the mind of another person. (You do not grow spiritually through counselling or getting advice from other people)

2. Emotion does not have the ability to think or to reason. It has no doctrinal content or common sense. Therefore emotion is not even the criterion for Christian experience. How you feel is not the issue; it is always, What does the Bible say? Eventually you must answer that for yourself through metabolised doctrine, through wisdom.

3. No believer can apply Bible doctrine to his own experience while he is in a state of fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger or other emotional sins.

4. Ignorance of Bible doctrine and the resultant failure of application of doctrine is a direct contradiction to the protocol plan of God.

The problem of emotion: Emotion produces sins. Neglect or rejection of Bible doctrine with its ten problem-solving devices results in many sins which are related to emotional result of the soul. Emotion is not a spiritual factor; it must be subordinate to what you are thinking.

We are talking about abnormal emotion which is sin. For example, fear is a sin. It is an emotional sin that includes worry and anxiety, all of which block thinking or application of Bible doctrine. Failure to think Bible doctrine is synonymous with inability to apply Bible doctrine to experience and this is where fear and courage are in combat, they are antithetical terms. Courage is the ability to think under stress and pressure while cowardice or fear is the domination of emotion under pressure or stress. The application of nothing to something is always nothing. You cannot apply emotion to the problems of life and ever come up with a solution. Emotion has no doctrinal content, no ability to reason, to think; it has no common sense. Therefore, fear is lack of thinking under stress and pressure. Fear is an emotional as well as an arrogant sin. Fear is the believer's failure to apply doctrine to the problems of life. Fear, therefore, manufactures losers in the Christian way of life.

Normal emotional experience results in the subordination of the emotion to the intellect, but abnormal emotional experience produces emotional sins — not just fear, worry and anxiety, but hatred is an emotional sin just as is anger, violence and murder.

Fear is the believer's failure to apply Bible doctrine to the problems of life. So the more things, then, you surrender to fear the more things you actually fear in your life. And the extent to which you surrender to fear the greater your capacity for fear, and the greater your capacity for fear the more you increase the power of fear in your life. The more things that acquire the power of fear in your life the greater your capacity for becoming a loser, because even if you have learned any doctrine you cannot apply it to your experience.

A loser, then, is the believer who fails to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. Second Timothy chapter one puts it this way: "For God has not given to us a lifestyle of fear; but of power and virtue-love and sound judgement [which is also common sense in the application of Bible doctrine to experience]." Or 1John 4:18 — "Fear does not exist in virtue-love: but virtue-love drives out fear, for fear causes punishment [self-induced and the three stages of divine discipline]; in fact the person who is afraid has not been matured by virtue-love." Remember that virtue-love refers to three of the ten problem-solving devices, and these three are always for the believer who has attained spiritual adulthood. Virtue-love refers to personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind and occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. Fear hinders the application of Bible doctrine to experience even if you know the pertinent doctrine. Psalm 56:3 — "What time I am afraid I will trust in thee" — the faith-rest drill applied. The faith-rest drill is where we begin to make application of Bible doctrine.

The believer cannot think, apply doctrine, or solve problems in the following status quo

a. If he is out of fellowship he is quenching or grieving the Holy Spirit, so he cannot apply Bible doctrine. Whatever human viewpoint he has it reasserts itself in the cosmic system.

b. Through thinking or counselling from another person. You cannot think or apply doctrine when you are walking on crutches, i.e. depending on the counsel of someone else.

c. In a state of ignorance of doctrine. Again, nothing applied to something equals nothing. If you are ignorant of Bible doctrine it is obvious that you can't apply what you do not know.

d. Failure to learn and apply the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

e. In a state of emotional revolt of the soul, the take-over of the emotional sins. Emotion can respond to doctrine but emotion can never apply doctrine.

Principles

1. God is perfect, His plan is perfect. Hence, perfect God has designed a perfect plan for imperfect Christians.

2. Therefore, God has implemented His perfect plan with problem-solving devices so that we as imperfect persons can fulfil that perfect plan.

3. Both arrogance and the sins of emotion are a contradiction to the protocol plan of God for the Church Age.

4. Only perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine can overcome our failures as believers.

The panoramic application of scripture, Philippians 1:20-21 — "On the basis of my confident expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but with all boldness Christ shall even now as always be exalted in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For me living is Christ, and dying is profit."

When Paul says "For me living is Christ" that is the ultimate problem-solving device, occupation with Christ. It takes a tremendous number of decisions to reach that point. It takes a lot of positive volition, a lot of time logged in Bible class under the filling of the Holy Spirit so that you can concentrate on Bible doctrine. Then the grace process of perception begins, and it begins in the human spirit for the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit. Then it continues in the soul for once the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit then it automatically is transferred to the left lobe of the soul. But that isn't good enough and it has to be metabolised. The ultimate is to come to the point where for you living is Christ. Thousands of decisions and applications are made to come to that point. One thing becomes obvious: your volition is involved. You have made x number of good decisions from a position of strength. And out of those decisions you have learned to think and in thinking you are applying Bible doctrine to your experience. So your volition is involved.

But when it says "dying is profit," that is God's decision. The reason that dying is profit is that you have made so many good decisions during your Christian life. You have learned doctrine, you have thought doctrine, you have functioned under perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine. Therefore you are prepared for dying, provided the Rapture doesn't occur first. And when the moment of dying comes, no more decisions from you. Your dying will be profitable because you are occupied with the person of Jesus Christ. But the time, the place, and the manner of your death are God's decisions.

"By means of your thinking" (Ephesians 4:23) is application of Bible doctrine to experience. Learning is understanding and understanding is thinking. Therefore thinking is application of understanding.

Principle: False application creates problems; true application solves problems.

Ignorance of Bible doctrine, of course, results in false application. Perception and metabolisation of doctrine paves the way for correct and accurate application of Bible doctrine to experience. The application of Bible doctrine to experience is classified in our study as thinking, under the principle of learning, thinking, solving. Thinking metabolised doctrine is classified in our study as wisdom, for wisdom is the application of Bible doctrine to experience.

Wrong application of doctrine is no application; false application creates more problems. True application solves problems, but there is no true application unless you are consistent in the perception and metabolisation of Bible doctrine. But once you have entered into perception and application then that very important final link — application. And application is thinking doctrine, but not just thinking doctrine academically but thinking metabolised doctrine which is in the eight compartments of your right lobe.

Only application of doctrine can produce +H. Life for the believer starts from the inside and works out — if there is doctrine. But if there is no doctrine the application of nothing to something is nothing. People are not going to make you happy.

We should begin to understand that for the believer who fulfils the principle of learning, thinking and solving, that believer is prepared for death. He is prepared for dying. It may be a short time, it may be a long time. But there are a lot of magnificent believers who are dying magnificently because of the application of Bible doctrine to experience. They have been doing it so long that when it comes time for dying they are there.

Phil. 1:21 " … dying is profit." Living actually begins day one of salvation through faith in Christ and continues, of course, to the point of dying. And while we are dying we are still living.

So there are two phases to the protocol plan of God. The first stage is living, "for me living is Christ" — occupation with Christ which is the tenth problem-solving device. " … and dying is profit." So if living is Christ — that is the mature believer, the winner, the invisible hero — and then dying is profit, that means that you have fulfilled application of doctrine. In the living status the believer has full use of his volition and continues to the point of dying. So in the living stage it is your positive volition that counts. But when you get to the dying stage it is God's volition, the sovereignty of God, that is the major issue in our dying experience.

The option of positive volition toward Bible doctrine can lead to correct and accurate application of Bible doctrine to experience and as a result the believer becomes a winner, an invisible hero, and that of course is through the execution of the protocol plan of God for the Church. The option of negative volition toward Bible doctrine and failure to apply it — obviously you cannot apply what you do not know — results in the believer becoming a loser and he fails to execute the protocol plan of God. And therefore there is a conflict between two functions in your life.

Positive volition does three things: Learning, thinking, and solving; negative volition does three things: implode, explode, revert.

In the dying phase of the protocol plan of God, "dying is profit" — the profit comes from application and solving. However, dying is that part of Christian experience which depends on the sovereignty of God, not the believer's volition. The reason the believer's volition is no longer the issue is because death and dying is God's victory, not the believer's. That is because death or dying is God's decision. We don't decide the time, the manner and the place of our death, God decides. We decide whether we are going to be winners or losers by our attitude toward Bible doctrine. In the living phase of the protocol plan of God the believer has control over his life for success or failure; in the dying phase of the protocol plan of God the believer has no control over three things: the time of his death, the manner of his death or the place of his death.

There are three factors which depend on the sovereignty of God: the time of our death, the manner of our death and the place of our death. And if the believer has followed the three principles related to application of doctrine dying will be profit. If the believer has followed the pattern of Christian degeneracy, by way of contrast dying is going to be the most miserable experience of his miserable life. And that would be implosion (self-fragmentation), explosion (polarised fragmentation), and reversion (Christian degeneracy).

Because God is holy (justice and righteousness) it is impossible for God to be unfair to any one of us. And therefore the time, the manner and the place of our death is a matter of God's sovereignty, God's wisdom, God's integrity and God's love. All decisions of the sovereignty of God are made in perfect righteousness, eternal wisdom, absolute fairness and gracious love. No instrument of death, then, can remove the believer until God permits. None of the dangers of life can ever take our life until God gives the go-ahead.Once the sovereignty of God calls the believer home to heaven nothing can retain him on this earth. And since death is the decision of the sovereignty of God no believer has the right to ever question that decision.

There are only two categories of dying, then, as far as the believer is concerned. There is, first of all, the sin unto death, 1John 5:16,17, which is maximum divine discipline. Secondly, there is dying grace where dying is profit. And that is for believers who have reached spiritual adulthood beginning in spiritual self-esteem. But regardless of the category of death, whether it is the sin unto death or whether it is dying grace, the death of the believer is always God's victory.

1Corinthians 15:55-57 — notice that God gives all believers the victory. The Corinthians were famous for their carnality but God gave them the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. For the believer, then, who has reached spiritual adulthood there is no fear of death when it comes. For the believer who is not prepared, who is a loser, is great fear. Job 5:21 — "You will be hidden from the lash of the tongue (gossip, slander, maligning) and you will not be afraid of death when it comes" — that is the mature believer. That is the only category that is not afraid of death. But remember this principle: whether the believer is a winner or a loser, death is God's victory for both categories. Psalm 116:15 — "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints"; Romans 14:8 — "If we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord: therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's." This is true of all believers, winners and losers. The death of every born-again believer is God's victory. The only difference is that the winner is prepared for dying and the loser is not prepared. Winners or invisible heroes are filled with all the fullness of God so that the blessings of living extend into the blessings of dying. Losers face dying in Christian degeneracy so that their last experience on earth is the worst experience of their life. One thing that Christian degeneracy cannot do: it cannot handle the problems of living; it cannot handle the problems of dying. The grace policy of God, however, comes into effect immediately at the point of death. After dying both winners and losers go immediately to heaven.

Principle: For every believer in Jesus Christ, winner or loser, God has saved the best until last. What do we mean, God has saved the best until last? Well, let's take the sequence of five things all believers have sooner or later. 1. Living. (In time we believed in Jesus Christ and that is the basis for eternal salvation. At the moment we believed God gave us 40 things). 2. Dying. 3. Heaven. 4. Resurrection. 5. The eternal state.

Now the question is, where do the good times begin? For the believer who is positive and reaches spiritual maturity the good times begin in living — "for me living is Christ." And in dying they are only better. In heaven it is the best.

What about the degenerate believer? Where do the good times begin? At death and being in heaven. For him there are no good times in living; there are no good times in dying. It all begins when he is absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. He has missed the opportunity for using his own volition, while he was in this body of flesh with an old sin nature, to glorify God.

All too many born-again believers have missed the boat, and for them there is no "living is Christ and dying is profit." This is the only time that we with an old sin nature and with stresses and pressures in this life have an opportunity to glorify God on our own. After we die God glorifies God on His own. It is God's victory, the resurrection body is God's project, the eternal state is God's project. This is the only time when we can make decisions to take in Bible doctrine, apply doctrine, and reach the high ground of spiritual maturity. Winners or invisible heroes utilise the ten problem-solving devices both in living and dying so that the transition between life and death does not change their happiness or their blessing, it only increases it.

So we have a principle — dying grace. Dying grace is defined as the death of the believer who has executed the protocol plan of God. That believer is classified three ways: the mature believer, the winner, the invisible hero. Dying grace is God's vehicle for transferring the invisible hero or winner from earth to heaven. Dying grace is the mature believer passing over the high golden bridge from earth to heaven, travelling from grace to grace. For the mature believer living is the best, dying is better. For the mature believer eternity is better than the best.

Verse 24 — we start with the connective use of the conjunction kai because the sentence begun in verse 23 continues because it is not complete.

The aorist middle infinitive from the verb a)potiqhmi is the verb that started verse 22 concerning rebound, and it was talking about putting off the old man. Each verse — 22, 23, 24 — has a special verb in the infinitive form. The verb in verse 23 is the present middle infinitive from a)naneow which is the word for residence in the divine dynasphere in reversion recovery. We noted that that includes the filling of the Spirit, the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit, the execution of the protocol plan of God and the manufacture of invisible heroes. Now we have in verse 24 a third infinitive. In each of the three verses the thought centres around an infinitive in the Greek. In verse 24 we have the aorist middle infinitive from the verb e)nduw which means to put on clothes, and it is talking about building a structure in your soul.

The constative aorist tense views the action of the verb in its entirety with no reference to its beginning, its end or its progress. In other words, it takes some believers longer than others to catch on to the importance of learning doctrine, the importance of putting doctrine first in the life, the fact that Bible doctrine is the only absolute truth in existence in the world today, the fact that Bible doctrine is divine revelation and is the only way that you can ever apply absolute principles to the relativities of your own human experience. The action, then, simply is stated as a fact. And in this case the constative aorist sums up the action of long duration, the recovery from the implode, explode, revert which is recovery from Christian degeneracy, the advance to spiritual maturity through the execution of the protocol plan of God.

The middle voice is the combination of the indirect intensive and dynamic middle which emphasises the subject as producing the action. In other words, the middle voice not only represents the subject as participating in the results of the action but the subject relates the action to the individual believer who becomes intimately involved. The believer must come to the place where through thinking he puts on a positive structure.

Note the corrected translation of verse 22-24. "With reference to your former lifestyle [Christian degeneracy] you yourselves lay aside the old man [the beginning of recovery from Christian degeneracy], you believers who are becoming degenerate on the basis of the lusts of deceit; Then become renewed [refreshed, reinvigorated] by means of the Spirit [living again inside the divine dynasphere] by means of your thinking [application of Bible doctrine to your experience], …"

V24 — "put on" Put on what? We have an accusative singular direct object of three words. The first word is the definite article ton, used to distinguish one quality from another, hence to personify the noun and adjective which follows. Ton therefore can be classified as the generic use of the definite article. Next we have the adjective kainoj which means new in species in contrast to something old. The new in species is the edification complex which replaces the power of the sin nature in the life. It is the building or structure in the soul that replaces the power of the OSN. Finally there is the noun anthrwpoj, the word for man and it is the personification of the edification complex of the soul. You are alive because your soul is in the body and therefore certain principles can be personified in your soul. This edification complex is personified as being the living part of your soul whereby you grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

The structure of the new man

Foundation:1Corinthians 11:3 — No man can lay a foundation other than the one which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. 2Timothy 2:19 adds, "Nevertheless the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are his." The foundation, then, is constructed through personal faith in Jesus Christ. The foundation actually includes the forty things that you receive at the moment that you believe in Jesus Christ. Building on a foundation of eternal life means that you can have a structure in your soul that you will have forever in heaven. You will even have it with a resurrection body. The first floor is operation Z.

On this foundation you have to build something. Now that you are saved you have to learn something, you have to think something. As a result of learning and thinking you resolve the problems of your life as well as growing up. So we have operation Z. What is operation Z? The gift of pastor-teacher communicates Bible doctrine. This Bible doctrine is communicated to the believer under the filling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of Bible doctrine; He teaches the human spirit.

Every time doctrine is communicated and you are filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit teaches your human spirit. Now you have in your human spirit only pneumatikoj which means spiritual phenomena. Once this spiritual phenomena is formed it goes into the left lobe of the soul which is called the nouj and there it becomes what is called gnwsij. Gnwsij means that it is doctrine understood academically, doctrine that has no spiritual value as yet for the left lobe of the soul is simply a staging area. Once again your volition now comes in and positive volition says, I believe it. That is called faith perception. The Holy Spirit picks up faith perception just as He picked up your faith in Christ and made it effective for salvation, and metabolises it. This means it goes into the right lobe of the soul which is the kardia. Now that doctrine is metabolised and has great spiritual value it is now e)pignwsij or metabolised doctrine. E)pignwsij is the basis for momentum and spiritual growth and application. The actual application or thinking of doctrine is called sofia — wisdom.

So we have the doctrine in operation Z, communication, reception, retaining it academically and then metabolising it. And from metabolising it we have thinking doctrine, thinking absolute truth and applying it to experience. That is the first floor of the structure.

Orientation to history

....orientation to the time in which you live. The second floor, then, would be the unique characteristics of the Church Age. You have to understand them. There are ten of them.

a. There is the Baptism of the Spirit. Once you metabolise that there are many applications, all of the racial problems are removed, the problems between the sexes are removed. On the positive side you are a new spiritual species, you are a member of the royal family of God, members of the royal family must have class. Not everyone born in aristocracy has class, scum can live in the palace as well as elsewhere. Therefore you have to learn protocol and learning protocol is learning Bible doctrine.

b. There is the protocol plan of God and the importance of understanding that plan.

c. There is our portfolio of invisible assets and in order for this floor to be constructed you must be familiar with the assets which God provided for you personally in eternity past.

d. There is the equality factor for the execution of the protocol plan of God. Only God can provide equality and only quality exists in the spiritual realm. Why? Because freedom and equality do not co-exist. There is no such thing as making people equal because to make everyone equal you would have to destroy human freedom. Only God can provide true and absolute equality and He has under election and predestination.

Under election we have equal privilege, our royal priesthood — every believer is a priest. There is equality. We have equal opportunity, we are all the beneficiaries of logistical grace. There is equality.

In predestination we have equal privilege, we are a new spiritual species, a royal family of God. We are created equal at the point of salvation through faith in Christ. We are created equal through regeneration. We are not born equal, we are born-again equal. We have equal opportunity, God has provided for each one of us our very own palace, the operational type divine dynasphere.

e. There is our unique royal commission. Every one of us has exactly the same priesthood. We represent ourselves to God. The only place where believers are not equal is in the area of spiritual gift. Also, every one of us is a royal ambassador, and as a royal ambassador we represent God to the human race, effectively or ineffectively.

In Ephesians 2:8 the corrected translation reads, "For you have been saved by grace." Grace means that God does the work and that there is no work on the part of man necessary for salvation. Furthermore it means that no matter how much of a failure any person has been he can have eternal life by grace. Grace means, then, that God the Father planned eternal salvation. Grace means that God the Son on the cross executed that salvation and grace means that God the Holy Spirit reveals it. So in eternity past God planned for you to have eternal life and in that planning He also programmed into computer of divine decrees all personal sins in history since personal sin would have been an issue. All personal sins from the beginning of history to the end were actually put into one prom chip. The Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and hanging on the cross God the Father called for the printout of all of those personal sins and He imputed every one of them to our Lord Jesus Christ and judged them. God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died as a substitute for us. This is not a reference to His physical death which came later but to His substitutionary spiritual death whereby He was judged for all of the sins in the history of the human race. So God the Father not only planned it but God the Father acted as the judge of our sins at the cross. And Jesus Christ received that judgement in His own body on the cross. Therefore the door of salvation is wide open and anyone can step through that door by faith in Jesus Christ.

But that faith requires a lot of help. Not anything that we can do, no works that we can do, but simply the work of God. In this case it is the work of God the Holy Spirit for when the Gospel is presented it is presented to those who need it and those who need it are spiritually dead, separated from God from birth, unable to comprehend any form of spiritual phenomena. And so we who have been the recipients of the Gospel and have responded were at one time under spiritual brain death. The Gospel to us was something we couldn't understand because we did not have a human spirit. We were born into this world dichotomous , we have a body and a soul, and that means no ability to understand anything related to God. Our original parents at the point of original sin were trichotomous but they lost the human spirit and the ability to comprehend the things of God through personal sin.

So when the Gospel is presented to us it is impossible for us as unbelievers to understand it. We are in a state of spiritual brain death but God the Holy Spirit acting as a human spirit makes it possible for us to comprehend. Then the information goes to the left lobe called the nous. There it becomes academic understanding. We understand the issue; the issue is not personal sins, not our failures in life, the issue is actually who and what Christ is and what He did for us on the cross. The issue, then, is to believe in Christ and have eternal life or reject Him and have eternal condemnation. Therefore, still in spiritual death we believed in Jesus Christ — a non-meritorious system of perception. This is faith perception and the moment that we believed — for by grace you have been saved through faith — God the Holy Spirit once again takes the faith of the spiritually dead person and makes it effective for eternal salvation. And at the very moment that we believe in Christ God gives us forty invisible things which cannot be experienced but nevertheless are very real — and that is our so great salvation.

So in Ephesians 2:8 — "you have been saved by grace." Grace excludes all forms of human merit or works. Faith is a non-meritorious system of perception, in contrast to rationalism and empiricism.

Verse 9 — "Not by works." There is nothing that you can add to salvation. There is no such things as faith plus lordship, there is no such thing as faith plus commitment, there is no such thing as faith plus feeling sorry for your sins or inviting Christ into your heart. There is no such thing as ritual works such as baptism for salvation.

There is a second objective. What are we to do after salvation? After salvation what? What is the Christian way of life? Once we believe in Jesus Christ there is a Christian way of life; there is a plan of God. We have studied it as the protocol plan of God. It starts with the mandate, "put on the new man" — Ephesians 4:24. Putting on the new man is a reference to something constructed in your soul. We call that structure the edification complex of the soul. The foundation for that structure is personal faith in Jesus Christ is eternal salvation. We have also noted the first floor of that structure which is operation Z, the perception of Bible doctrine through the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit as communicated by the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher.

Now the first objective in life is to be born-again, to believe in Jesus Christ. In the book of Ephesians the question, After salvation what? is answered very clearly. One of the great answers is in the objective we have in Ephesians 4:24. Corrected translation: "And put on the new man, which according to the specifications of God has been created by virtue-righteousness and devoutness from the source of doctrine." There are two words that stand out after the words "new man. "New man" is the edification complex of the soul; "specifications of God" tells us how that building is constructed,created from the source of Bible doctrine. If you put them together you have the answer to After salvation what? It is the perception, metabolisation and the application of Bible doctrine, and "by means of your thinking. It takes thinking or the application of doctrine to grow in grace.

Now what is the objective of the protocol plan of God? We have a foundation,faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The first floor of that foundation is the perception and the metabolisation of Bible doctrine. And as there is perception and application of doctrine we eventually get to the top floor, the final objective is not to have a visible impact through activism which is a system of evil but the impact of the invisible hero by means of spiritual maturity. For as goes the believer so goes the client nation to God. hat is because of the invisible impact of the mature believer, the invisible hero. That invisible impact we call the pivot.

In the Church Age the demand of the protocol plan of God and all of the mandates which come from God are for invisible heroes. Therefore, the impact of the believer is a spiritual impact. He becomes an invisible hero by constructing this wonderful edification complex by this building in his soul. The Church, then, is under a protocol plan of God; it is a new spiritual species; it is the dispensation of invisible heroes. Invisible God plus invisible assets plus invisible power equals invisible hero. That is what we have as our responsibility in the Church Age. So the question, After salvation what? We execute the protocol plan of God. Furthermore it is executed in exactly the same way, under God's policy of grace. Therefore it is the work and ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the perception of Bible doctrine; it is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in converting doctrine into epignosis or doctrine which is effective in our right lobe; it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the application of doctrine. No one can become an invisible hero apart from consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. And this means perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine. That is why the very first floor of the building is perception of doctrine. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age cannot be perceived and metabolised except through the filling of the Holy Spirit or residence in the divine dynasphere.

The pastor-teacher is the divinely appointed vehicle for the communication of this doctrine. And no believer can execute the protocol plan of God and become an invisible hero, which is the means of glorifying God, apart from the teaching ministry of the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. The trouble with the Church Age believer is two-fold: because of negative volition toward Bible doctrine he cannot learn the complicated things of biblical theology, and he forgets the doctrines that are too simple.

Thinking is the application of doctrine to experience but it has to start with concentration under the ministry of the Holy Spirit when Bible doctrine is taught. And this becomes tantamount to positive volition and spiritual growth. The things that we learn are the various flaws and concepts in that marvellous edification complex, "put on the new man." The manufacture of the edification complex ends with becoming an invisible hero but first of all the invisible hero can only be manufactured out of the fulfilment of God's plan, God's will and God's purpose. The believer can only glorify God through the execution, then, of the protocol plan, and arrogance hinders the execution of that plan. That is why we have noted with regard to the application of doctrine, Romans 12:2,3 — "Stop being conformed to this world but be transformed by the renovation of your thoughts [Renovation of thought is perception and application of Bible doctrine] so that you may prove what the will of God is, namely, the good of intrinsic value achievement." There is the execution of divine good, there is the advance to spiritual maturity.

"For I say through the grace which has been given to me, to every one who is among you, stop thinking of yourselves in terms of arrogance [there's your hindrance, there's your negative volition, there's your cosmic involvement, there's your Christian degeneration] beyond what you ought to think; but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion, as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine." That standard of thinking from doctrine is the structure of this edification complex of the soul.

Now what is the result of all of this. The result is the invisible impact of the invisible hero. The magnetism of the invisible hero is not only related to his personal sense of destiny, his sharing of the happiness of God, his use for personal love for God as motivation, impersonal love for all mankind and interaction with people, and his occupation with the person of Christ. All of these things are a part of the magnetism of the invisible hero but remember he is still the invisible hero. Invisible impact belongs to the invisible hero, the believer who executes the protocol plan of God, the believer who erects the seven floors called the edification complex or, in our passage, putting on the new man.

Invisible impact, then, of the new man is broken down into categories. The first category is personal impact, related to blessing by association with a mature believer who is both a winner and an invisible hero. In other words, wherever the invisible hero is there is always blessing by association, and that includes family, business, schools, law firms, medical clinics, military organisations, etc. It includes social life, church life, Christian service organisation. It includes geographical periphery — neighbourhood, city, county, state. The invisible hero becomes the basis for blessing by association to all who are in his periphery.

The second is historical impact. This is defined by blessing by association to the Gentile client nation through the pivot of mature believers. They are both winners and invisible heroes. The believer who executes the protocol plan of God by advancing to spiritual maturity becomes an invisible hero and he becomes a member of the pivot of a client nation. The size of the pivot in the client nation determines the basis for blessing or cursing to the client nation. And when the pivot shrinks and almost disappears, then there are five cycles of divine discipline that God administers. The fifth cycle of discipline removes that client nation from its status and it is usually destroyed by an outside military power.

Principle

1. A small pivot of invisible heroes means the administration of the five cycles of discipline to the client nation.

2. As goes the believer, then, so goes the client nation to God.

3. As the pivot shrinks the client nation declines and it is destroyed.

4. A large pivot of invisible heroes means national blessing and prosperity as well as historical perpetuation and preservation.

The third category of impact from the invisible hero is international. International impact is defined as blessing by association to a non-client nation through missionaries who have attained spiritual maturity. The invisible hero can be a missionary with a dual impact of blessing by association. As a mature believer there is blessing by association to the client nation from which they came. And secondly they are a blessing by association to the foreign nation to which they go.

The fourth category of impact for the invisible hero is angelic impact. This is defined as the invisible hero becoming a witness for the prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan's appeal trial. The Church Age is also the age of the rebuttal phase of a great invisible conflict. Satan's appeal trial has been under way with human history. And now in the rebuttal phase of Satan's appeal trial it is necessary for mature believers to exist on the earth. This is accomplished by the execution of the protocol plan of God or fulfilling the mandate of Ephesians 2:24, "put on the new man." The principle is that angels are therefore observing human history right now. For example, 1 Cor. 4:9; 1 Tim. 5:21; 1Peter . 1:12. Every time angels observe believers reaching spiritual maturity and become an invisible hero there is cheering among the elect angels.

The fifth impact: the invisible hero has a heritage impact. The heritage impact is defined as blessing by association with the invisible hero after his death. Heritage impact, therefore, is blessing by association to the next generation; it is the continuation of blessing by association after the death of the invisible hero and this blessing by association is generally on an individual basis. This means that bereaved ones and those close friends of the invisible hero, regardless of their spiritual status, are going to be blessed by association. Many an invisible hero has had children who failed to execute the protocol plan — some believers and some unbelievers — and yet they have been blessed by association. That is the heritage impact.

This explains the reason, then, why the wicked [believer or unbeliever] prosper in any given generation — not because they have done anything to prosper on their own but because there was a relationship with an invisible hero before his death. And another reason why the wicked believer prospers is related to the doctrine of logistical grace. Losers as well as winners prosper under that concept.

The first floor of the ECS is operation Z which is perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine.

The second floor is the ten unique characteristics of the Church Age, designed for maximum application. The third floor is also extremely important because these are the ten problem-solving devices. In other words, the second and third floors are actually designed for each one of us to take Bible doctrine and apply it to experience, to solve the problems of our own life apart from any counselling or any outside help, through these ten problem-solving devices.

The ten problem-solving devices include rebound, the filling of the Spirit, the faith-rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, personal love for God the Father which is motivational virtue, impersonal love for all mankind which is functional virtue [interaction with people], +H or sharing the happiness of God, a personal sense of destiny, and occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

The fourth floor is spiritual self-esteem. Once we have the ten problem-solving devices and once we begin to use them we now reach the point of spiritual adulthood. The first stage is spiritual self-esteem. In this floor we have cognitive self-confidence and there we learn how to handle a great blessing that comes into our lives, a principle of suffering for blessing called providential preventative suffering. And from this we advance to spiritual autonomy. So when we go from spiritual self-esteem to spiritual autonomy we do so through a principle called suffering for blessing. Therefore, we must divide the first three floors from the last four.

The fifth floor is spiritual autonomy and the sixth is spiritual maturity. Then the top floor is invisible heroes, the impact of the believer in history as well as in his personal life.

In the first three floors we have learning under the principle of learning, thinking and solving. This is where it all begins, in the first three floors. Learning Bible doctrine, this is perception and metabolisation of doctrine. Thinking Bible doctrine is the application to experience. Solving has to do with the mechanics of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan.

These things become very effective when we reach spiritual self-esteem. This is the point at which our life is designed to have suffering for blessing. The first category of suffering for blessing is providential preventative suffering and when we pass the four tests in providential preventative suffering then we move to spiritual autonomy. And just as spiritual self-esteem was cognitive self-confidence, so spiritual autonomy becomes cognitive independence. Now we have a new category of suffering for blessing, momentum testing. And there are again four parts to momentum testing. When we pass those tests we then move to spiritual maturity. This is the execution of the protocol plan of God. In spiritual maturity we have cognitive invincibility and the point of suffering for blessing is spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing equals spiritual maturity.

So the sixth floor is spiritual maturity or cognitive invincibility and the system of suffering for blessing is evidence testing by which we glorify God to the maximum.

Finally there is the seventh floor; three things happen here. This is the penthouse of invisible heroes. First there is the distribution of escrow blessings for time. Also with that is the anticipation of the escrow blessings for the eternal state. Secondly there is the wonderful opportunity of being a part of the pivot of a client nation to God. Thirdly there is the manufacture of the invisible hero and all of those things that pertain to impact.

So we have in our first phrase of verse 24, "put on the new man." This is a reference to constructing this invisible building in the soul, the construction of an edification complex, a permanent solution to the problems of life in every possible way, the means of glorifying God.

Next we have a rather strange organisation in the Greek. We have three words: ton, kata, and qeoj. Now ton actually goes with a preposition coming up. It a the definite article and the definite article is used as a relative pronoun and refers to the new man as a synonym for the edification complex. So we will translate it "which." Then we have kata plus the adverbial accusative singular from the noun qeoj, the noun for God. The absence of the definite article with qeoj indicates the high quality of the noun rather than its mere identity. Therefore what we have is the specification; this building is built according to the specifications of God. The specifications of God have just been given in this description of the foundation and the seven floors of the edification complex. Remember that the ECS is only completed when the believer reaches maturity and has fulfilled the protocol plan of God.

So what we have in the first half of verse 24 is: "put on the new man [a reference to building in your own soul the edification complex, the permanent solution to all of the problems of life, the means of glorifying God] which according to the specifications of God".

The building materials for this edification complex are now given to us with the articular aorist passive participle of the verb ktizw, which means to create. So we are going to translate: "which has been created." The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The action of the verb in its entirety is the construction of this edification complex of the soul resulting in the execution of God's plan, God's will and God's purpose for our lives. In other words, the execution of the protocol plan resulting in becoming an invisible hero. That is why God sustains us in this life; that is the purpose of His faithfulness, His grace policy, of His protecting the Word of God and keeping it intact over all of these centuries so that you can become an invisible hero.

Remember that the invisible hero has a two-fold testimony toward the human race on the one hand and toward angelic creatures on the other. This means that our life has great meaning and purpose and definition.

Each floor of the edification complex contributes to the construction of this completed building in the soul. And the passive voice: the ECS as the subject is acted upon by your positive volition toward Bible doctrine. If you are negative this structure will never be built and you will never fulfil the plan of God. And we have to go back to a phrase, for it says "and put on the new man which according to the specifications of God." Now the new man refers to this ECS, this invisible building in the soul, this structure which has seven floors built on the foundation of personal faith in Jesus Christ. So putting on the new man receives the action of the verb. Putting on the new man is the construction of the ECS and the solution to the problems of cosmic involvement as well as Christian degeneracy. Each of the seven floors of the ECS is a basis for executing the protocol plan of God.

We come now to the building materials of the ECS and it is presented to us in a prepositional phrase. It begins with two words e)n plus the noun dikaiosunh. En is used here with the instrumental singular of the noun dikaiosunh and it means righteousness in the sense of fulfilling divine mandates and divine statutes. This suffix is very important because all abstract thought in the Greek language began with a suffix like that. This is an abstract thought suffix, therefore dikaiosunh is not found in Homer, it begins in Attic Greek. It was used originally for civil virtue in the observance and the fulfilment of one's responsibility to one's country. It was Plato who first linked the Greek noun dikaiosunh with what comes up next, o(siothj. Dikaiosunh plus o(siothj are very strong virtue concepts. These two words emphasise virtue, not being sweet and kind or having a pleasing personality, but the function of virtue. When the two are together they refer to virtue. Dikaiosunh, for example, refers to virtue-righteousness, virtue required of men by God. So we translate: "has been created by means of virtue-righteousness." Virtue- righteousness is produced by residence in the divine dynasphere under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit and from momentum in metabolised doctrine. It is the modus operandi of spiritual adulthood.

Next comes the conjunction kai. It means that this prepositional phrase continues, it doesn't stop with dikaiosunh. And this comes directly from Plato who was the first one to use this phraseology, dikaiosunh plus o(siothj [devoutness or piety]. So we translate: "And put on the new man, which according to the specifications of God has been created by means of virtue-righteousness and devoutness." With this we have one more word, the ablative of source from aletheia. Here we have again the abstract concept. This is the absolute truth. A)lhtheia connotes the embodiment of knowledge in truth, the content of Christian doctrine, absolute truth. "Devoutness from the source of [Bible] doctrine" or absolute truth indicates personal love for God the Father as motivational virtue, occupation with the person of Christ as the ultimate virtue in the spiritual life.

Now we can put it all together but remember that is a part of a sentence and we cannot take one part of a sentence without the entire sentence. Therefore we must look at the entire sentence as it is.

Corrected translation

Verse 22 — "With reference to your former lifestyle, you yourselves lay aside the old man [rebound technique] you believers who are becoming degenerate on the basis of the lusts of deceit.

Verse 23 — "Then become renewed [refreshed, reinvigorated] by means of the Spirit [filling of the Holy Spirit after rebound] by means of your thinking.

Verse 24 — "And put on the new man, which according to the specifications of God [construction of the ECS] has been created by means of virtue-righteousness [produced through residence in the divine dynasphere] and reverence from the source of Bible doctrine."

Ephesians 4:25 through verse 32 is the fourth and last paragraph in this chapter. It gives us the results of reversion recovery. Degeneracy recovery is the subject of the first thirteen verses of the next chapter. In this particular passage the King James simply says, "Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man the truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another."

The expression of reversion recovery is found in the royal family honour code which is introduced by the first four Greek words in this passage. The first Greek word is an inferential conjunction which denotes the inference is obvious or self-evident. It is the particle dio which is correctly translated "therefore." The self-evident inference is based on two factors implied in verses 21 through 24. The first is the recovery of the filling of the Holy Spirit and therefore the recovery of life in the divine dynasphere through the rebound technique. The second is recovery from Christian degeneracy, which is synonymous with reversion recovery, through consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. The second word is the aorist middle participle of the verb apotiqhmi which means to take off, as with clothes, to lay aside, to put away, to rid one's self. We translate this participle, "Therefore, having laid aside."

Next is the accusative singular direct object from the generic use of the definite article to. The definite article in the generic use is to distinguish the lie from the truth of Bible doctrine. With this there is the noun pseudoj which is the Greek word for lie. The key to understanding pseudoj is Paul's usage in Romans 1:25 where humanity in spiritual death changes the truth of God for the lie. This is not simply telling a lie; this is any false system of thought, any system of relative thought that becomes false. So our correct translation: "Therefore, having laid aside the lie."

The loser or the believer in Christian degeneracy is always involved in false doctrine. That is the major part of the lie since his very rejection of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age creates a vacuum for the infiltration of false doctrine which is related to Satan's cosmic system and results in becoming involved in Christian degeneracy, either moral degeneracy or immoral degeneracy.

The morphology of apotiqhmi is important. The culminative aorist tense views recovery from Christian degeneracy in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results; namely, the divine viewpoint replaces the human viewpoint and the fact that we are going into degeneracy is replaced by momentum in the direction of fulfilling God's plan. The culminative aorist tense emphasises the believer's recovery from Christian degeneracy. Reversion, of course, is a synonym for Christian degeneracy — moral degeneracy and immoral degeneracy. The middle voice in the Greek represents the subject as participating in the results of the action of the verb. This is an intensive or dynamic middle which emphasises the part taken by the subject — the believer in Christian in Christian degeneracy in the action of the verb. This is a circumstantial participle in which the action of the participle accompanies the action of the main verb given in the previous verse, which was "put on the new man" .The action of this aorist participle, then, is coterminous with the action of the main verb. Ephesians 4:25 says, "Therefore, having laid aside the lie." Laying aside the lie or recovery from Christian degeneracy includes the renovation of thought which is, of course, a new mental attitude — Romans 12:2,3. Renovation of thought is necessary if we are going to lay aside the lie.

Next we have a phrase which is an exact quotation from the Septuagint of Zechariah 8:16. The context of Zechariah eight we need to understand if we are going to understand this quotation. How is it used in the Old Testament? It was used, first of all, in Zechariah 8:13 in the sense that Zechariah 8 is the excellent system of law which will exist during the Millennium.

Verse 13 — "And it shall come to pass that, just as you were a curse among nations [Illustrated by anti-Semitism today and the great Satanic attacks during the Tribulation. 5th cycle of discipline], O house of Judah [Southern kingdom] and house of Israel [Northern kingdom], so I will deliver you [the restoration of Israel at the 2nd Advent], that you may become a blessing:"

Verse 16 — Where we have the blessing mentioned in detail. "These are the things that you should do [the modus operandi of client nation Israel during the Millennial rule of Christ]; Speak the truth each one to his neighbour [A reference to the function of the Jewish honour code during the Millennium. Quoted in Ephesians 4:25]; decide cases with truth [all jurisprudence must be based on truth] and judgement for peace in your courts:" There will be peace among people because the law is properly administered.

One of the most important things in any civilisation and in any nation is first of all to have a good system of jurisprudence and then to have it properly functioning. Zechariah 8:16 is taken out of its Millennial context and applied to the royal family of God during the Church Age. Zechariah 17 then goes on to amplify what it means in Zechariah 16 to "speak the truth each one with his neighbour": "Let none of you devise in your right lobes against another person [to avoid the motivation for going to court and suing other people over nothing. It includes the avoidance of arrogance, jealousy, bitterness, implacability, hatred, or revenge motivation]; and do not condone perjury: for all of these are what I hate, says the Lord."

"Speak the truth each one with his neighbour" has a great connotation as it was used in Zechariah, a Millennial connotation. Jesus Christ Himself will be the supreme court so there will be no failures. Therefore the importance of speaking truth each one with his neighbour [fellow believer]. We have a present active imperative of the verb lalew. This becomes the major verb in this passage at this point. It means to express one's self, to speak, to assert, to proclaim, to say. The verb lalew is used for intimate speech in contrast to legw which is a general oral expression of direct discourse. The verb lalew in our passage has the connotation of telling what a person has seen or heard, and that is one of the ways in which it is used in Ephesians 4:25, for communication of truth accurately, or telling the truth about what you see and hear accurately. The present tense is linear aktionsart in the subjunctive mood, optative and imperative moods, as well as in the infinitive and participle. The exception to this rule is very rare. And in the indicative mood present tense expresses punctiliar action as well as linear action. So when you have a present indicative you have a problem of interpretation. It can be linear aktionsart or it can be punctiliar aktionsart. Here we have the durative or progressive present for an action or a state of being which began in the past and is described as continuing in the present, a mandate with regard to the royal family honour code or the modus operandi of the Church Age believer. In other words, the past and the present are gathered up into a single affirmation. The active voice, the Church Age believer produces the action of the verb under the mandate of the royal family honour code. This requires a getting away from Christian degeneracy. No believer in status quo Christian degeneracy fulfils this mandate of speaking the truth with your fellow believer. The imperative mood is the imperative of command; it is a direct command related to the function of the royal family honour code.

With this we have the accusative singular, direct object from the Greek noun a)leqeia. And the absence of the definite article emphasises the quality of the noun rather than its mere identity. [The presence of the definite article would emphasise identity; the absence of the definite article emphasises quality.] So we often have to translate by using the definite article in the English in the opposite way it is used in the Greek. When you emphasise in the Greek you leave the definite article out; when you emphasise in the English you put it in. So "each one of you speak the truth" is the way we translate it. But you must understand there is no definite article.

Then there is the nominative singular subject e(kastoj, and it means this is an individual thing. The nominative singular subject is an adjective used as a substantive and it is translated "each one." It means the royal family honour code puts you as an individual on your own responsibility before the Lord.

And then we have "with his fellow believers." This is a preposition meta plus the genitive singular of association from three words: meta plus tou and then plhsion. Plhsion simply means someone who is near and it is used with the definite article to become a substantive. In this context it refers to fellow believer. Then you have the possessive genitive of autos which is used as a personal pronoun and is translated "his."

Translationso far: "Therefore, having laid aside the lie, each one of you speak the truth with his fellow believer." Speaking the truth is a reference to the royal family honour code. It is a reference first to personal integrity, second to grace orientation, thirdly impersonal love for all believers, and fourthly, occupation with Christ.

The reason for the royal family honour code is given in the final phrase. We have a particle o(ti used as a causal conjunction. It is translated "since" or "because." Then the present active indicative of the verb eimi, a gnomic present, it expresses a universal truth, a state or condition which perpetually exists. Hence we might even call it a static present; "because we are" — all believers. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of Bible doctrine, and the predicate nominative follows, meloj, correctly translated "members," referring to the fact that while each believer has an individual personality we belong to the same family; we are all members of the royal family of God. Therefore we have a genitive plural a)llhlwn, "of one another." So we translate it "since we are members of one another." This means that we are members of the body of Christ, that we are all of the same royal family with equal privilege and equal opportunity to execute this marvellous plan that God has provided. All of this is necessary for us to begin to understand the royal family honour code.

Definition: The royal family honour code is a system of spiritual integrity mandated by God and revealed by the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

The royal family honour code, then, relates to personal integrity in relationship with other persons. In that sense the royal family honour code is a supplement to impersonal love for all believers and other pertinent problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God, specifically the filling of the Spirit, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, and a personal sense of destiny. The royal family also relates to spiritual self-esteem, the first stage of spiritual adulthood. Bible doctrine is absolute truth from God and therefore the recipients of Bible doctrine must not only apply that truth but communicate to each other in terms of that truth. Therefore the royal family honour code centres around two things: truth and integrity. Integrity is defined as adherence to spiritual, moral and ethical principles related to truth and honesty. Hence the royal family honour code relates to both the protocol plan of God and the laws of divine establishment. Gossip, maligning, and slandering is a violation of the royal family honour code because it deals with that which is false.

In addition to the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God two things are necessary for the application of Bible doctrine to experience. First the attainment and function of spiritual self-esteem [the first stage of spiritual adulthood]. The royal family honour code functions best where spiritual self-esteem exists and therefore the second factor is the function of the royal family honour code. Spiritual self-esteem is the basis for resolving otherwise unsolvable problems. It becomes the base of operations for the effective application of Bible doctrine to experience, and with the attainment of spiritual self-esteem the believer has learned enough Bible doctrine to make application to every experience of life. Therefore the believer in the status of spiritual self-esteem has the environment for fulfilling the pattern of application, which is: a. Learning, perception and metabolisation of Bible doctrine; b. Thinking, which is the application of metabolised or e)pignwsij doctrine to experience; c. Solving, which is understanding and using the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

This brings us now to the general problem of self-esteem. One of the great problems with believers is that they do not have something that many unbelievers have — human self-esteem. Because of this they lack the ability to apply any truth of Bible doctrine, or anything else in their experience. Lack of human self-esteem puts them into a vacuum. Believers without human self-esteem suffer, then, from motiferous problems of dependency. The whole objective of the Christian way of life is to make you independent. Dependant of God but independent and above all of the problems of life which come your way.

Seven areas of dependency are problems to the person who is a believer who doesn't even have human self-esteem

a. Dependency which results from bad childhood or from difficult environment in childhood. This limits capacity for love and produces many problems of human relationship, especially in marriage. People who come out of a difficult childhood rarely come out with self-esteem. Now they are born-again and are still minus human self-esteem which complicates their spiritual life.

b. Chemical dependency which is used as a substitute for self-esteem. Basically that could be broken down into three categories: alcohol dependence, drug dependence, and cross dependence [where people get hooked on drugs, for example, and then get off and on to something else such as alcohol, codeines, etc.]

c. Peer pressure dependence, which means never being able to think for yourself, being herd-bound and simply succumbing to the pressures of your peers which are generally erroneous pressures.

d. Resentment of those who possess self-esteem and therefore entering into competition with them.

e. Self-pity as a substitute for self-esteem. It means inability to think or resolve problems. Even people with a good IQ or a high IQ cannot solve any problems in their life. Therefore they become dependant on self-pity.

f. Self-fragmentation as a substitute for self-esteem. It can be caused by bitterness, jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, even self-pity, or revenge motivation and so on.

g. The emulation of self-esteem through role-model arrogance, emulating someone you admire and thinking this a substitute for self-esteem. And a large percentage of born-again believers enter the Christian life with a terrible problem: they have no human self-esteem.

What does this mean, then?

1. Lack of self-esteem in marriage means that problems in marriage are never solved. Inevitably there is incompatibility.

2. There can be no royal family honour code function without self-esteem.

3. The royal family honour code cannot function without spiritual self-esteem.

4. Lack of human self-esteem can be resolved by the attainment of spiritual self-esteem.

So the attainment of spiritual self-esteem becomes a key in so many things related to the protocol plan of God, including the function of the royal family honour code. The royal family honour code is related to the laws of divine establishment as well as one of the great problem-solving devices which we call impersonal love — Romans 13:8-10, "Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another [the function of impersonal love here, the royal family honour code]: for he who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law [of divine establishment].

So there are two factors in verse eight: Spiritual self-esteem, "Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another"; Human self-esteem, "He who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law."

Verse9 — "For instance this, Thou shalt not commit adultery [the original purpose of this (Mosaic) law was to provide freedom for a man and woman in a state of marriage to resolve their own problems. As believers they going to attain spiritual self-esteem as a base of operations. As unbelievers they must attain human self-esteem. But when someone interrupts that thing (adultery) then the solution goes out the window], Thou shalt not commit murder [Murder is crime and is depriving a person of their freedom.], Thou shalt not steal [People have a right to privacy]. Thou shalt not covet [This says in effect you must have human self-esteem as an unbeliever and spiritual self-esteem as a believer. You can be broke and poor and have self-esteem and you don't covet. If you have self-esteem you can be satisfied with what ever you already have.], and if there is any other commandment [and there is] it is summarised in this doctrine, namely, You shall love your neighbour as yourself" [human self-esteem]. Loving self is free of arrogance. Self-esteem looks in the mirror and finds out where you part the hair, where you put your tooth brush, your razor, etc. It never thinks about what you really look like, except to be presentable.

Leviticus 19:18 — "You shall not take revenge [Who takes revenge? People who have no self-esteem. It is a sign of hared, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity], nor bear any grudge against the children of your people …"

That is the negative side, and the negative side says lack of self-esteem. What is the positive side?

" … but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord." This applies in all dispensations. It applies to the royal family of God. The last half of Leviticus 19:18 summarises the execution of the laws of divine establishment through self-esteem and impersonal love. As quoted in the New Testament Leviticus 19:18 has another and similar connotation. The first half of Leviticus 19:18 demands both freedom and morality in compliance with the laws of divine establishment. Self-esteem keeps morality from becoming legalism, it keeps arrogance out of morality. The last half of the verse demands integrity in the execution of the royal family honour code.

We need to remember something. Morality is necessary for the entire human race to fulfil the principle: live and let live. However, there is something beyond morality in the Church Age and that is the function of the royal family honour code, the execution of the protocol plan of God. The execution of the protocol plan of God and the function of the royal family honour code cannot be divorced and, of course, that means that they stand or fall together. The royal family honour code, then, demands morality related to the laws of divine establishment, morality without arrogance, without legalism. Secondly, it demands grace orientation related to impersonal love. Thirdly, it demands spiritual self-esteem for the believer, human self-esteem for the unbeliever. The integrity of spiritual adulthood begins with spiritual self-esteem.

Morality demands obedience to s series of negative and positive commands. The royal family honour code demands the filling of the Holy Spirit as the means of executing positive and negative commands. Morality can be executed by self-determination of human self-esteem but the royal family honour code can only be fulfilled through residence in the divine dynasphere under the filling of the Holy Spirit and attainment and function of your spiritual self-esteem.

What does it means, then, in Leviticus 19:18 and in the quotations in the New Testament, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself"? First, it does not imply that love for yourself is the standard, but rather a human definition of impersonal love where spiritual self-esteem exists. The phrase emphasises two things for the believer: the function of impersonal love as a problem-solving device which begins to become truly effective with spiritual self-esteem; secondly, it further means that you do not lower your standards to those who do not have self-esteem, and you do not emulate them in controversy or strife. "Yourself" means that in spiritual self-esteem you function in impersonal love toward all and thereby avoid revenge or reciprocation in kind. Reciprocation in kind lowers yourself to the standards of your antagonist. Instead, under the royal family honour code you utilise the problem-solving device number seven — impersonal love for all mankind. You are most effective by reaching and attaining spiritual self-esteem. Therefore under impersonal love as a member of the royal family of God you do not hold a grudge, you do not retaliate, you do not seek revenge, you do not function under jealousy, hatred, implacability, bitterness, etc.

Therefore, impersonal love fulfils two concepts: impersonal love executes establishment principles in recognising the freedom, the privacy, the property in the life of others, hence, adds the honour code to morality. Secondly, impersonal love executes the mandates of the protocol plan in human relationships.

Romans 13:10 adds — "Love [impersonal love as a problem-solving device] does not practice evil to a neighbour: therefore impersonal love is the fulfilment of the law."

The royal family honour code centres around three principles related to people: truth or integrity, impersonal love [virtue], grace orientation. The principle: the royal family honour code cannot be divorced from impersonal love as a problem-solving device, nor can it be divorced from spiritual self-esteem. Believers and unbelievers alike are commanded to observe the morality of the laws of divine establishment. For the believer integrity demands under the royal family honour code that he should observe the morality of the laws of divine establishment (Romans 13:1-10). However, the royal family honour code demands more than morality for the Church Age believer. More than morality means the function of virtue-love and the execution of the protocol plan of God. The motivation: spiritual self-esteem. The motivation for the royal family honour code is not only spiritual self-esteem but personal love for God the Father.

The royal family honour code related to the protocol plan of God

In Proverbs 6:16 — "There are six things which the Lord hates; Yes, seven are an abomination to his soul:

Verse 17 — "Haughty eyes [a synonym for arrogance and it represents the entire arrogance complex], a lying tongue [a direct reference to the honour code], and hands that shed innocent blood [homicide or murder];

Verse 18 — "A right lobe that devises evil plans [conspiracy, rejection of authority, it even includes revolution and civil disobedience], Feet that run rapidly to evil [a reference to trouble makers. Again, the lying, the deceit involved in violation of the royal family honour code];

Verse 19 — "a false witness [violation of the royal family honour code] who utters lies [gossip, slander, lies, perjury, are all a part of the royal family honour code violation], one who spreads strife among the brethren".

So most of the seven worst sins are related to sinful violations of the royal family honour code. (Note in the seven that there is only one overt sin) Believers who violate the royal family honour code are described in 2 Tim. 3:2-8 — a passage talking about believers.

Romans 14:4 is a good place to note the sins of the tongue in violation of the royal family honour code. "You, who are you who keep judging a servant who belongs to another." This means a fellow believer, we belong to the Lord. This phrase is based on the principle in Roman society that no one judged or punished the servant of another Roman. Therefore this phrase is used for the arrogant self-righteous believer who violates the royal family honour code by judging another believer who is the servant of the Lord?

Principle: Under the tyranny of the weak everyone is weak, but under the royal family honour code everyone is strong. And through perception of doctrine, its metabolisation and application, adherence to the royal family code plus the utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices in the protocol plan becomes the basis for establishing the virtue required by the royal family honour code.

It is the quintessence of human arrogance to assume divine authority and to judge or malign another believer who is a member of the royal family. Impersonal love for the royal family plus integrity from the positive side of the honour code eliminates all lying, gossip, maligning and other sins of the tongue. Impersonal love for all mankind is both freedom from mental attitude sins as well as sins of the tongue. All members of the royal family of God on earth continue to possess the OSN but spiritual growth and momentum reaching spiritual self-esteem is the key to everything in the application of the honour code. And that gives the believer the opportunity of getting straightened out as far as his integrity is concerned and it provides for new believers breathing space, freedom, to advance to spiritual adulthood themselves. The weak believer is the one who is involved in polarised legalism. The strong believer is the spiritual adult who is functioning under the royal family honour code.

"You, who are you who keep judging a servant who belongs to another? to his own lord he stands or falls." Judgement belongs to the Lord. The believer is only authorised to judge himself under the rebound technique. "And stand he will; for the Lord is able to make him stand."

In Romans 14:10 we have another statement of violation of the honour code. "But you, why do your judge your brother? or you also, why do you regard your brother with contempt? for we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ." All of us are going to be evaluated by the Lord Jesus Christ immediately after the Rapture. We will stand in a resurrection body before our Lord and there we will be evaluated. This is called the judgement seat of Christ.

In Romans 14:13 — "Therefore let us no longer judge each other: but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle [or distraction] in a brother's way." Judging another believer is not only a violation of the royal family honour code but it becomes a terrible occupational hazard in the execution of the protocol plan. This is especially true of the adolescent believer or the child believer whose norms and standards are based on things he had before salvation, and not upon the teaching of the Word of God and its consolidation under the royal family honour code. Because of false norms and standards it is impossible for the adolescent believer or the cosmic believer or the fragmented believer to evaluate himself or another with biblical accuracy. Furthermore, other believers in spiritual adulthood must be careful to provide for those who have not attained their stage of growth, breathing space, spiritual freedom for the new believer to learn in the privacy of their priesthood. Therefore, to make the corrections without becoming involved in this terrible interaction that is caused by legalism. And so the divine monopoly on judging the believer is maintained and the function of the royal family honour code continues to protect believers who have just been saved, believers who are ignorant of doctrine.

Verse 26a — "Be angry and sin not." A lot of people think that there is righteous indignation found in this passage. This is a favourite camping ground for legalism and for people who want to stick their nose into your business. This is a quotation from Psalm 4:4 in the English and Psalm 4:5 in the Hebrew.

We have to go back to the qal imperative of the verb ragaz which means to be agitated, to quiver or tremble with anger. It means to be enraged or to be angry. And it is a command in Psalm 4:4, and "Tremble with anger" is the way in which it should be translated. Next we have a waw adversative which should be translated "yet." "Tremble with anger, yet." Then we have the qal imperative of chatah plus a poetic negative l. Corrected translation: "Tremble with anger, yet do not sin." David wrote this line in this Psalm when he was fleeing from Absalom, and in this case there was the potential for righteous indignation. The principle which we should notice from Psalm 4 is that it is possible to react to unfairness apart from sin. It is possible to be angry because of gossip, maligning, slander, maltreatment, and still put the matter in the Lord's hands. If reaction or righteous indignation causes the believer to retaliate however, or to seek revenge, or to do something nasty in return, then the reaction is sin, and the motivational sin in this case is called anger. In other words, there are times in your life when you will fulfil the principle, "tremble with anger, yet do not sin." Never let reaction become sin, which is actually what it means.

When maltreated the believer must avoid any retaliation and put the matter before the supreme court in heaven which, by the way, is exactly what David did in the Absalom revolution. So this concept in Psalm 4:4 becomes one of the principles of the royal family honour code in which the Church Age believer avoids judging, maligning, slandering and all of the other factors relating to reaction. This concept in Psalm 4:4 is also part of the concept of the royal family honour code in which grace orientation replaces retaliation or vengeance. And as quoted in Ephesians 4:26 revenge, retaliation, vindictiveness, implacability, recrimination, interferes with the justice of God punishing the guilty. Furthermore, retaliation lowers the believer to the level of his antagonist and this is the type of anger which is sin. The royal family honour code demands that we never stoop or lower ourselves to the level of the vindictiveness, implacability, jealousy, hatred or sinfulness of those who are antagonistic toward us.

However, the Greek is slightly different from the concept in the Hebrew of Psalm 4:4. In the Hebrew of Psalm 4:4 the emphasis is on righteousness maintained in the face of unfair and unjust treatment, sometimes misclassified as righteous indignation. In Ephesians 4:26 the quotation is used to emphasise something else — anger as a motivation for violating the royal family honour code. In other words, we are going to see from the Greek of Ephesians 4:26 that there is no righteous indignation in this passage.

In the Greek of our passage we have the present middle imperative of the verb o)rgizw — to be angry at someone because of something. Because you have been somehow mistreated, maligned or been the recipient of the many areas of hostility of which smart people are capable of demonstrating, and dumb people are capable of fouling it up so that it is so bad that they want to react. This is an aristic present tense. It means actually to be indignant or to be angry. The aristic present tense is for a simple expression of undefined action in present time. The specific or aristic present presents the action as a simple event without any relationship to its progress. The middle voice is a permissive middle in which the subject causes the action to take place on one's self. And this is not the imperative of command, this is the imperative of concession. And while the imperative mood generally follows the same limits as Attic or Classical Greek, occasionally in the Koine it expresses a request or, in this case, a concession. Now when it is an imperative of concession it has to be translated by supporting words, and the translation should be "Although you may become angry." Which means that all of us have the potential at some time in our lives of entering into the sin of anger.

"Although you may become angry" means you may become angry as far as I am concerned if you cannot help your anger. But stop your anger before it leads to an honour code violation. You see the honour code violation angers are sin and it motivates honour code violations — retaliation, revenge in the form of gossip, slander, maligning, judging.

We have a conjunction kai which emphasises a fact as noteworthy. So we can translate it "and yet" or "in spite of that" or "nevertheless." So we translate this part of the verse: "Although you may become angry, in spite of that."

So we now have a negative with a present active imperative — the negative me plus hamartano, to sin. It should be translated "stop sinning." So the corrected translation so far: "Although you may have become angry, in spite of that stop your sinning."

The descriptive present is for what is actually taking place, the sin of anger has already begun. The active voice, the sin of anger produces the action of the verb. Anger has already begun and if anger continues it will function as a trigger mechanism for violating the royal family honour code by becoming motivational for retaliation, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge, putting down other people. Some people in their old sin natures have a real bad weak spot, putting down other people. And if they are not putting them down overtly they are doing so in their soul under the function of hypocrisy. There is no impersonal love here.

There are two concepts of anger. The first is in Psalm 4:4 — "Tremble with anger, yet do not sin." David had righteous indignation because Absalom had a weak streak. He was a great personality, a great leader, an outstanding person, but he used his personality when he became bitter toward his father and started a revolution against him. David as a result was shocked and then he was indignant. And if continued this righteous indignation would become the sin of anger. It would become the motivation for vindictiveness, retaliation and revenge. But David succeeded in stopping it before it was converted into sinful anger. Sinful anger is an emotional sin and therefore always irrational. David was not irrational.

David trembled on the brink of anger but never got around to the sin of anger. Therefore he was never motivated to seek revenge against Absalom. This might be classified as anger on the brink. It is the temptation to anger without becoming angry. Once you make a decision to become angry irrationality begins and motivation for many other sins will follow.

Now in Ephesians 4:26 — "although you may have become angry." Here is a case of where the anger on the brink is not checked and the temptation is not resisted and the person actually is angry and in a state of sin. "Although you may have become angry, in spite of that [the fact that you are now in a state of sin] stop it." So this is not checked. Whenever we are angry we must rebound instantly before other damage, often terrible damage, occurs. Anger is not only a sin but becomes the motivation for many violations of the royal family honour code. Anger is an emotional sin, therefore totally irrational in its function which can include everything from slander to murder. As an irrational sin of emotion mental attitude anger expresses antagonism, hatred, resentment. Anger often expresses itself in violence and in murder.

Under the royal family honour code anger violates many principles: a. Two wrongs do not make a right. Adding revenge or violence to anger is two wrongs; b. You cannot build your happiness on someone else's unhappiness; c. To punish someone else in anger by slander, maligning, gossip or other revenge modus operandi is synonymous with obstruction of divine punishment and blasphemy for divine justice; d. Anger becomes involved with arrogance, including all of the manifestations of arrogance; e. Anger is motivation for murder, and murder is one of the seven worst sins.

What anger can do

1. Anger motivates jealousy and cruelty, Proverbs 27:4.

2. Anger is related to stupidity, Ecclesiastes 7:9.

3. Anger is a sin from the OSN, Galatians 5:20.

4. Anger is never an isolated sin, Proverbs 29:22.

5. Anger destroys a nation, Amos 1:11.

6. Anger is associated with grieving the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4:30,31.

7. Anger is a violation of the royal family honour code, Colossians 3:8.

8. Anger hinders effective prayer, 1Timothy 2:8.

There is such a things as what people call "righteous indignation." But it is not anger, it is not an emotion, it is a clear understanding of a bad situation. When it says Jesus became angry with His disciples when they forbade the children to be brought to Him in Mark 10:14, it is not anger. It is simply the understanding of a wrong and therefore not appreciating it at all. Having good norms and standards but not anger.

Jesus expressed what might be called righteous indignation when the Pharisees were involved — Matthew 23:13-36. In Matthew 23:33 Jesus wasn't angry when He said, "You serpents, you brood of vipers. How shall you escape the judgement of Gehennah [The Lake of Fire]?" Our Lord expressed what people might call righteous indignation but what is really the understanding of injustice when He said to Peter in Matthew 16:23: "Get behind me Satan: you are a stumbling block to me: you have not concentrated on the doctrines of God, but on the things of man."

Anger is used as an anthropopathism. Two phrases found in the Bible many times: "the anger of the Lord" and "the wrath of God" .This is not the sin of anger, it is an anthropopathism expressing a divine concept in human terms so it could be understood.

Principles

1. Anger destroys virtue in the subject, therefore anger destroys the function of impersonal love.

2. Anger which does not destroy the virtue of the subject is classified, as in Psalm 4:4, as being tempted but not doing it.

3. Anger as a sin is a violation of the royal family honour code.

4. Impersonal love for all mankind maintains the virtue of the subject but sinful anger destroys the function of virtue.

5. When anger is perpetuated it becomes the motivation for many sins. Therefore do not let the sun set on your anger.

6. To be angry and sin not — all too often so-called righteous indignation is an excuse for the function of legalism.

7. All unbelievers in their status of spiritual death are said to be in the status quo of wrath. E.g. Romans 9:22 — unbelievers are called vessels of wrath.

The mandate to "stop your sinning"

First there must be rebound, then immediately other problem-solving devices under the enabling power of the filling of the Spirit must go into the function of the life. Under the faith-rest drill the cause of anger must be placed in the Lord's hands and the matter must be on the agenda for the supreme court of heaven. This is especially true if your anger is the result of being wronged by others. Being wronged by others does not justify anger for under the first three problem-solving devices anger can be removed under this mandate: "stop anger sinning" — the rebound technique, the filling of the Spirit and the faith-rest drill. This combination begins the principle of "stop the sinning" and fulfils the next phrase, "the sun must not go down on your angry mood or your wrath." Rebound recovers the filling of the Spirit or life in the divine dynasphere and the filling of the Spirit provides the power or the ability to cease and desist from anger. How quickly you cease and desist depends often on your spiritual growth. Once you have put your anger in the Lord's hands through the function of the faith-rest drill you are now ready for problem-solving device number four which is grace orientation. Your attitude eventually toward those who have wronged you unjustly must be the attitude of grace. Furthermore, personal love for God the Father, problem-solving device number six, becomes the motivation for fulfilling the next part of our passage, "the sun must not go down on your wrath" .Impersonal love as problem-solving device number seven replaces your anger. And then occupation with Christ, or problem-solving device number ten causes you to move on in your spiritual experience, and not be stopped or embittered in any way by what you consider to be unfair or unjust treatment. You cannot be angry and happy simultaneously. Therefore, +H or sharing the happiness of God — problem-solving device number eight — replaces anger and the angry mood. And like arrogance, anger is set aside and replaced by a personal sense of destiny — problem-solving device number nine — so that you can get on with the plan of God for your life instead of being hindered by anger. Anger is one of the most devastating of all sins. The angry mood not only violates the royal family honour code but totally hinders any execution of the protocol plan of God. It is both emotional and irrational as a sin and, therefore, must be subject to recovery as quickly as possible.

Now for the second negative command in verse 26. It begins with the nominative singular subject made up of two words. The first is the definite article o(, and the second is the noun h(lioj, "the sun." With it we have the negative mh plus the present active imperative of e)piduw which means to go down or to set. It is translated: "the sun must never set" (on anger). The pictorial present tense conveys to the mind a sunset in the process of occurrence, the transition from light to darkness. The active voice, the sun as the subject produces the action of the verb and being removed from our view by simply continuing its progress from out of our sight. This is on the imperative of prohibition with the negative me and it expresses the negative command. And the sun must never set. In other words you must not go from day to night in the status quo of anger. If you do so then all of these sins that we have studied become a part of your life. We have a prepositional phrase, e)pi plus the dative of disadvantage from the noun parorgismoj which refers not to anger as such but the perpetuation of anger as a sin. Therefore it should be translated, "the sun must never set on your angry mood." The possessive genitive singular from the pronoun su is where we get the word "your" angry mood. That makes it personal.

Sunset is the end of the Jewish day in contrast to our conception of the day. Our conception of the day ends at midnight. In other words this phrase prohibits ending a day with the sin of anger or being in an angry mood. Like a hurricane gathering energy from heat, so the believer gathers evil energy from the heat of perpetuated anger.

Verse 27 — "Neither give place to the devil." It is interesting that we should have this phrase at this time because on one side of verse 27 we have anger as a quick and easy way to get into moral or immoral degeneracy. Then we have some information about Satan in verse 27. Then on the other side we have criminal Christianity, Christians who actually become criminals.

We start out with a negative disjunctive particle mhdh, used when continuing a preceding negative word. The negation, "the sun must never set on your anger" now goes right on because this could be very easily translated, "and stop giving opportunity to the devil." So the sentence continues; it does not end in verse 26. The present active imperative of didomi [stop giving] with mhdh is where we get "stop doing something you are already doing." This means that this is something the believers in Ephesus were doing. This is a durative or progressive present tense for an action or state of being in the past described as continuing into the present. Hence the past and the present are gathered together in a single affirmation. Three things were happening which were negative among then Ephesian believers. The first one was that they were involved in anger and as such were involved in either moral or immoral degeneracy. Secondly, this resulted in giving opportunity for Satan to pile up sin upon sin and to gain control of their lives. And thirdly, this results in — verse 28 — believers becoming involved in criminal activity.

With this we have the accusative singular direct object from the noun topoj [the word that means "place" or "opportunity"]. It really means "room" and we could translate: "Stop giving room to the devil." Satan doesn't control all believers but he gains control through anger. For anger is a fuse that opens the door for all of the other sins. So we are going to translate it: "Stop giving opportunity."

Then we have a dative singular indirect object from the noun diaboloj, referring to Satan. Diaboloj is an adjective which means slanderer. One of the functions of anger is slander. The greatest slanderer of all time is Satan himself. Diaboloj means slanderous and is used as a noun, "the slanderer." It is one of the titles of Satan as the ruler of this world. The fact that Satan has been the ruler of this world since the fall of man is found in many passages of scripture — Luke 4:5-7; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 1Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2.

This brings us again to the pattern of immoral degeneracy. It should be reviewed it at this time to understand what is meant by "giving opportunity to Satan" .Satan cannot indwell the believer but instead he uses the millions of demons that are his control for that purpose. The believer cannot be demon-possessed because he is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit as well as God the Son and God the Father. The pattern of Christian immoral degeneracy relates to criminality and to anger. Both of these are indicative of giving opportunity to the devil. Anger is giving opportunity to Satan and one of the results is immoral degeneracy in the field of criminality.

Brief profile of the devil

He is an angelic creature, the most beautiful to come from the hand of God — Is.14; Ezek.28. He is a prehistoric super creature. As the anointed cherub the devil was the highest of all angelic creatures before his fall. Now he is lower than the seraphs, a reward for elect angels only, but still commands all fallen angels according to Matthew 8:28; 9:34; 12:26.

As a prehistoric super creature the devil has had three falls. His prehistoric sin which began the angelic conflict in eternity past. In the middle of the Tribulation Satan will be thrown out of heaven and will therefore rule the earth directly from on the earth. And then at the second advent of Christ Satan is seized and incarcerated for a thousand years. At the end of that time he is released for a brief time for the last revolution in history.

So as far as human history is concerned the devil may also be classified with relationship to his two advents. His first advent is when he entered the Garden of Eden and through the indwelling of the serpent he tempted the woman. After the thousand year imprisonment and during the Millennial reign of Christ the devil returns earth the second time. Then he is incarcerated in the Abyss and then released according to Revelation 20:7-10.

The rulership and the power of the devil is far greater than any other creature has ever possessed. He is the ruler of all fallen angels and this includes fallen angels that are incarcerated at this moment in Tartarus and the Abyss. Fallen angels which are operational are called demons. There are literally millions and millions of angels who are under the rule of Satan. The devil is also the ruler of this world and this means three categories: the devil rules demons, all unbelievers and certain believers — Ephesians 4:27.

There are five major demon attacks on the human race in human race. The first is the genetic attack on the antediluvian civilisation in Genesis 6:1-13. The second is the attack of demon possession which is on the rise today. The third is the attack of demon influence which involves cosmic one and cosmic two. The fourth is the attack of demon armies in the Tribulation — Revelation 9.

Satan has a strategy to control believers as well as a strategy to control other types of creatures. The control of believers is mentioned in James 4:7 — "Submit to God; resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Resistance of the devil is a combination of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation plus the utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices. Inside the divine dynasphere we have the ability to resist because that is the place of the filling of the Spirit and the place of the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. The utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices results in the execution of the protocol plan and glorification of God. There is the warning that we should learn these things — 2Corinthians 2:11, "In order that no advantage be gained of us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his strategies." Satan, therefore, is the enemy of the Church. This is brought out in Revelation 2:9 where certain churches are called the synagogue of Satan. The Church is attacked by religion which is called the throne of Satan — Revelation 2:13. The Church is attacked by false doctrine, the deep things of Satan — Revelation 2:24.

We are told in 1Peter 5:7 to cast all of our worries on Him before He cares for us. Why? 1Peter 5:8 — "Be vigilant, be on the alert: your enemy the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."

Verse 9 — "But resist him, being firm in doctrine" .Christian activism, by the way, is a satanic device to distract believers from the protocol plan of God.

Some of the Satanic devices and strategies

1. The devil is the accuser or the slanderer of believers — Job 1:6-11; Zechariah 3:1,2; Revelation 12:9,10; 1John 2:1,2.

2. The devil sponsors reversionism — 1Corinthians 10:19-21; 2Corinthians 11:3, 11-15.

3. The devil sponsors fear as another emotional sin. Fear and anger are the two great emotional sins that he sponsors in order to distract believers from the protocol plan. There is mental fear in Ephesians 4:14; geographical fear in 1Thessalonians 2:18; operational fear in James 4, for the devil seeks to frustrate the will of God in these three areas. And the will of God pertains to what we think, to where we are, to what we do.

4. The devil seeks to neutralise perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine, according to 1Peter 5:7-9.

5. The devil sponsors the destruction of the believer's focus on life by removing it from God and from our Lord and putting it in the sphere of eyes on people, eyes on self, eyes on things.

6. The devil sponsors Christian activism which is becoming involved in improving the devil's world. This is tantamount to becoming occupied with temporal solutions to man's problems when we have spiritual solutions which are far greater.

The devil's power control system, then, has been organised since the fall of man. Angelic creatures are designed to neutralise mankind in the historical phase of the angelic conflict. The devil has a system of demonic aristocracy. And since the word "Satan" means enemy it is synonymous with the devil in that Satan is the enemy of all believers. The devil is the enemy of the Church — Revelation 2:9ff, the enemy of Bible doctrine — Revelation 12:13,15, the enemy of Christ — Revelation 12:4, the originator of murder and violence in the human race — Genesis 6:4-11; John 8:44.

6. The devil has a strategy to control nations — Revelation 12:9.

7. The devil has policy and strategy regarding unbelievers — Luke 8:12; 2Corinthians 4:3,4; 2Thessalonians 2:9,10.

Religion is one of Satan's greatest distractions. It is the creation of the devil's genius to counterfeit the protocol plan of God. The believer must distinguish between Christianity and religion: Christianity is a relationship with God through personal faith in Christ; religion, by way of contrast, is man seeking to gain the approbation of God through his own plans, works, activity and merit. As such, Satan has created a system called religion. And while religion is the quintessence of Satan's evil genius it is viewed from the standpoint here of its motiferous counterfeits. For example, Satan has a counterfeit gospel, 2 Cor.4:3,4; counterfeit ministers, 2 Cor. 11:13-15; counterfeit doctrine [called the doctrines of demons], 2 Tim. 4:1; counterfeit spirituality, Gal. 3:2,3; counterfeit righteousness, Matt. 19:16-28; counterfeit modus vivendi, Matt. 23; counterfeit power, 2 Thess. 2:8-10; produces counterfeit gods, 2 Thess. 2:3,4; a counterfeit communion table, 1 Cor. 10:19-21.

False teachers, then, are a part of Satan's strategy. He not only uses demons in the angelic realm but he also uses human beings to communicate false doctrine. The Bible provides for us a profile of these false teachers. They are said to have a phoney facade in Matt. 7:15; Rom.16:18. False teachers flirt with believers in the sense that they use human public relation systems and other concepts such as legalism and activism to distract believers from doctrine — Gal.4:17,18; 2 Tim.3:5-7. False teachers appeal to human ego and arrogance to distract believers from grace in 2 Cor.10:12. They promote idolatry as a part of the devil's communion table, Habbakuk 2:18,19. They promote legalism as pseudo spirituality, 1 Tim.7,8. They possess a false spirit, 1John 4:1-3.

God's policy with regard to you and to me: Grace

Grace is all that God is free to do for mankind without compromising His divine essence. Grace is free, unmerited favour from God. The doctrine of grace means that all things, including salvation, are received from God as a free gift. They are never merited; they are never earned by mankind. Grace is benefit from God totally belonging to the work of God and totally apart from the works of mankind. Grace is a manifestation of power, virtue, efficacy, mercy, compassion, indulgence, forbearance, pardon and unmerited favour from God, based on the exclusive work of God. Grace is undeserved blessing from God to mankind. Hence, grace is free, unmerited love and favour from God. Grace implies that all things, including salvation, never compromise divine essence or divine effort, and this means that divine essence and effort in bestowing blessing and favour on mankind. Grace is unmerited favour and unmerited divine provision for mankind before, during and after salvation.

In grace God works and mankind benefits. In grace God provides and mankind receives. Therefore grace is the policy of God in establishing a relationship with mankind. And the principle: relationship with God precedes fellowship with God. Grace is the policy of God in providing and maintaining fellowship with God. Grace is the policy of God in providing everything necessary for the believer to execute the plan, the purpose and the will of God in the Church Age. And therefore grace is the policy of God in dealing with mankind in two categories: a. Relationship with God which is a grace policy of eternal salvation for all mankind; b. Fellowship with God which is the policy of all Church Age believers; c. God's policy, the grace policy belongs to all Church Age believers to execute the protocol plan.

Two key words are related to the divine policy of grace. The first is relationship, i.e. relationship with God. The second is fellowship, which is fellowship with God.

We start by looking at relationship with God. Relationship with God must precede fellowship with God. You cannot have fellowship with God until you have a permanent eternal and secure relationship with God. A spiritually dead person cannot have a relationship with God. Consequently the status of spiritual death cannot have fellowship with God. The unbeliever is spiritually dead and in a hopeless situation which originates from physical birth.

At the point of physical birth two things happen. First of all there emerges from the womb biological life plus the old sin nature, so that we have at birth biological life and simultaneously we have the genetically-formed old sin nature. God does two things immediately. He creates soul life and imputes that soul life to biological life so that at that moment a human being now exists. Until that time no human being. Simultaneously God imputes Adam's original sin to the genetically-formed old sin nature, and that means spiritual death. We are born physically alive and spiritually dead. That is exactly what happens to every member of the human race. This means immediately, as you can see, being dichotomous and having only a body and soul means we are in a hopeless situation. And being spiritually dead we are in a helpless situation. Obviously then we can do nothing for ourselves in relationship with God. God must do it all. [God has done it all, that's grace]

Spiritual death is a dichotomous state, which means that we are born with a body and a soul. The body was biological life and the soul is called in the Hebrew neshimah and it refers to the soul life which God created. Being born with a body and a soul this adds up to the fact that we have spiritual death. Spiritual death emphasises the importance of God's policy of grace. Spiritual death, then, is defined as a dichotomous state of mankind at birth under three categories of condemnation from the justice of God. Category one, total separation from God through the imputation of Adam's original sin. Total separation means totally helpless and useless is any work of man in trying to gain the approbation of God. Category two, total depravity resulting from personal sins. Category three, total inability to attain relationship with God in any form of human merit or works. This is what spiritual death means.

Grace is the provision and the policy of God in establishing a relationship with mankind. Therefore, God takes the initiative in providing the means for each one of us to have an eternal relationship with Himself. That includes eternal life, regeneration, the imputation of divine righteousness, all in all forty things are given to us as a result of the grace policy of God at salvation. Each person of the Godhead, however, functions under the grace policy of God to provide eternal salvation; it is the work of all three members of the Trinity.

In eternity past God the Father, in His divine omniscience, did a remarkable thing. Omniscience knew everything that would happen in human history and therefore in one prom chip [the freewill of man chip] in the computer of divine decrees was programmed every personal sin in all of human history. That particular chip was isolated for God hates sin. This was a grace function of God the Father for at the proper time God the Father sent God the Son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins. This was the beginning of the dispensation of the hypostatic union, for Jesus Christ in a moment of time became the God-Man. Jesus Christ is now undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever. The greatest moment in history occurred during that dispensation of the hypostatic

union when the omnipotence of God the Father from His justice called for the printout of all personal sins in history. Once Jesus Christ came to the cross in a state of absolute perfection, qualified as the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish, then God the Father imputed every sin in the history of the human race to Jesus Christ and the justice of God the Father judged every one of them.

So you will note: the Father programmed the prom chip, the Father sent the Son, God the Father judged our sins. We should have been judged for our sins but God the Father judged them on the cross and God the Son received that judgement. The justice of God the Father judged our sins on the cross because they were imputed to the perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. There is no place for human works there. God did all the work.

Jesus Christ, as eternal God, was willing to become true humanity in order to be judged for the sins of the world. Therefore the hypostatic union, and there is no more dramatic passage in the Word of God than Hebrews chapter 10 verses four through ten where we have the words of our Lord on the first Christmas eve in Bethlehem when He expressed to God the Father that He had come to do His will and that He had come to be judged for the sins of the world. In hypostatic union Jesus Christ became undiminished deity in true humanity in one person forever. On the cross the impeccable humanity of Christ received the imputation and the judgement of all sins inhuman history. And through His substitutionary, unlimited atonement Jesus Christ provided the way of eternal salvation, eternal life. So we have the grace function of our Lord Jesus Christ and that means that through His substitutionary unlimited atonement Jesus Christ provided the way of salvation, the way of eternal relationship with Him. And when anything is added to faith grace is cancelled and there is no salvation. For the only way of salvation is clearly described in terms of a non-meritorious function, faith. And therefore, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."

When we believe, as those who are spiritually dead, once again God the Holy Spirit takes that faith and makes it effective for salvation. At that moment all three members of the Trinity give us a sum total of forty things which are eternal salvation. That is what we call, then, relationship. We now have a relationship with God. All three members of the Trinity had a part and now we have something far, far greater than we had before. We now have, not just soul life, but eternal life.

Note: God the Holy Spirit created the human spirit. That is called regeneration or being born-again. God the Father then gives eternal life to that human spirit, so again we have all three members of the Trinity being involved in establishing a relationship with God. So the grace function of the Holy Spirit includes form the fact that the unbeliever is dichotomous — a body and soul. He has no human spirit — and is spiritually dead, in common grace the Holy Spirit acts as the human spirit to make the Gospel perspicuous to the unbeliever in brain death. This causes Gospel information to be transferred to the left lobe of the soul where the unbeliever now understands the divine call or invitation to salvation, to believe in Jesus Christ. And he understands, then, the issue of John 3:18 — "He who believes in him is not judged: but he who does not believe is judged already, because he has not believed in the unique Son of God."

So the conclusion is very simple: Salvation is the exclusive work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This work of the Trinity is classified as grace because the work of God excludes all human work and co-operation. This grace work excludes human works and therefore is effective for salvation because the only response to grace in salvation on the part of the spiritual dead person is to believe in Jesus Christ.

So the principle of grace: God solves the problem of eternal relationship with Himself through the grace policy, and at the moment of faith in Jesus Christ each member of the Godhead provides something for the new believer under the principle of grace as free unmerited love and favour. And the grace provision at salvation adds up to forty things every believer in this dispensation receives at the moment he believes in Jesus Christ.

Then there is a second principle: After salvation, what? Fellowship with God is also on the same pattern and the same policy, grace. Every born-again believer in Jesus Christ can have fellowship with God in time under the principle that relationship must precede fellowship. Therefore, through the policy of grace God has solved the problem of fellowship with Himself in time just as He has solved the problem of relationship with Himself for eternity.

There are three major problems regarding our temporal fellowship with God

1. Post-salvation sinning.

— personal sinning after salvation destroys our temporal fellowship with God. This is the pattern of Christian degeneracy. However, the grace policy of God provides a solution for post-salvation sinning. This goes back to cross where all post-salvation sins of the believer were judged. The grace solution for the recovery of fellowship with God and the filling of the Spirit is the rebound technique. Post-salvation sins were also judged at the cross.

2. Ignorance of Bible doctrine.

3. Failure of application of Bible doctrine.

The protocol plan of God is synonymous with the Christian way of life. Without metabolised doctrine in the right lobe the believer will never understand grace. Grace orientation is both a problem-solving device and the modus vivendi for the Christian way of life. Grace orientation is the only means of executing the protocol plan of God and the invisible hero is the believer who glorifies God because he has made maximum use of God's grace policy.

In Romans 5:8 we notice the principle of grace in salvation: "God demonstrates his love toward us." That means God has perfect self-esteem; God has never felt threatened by anyone's sin or failure. Not only does He have perfect self-esteem but He has perfect integrity and therefore emphasis on the subject " … in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died [u(per e)gw, a genitive plural of advantage which should be translated correctly "as a substitute for us" ] as a substitute for us." [U(per is used with the genitive of advantage to express substitution]. The only thing that satisfies God the Father with regard to human sins is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. 1Peter 3:18 — "Because Christ also died once for our sins [substitutionary spiritual death], the righteous one [because of His impeccability He was qualified as a lamb without spot and without blemish. Therefore God the Father imputed all the sins of human history to Him and judged every one of them. Therefore Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world] as a substitute for the unrighteous ones, that he might bring us to God [There is relationship]; having been put to death in the flesh [as God, Jesus Christ could not be judged for our sins but as true humanity Jesus Christ was judged for our sins on the cross] but made alive [resurrection] by means of the (Holy) Spirit."

2 Cor. 5:21 — "He who did not know sin [impeccability] was made sin as a substitute for us [u(per e)gw]; … "

Galatians 3:13 — "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by means of becoming a curse as a substitute for us [u(per e)gw]: for it stands written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on the cross."

So the solution to pre-salvation sin is quite obvious. It is always the same — personal faith in Jesus Christ.

If God can solve the greater problem of salvation, the greater problem of relationship with Himself, He can solve the lesser problems of fellowship with Himself. And He always solves them by the same policy — grace. If God uses His policy of grace to solve the greater problem of salvation. i.e. relationship with Himself, He can solve the lesser problems of the Christian way of life — fellowship. This is the A Fortiori argument found in Romans 8:31-32. God did the greater at salvation and if God can do the greater at salvation in grace He can do the lesser in grace. The grace policy of God that provided salvation or relationship also provides the post-salvation plan or fellowship.

James 4:6 — "But he gives greater grace [or, more grace, i.e. beyond salvation]." We are saved by grace. That is the policy of God and as we have seen, grace excludes human works. The response to grace is a totally non-meritorious thing: faith. The object of faith has the merit. The object of faith is Jesus Christ. Now, after salvation, God is still in the problem-solving business — "more grace." Grace saved us, now in James 4:6 we have "more grace." So it has been demonstrated that relationship with God is established by the grace of God. Fellowship with God is established by more grace, or greater grace, for grace is the policy of God in His protocol plan. Therefore, a reminder that there is application of grace to our lives and that grace orientation is a problem-solving device — James 4:14, "Why do you not know what your life will be like tomorrow. What is your life? You are just a vapour trail, that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away."

But there is more to it than that for the grace-oriented believer. For in that short time that the vapour trail begins and then disappears, the sky is still there like history is still here. You have the opportunity of the greatest impact in all of human history — invisible impact, the impact of the invisible hero, the invisible hero as a total product of grace. Your life can be meaningful beyond your imagination. He has done exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think, through his grace policy. And he has provided Bible doctrine, He has provided problem-solving devices so that your life can be meaningful. The vapour trail is a mark of the power of the grace of God in your life. Behind that vapour trail is the invisibility of a soul, a right lobe, filled with metabolised doctrine converted into sophia or wisdom in the application of that doctrine. Think of your life in terms of the grace of God and therefore think of your life as a vapour trail, a vapour trail by the way which is wiped out by Christian degeneracy.

Ephesians 4:28 tells us that a certain amount of born-again believers have always been involved in crime. Criminals are created by volition, not by circumstances.

In a two-volume book written by Doctor Samuel Yochelson and Dr Stanton Samenow called The Criminal Personality, volume 1 chapter three there is a very lengthy discussion lasting over 100 pages on the criminal's way of life. The chapter presents a detailed comprehensive picture of how criminals live, including how he interacts with his family, his peers, his teachers, his superiors at work and in military service.

Certain things that these two doctors say are very important. They also made some observations about criminals that are also true about non-criminals. They gave an illustration. They pointed out that the criminal as a child plays one parent against the other in an attempt to achieve his objective. Although a responsible child may well take advantage and even create parental differences of opinion he does not have to have a prevailing attitude of divide and conquer. Regarding the family they pointed out very clearly that the parents are not responsible for criminal behaviour. Over half of the criminals they dealt with came from stable families in which the parents had lived together, raised their children, and have experienced the usual tensions of living. Like other researchers, they said, we have also found broken homes, poverty, and other truly adverse circumstances. However, as we probed beyond the fact that a home was broken we found that the breaking up of a home in some cases helped to stabilise the life of the children because what remained was cohesive concerning the family unit. Many of the criminals, when children, rejected the people who attempted to show them affection and stabilise their homes.

They went on to talk about criminals, who when children, resented anyone who tried to limit their freedom. And this was true in poverty, in stabilised homes, and in adverse circumstances. Both biological parents and surrogate had a difficult time if they tried to restrict a criminal child's activities. Some criminals came from homes of severe poverty and deprivation. What is striking is the sacrifices made by hard-working parents who struggled to surmount the adversity. And many of their siblings were some of the fine law-abiding people.

Then they started with grandparents. One of the things they said was that one criminal in his youth spent time with his grandparents if it meant less supervision or somehow a better deal than he had with his parents. Looking back men who had spent time with their grandparents were sentimental in their reflections. The grandparents of the criminals were from a variety of social stations, so it has nothing to do with poverty or wealth, a stabilised home or an unstabilised home or anything else. Nearly all of the grandparents lived by a strict moral code, being honest, hard-working people to whom the family was of primary importance. Most of them tried to improve their lot in life and provide for their children.

Then they go to the mother. The criminal's mothers ranged from poor farmer's daughters to the daughters of socially prominent families. Many grew up under conditions of hardship that precluded adequate education — so they had educated and non-educated mothers. Yet in spite of all of that when a criminal initially described his mother to an interviewer he generally presented her in an unfavourable light, citing what she did to him and what she failed to do to him. They found out later that this was a cover-up for the use of their own volition to enter into criminal activity. Criminals are created by volition, not by circumstances.

They pointed out that many of these criminals that they interviewed came from the most fantastic circumstances and many of them came from the worst of circumstances, and circumstances and environment had nothing whatever to do with it. It was volition all the way. For example, in the chapter on the fathers, the father could be a friend or a foe depending on whom the criminal talks to and what he wishes to establish. The criminals knew little about their father's backgrounds or occupations because they were nor interested in their fathers. This was also true of their mothers. They only used them for an excuse when they learned the tricks of some of the psychologists who were trying to make them say, in effect, that they were maltreated by their father or their mother. But that wasn't really the case. Instead it was the criminal who was not really interested in his parents, not the parents lacking interest in the criminal. As youngsters the criminal children were outsiders to the family life. Rather than being rejected by their parents the parents were rejected by them. They rejected their parents! These youngsters chose a way of life they wanted to keep secret from their parents. They rejected their families and often declined to participate in family activities which they found dull. Even a father who clearly favoured his son and wanted to spend time with him was spurned because the criminal was interested in other things. The fathers of our criminals came from a variety of backgrounds, educational, occupational, social, and therefore the issue was not fathers who neglected their children in any way.

Then there was an interesting development in the sibling part of this. Most of the brothers and sisters of the criminals they interviewed were responsible kids. They had not all achieved highly but they functioned quite differently in life from their criminal siblings. They said: Our findings confirm with other studies that we have noted that several offsprings from one family may follow different paths. The responsible siblings try to guide their criminal brothers and sisters in the direction of a more responsible behaviour. They often help their criminal siblings out with money and other resources. In many instances they take a protective attitude and cover for a criminal when he violates the law. They may not turn him in when he is a fugitive. Throughout their lives they attempt to advise, exhort, persuade, their criminal brothers and sisters to reform.

Note: It is the criminal who rejects parents, brothers and sisters.

The criminal distorts his relationships with brothers and sisters when he talks to others. He may say that a brother or a sister got more attention despite the fact that he compelled more attention by the things he did, and they, indeed, had been the favourite child in the family initially. Of course, in some instances the sibling did receive greater attention if the parents had to protect them from a criminal youngster.

In another part of the chapter, The Criminal Child Being Different, he says: "An important commonality among most family members is that they live responsibly. Where there is parental irresponsibility some children seem to be determined to be responsible because of it." In other words, he points out that a lot of children who have an irresponsible parent go in the opposite direction. Then he points out that these criminals when they were children had a mantle of secrecy surrounding themselves. Parents slowly begin to sense that they do not know their own youngsters. They are uneasy, especially, those having another child with whom they can make comparisons.

The secret life is established early in the criminal child. Lying is a major ingredient. His accounts of what he does are vague and superficial, he is hard to pin down and with lies of omission being far more frequent than lies of commission. He may even lie when there is seemingly no point to it. For example, saying he is going to the grocery store when he knows he is going to a pool hall. What seems to matter to him is getting away with things. The criminal child sets himself apart (volition). This keeping to himself also is a self-imposed isolation; he simply does not want other members of the family to be privy to what he is doing. The family may be having fun on a picnic. The criminal child does something to spoil it. He is the one who plays with the Bar B Que fire. In playing ball he starts a fight over an umpire's call. If he attends a family activity or school function because he is required to he wanders off and others do not know where he is. With so much lying, sneaking and concealment there is clearly a communication gap in the home of the criminal child. Usually the parents are faulted for not understanding the younger generation but he wants to keep his activities secret (Volition) so that others will not interfere with him. Indeed there is a communication breakdown but the child is the cause of the communication breakdown, not the parents.

The criminal child gets his way in one fashion or another. Sometimes it is through secrecy and slickness. Perhaps even more frequently he engages in constant battles with his parents, wearing them down until they capitulate. The youngster makes a contest out of anything no matter how minor. He looks for a victory in a dispute about whether he will clean up his room, hang up a wet towel, take out the trash or be in at a specified hour. Winning the fight overrides the significance of the issue at hand. It results in attrition of parental moral. Eventually his parents decide to ignore certain behaviour. Another technique the child uses to get his way: he makes so many requests an contests so many things that the parents cannot keep track of them.

The criminal child appears to be unsociable because he rejects being friends with responsible children who are in the majority. His enjoyment of other children depends on opportunities to violate them, but he generally does not retain the same association even with criminal groups. He lacks stable relationships and deep friendships. Liaisons that do continue are based on mutual exploitation or manipulation. This is the criminal view. The criminal does not maintain associations with responsible people. Basically people are to the criminal what money is in the bank to a responsible person. The criminal wants people available to draw on them, to manipulate them, even being seen in the company of a respectable person builds up the criminal.

Many criminals do not know how to act with responsible people because they have never learned the rudiments of social behaviour, and when a criminal says, Yes Sir, it may be to ingratiate himself as part of a conning effort rather than a sign of courtesy or genuine respect. Or it may be a rejection with ill-concealed contempt. He may become a socialiser as he frequents bars, pool rooms, street corners, restaurants, homes and apartments where criminals hang out. In time he comes to believe himself to be a big man, although this might not be objectively verifiable.

In this particular section what we try to show is that crime does not come to or force itself on a child. It is not the neighbourhood, it is not the bad company that makes him bad. Rather a child decides very early whom he wants to be with and what kind of a life he wants to lead. He makes choices all along the way and criminal patterns are identifiable by the age of ten.

Verse 28:We start with an articular present active participle from the verb kleptw which refers to the criminal act of stealing. The present tense is an iterative or a present tense of repeated action describing what occurs at successive intervals or is conceived in successive periods of time. In other words when you can get away with it you do it, is what the iterative present says. The iterative present depicts a criminal action which is repeated only at intervals when the criminal believer thinks he can get away with it. The active voice, born again believers produce the action of the verb.

The definite article is used as a personal pronoun and it refers to believers as criminals. And this is a circumstantial participle and is translated, "he who steals." The participle connotes criminal activity in a specific area. Stealing will be used as the illustration but it could be any type of criminal activity. However, the participle also applies to other forms of dishonesty, dishonesty in business or in other fields. Criminality is a function of arrogance and volition; it is a matter of self-fragmentation in the implode sequence .

The believer who is a loser in the protocol plan of God is involved in the cosmic system. That is where criminal believers pick up their little ideas: "I had a mother who threw acid in my face" [a lie], "I had a father who beat me up when I got drunk" [a lie. So did a lot of law-abiding citizens.] Arrogance plus volition equals criminality.

Leviticus 19:11 — "You shall not steal; nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another." In that verse you have the whole system of criminality: steal, deal falsely, lie. These commandments refer, by the way, to believers as much as to unbelievers. Jeremiah's description of the apostate nation, the southern kingdom, included stealing in Jeremiah 7:9 — "Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, and lie under oath, and offer sacrifices to Baal, and walk after other gods you have not known?" When Jeremiah said that he was talking to believers as well as unbelievers in client nation Israel.

Criminal believers are involved in degeneracy; they have reached the peak of Christian apostasy. All criminality is acquired through arrogance plus volition. What are some of the areas of arrogance? Authority arrogance, mental attitude arrogance, self-righteous arrogance, sexual arrogance, arrogance of unhappiness related to subjective preoccupation with self, psychopathic arrogance. The criminal believer lives inside the cosmic system; he is totally preoccupied with himself; he is anti-authority and ant-establishment and always gets into immoral type Christian degeneracy. He is a con-artist, a liar, a thief, etc. Criminality does not distinguish between the believer and the unbeliever.

"He who stole" — now the present participle often follows the Classical Greek here for something which happened previously. "He who has been stealing up to now" is a good way to translate it, or "He who stole up to now." Here is a Christian criminal involved in immoral degeneracy and up to now he has been stealing. Therefore this is a reference to the believer under the control of his sin nature.

Then there is an adverb meketi which means "no longer," but there is a problem here. You see, this is a pictorial present here and as a pictorial present with a negative adverb it demands a cessation of the activity. So how are we going to translate this with the present active imperative of kleptw? The corrected translation: "He who has been stealing up to now, from now on stop stealing." The active voice, the believer produces the action of the verb by obeying the command to stop it. This implies that the born-again criminal can make the break. It is possible through conversion and doctrine that the person can do it. When the Bible says "Stop it," God in grace provides a way to do it. The imperative of prohibition plus the negative mh or its equivalent means to stop an action in progress. The reversionistic believer is the believer in Christian degeneracy. He is in the cosmic system as well and because of the volition and lust pattern in his life he is a Christian criminal. And the trend of Christian criminality is crime, unless he has spiritual growth by perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine, and then solving. There is no substitute for the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God. That is the only way that the born-again criminal will ever climb out of his hole.

Born again believers become criminals. Some of them are criminals before they believe in Jesus Christ; some became criminals after they believed in Jesus Christ.

The articular present active participle of kleptw, the word from the which we get our word "kleptomaniac," means to steal. This present tense is a perfective present which denotes a continuation of existing results of Christian criminality. The definite article used as a personal pronoun refers to believers who are criminals, in contrast to unbelievers as criminals. And the perfective present denotes a continuation of existing results of Christian criminality. Hence it refers to a fact which has come to be in the past but is emphasised as a present reality. The present reality is that status of Christian degeneracy known as Christian criminality. The active voice, the born-again believer produces the action of the verb in the status of Christian immoral degeneracy. The participle is circumstantial.

Principle: How do Christians get that way? Go right back to the doctrine of the pattern of Christian immoral degeneracy. Implosion or self-fragmentation. They pull the pin of the grenade.

The categories of immoral degeneracy: 1. Sexual sins; 2. Chemical dependant sins — drug and alcohol addiction, etc.; 3. Criminal sins.

The articular present active participle of kleptw denotes a particular criminal activity that represents the entire concept. The participle is designed to cover every category of Christian criminality. The context does indicate believers involved in this form of immoral degeneracy. Their criminality cannot be distinguished from the unbeliever involved in the same category.

Jeremiah described one of the reasons why the southern kingdom, as a client nation to God, went out under the fifth cycle of discipline was because of criminality — Jer. 7:9. A criminal nation cannot continue as a client nation to God.

Paul in the Church Age recognises the fact that a certain number of believers have fallen into criminality as an expression of Christian degeneracy. This is recognised in Romans 2:21 — "You therefore who teach another, do you teach yourself? you who teach that a person should not steal, do you steal?"

Criminality is a part of Christian degeneracy and this circumstantial participle recognises that a certain number of believers are dishonest to the point of being criminal. All criminals are the product of their own volition. They choose to be criminals.

The doctrine of the characteristics of criminality

The criminal is irresponsible. All criminality is the product of human volition. They are not criminals because of their environment but because of the function of their volition in relationship to the trends of their old sin nature. The criminal is not a mature person because he does not take the responsibility for his own decisions in life. Therefore criminality is characterised by irresponsibility and childishness. Criminals do not grow up and mature. Criminality is characterised by irresponsibility; he is not responsible, answerable or accountable to any authority in life. Therefore, the criminal lives in a state of self-fragmentation. Responsible persons in life relate to some form of virtue, virtue related to people, virtue related to obligations, virtue related to the work ethic. This virtue produces self-esteem under the laws of divine establishment and spiritual self-esteem under the protocol plan of God. The unbeliever from his own achievement actually derives self-respect, respect for others, and a lifestyle which we call concurrence with or related to or subjected to the laws of divine establishment.

On the other hand the born-again believer, under three principles, attains spiritual adulthood which not only complies with the laws of divine establishment but executes God's protocol plan. And it is accomplished through learning, thinking and solving. In this way the born-again believer renders unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's, and simultaneously avoids all the sins and all of the evil of implode, explode and revert, which is the basis for the making of all criminals. However, the believer who is negative toward Bible doctrine fails to execute the protocol plan and becomes a loser. It is inevitable, then, that losers will enter into some form of fragmentation and some form of Christian degeneracy. Some believers become criminals and as such are irresponsible as well as losers in God's plan.

A law-abiding citizen may be irresponsible without being a criminal but all criminals are irresponsible.Criminal irresponsibility translated in terms of the laws of divine establishment includes at least six things.

1. The criminal has no respect for the freedom of others.

2. The criminal does not recognise the rights of others in a free society.

3. The criminal does not understand, or if he understands he totally rejects the concept of freedom, which includes privacy, and the sacredness of property and life.

4. Therefore, the criminal is insensitive to others. 5. The criminal is totally preoccupied with himself, totally subjective, totally arrogant, therefore totally irresponsible.

6. The criminal has no sense of obligation to such divine institutions as marriage, family, government, and therefore his relationships in life are superficial, self-centred, irresponsible.

The criminal lacks authority orientation.

— so do a lot of non-criminals as well. Criminality includes rejection of all legitimate authority in life, beginning with parents. Rejection of parental authority results in life disorientation which becomes the basis for criminal self-justification. The criminal is always justifying himself. He never thinks of the victim, except that he was a dummy to be there at the time! He is guilty of authority arrogance which begins with parents and extends to every facet of authority including teachers, coaches, police officers, management, military authority.

As criminality increases unchecked the authority of the local county, state, and national government is undermined and when crime gets out of control there is no freedom. When freedom is lost and crime is out of control street gangs of children and teenagers are formed and run loose. Criminality begins before puberty and extends into the teens. The result is that violence becomes a way of life for the criminal. And while society erroneously blames guns and weapons it is not the fault of guns and weapons. Probably 2% of all the people in the United States who own weapons have ever been remotely in a crime. It is volition, it is mental attitude, which results in criminality. The criminal has a basic sense of insecurity. This may result from various categories of fear. Why? Because criminals are emotional and people who are ruled by their emotions become fearful, angry, and full of hate, and have a predilection for violence and even murder. Emotional revolt of the soul can produce criminal activity or produce sins that are common to all. So insecurity may result from fear such as fear of injury, fear of death. Fear is related to peer pressure, fear of ridicule. The criminal fears being reduced to what is called "nothing in life." But psychologists do not call it that, they have a psychological name for it called "the zero state." The criminal's lack of self-esteem to a state of worthlessness, hopelessness or futility, the psychologist simply calls it "zero state." And the criminal's sense of insecurity includes a sense of failure in terms of the extremes of life. The criminal is therefore a "top dog" or he is nothing. All criminals fear the zero state even when he is not in it. A sense of insecurity leads a criminal to what is classified in psychology as transparency in which the criminal believes that his worthlessness is obvious to all and everyone perceives it. And when the criminal thinks that he has succeeded in life through a life of crime, society and establishment regards him as a failure. But when the criminal thinks he has failed then the society regards him as a success. He has a reverse trend in his thinking. Consequently, criminal insecurity keeps him disoriented to life in terms of establishment or in terms of Bible doctrine.

In the zero state the criminal often blames others for his real or imagined failures. In this way his arrogant self-pity interacts with arrogant self-righteousness resulting in instability and insecurity.

The criminal has no control over his emotions. Because a criminal has no control over his emotions he has no control over his temper, his antagonisms, his functions of hatred. Of course this is true of many law-abiding citizens as well but when related to criminal arrogance and a distorted conscience this flaw becomes the property of criminality.

Anger is a sin, therefore pertinent to the entire human race but criminality is characterised by chronic anger. Chronic anger is the criminal personality, often outwardly suppressed, but inwardly the criminal boils continually.Anger is the motivation for violence, homicide, revenge modus operandi and other forms of criminal activity. Many people, of course, have an anger problem and lose their temper but only the criminal personality parlays his anger into criminal modus operandi.

Criminality is characterised by boredom.

Boredom actually means no capacity for life, no ability to entertain self, no interest in life outside of self. Of course how you handle loneliness as a believer and how you handle boredom is very important. One of the keys to handling loneliness is to completely outlaw boredom by a tremendous number of interests that have been developed from metabolised doctrine in your soul.

The believer who is a criminal has no interest in Bible doctrine except when he is in trouble. He has no self-control based on the understanding and utilisation of the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

The criminal wants excitement; he wants proof of his power. In fact, the criminal's desire for excitement is so great and so much a part of himself that he becomes jaded and he requires constant stimulation from excitement. The criminal wants people to see his power, to feel his power. He is abnormal. To live without increasing excitement is a "put-down" and therefore the criminal requires constant stimulation from sex, from torture, from making others afraid of him. Eventually only violence and extreme criminal activity is the antidote for the criminal's boredom. And that means torture, rape and murder. This is why terrorists often abuse their hostages even though they may have been ordered not to abuse them.

All terrorists are criminals, not patriots, as illustrated by their treatment of hostages and many other things. The idea that terrorists are actually patriots is one of the most idiotic thoughts that has ever been published. Terrorism is not patriotism, it is criminality. Blowing up innocent people is not patriotism, it is murder. All criminals are liars.

All liars are not criminals but all criminals are liars. For the criminal lying is a way of life. Hence, the criminal is a pathological liar and habitually he deceives. So habitual deceit and lying is the criminal's demonstration of his total disdain and disregard for truth in any form. Lying is the criminal's standard way of dealing with the world. He lies to achieve his objective; he lies for self-preservation or to build himself up. Lying is a major part of criminal manipulation.

The criminal is arrogant.

Arrogance is inflexible about self and criminal arrogance is total preoccupation with self to the exclusion of any form of law or any establishment principle. Arrogance is the motivation of criminal personality. Remember the criminal is a walking grenade and he pulls the pin and keeps it out; he is constantly blowing up — the pin of jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, self-pity, revenge motivation. Neither argument, persuasion, reason, logic, or even punishment can modify the inflexible and subjective arrogance of the criminal, for he rejects all authority in fear of entering the zero state, or becoming a nothing.

Criminal arrogance rejects Bible doctrine which is the only real source of help and hope. And from life in the cosmic system the criminal becomes a sociopath. But you must remember about the criminal: he will come and listen to Bible doctrine and get the language, and he uses the language for manipulation. It was the famous thief, Judas Iscariot, who used the facade of hypocrisy to cover his criminality. John 12:3-6 — Judas didn't care about the poor, he cared about his own bank account. He was a thief and had the money box. And he used to steal what was put in it. Criminal arrogance hides behind a facade of self-righteousness.

The criminal is irrational.

The motive for crime against property is not money, the motivation for sex crimes is not sex. In both cases the criminal is acting to assert control and superiority over a victim, over the authorities, over the non-criminal way of life. This is also true of senseless violence. The criminal feels superior when he hurts others and when he makes a lot of people scream. The criminal irrationality is very simple: his rationale is to avoid the zero state by getting back at society for not admiring him. And this is the Mr Big syndrome which also includes going down in a blaze of glory if cornered, to bomb a public place, to rape a housewife, to burn down a building with many people inside is the objective of criminal arrogance and irrationality.

We now move into the work ethic and we do so with a post positive Greek particle de which is used to emphasise a contrast between believers involved in crime and the function of the work ethic as a part of the protocol plan of God. We have the comparative adverb mallon which is used with de to express the concept which corrects the function of crime among believers. And as a result you finally come to the work ethic of the protocol plan. So we translate it: "but rather."

The context is discussing believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of these believers were involved in criminal activity and had become criminal personalities as a part of their expression of immoral degeneracy. And from all of this the recovery from the reversionistic aspect, the reversionistic stages, recovery from the polarised fragmentation, and finally they get to the place where they level off with regard to implosion. Once they do that by the use of the ten problem-solving devices plus their consistent perception of Bible doctrine and its metabolisation there is a new thing that is introduced to them. And something they will enjoy, not while they are in criminality but after they begin to recover.

And this is one of the ways they know they are recovering. The present active imperative of the verb kopiaw, which means to work hard. It means also to work to the point of exhaustion. It means even to get worn out occasionally through physical and mental labour. And twice in this verse the King James version has the words "let him" .It translates the imperative mood that way. The only imperative mood that can ever be translated with the word "let" is the permissive imperative and this is not the permissive imperative, this is the imperative of command; it is a mandate. Usually in the imperative there is no need for the word "let." It does not express a command properly.

The correct translation is: "but rather begin to work hard." The active voice, the criminal believers in the process of recovery through the use of the ten problem-solving devices, through perception, metabolisation and application of doctrine, are beginning to recover. The imperative mood, this is a divine mandate. That phrase, "but rather begin to work hard", introduces a part of the protocol plan of God where the work ethic is involved.

Next we have a participle. The present middle participle of the verb e)rgazomai which is another word for working. The present tense this time is a futuristic present for an event which has not yet occurred but it is regarded as so certain in recovery from immoral degeneracy — the person who is going to recover is going to learn and use those ten problem-solving devices. The futuristic present recognises that the person to whom this is addressed has yet to do this and that is why it is translated "begin to work hard." "Working" is the next word and the middle voice of e)rgazomai represents the subject as participating in the results of the action, or acting in relationship to himself, hence being personally involved in the action. He now begins to make money to earn a living by hard work. This is called a dynamic middle in which the subject acts for himself with reference to himself, hence the subject produces the action. The dynamic middle gives the verb an individualistic application. You see, always with your problems it is an individualistic application which you must make from doctrine you have learned. You learn the doctrine, you make the application. You don't have to run around and tell your problems to other people. That isn't solving them. So learn the doctrine in the privacy of your own priesthood; solve your problems in the privacy of your own soul. That is the design of the Word of God.

With this the instrumental plural of means from two words. First a definite article used as a possessive pronoun, taij and with it the noun xeir which means hands — "working with your hands." Translation so far: "He who stole up to now, from now on stop stealing: but rather begin to work hard, working with your own hands."

Now we have an accusative singular, direct object from two words with no verb in between — "doing what is right." The generic use of the definite article to and with it our great word a)gaqoj, good of intrinsic value, and it refers to divine good versus human good. We translate it: "doing what is right." Doing right is good of intrinsic value or divine good produced by the filling of the Spirit, produced by the application of Bible doctrine, produced by the utilisation of the problem-solving devices.

As a member of the royal family of God and as a Church Age believer who was formerly a criminal, he must now demonstrate his life inside the divine dynasphere — the filling of the Spirit — through hard work, and he should be motivated to work hard. Just as he was motivated from the OSN to steal now he is motivated to work hard. So this is the good of intrinsic value manifestation of his spiritual progress inside the operational type divine dynasphere. And to see a former thief now earning his living through hard manual labour is an overt manifestation of an inner change of life.

Now the inner change is accomplished through consistent perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine. When a thief takes a job and begins to earn a living, an honest living, it means one of two things: 1. He is a hot item and hiding out until things cool off! In this case the job becomes a cover and he is still a thief. In other words he is still manipulating; 2. He could be a believer in reversion recovery from degeneracy and in this case the work is a manifestation of his spiritual progress. He is earning an honest living.

Now there has to be motivation in working and there always is. It could be good motivation or bad motivation. Here is a number of good motivations for working found in the Bible. This doesn't deal with all motivation for hard work, motivation and so on. This is merely one of them that applies to this situation. We have a conjunction i(na which introduces a semi-final purpose clause which denotes the direction of the action of the main verb toward a given result. We are responsible for our own decisions whether we know we are doing wrong or not. And with the use of our volition is what we might classify as a mind set. It might be an OSN mind set and it might be a doctrinal mind set. This brings in a doctrinal mind set, doctrinal motivation. And this is only one of many; it is not the only motivation for hard work; "that" is the way it is translated here. And with it we have the present active subjunctive of the verb e)xw, to have. Here it means to possess money, so we translate "that he may have money." This is the tendencial present for an action which is contemplated but which has not actually taken place. And please notice the possession of money does not become an issue until the money is earned honestly. The active voice, criminal believers in the process of recovery from Christian degeneracy produce the action of the verb. The recovery, however, is potential — because of the subjunctive mood. This is a potential subjunctive, it implies a future reference and is qualified by the element of contingency. That is, reversion recovery from criminal behaviour.

With this we have a present active infinitive from the verb metadidomi — to share, to give, or to share a part of it. "That he may have money to share." The recovered criminal is now motivated with a new motivation. Before he stole to satisfy himself; now he works hard to share. Next, the verb "to have" is the present active participle and with it the definite article translated "with him," it is an instrumental singular from toi and the pictorial present presents to the mind a picture of one of a number of motivations, sharing in the process of occurrence. Finally, there is one more word, the accusative singular, direct object from the noun xreia, which means need or necessity. How is this translated? "He [the believer who was a criminal] who stole up to now, from now on stop stealing: but rather begin to work hard, working with your hands doing what is right, that he may have money to share with him who has a need."

The Doctrine of Money

Money is a medium by which prices are fixed, debts are discharged, goods and services are paid for and bank reserves are held. The term is synonymous with circulating medium and it includes everything from coins, bank notes, paper money issued by Government. Money is the means of stating prices of goods and services as well as expressing debts, salaries, wages, rents, insurance obligations and innumerable contracts. Money serves as a reserve for ready purchasing power. Hence, money is the only completely liquid asset.

In the ancient world money was used as a store of value and the rise of commercial and central banking resulted in corresponding increases of the importance of money used as reserves of the banking system. Money is unique among economic goods; it is regarded not as wealth but as a device for exchanging and measuring wealth. An increase in the quantity of money in a nation does not necessarily constitute an increase in the country's wealth. [Sometimes it indicates a decrease in the country's wealth — inflation].

The Doctrine of the Poor

1. Until the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ there will always be poverty on the earth. Poverty cannot be solved by governments or masses of people; there will always be the poor — Matthew 26:11.

2. The poor are a target for hypocrisy — James 2:2-4. Verse 2 — "For if a person comes into your assembly and he is dressed in fine clothes, and there comes a poor man with shabby clothes; Verse 3 — "And you give you give your attention to the one who is wearing fine clothes, and say to him, Sit down here in a good pew; and you say to the poor man, You stand over there, or you sit on the floor by my feet; Verse 4 — "Have you not discriminated among your selves, and you have become judges with evil motivation?" This principle is also taught in John 12:5 with regard to Judas Iscariot who was a thief. To be interested in the poor requires genuine compassion.

3. Poor believers have the same equal privileges and the same equal opportunity to fulfil the protocol plan of God. cf James 2:5,6. A person may not have much of this world's goods but they can advance to spiritual maturity, they can be rich in doctrine. The poor have the ability to love God and to execute His Word just as much as those who have wealth.

4. It is possible for the poor to be generous and magnificent in the use of whatever money they have. cf Mark 12:41-44.

5. Charity to the poor is a bonafide function of the establishment. It is a part of the laws of divine establishment — Proverbs 14:30-31.

Verse 30 — "A tranquil right lobe is life to the body; [When a believer has a large inventory of Bible doctrine he has tranquillity] But jealousy is rottenness to the bones." [Or jealousy rots the bones]

Verse 31 — "He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for his Maker: but he who is kind to the needy honours God." Charity to the poor is a bonafide function in this life.

a. Learn to distinguish between charity and the welfare state.

b. Charity is for the helpless poor.

c. Welfare is for the poor helpless! Welfare makes the poor helpless.

Galatians 2:10 — "They only asked us to remember the poor; the very thing we were eager to do."

6. There is a special curse on those who ignore helping the poor — Proverbs 21:13. "He who shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, Will also cry himself, and not be answered."

Proverbs 22:23 — "For the Lord will plead their case [the case of the poor], And take the life of those who rob them."

7. God can raise the poor out of their poverty. Psalm 113:7 — "He raises the poor from the dust, And God lifts the needy from the ash heap;"

8. The poor are not only delivered by God from their poverty but the reality of poverty causes them to see the need for eternal salvation. Therefore they respond to the Gospel — Psalm 72:12-14; Matthew 11:5.

9. The poor have very few real friends — Proverbs 19:4. "Wealth adds many friends: but the poor man is separated from even one friend."

Now lust for money creates power struggles so we will note four principles

a. Lust or love for money creates power struggles which destroy the balance of power and creates what is called an imbalance of power [a state or condition of lacking balance].

b. Imbalance of power destroys both freedom and economic prosperity in the client nation to God.

c. Power struggles which create imbalance in the economy of a nation result in great suffering to the poor. It is the poor who are hit the hardest.

Application: The problem of imbalance of power in a nation

a. The application of the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution is mechanised production as opposed to hand production; it is mechanised transportation as opposed to animal or sail transportation; it gave rise to three categories in our lives — capitalism or free enterprise, factories for mechanical production, and systems of mechanical transportation; it gave rise to a middle class as opposed to aristocracy and different from the poor.

b. The categories involved in the industrial revolution. 1. Management; 2. Labour; 3. Government.

Management is defined to convert money and investment into industrial efficiency which includes production and marketing.

Labour is designed to execute production and marketing. There are three categories of labour — skilled and unskilled, administrative labour which must not be confused with management, and marketing labour which is sales personnel.

There are three categories of national government [in the USA]: The executive branch as represented by the President and those who serve under him, the Legislative branch [Congress], the legal branch [Supreme Court]. The three branches provide a check and balance system to avoid the problem of imbalance of power.

c. National prosperity depends on the three categories of the industrial revolution. It depends on management, the proper use of capital. It depends on labour, the proper function of industry. It depends on Government, the proper maintenance of freedom.

These three categories must always be kept in balance, which means that power imbalance destroys prosperity and causes the industrial revolution to move to another geographical area.

d. We lose out to the problem of imbalance of power. The decline of the industrial revolution in the US means malfunction in all three categories. First, Government fails to provide freedom which is the environment of the industrial revolution. Second, management is both inefficient in the use of capital and often indifferent to the stabilisation and the security of labour. Three, labour unions seek monopoly of labour markets rather than the benefits that belong to labour.

The Doctrine of Giving

Definition:

Giving is an expression of worship which commemorates the grace policy of God. Giving in the Church Age is the function of the believer's royal priesthood, and since it is, giving must be accomplished in privacy without being pressured. There are four categories of Christian service,

one of them is giving.

The first category of Christian service is the function of your spiritual gift under the filling of the Holy Spirit. The second category of Christian service is related to your royal priesthood and it includes prayer, giving, and the execution of the protocol plan of God through learning, thinking, solving. Christian service is related to your royal ambassadorship and that includes evangelism, personal witnessing, administration in the local church, function in the mission field, working with young people or functioning in the various legitimate Christian service organisations. The fourth category of Christian service is related to the laws of divine establishment and it includes military service, law enforcement, government, but never activism.

Giving is further defined as the presentation of money or other valuable commodities which may be used in the sustaining the ministry of communication in the spiritual gift of either evangelism or pastor-teacher.

Motivation is the major issue in giving. People think in terms of the amount given but that is wrong. In fact, even if you cannot even give you can still give through your mental attitude. Mental attitude is the key to giving, not the amount given — 2 Cor. 9:7. " … for God loves a grace-oriented believer" — corrected translation. Grace orientation, problem-solving device number 4, is the true basis for giving. 2Corinthians 9:8 goes on to say that when you find this kind of person God provides the money to give — "for God is able to make all grace abound unto you." God graciously provides extra finances for the grace giver to give. For the only legitimate system of giving is a grace giver giving to a grace cause.

Verse 9 is a quotation from Psalm 112:9 — "Just as it stands written, He scatters abroad [God gives extra money to certain people], he gave to the poor; His righteousness abides forever" .God provides under grace but God's grace righteousness also meets at the point of grace giving.

Verse 10 — "Now he who supplies seed to the sower [capital] and bread for food, shall supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;

Verse 11 — "You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Verse 12 — "This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanksgiving to God."

There is a passage that starts with a mental attitude, never giving under compulsion, and ends up in many expressions of thanksgiving to God. Giving is a mental attitude based upon a problem-solving device — grace orientation.

The Doctrinal Principles Of Grace

1. Giving is an expression of the royal family honour code, Romans 16:26.

2. Giving is an expression of freewill, 2 Cor. 8:3.

3. Giving is an expression of mental attitude in every circumstance of life, 2 Cor. 8:2.

4. Giving must express an attitude toward the Lord before it can express an attitude toward people, 2 Cor. 8:5.

5. Giving depends on consistent function of post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation — perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine, 2 Cor. 8:7 — "But just as you excel in everything, in faith-rest, and in doctrine, and in knowledge, and in all diligence, and in love [impersonal] from you to us, and also you excel in this grace giving." They excelled in giving not on the basis of whether they liked someone or not but on the basis of impersonal love, the virtue of the subject rather than the attractiveness of the object.

Precedence for giving is derived from the dispensation of the hypostatic union and is predicated on grace, 2 Cor. 8:9 — "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich [He was eternal God], yet for your sakes he became poor [true humanity in hypostatic union], so that you through his poverty [being judged for our sins on the cross] might become rich."

Giving is a mental attitude related to an overt act, 2 Cor. 8:12 — "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable on the basis of what one has [willingness counts for giving], not on the basis of what one does not have."

Therefore giving is related to motivation from metabolised doctrine in the right lobe of the soul, 2 Cor. 9:7 — "Each one as he has determined in his right lobe, so give; not from distress of mind, or under compulsion: for God loves a gracious giver." The key to giving is grace orientation.

God in His matchless grace provides both the spiritual motivation and the monetary capital for grace giving, 2 Cor. 9:8.

God in His matchless grace provides both the monetary capital for grace giving and makes it part of your Christian service, 2 Cor. 9:10.

Generosity of mental attitude results in generosity of giving, 2 Cor. 9:11 — "You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God."

Giving is a part of Christian service, 2 Cor. 9:12 — "This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people, but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanksgiving to God."

The concept of giving is also related to two spiritual gifts: the gift of pastor-teacher and the gift of evangelism. The problem here is that the gift of pastor-teacher must make an issue out of two things as a recipient of support from believers. He must make an issue out of the Gospel and, therefore, while he does not have the gift of evangelism he evangelises. And he must make an issue out of "after salvation what?" — what is the Christian way of life? the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Therefore the pastor must constantly use his spiritual gift to proclaim the Gospel when it is in a passage. If you make an issue out of money you cannot make an issue out of the Gospel. The pastor must never make an issue out of money — 2 Cor. 11:7, "Because I preach the gospel to you without charge …" 2 Cor. 11:8 — "I robbed other churches [like Philippi], taking wages from them to serve you;" Paul wasn't supported by the Corinthians. He couldn't have made an issue out of the Gospel and the mystery doctrine. So the Philippian church supported Paul in Corinth.

The pastor exchanges spiritual blessings to the congregation in exchange for material blessing from the congregation. Hence the fulfilment of the principle: mutual blessing by association. Philippians 1:5 — "Because of your contribution from the first day until now for the purpose of spreading the gospel;"

Giving reflects the mental attitude of the congregation towards their right pastor, Phil. 4:10 — "I rejoice in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed you have been concerned but you lacked opportunity to give."

Giving is the application of Bible doctrine on the part of the congregation, Philippians 4:14 — "And you yourselves also recognised that in the beginning of my ministry with reference to the gospel, when I had departed from Macedonia, not one church contributed to me in the application of doctrine of giving and receiving, except you [Philippians] only."

Giving is a grace production in Christian service, Phil. 4:17 — "Not because I seek the gift from you; but I seek after the grace production of divine good which accumulates to your account."

Giving to one's right pastor is maximum blessing to the pastor and pleasing to God, Philippians 4:18 — "Moreover I have received all of your gifts and I have an abundance: I have been filled with blessing, having received from Epaphroditus the things [money] from you, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God."

The grace concept of giving is found in both the Old and the New Testament. Proverbs 11:24 — "There is the one who gives generously, yet he becomes more prosperous; and there is also the one who holds back in giving what is fitting, and he becomes impoverished."

There is a second principle in Proverbs 11:25 — "The generous person will be prosperous: and he who gives water will himself also be caused to have water" — agricultural economy relating, of course, to irrigation.

The grace concept of giving in the New Testament: 1 Cor. 16:2 — "On the first day of the week let each one of you put aside, and save on the basis of his prosperity, that no collections be taken when I come."

Tithing

Tithing is not spiritual giving in the Old Testament. Spiritual giving is limited to believers only and tithing was a ten per cent income tax under the Mosaic Law, Codex number three, which deals with the laws of divine establishment.

Actually there were three ten per cent taxes under the ten percent rule of income tax in the Mosaic Law. First there was the tithe or ten percent income tax for all Jewish citizens, believers and unbelievers, for the maintenance of the Levites — Numbers 18:21,24. The second ten per cent income tax from all Jewish citizens was to defray the cost of the feasts and sacrifices — Deuteronomy 14:22-24. And the third ten per cent or tithe, income tax from all Jewish citizens, believers and unbelievers, was to be paid every third year for the relief of the poor in the land — Deuteronomy 14:28,29 [charity and not socialism].

Remember that the tithe is defined in the scripture as a ten per cent income tax for the citizens of Israel only, both believers and unbelievers. Because it included unbelievers and because it was a tax it is not regarded as spiritual giving, it is regarded as an obligation called income tax. Spiritual giving is presented in the Mosaic Law under one word — "offerings." Offerings were for believers only.

In the time of apostasy in Israel the citizens, both the believers and unbelievers, failed to pay their taxes and believers were not fulfilling their obligation in spiritual giving as well — cf. Malachi 3:8.

In Ephesians 4:29 we have one of those passages that would appear to be talking about how you talk. But actually it is a message designed for pastors and therefore it is very important for us to understand.

The King James version says: "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers." This is actually a mandate to pastor-teachers. It begins with a nominative singular subject from three words, an adjective paj (every or any) plus and the adjective sapraj. Sapraj has a number of different meanings but we will translate it "unsound" because of the noun that goes with it — logoj, which among others things means "doctrine," words put together in doctrine. So we are going to translate this: "Every unsound [or false, or unusable] doctrine." With it we have a present active imperative that gives us our first mandate in this verse. It is the present active imperative of the verb e)kporeuomai — to go out or proceed. With this we have the negative me so it means to stop doing something that a lot of the ministers at that time were doing. It should be translated: "Do not permit any unsound or false doctrine proceed." The imperative mood of prohibition plus the negative mh means to stop something you are doing as ministers. Certain pastors were communicating false doctrine which is emphasised as unusable, bad, unsound, rotten. Then we have a prepositional phrase e)k plus the ablative singular of source from stoma and with that the personal pronoun su in the genitive — "from your mouth." This verse is a challenge to the ministry, hence a special exhortation to pastors regarding the communication of doctrine. It is a grim reminder to pastors to teach Bible doctrine accurately under the ICE principles.

The ICE principles: "I" stands for isagogics which is the interpretation of scripture within the framework of its historical setting or prophetical environment. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written, and from the original languages. The "C" stands for categorical communication of doctrine, and this fulfils the hermeneutical principle of comparing scripture with scripture, hence the concept of rightly dividing the Word of truth. And scriptural comparisons determine the classification of doctrine and results in biblical systematic theology. Categorical communication of Bible doctrine cannot be divorced from dispensational considerations, and this in itself leads to many categories. Basically that distinction must be made between Israel and the Church and precedence for the plan of God for the Church Age is based upon the dispensation of the hypostatic union. So categories of doctrine must be assigned theological nomenclature for retention. "E" stands for exegesis, defined as the expository approach to scripture, hence interpretation based upon the analysis of the grammar, the syntax, the etymology of words in the original languages of the Bible. Every verse given in context must be correctly translated to be accurately interpreted. This includes understanding the etymology of words in the original languages which must be traced for their meaning and usage at the time of writing. The true object of interpretation, then, is to determine under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit the exact thought of the human writer in any given context. This requires proper exegesis. Remember, once again, the definition of inspiration of the scripture:

God so supernaturally directed the human writers of scripture so that without waiving their intelligence, their individuality, their literary style, their personal feelings or any other human factor, His complete and coherent message to mankind was recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of scripture, the very words bearing the authority of divine authorship.

Please note: there is no such thing as an inspired translation! The scripture says in 2Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is God-breathed", and the function of words in context always depend upon their association with others words, and this function can only be determined by an exegesis of the original languages. The principle: one cannot interpret without understanding what he interprets and the true object of Bible teaching is the accurate communication of the Word of God. There must be an accurate translation for an accurate interpretation.

Verse 29 begins by saying: "Do not permit any unsound doctrine to go out of your mouth." Today we are in the midst of a great controversy and there is inaccuracy that is going to prove devastating during the last decade of this century. The last decade is going to be terrible in many ways. There is going to be confusion in Christianity but the confusion in public life as well as private life is going to be something that some of us could never dream could happen.

Paul goes on to say in verse 29 that to get out of the nursery the believer has to have an edification complex. We begin at this point, then, with the adversative conjunction a)lla. The adversative conjunction sets up a contrast between the false doctrine, the unsound doctrine taught by all too many ministers and the true doctrine which is taught by the few pastor-teachers. The word is correctly translated "but" .Next we have a conditional particle used with an indefinite pronoun; it is an Attic idiom, tij. It is correctly translated: "But whatever."

"But whatever is" refers to accurate Bible teaching, especially related to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. And then comes the predicate nominative of a)gathoj, good of intrinsic value. That which has intrinsic value in this context is doctrine. Bible doctrine wherever you find it has intrinsic value. Next we have a prepositional phrase, proj plus the accusative of purpose of o)ikodomh, "for the purpose of edification," to get out of the nursery. The purpose of edification is the fulfilment of the protocol plan of God which is coterminous with the construction of the edification complex of the soul. Every mature believer is a winner; he is an invisible hero; and he possesses an edification complex. Momentum through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation is tantamount to the construction of the edification complex of the soul.

Notice is says, "for the purpose of edification," not "the edification. There is no definite article in the Greek. We call this an anartherous (a technical word which means the absence of the definite article before a substantive) construction of the noun which indicates the qualitative aspect of the noun as the objective of the protocol plan of God. The fulfilment of the protocol plan of God, then, is coterminous with the construction of the ECS; and the ECS is quality, the highest quality of human being on the face of the earth. Who is the real aristocracy of world history? Believers who attain spiritual maturity, believers with an ECS.

Principle: The pastor must teach the mystery doctrine of the Church Age for several good reasons

1. For understanding and executing God's plan, God's will and God's purpose for your life.

2. For understanding and using the ten problem-solving devices of the Church Age.

3. For understanding and using your very own portfolio of invisible assets. God the Father in eternity past prepared for you personally your very own portfolio of invisible assets.

4. For understanding and appreciating the ten unique features of the Church Age, for never before in history has God done so much for the ordinary believer.

5. For the attainment of spiritual maturity which is becoming an invisible hero and glorifying God thereby.

Principle: The individual believer cannot achieve these things on his own, including the daily reading of his Bible. It has to be explained.

The purpose of the ministry is the accurate communication of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age to positive believers so they can grow in grace and glorify God.

Finally in this verse we have the purpose for the teaching of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. We begin with that conjunction which is used to introduce a purpose clause, i(na plus the subjunctive mood of a final purpose clause which expresses a distinct purpose conceived as the aim of the action of the main verb. We will translate it "that" or "in order that." This is followed by the aorist active subjunctive of the verb didomi. It should be translated "in order that it may give." "It" is the subject and refers to accurate teaching of the mystery doctrine in order that accurate teaching of the mystery doctrine "may give." And then we have the culminative aorist which views the action of the verb in its entirety — that is, consistent accurate teaching of the Word of God by a prepared pastor — but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the consistent hearing of born-again believers with the result that they reach grace orientation, and from grace orientation as a problem-solving device they attain spiritual maturity. The active voice: the mystery doctrine of the Church Age produces the action of the verb and this is a subjunctive mood used in a subordinate clause indicating the purpose of the action of the main verb in that final purpose clause. The main verb is to "proceed" or to "go out of your mouth" — "Do not permit unsound doctrine to proceed out of your mouth, but whatever is good of intrinsic value for the purpose of edification, in order that it may give ..."

Principle: No one executes the protocol plan of God without grace orientation.

Next we have the accusative singular direct object from xarij, used here for grace orientation as problem-solving device number four. The absence of the definite article indicates the qualitative aspect of grace orientation as the only problem-solving device. The dative plural indirect object from the articular present active participle follows. The present active participle comes in the verb a)kouw. We would translate: "In order that it [the accurate teaching of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age] may give grace orientation to the hearers." And you will note that the participle is used as a noun for those who are consistent in listening to the teaching of the Word of God, the participle used as a noun for positive consistent positive volition.

Principle: Grace orientation originates from consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation, which is perception, metabolisation

and application of Bible doctrine. And remember that only metabolised doctrine in the right lobe has momentum and wisdom as well as application.

Corrected translation: "Do not permit any unsound doctrine to go out from your mouth, but whatever is good of intrinsic value [Bible doctrine] for the purpose of edification [the fulfilment of the protocol plan], in order that it [accurate teaching of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age] may give grace orientation to the hearers."

Since Satan is the ruler of this world it is obvious that he does not have any blessing for us. It is obvious also that he resents our presence and especially any place where there is positive volition coupled with accurate teaching of Bible doctrine. Yet we find blessing in every circumstance of life. We find blessing in adversity; we even find true blessing in prosperity.

Why do we have good health or bad health? Why do we outlive our peers? Why do we have this, that and the other thing? But not one of us ever earned or deserved the right to be alive right now. And we all have some kind of blessing but here we are? Why are we here? "In order that it [accurate teaching of Bible doctrine] may give grace orientation to the hearers" — Ephesians 4:29. Who are the hearers? You are the hearers. What is "it"? "It" is the subject here and refers to the teaching of Bible doctrine and the teacher is responsible before the Lord to be accurate in that teaching.

Grace is all that God is free to do for us [members of the human race] on the basis of His justice and impersonal love which never compromise divine essence. But furthermore, they never compromise divine effort in bestowing blessing and favour on mankind. Grace is unmerited divine provision for mankind before, during and after salvation. Grace is not the exclusive property of the believer. We are beneficiaries to be sure but all of us have been benefited long before we were saved. Grace also means that God knows best. That is why we have so many divine mandates which run counter to our desires in life. Grace therefore is the policy of God in establishing a relationship with mankind, and that relationship begins when God creates human life at birth, not before. That is why Jesus said we have to be born again. He didn't say you have to be conceived again.

Relationship with God precedes fellowship with God. Grace is the policy of God in providing and maintaining fellowship with God. Grace is the policy of God in providing everything necessary for us at salvation, more than any other dispensation. While believers in the other dispensations received six or seven things, we received forty. That is significant, very significant. It means that God has more for the individual believer in this dispensation than ever before.

Grace is the policy of God in dealing with man in two categories. Category one is relationship with God which is the grace policy for eternal salvation. Category two is fellowship with God after salvation. There is no fellowship with God before salvation or during salvation. It comes after, not during. The grace policy of God for Church Age believers is designed to execute His plan. Very few people are doing it, because they won't listen. (When you are born and do not grow up you are a spiritual moron.

We are living in a period of our history when we have a majority of spiritual morons.)

So the keys words are related to the divine policy of grace as such: 1. Relationship with God is salvation grace; 2. Fellowship with God is post-salvation grace. And the two must never be confused.

Relationship with God

Relationship with God must precede fellowship with God. In this case we are talking about a permanent relationship for once you believe in Jesus Christ God gives you forty things that forever settles the matter of salvation. From then on it is relationship. A spiritually dead person cannot have a relationship with God. Consequently the status of spiritual death cannot have fellowship and therefore demands a change. One of the things that happen at salvation: no more spiritual death. Two things happen at spiritual birth: God the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit — regeneration; God the Father imputes eternal life to the human spirit and now we are trichotomous. Spiritual death is the dichotomous state of mankind at birth under three categories of condemnation from the justice of God. God never waited until we committed our first personal sin; He condemned us at birth by the imputation of Adam's original sin to that genetically formed old sin nature in the cell structure of the body. And when soul life was imputed to biological life we became human beings — when we were born, not before, and that is when we became human beings. When we are born again is when we become trichotomous — regenerate. When we are born physically we are spiritually dead and that is one of the most gracious acts that God ever performed. Why? This is an act of the justice of God and it is important because anyone who does before reaching accountability is automatically saved. Why? Because you cannot be saved unless you have been condemned. Condemnation must precede salvation. And this is grace; none of us earn it or deserve it.

Spiritual death, being in a dichotomous state at birth, is under three categories of condemnation from divine justice: a. Total separation from God through the imputation of Adam's original sin. That separates us from God; that is spiritual death; b. Total depravity which results in using our volition in connection with the temptations of the old sin nature and committing personal sins; c. Total inability to do anything to attain a relationship with God through anything we have.

Grace, then, is the provision and policy of God in establishing a relationship with mankind. Therefore, since grace is the provision and policy of God, God takes the initiative in providing the means for eternal relationship with Himself. And each Person in the Trinity had a part in establishing the basis for an eternal relationship with God.

The grace function of God the Father in salvation

God the Father in eternity past used His divine omniscience to program into that one prom chip all the personal sins of the human race and, at the proper time, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to be the propitiation for our sins. This was the beginning of the dispensation of the hypostatic union. In John 1:1 we see Jesus Christ as eternal God, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, face to face with God in eternity past. In John 1:14 the Word became flesh. In a moment of time eternal God became true humanity and undiminished deity in one person forever — the hypostatic union. As God, Jesus Christ couldn't be judged for sin; he couldn't have anything to do with sin; so He had to become a member of the human race, but He had to be perfect, the Lamb without spot and without blemish, before He could take away the sins of the world. The Father gave freely of the most precious thing possible, His Son with whom He had eternal fellowship. The greatest moment of history occurred when the omnipotence of God the Father, thirty-three years later, called for the printout of all these sins and imputed them to the humanity of Christ. He carried our sins in His own body on the cross. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. He died as a substitute for us.

The grace function of God the Son in salvation

Jesus Christ as eternal God was willing to become true humanity in order to be judged for the sins of the world. Therefore, the hypostatic union — Hebrews 10:4-10. On the cross the impeccable and perfect humanity of Christ received both the imputation and the judgement of all sins in human history. The perfect God-Man became the substitute for every member of the human race in total depravity and spiritual death. That is grace.

The grace function of God the Holy Spirit

The unbeliever hears the presentation of the Gospel. He is spiritually dead — spiritual brain death. No way can he understand the Gospel because to understand the things of God requires a human spirit, which the unbeliever does not have. But he is willing to hear. Hearing is non-meritorious. So the Holy Spirit acted as a human spirit, and that is how it became what the Greek calls in the New Testament, pneumatikoj, spiritual phenomena. Then down the pipeline it went to the left lobe, the nouj, and there it is only understood academically and the unbeliever is still spiritually dead. He understands but he is required to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Once he believes then God the Holy Spirit helps him out and makes that belief effective for salvation — common and efficacious grace.

In salvation God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit did all the work. Nothing was done by us. Salvation is the exclusive work of the Trinity and this work is classified as grace and it excludes human works. The intrusion of human works cancels out grace; nothing can be added to faith in Christ for eternal life and nothing can be taken from faith in Christ for eternal relationship with God. The principle: God solves the problem of eternal relationship with Himself through the grace policy.

After salvation, does God have anything for us? The answer is, yes. He not only has a fantastic plan but He has something even more unusual than that, and that is the means by which the plan is administered, the policy by which the essence of God, the faithfulness of God is expressed to us as believers. Therefore through His policy of grace God has solved every problem of having fellowship with Himself in time just as He has solved every problem with regard to having fellowship with Him in the eternal state. There are three major problems in our temporal fellowship with God: post-salvation sinning, ignorance of Bible doctrine, and failure in the application of doctrine. Ignorance of Bible doctrine means failure to make application of divine viewpoint to life. But it is more than that because ignorance of Bible doctrine indicates that we have failed to appreciate who and what God is.

Sin becomes one of the major problems after salvation and because of this people don't know what to do about it; they don't know how to handle it. When you sin you are grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit in three ways: a. You grieve the Holy Spirit by entering into cosmic one; b. You quench the Holy Spirit by entering into cosmic two; c. By pulling the pin of the grenade in implode — self-fragmentation.

But the grace of God has solved the sin problem; we do not resolve it. Our sins were judged on the cross. How are we saved? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Salvation is the work of God; spirituality is the work of God. And we enter into it in a non-meritorious way. The grace solution for post-salvation sinning is o(mologew — confess, to name, to cite a courtroom case, to acknowledge. In the privacy of our priesthood we name to God those sins which we have committed and He is faithful and just to forgive us because those sins were judged on the cross.

At the moment of physical life we have spiritual death — our total helplessness, our total inability to do anything about relationship with God, for spiritual death is the status quo of dichotomy. We are minus a human spirit and this means spiritual brain death, total inability to comprehend in any way what God has done for us.

But at the same time let us remember that it is as simple as "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." And in that moment of faith God the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit, and that human spirit is then the target for another imputation. God imputes eternal life to the human spirit. This we call regeneration or being born again.

There are three basic characteristics of spiritual death. First of all total depravity which includes moral and immoral degeneracy. Secondly, there is total separation from God. As spiritually dead individuals we can have no relationship with God. And that is only part of the problem. The rest of it is that we are totally helpless in ourselves to establish that relationship by any merit, by any works, by any system of doing good that we can even begin to conceive or understand or perpetuate or put together in any way. And because all mankind is in the status of spiritual death from the moment of birth the work of salvation must be the work of God on behalf of mankind. Therefore it falls into the pattern of grace and is one of the places where we learn something about grace and begin to appreciate the principle of grace orientation.

Now you have to remember that man is born spiritually dead, and being spiritually dead includes being spiritually brain dead, no way he can even begin to understand these things. He is called in the Greek of 1st Corinthians 2:14, yuxikoj — "soulish" man. He has a soul but no spirit. It takes a human spirit to begin to understand anything from God and being spiritually dead he is totally helpless. And because all mankind is in the status of spiritual death the work of salvation must be the work of God on behalf of all three members of the Trinity.

God the Father in eternity past took all of our personal sins and put them into one PROM chip in the computer of divine decrees. That, by the way, is the free will of man chip. All personal sins are the product of our own volition.

But long before we committed our first personal sin we were all spiritually dead because of the imputation of Adam's original sin to the genetically-formed old sin nature. Adam's original sin is the basis for the origin of the sin nature and therefore there is a great attraction between the two. Now by so doing God demonstrates grace once again. There are X number of people in each generation that never reach the point of accountability, and in order for them to have eternal salvation at the point of their death before accountability God must make some provision. That provision is condemnation for condemnation must precede justification, and condemnation does in every case. And therefore the fact that God imputed Adam's original sin at the point of birth and made this the point of condemnation means that anyone who dies before the point of accountability automatically goes to heaven. But for everyone else accountability is the issue and accountability always has to do with "what think ye of Christ?"

But the problem with accountability is understanding it all. How can we as unbelievers, before we accept Christ as saviour, ever come to the point of understanding spiritual phenomena? When the Gospel is understood as gnosis that is God inviting the individual to believe in Jesus Christ and the person who is being invited is spiritually dead. He is totally helpless. There are two functions of the spiritually dead person, however, [both non-meritorious] by which he can enter into a relationship with God. They are found in Ephesians 1:13 — "In whom also when you heard [common grace in which the spiritually brain dead person hears the Gospel which is made perspicuous and understandable by the Holy Spirit] the message of truth" .This is a grace orientation passage; hearing has no merit in itself. The message of truth is simply heard and the one who hears it is in spiritual brain death. Nevertheless he hears it and the understanding is the work of God the Holy Spirit. So hearing is a non-meritorious function compatible with grace. What is the second one? "In whom also you believed," the spiritually dead person believes but the faith of spiritually dead person has no effectiveness. The Holy Spirit, then, steps in and makes it effective for salvation. So we hear, we inhale the Gospel; we believe, we exhale faith in Jesus Christ.

Here we have it then, "when you heard … having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit with reference to the promise." And the sealing of the Holy Spirit is the signature guarantee of, first of all, eternal salvation; secondly, eternal security; thirdly, a guarantee of our portfolio of invisible assets for the execution of the protocol plan; fourth, the validity of common grace, the divine call, and efficacious grace. All of this is involved in the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is His signature guarantee. Sealing of course must go back to the time in which the Bible was written. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written and sealing was used as a signature, the guarantee of the validity of what God has done for us is the illustration. The guarantee of eternal life, the guarantee of eternal security, the guarantee of our portfolio and other grace assets. And so by way of definition common grace is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in making the Gospel lucid, perspicuous and understandable to the unbeliever in spiritual death, and efficacious grace is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in making faith of the spiritually dead person effective for eternal salvation.

What is the divine call? There are many erroneous concepts as to what constitutes the divine call. The divine call was given to the individual in the status quo of spiritual death and, therefore, it illustrates the principle of grace and helps to fulfil the concept of grace orientation to the believers of this dispensation. By definition the divine call is the invitation to the spiritually dead person to believe in Jesus Christ. This divine invitation is tantamount to the Gospel as gnwsij residing in the left lobe of the soul.

Generally the passage dealing with the calling originates with God the Father. The exception, of course, occurs during the dispensation of the hypostatic union for our Lord was on earth and during that time and He did issue the divine invitation on several occasions, e.g John 6:35. However, in all other dispensations, including our own, the divine call is presented between common and efficacious grace by God the Father. The principle: The call of God is the invitation of God the Father for anyone to believe in Jesus Christ. It must follow the ministry of common grace where God the Holy Spirit makes the Gospel perspicuous to those who are spiritually dead.

Several heresies exist in reversing that invitation. One of those is inviting Christ into your heart. We are told in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked and that heresy is like inviting Christ into a garbage dump. No one has ever been saved by inviting Christ in to his heart. It is blasphemy to think that we can invite Christ anywhere as those who are spiritually dead.

Then, of course, there is a second such blasphemy, inviting Christ into your life. Romans 5:12ff tells us that we are spiritually dead, and how it came about. This heresy is based upon misinterpretation of Revelation 3:20 which is a passage in a context dealing with born-again believers only. It has nothing to do with the unbeliever; it has to do with fellowship, not relationship. Revelation 3:20 is the rebound technique for born-again believers.

The call of God is an invitation. If we accept His invitation by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ we are born again. But there are two factors to the call of God. First of all the invitation of God the Father to accept or to believe in Jesus Christ. Then it also includes the doctrine of election — the election of the believer. The call of God, then, follows the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in common grace — Romans 1:6. Generally the call of God is said to originate with God the Father as illustrated by Romans 8:30 — "And whom he predestined, these he also called … " Predestination is merely the omniscience of God knowing who would believe in Christ. " … and whom he called, these he also justified: and whom he justified, these he also glorified." You will notice that calling is found in this particular context. In Romans 11:29 that calling is explained — "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." In other words, that word "irrevocable" means that the moment that you personally accept God's invitation you have eternal life, and that eternal life is irrevocable. The gifts have to do with happens to the believer at the moment of salvation faith. The moment you believe in Jesus Christ one of the forty things you receive is a spiritual gift and no matter how you sin, no matter what type of Christian degeneracy you become involved in, you cannot cancel your spiritual gift. Nor can you cancel the divine invitation. It is legitimate because Jesus Christ did all of the work for salvation.

2Timothy 1:9 — "Who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling [the divine invitation again], not according to works, but according to his own purpose and grace [grace orientation], which was given to us [to believe] in Christ Jesus from all eternity past."

There never was a time when God has not given to every person the opportunity, even those who reject that invitation and remain unbelievers in spiritual death.

Hebrews 3:1 — "Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling." We are therefore partners in this invitation. 1Corinthians 2:16 — the thinking of Christ is the application of Bible doctrine. Furthermore, in Philippians 2:2 — "Bring to completion my happiness [We are designed to have great happiness in every situation in life. But this happiness is a problem-solving device; it is sharing the happiness of God. It is designed for the greatest of disasters; it is designed for the greatest areas of prosperity] that you might be thinking the same things." To be thinking the same things is the application of Bible doctrine to our experience. And the failure to apply Bible doctrine brings out many many problems in life. The believer, then, cannot think and apply Bible doctrine or solve problems in his life through the mind of another person. God has designed you to solve your own problems. You are a royal priest and therefore you have the privacy of your priesthood. And as you learn Bible doctrine and fill your right lobe with doctrine you begin to learn all of these wonderful things and to apply them to your circumstances. You were not designed spiritually to walk on crutches, you were designed to resolve your own problems from the storage of Bible doctrine in your soul.

Ignorance of Bible doctrine results in false application. The application of something to nothing is always nothing. Perception and metabolisation of Bible doctrine paves the way for correct and accurate application of the Word. The application of Bible doctrine to experience is classified as thinking metabolised doctrine. Thinking metabolised doctrine is classified as wisdom.

Dying is always the greatest illustration of whether you have used your positive volition to grow in grace and execute the protocol plan of God or whether you have used your negative volition. You have an option. Death is God's victory. Why? because the sovereignty of God chooses the time, the place and the manner of our dying. The only thing that prepares us for dying is Bible doctrine resident in the soul, metabolised, Bible doctrine that we can apply, Bible doctrine with which we can think.

But there is a great enemy to all of this. Emotion is legitimate and normal. But what happens in the spiritual-religious realm is that emotion takes over the thought pattern of the soul. Emotion was designed to be the responding part of the soul, not the thinking part. The danger is when emotion takes over the soul and wipes out the thinking part and this is why so many believers are not prepared to die. So let us look briefly at the sins of emotion that inevitably cause the problem. Neglect or rejection of Bible doctrine with its ten problem-solving devices results in many sins related to what is known as emotional revolt of the soul. For example, fear is an emotional sin which includes worry and anxiety, all of which block thinking or application of Bible doctrine. Failure to think doctrine is synonymous with inability to apply doctrine to experience. Fear and courage are, of course, antithetical terms. Courage is the ability to think under pressure or stress, or the ability to think in that period called dying. Cowardice or fear is the domination of emotion under pressure. The application of nothing to something is nothing, and therefore you cannot apply emotion, fear, worry, anxiety to the problems of life and come up with solutions. Emotion has no doctrinal content, no ability to reason, no ability to think, no common sense. Therefore fear is a lack of thinking under pressure and stress.

Fear is actually a sin; it is the believer's failure to apply Bible doctrine to the problems of life, and therefore whether it is suffering, pressure, stress, disaster, pain, fear takes over rather than the application of doctrine through thinking. Normal emotional experience results in subordinating the emotion to the intellect but abnormal emotional experience produces emotional sins: fear, worry, anxiety, violence, hatred, anger and even murder is a part of that pattern. Fear, then, is the believer's failure to apply doctrine to the problems of life. The more things you surrender to fear the more things you fear in life. The extent that you surrender to fear the greater your capacity for fear. The greater your capacity for fear the greater you increase the power of fear in your life. The more things that acquire the power of fear in your life the greater your capacity for becoming a loser. A loser is a believer who fails to execute the protocol plan of God.

Always we find courage related to the application of doctrine to experience. The believer cannot think or apply doctrine or solve problems, however, when he is out of fellowship or through the thinking or the counselling of another person, or in a state of ignorance of Bible doctrine, or in failure to learn and to utilise the ten problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God, or in a state of emotional revolt of the soul, or functioning under the sins of emotion. Emotion is not the criterion for Christian experience. Emotion is always related to human power and influence, it has no connotation in divine power and influence. Emotion is irrational; it is irrational arrogance to use feeling as the criterion and the final test to see if you made it or not is always when you become aware of the fact it is time for you to depart from this earth, unless the Rapture occurs first. And if you have lived your life by emotion rather than by Bible doctrine, then you are going to fall apart once you are aware that you are in the status called dying. Emotion can respond to doctrine but emotion cannot apply doctrine. Emotional arrogance then is both a distraction to the execution of the protocol plan of God and a system of converting reality into illusion and hallucination. When emotion dominates the soul then we become weak. So the emotional activity includes sins like fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, temper leading to violence and this, of course, is the antithesis of doctrinal conceptualism.

Now God is perfect and therefore He has a perfect plan for us who are believers in Jesus Christ. God has implemented His perfect plan with problem-solving devices so that the believer can execute His plan and face any situation in life, in fact the ultimate situation which is dying. Both arrogance and the sins of emotion are a contradiction to the protocol plan of God. And, therefore, only post salvation epistemological rehabilitation or perception, metabolisation and application of Bible doctrine can rectify the situation. But it is something we have to do constantly and when we do we grow in grace and we reach the point of Philippians 1:21 where Paul has said: "For me living is Christ but dying is profit."

Living, then, begins day one of salvation with faith in Jesus Christ and continues to the point of dying. In the living state the believer has full use of his volition to exercise the options of the protocol plan of God and, of course, in the option of positive volition toward Bible doctrine and its correct application to experience the believer becomes a winner, an invisible hero. He can handle any situation in life and above all he can handle dying. In the option of negative volition toward Bible doctrine and failure of application the believer becomes a loser and fails to execute the protocol plan of God. So we have a simple pattern: learning, thinking and solving. And if you have been doing it all of your Christian life, first learning doctrine and then thinking doctrine, and then using the ten problem-solving devices, there is no situation in life to great to overcome you. But if you have been living in a state of emotion and therefore in a state of fear, then you are in a position of great tragedy.

Because God is holy (His justice and righteousness) it is impossible for God to be unfair and therefore the time and the place of our death is not our decision. During the living phase of our Christian life we have options. We have options to learn doctrine and to apply it. We have options to understand the mechanics of the ten problem-solving devices and use them. And if we use them then the greatest experience that we will ever have on this earth is going to be the experience of dying. Because God is infinite and eternal, because He is immutable, because He is perfect in His wisdom, His integrity and His love, all are related to His sovereign decision regarding the time, the manner and the place of our death. Because God, therefore, has provided so wonderfully for us in time and we have responded, we can handle the greatest of all pressures which is dying. All decisions of the sovereignty of God are made from His perfection, from His love, His eternal wisdom, from His absolute fairness. And God decides for each one of us when that will be. Therefore, no instrument of death can remove the believer until God permits but on the other hand once the sovereignty of God decides the time the manner and the place, then God calls the believer home to heaven and it is always under the principle that living is Christ and dying is profit. And since death is the decision of the sovereignty of God no believer has the right to question this divine decision based on His love, His justice, His righteousness, His fairness. And therefore, even though we sorrow about loved ones who depart we do not sorrow as those who have no hope. Therefore we have the principle which is given in Job 1:21 — "The Lord gave, the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

The principle of dying grace: Dying grace is defined as the death of the believer who can apply doctrine to his experience in dying. Usually it is the mature believer, the believer with spiritual self-esteem, the believer with spiritual autonomy, the believer who has become an invisible hero. And it is open to everyone. We have equal privilege and equal opportunity to do so. Dying grace is the believer passing over the high golden bridge from earth to heaven, travelling from grace to grace. For the mature believer, the believer who is a winner, the believer who in time applied doctrine to his experience, living is the best but dying is even better. And then for eternity in the interim life and then the resurrection, it is better than the best. The exception for dying: there will be one generation that will go in resurrection.

When Lazarus died and Jesus came after his death to the home of Mary and Martha, there was some complaint that had He been there sooner Lazarus would not have died. Now the strange thing is that Jesus Christ is God and both Mary and Martha knew it. And as God it doesn't make any difference when He arrives because they had seen Him heal from a distance and they had seen Him heal while He was present where the illness or the problem was. Therefore they were not making the proper application of the essence of God to the situation. The interesting thing is that when Jesus arrived at the grave of Lazarus there had never been a resurrection in history. Within several weeks there would be the first resurrection, the resurrection of our Lord. People had been brought back to life but subsequently had died. Miracles had been performed but in these miracles of bringing people back to life, eventually they died like everyone else. There had never been a resurrection. The doctrine of resurrection is found in certain passages of the Old Testament. Isaiah preached a resurrection message and Job understood a resurrection message. But when our Lord turned to Martha and said as He did in John 11:25 — "I am the resurrection and the life: he who believes in me shall live [have eternal life] even if he dies," that was the first announcement that our Lord Jesus Christ was going to be resurrected from the dead. And not only would He rise from the dead but so would a royal family that would result from the Church Age.

In 1Corinthians 15:57 Paul understood these words even though he was not present, when he said: "Thanks be unto God who gives to us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" .For death is God's victory because God chooses the manner, the time and the place of our death. But our resurrection is also God's victory. The resurrection of the believer is the wise and sovereign decision of God. Furthermore, since resurrection is the work of God for all believers, whether they are winners or losers, it is a matter of God's grace and never a matter of human merit. Therefore the believer's resurrection is God's grace and also God's victory. And just as the grace policy of God has provided everything for us in living, so the grace of God has provided everything we need for dying, death and resurrection. Since the resurrection of the Church Age believer — called the Rapture of the Church — does not depend on any form of human merit it is both God's grace and God's victory. The believer's volition, his works, his merit, his service is not a factor in the resurrection of the Church. And just as the believer has no control, then, over the time, the manner and the place of his death, he has absolutely no control over the time of the Rapture or the resurrection.

For all believers in human history the resurrection occurs in four categories. When Jesus Christ said, "I am the resurrection and the life," He was announcing something that would be followed up by the Apostle Paul under one Greek word, tacij. And, as a matter of fact, in 1Corinthians we have "every man in his own order" in the King James. But it should be translated "every man in his own battalion. There are two battalions in resurrection, the battalion of believers and the battalion of unbelievers. The battalion of believers is found in four companies.

The first company: Christ the firstfruits, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is Alpha Company. And the picture in 1Corinthians 15 is of a battalion review. It begins in 1 Cor. 15:20. In the resurrection of our Lord He has passed the reviewing stand, so Alpha Company refers to the Lord Jesus Christ who is now resurrected.

Approaching the viewing stand is Bravo Company, the Church, and this is the Rapture of the Church.Behind will be Charlie Company, the Old Testament saints and the Tribulational martyrs.

Behind that, Delta Company, the Millennial saints.

At the end of the Millennium there is a second resurrection, all unbelievers. They are resurrected, they stand before the Great White Throne in judgement and then they are cast into the Lake of Fire after they have had a very fair trial, and a trial based not on the fact that they are sinners but based on the fact that they have rejected Jesus Christ as Saviour. They are judged on the basis of their good deeds. Their good deeds are not good enough, and therefore they spend eternity in the Lake of Fire, as per John 3:18.

So the resurrection of the Church is God's decision, God's grace, God's victory. Since resurrection of the Church is divorced from any form of human ability or achievement it is compatible with the grace of God and another manifestation of God's victory in human history. The resurrection, then, of the Church is the wise and sovereign decision of God, totally apart from human merit or preparation. Therefore the Rapture is not subject to either man's timetable or any form of human speculation. The principle then: human speculation is not a part of eschatology. Eschatology is the prophecy of the Word of God. The Rapture is prophesied as occurring but the time is never prophesied. Therefore the Rapture is immanent because no prophecy has to be fulfilled before it occurs. The time of the Rapture is God's decision, it is not our decision or our desire. Therefore, we as members of the royal family of God live every day as unto the Lord, not every day as unto the Rapture of the Church.

The resurrection of the Church is found in 1Thessalonians 4:13-17 — "We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep; that you may not grieve as do the rest who have no hope." [Because the death of every believer is the sovereign decision of God, it is not our decision.]

"If we believe that Jesus died and rose again [and we do], even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus [body sleep, not soul sleep]."

"For this doctrine we communicate 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 are asleep." [The Thessalonian believers had bitten off a false doctrine, that if you weren't alive at the Rapture you wouldn't be alive at the resurrection.]

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout [a voice command of Gabriel here who assembles those who are alive on the earth. And the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit provides them with a resurrection body. This is what is called in 1 Cor. 15, the mortal becoming immortal] , with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God [trumpets were used for commands in the ancient world at the time of writing. And the trumpet command assembles the dead in Christ]: in fact the dead in Christ shall rise first."

"Then we who are living and remain on the earth shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we always be with the Lord."

"Therefore comfort each other with these doctrines."

The mechanics of the Rapture of the Church are given in 1John 3:2 — "Royal family, we are now the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know, however, that if he should appear, we shall be exactly like him; because we shall see him just as he is."

In Philippians 3:21 we read that Christ will "transform this body of humiliation [called so because the sin nature resides in the cell structure of the body; because it is a body of pain; because it is a body that has so many problems and will only last for X amount of time], so that it will be like the body of his glory, on the basis of that power that also enables him to bring into subjection all creation to himself."

Job 19:25 — Job said: "As for me, I know that my redeemer lives [anticipation of the resurrection], In the last time he will take his stand upon the earth [reference to the second advent]:

Verse 26 — Job made application from his understanding of resurrection: "Even after my skin is destroyed in death [decomposition of the body], Yet in my flesh [resurrection body] I will see God [the resurrection of the Old Testament saints]:"

In 1Corinthians 15:54ff we go back to the Rapture. "But when this corruption [physical death and after] shall have put on incorruption [those who die before the Rapture], and this mortal [one generation will be alive at the Rapture] shall have put on immortality, then the doctrine which stands written will occur, Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Remember that death is God's victory. That is why in corrected translation it says in 1Corinthians 15:55 — "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

Verse 56 — "The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law [the law defines sin]:"

Verse 57 — "But thanks be to God, who gives to us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The Rapture is imminent, which means that no prophecy has to be fulfilled. Jesus said — quoted by the Apostle John in Revelation 22:7 — "I am coming soon" ."Soon" means immanency, no prophecy to be fulfilled. This statement was made in 96AD and throughout all of these centuries the Rapture has not occurred. The resurrection of the Church does not depend on human merit, it depends on the grace of God. The Rapture will not occur until the royal family of God is completed and only God knows when that will be. Therefore the Rapture is not subject to any form of human speculation.

Titus 2:13 — "Waiting with keen anticipation for the blessed hope, even the appearance of the glory of our great God and saviour Jesus Christ;" We all long for that day and we look for that day but it is an application of doctrine. But until the Rapture occurs prophecy is a dead issue. Historical trends is the issue.

Death and resurrection are never under the control or the merit of the believer. Death and resurrection of both winners and losers is God's victory. As God's victory the Rapture of the Church is a function of the sovereignty, the wisdom and the grace of God. Death and resurrection are under the Lord's direct control. The sting of death and the power of the grave are removed by maximum doctrine resident in the soul. And the victory of resurrection: all Church Age believers, winners or losers, will be there at the same time. The victory of resurrection is patterned after the resurrection of the humanity of Christ at the end of the dispensation of the hypostatic union.

For those who crack the maturity barrier there will be a crown of righteousness — mentioned in 2Timothy 4:7,8 — for the attainment of spiritual maturity by which the believer becomes a winner and an invisible hero.

Secondly there is a crown of life which is awarded for invisible impact in four categories, mentioned in James 1:12; Revelation 2:10 — personal impact of blessing by association which every mature believer has, historical impact through blessing by association to the client nation as the pivot, international impact through blessing by association by means of the missionary who became a winner and invisible hero. There is also angelic impact as a part of the crown of life. This is the function of the winner as an invisible hero as a witness for the prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan's appeal trial. This is accomplished through passing evidence testing.

Then there is the crown of glory — for pastors only — for faithful teaching of Bible doctrine [Mentioned in 1Peter 5:4 and Philippians 4:1], not of results [which belong to God].

Then there is the highest of all decorations in heaven, the order of the morning star, awarded to winners and invisible heroes for maximum impact and glorification of God. It is the order of chivalry in the eternal state.

There is also the presentation of the uniform of glory [Revelation 3:4], a translucent uniform of light worn over the resurrection body. The name of the invisible hero appears on the honours list so that during the tribulation he will be presented in the court of heaven — Revelation 3:5.

The invisible hero rules with Christ during the Millennium — Romans 5:17; 2Timothy 2:12; Revelation 2:26; 3:21. Then the invisible hero is awarded a new order of knighthood in the eternal state — Revelation 2:17, and it includes a royal title which appears with his name in the Lamb's book of life. In the eternal state the Lamb's book of life is the registry of the royal family of God in heaven. The name and title of the invisible hero is recorded with his deeds in the permanent historical records section in heaven — Revelation 3:12. This is the historical account of the invisible impact of the mature believer during the Church Age. The invisible hero receives the coat of arms of glory — Revelation 3:12. He is a member of the Paradise club forever — Revelation 2:7; 22:14. This includes special privileges related to both the tree of life and the gazebo in the garden which is the Paradise of God — Revelation 2:7. All of these things belong to those who stay with Bible doctrine. You can be a plugger, that's good. You don't have to be some flash in the pan.

To understand how dying is profit the believer must become aware of the fact that death is God's victory. While we make choices constantly either for or against the plan of God we have the use of our volition during the living stage. But in the dying stage it is a matter of strictly the sovereignty of God. That is how death for both winners and losers becomes God's victory. In the living stage the sovereignty of God and the free will of the believer co-exist. God has designed it that way as a part of the extension of the angelic conflict. The dying phase of the protocol plan of God emphasises the fact that the believer has no control over three things: the time of his death, the manner of his death, the place of his death. The death of the believer, then, is a matter of the sovereign decision of God based on His wisdom, His integrity, His fairness and His love for each one of us as believers. It is hard for the believer to understand how much God loves him until he learns Bible doctrine, especially the essence of God. Therefore the application of doctrine to dying is the last phase of our experience on this earth; one exception, the Rapture generation.

So Philippians 1:21 expresses it all: "For me living is Christ [that is the mature believer], and dying is profit." That is the greatest blessing in life for the mature believer. If the believer has followed the three principles related to the application of doctrine then dying is going to be profit, learning which is perception, metabolisation of doctrine, thinking which is the application of doctrine, solving which is understanding and using the ten problem-solving devices. Along the way we learn some great principles. We learn that God is holy, that He is justice and righteous and therefore fair, that He is just, therefore the time of our death is perfectly fair. God is perfect righteousness, therefore it couldn't be a little earlier or a little later. Because God is wise He decides the time, the manner, the place of our dying and the moment of our death. Because God is infinite and eternal and perfect, He has perfect wisdom, He has perfect love, He has perfect integrity, perfect fairness and graciousness beyond our comprehension — except for the mature believer. God makes the decision therefore regarding death. Death is no accident, it is God's timing, His perfect decision. And since our death is the decision of God, totally apart from our own volition, the death of every believer, winner or loser is God's victory.

Death is God's victory but in grace He gives the victory to us. How? By choosing the time, manner and the place of our death. That is the principle of grace. So 1Corinthians 15:57 tells us that death is God's victory but in His grace God has given to us that victory. This means that regardless of the category or the status of the believer the death of the believer is God's victory, and in His grace He has given that victory to us.

Grace is noticed in Psalm 116:15 — "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." It doesn't distinguish between the saints, between the carnal and the spiritual, between the winners and the losers. No distinguishment is made. That is grace.

Psalm 68:19 begins a concept which adds to this principle of grace, "Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burdens, the God who is our deliverer." Even losers, God bears their burdens.

Then Psalm 68:20 adds: "God is to us a God of deliverance; And to Jehovah the Lord belongs escape from death" .In other words God causes us to escape from death until it is His timing. We escape from death until He decides to call us home. There is no greater manifestation of God's grace than how He handles the manner of dying.

Job 5:26 — "You will come to the grave in a full age." That is the right time, the right manner and the right place. It doesn't mean old age it means a full age. What is a full age? Well we have an illustration from agriculture — "Like a shock of corn in its season." In all matters of life and death timing is very important. God is perfect, therefore His timing is perfect.

Now because God's decision is perfect we must accept the wisdom and the decision of God in the death of someone we love, or in our own death. "Like a shock of corn in its season" is the illustration. There is a right time and a wrong time to pick corn. Only the expert can determine. The principle is: God knows best. All corn does not ripen at the same time but when the corn is ripe it is harvested from its sheaf. That is a good illustration of dying. Since God knows best, no one should ever question His judgement. This should eliminate bitterness with regard to the death of a loved one or bitterness with regard to your own dying experience when it comes. And you will note that this verse does not promise long life, but a full life, especially for the believer who executes the protocol plan of God. And while it is normal to think of life in terms of longevity we must remember that God thinks of life in terms of His infinite wisdom and His eternal love. The principle is: God always knows what He is doing.

The manner of death then becomes an issue. Apart from the Rapture generation all Church Age believers will experience physical death. The physical death of the believer is the decision of the sovereignty of God and it is based on His wisdom and His integrity. The integrity of God is composed of two divine attributes. The justice of God means that God is always fair and the righteousness of God means that God makes all decisions in perfect integrity. And since it is impossible for God to be unfair, it is impossible for God to be unjust, the time the manner and the place of our death is a wise decision, just as the time and the manner of the Rapture is a perfect and wise decision of God.

In dying, both winners and losers enter into the presence of the Lord in heaven where during the interim state, between death and resurrection, they remain in the status quo of perfect happiness. Both of them now have perfect happiness and no distinction is made regarding them at that time, not until the resurrection at which both the winner and the loser receive their resurrection bodies at the Judgement Seat of Christ. God's grace honours the one grace decision that every believer makes. Grace and faith go together, Ephesians 2:8,9.

Under the category of post-salvation grace we have the principle that God's grace which began at salvation extends to the believer in Jesus Christ through the protocol plan for the Church Age. The extension has a link between pre and post-salvation. At the moment of saving faith God gives each one of us forty things. We do not see them, we do not feel them, we do not hear them, we do not taste them, we do not smell them. They are there nevertheless.

On the post-salvation we have God's perfect righteousness. If you are going to live with God forever you are going to have to be as good as God is — the imputation of divine righteousness and resultant justification. We also have eternal life. How did we get it? We got it through being born again. Soul life begins at birth and eternal life begins at new birth. What is the new birth? God the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit and God the Father imputes eternal life. There are two of the forty things right there.

So between the pre and the post-salvation situation we receive forty things from God. Now we are on the other side. God treated us in grace as those who were spiritually dead; now God treats us who are born again in grace. So grace is extended to the believer in Jesus Christ and now it is extended through a plan, the protocol plan for the Church Age. So grace is defined as all that God is free to do for each Church Age believer without compromising His essence.

Now we go all the way from two to the Church Age where every believer in the Church Age at the moment of salvation receives forty things. There's a lot of difference between two and forty! That is our first clue that God has something fantastic for us, something that was never in existence before. There were few visible heroes in the Old Testament compared to the millions of people who were believers. Now we have something new. Every believer is designed to be an invisible hero by reaching spiritual maturity, which is the execution of the protocol plan of God. But we know that in the Old Testament that wasn't true and for every winner and for every visible hero there were thousands and hundreds of thousands of losers. So God in this dispensation has does something for us because one of the forty things that happens is the baptism of the Spirit and by that we are made royal family of God and a new spiritual species. So obviously God has gone all out to take the ordinary believer, the unheralded believer, the anonymous believer, the believer whose name is only known to a few people in a local church or in a city or a town or a village, and give him a greater opportunity than ever existed on Old Testament times.

There is a complete swing away from miracles, from extranatural phenomena. In Old Testament times God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit never indwelt anyone and there was no such thing as the filling of the Spirit or a mandate to be filled with the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit empowered a few people who were kings and priests and princes and judges and prophets and writers of the Old Testament canon. They were very few. We call that the doctrine of endewment. We in the Church Age have more assets than anyone ever had in the Old Testament. God has done more for us than has ever been done before and at the judgement seat of Christ every one of us is going to have to answer a question, if it is pertinent: With the fantastic things that I did for you in grace, what did you accomplish in life?

Post-salvation grace is totally divorced from any system of merit on our part and under the divine policy of grace everything depends on who and what God is, and nothing depends on who and what we are. Under the divine policy of grace everything depends on the ability of God and nothing depends upon the ability of each one of us. Under the divine policy of grace only the ability and power of God can meet the needs of helpless mankind in two categories: helpless mankind in spiritual death [pre-salvation grace] and helpless mankind as a believer in Jesus Christ and a member of the royal family of God [post-salvation grace]. And under the divine policy of grace God has found a way to bless the believer, provide for his needs, provide the means of resolving all the problems of his life, giving each one of us ten perfect problem-solving devices. And under the grace policy all believers are mandated to grace orientation. We saw that in 1Peter 5:12 — "I have written you briefly, exhorting, and testifying to you that this is the true grace of God: now stand fast in it" — use it, live by it. For the believer who fails to execute this command he is described in terms of God's grace policy, three ways: 1. In Hebrews 12:15 he is said to come short of the grace of God; 2. He receives the grace of God in vain, 2 Cor. 6:1; 3. He nullifies the grace of God, Gal. 2:21.

The Church Age is called the dispensation of the grace of God, Ephesians 3:2. Why is it called the dispensation of grace? Because God has provided more for the individual believer than in all of human history before the Church Age and all of human history after the Rapture of the Church. Never before in human history has the grace policy of God provided so much for the ordinary believer. In the Church Age the believer cannot earn grace (He can distort grace to his own detriment) and therefore the royal family of God is the beneficiary of a firm and unchanging policy from God. We call it grace.

Logistics (Military definition): the provision, the movement and the maintenance of all resources necessary to sustain military forces. Most of these services and resources originate in the civilian sector. Hence logistics involves the national economic capacity and closely related capability of the nation to support its military forces. Logistics includes the design, the development, the acquisition, the storage, the movement, the distribution, the maintenance, the evacuation and disposal of material. Logistics also includes hospitalisation of personnel, the acquisition or construction and maintenance of housing facilities on all military posts. Logistics therefore must be distinguished from administration. Administration is the management of all services and resources necessary to sustain military forces. And since the administration implies management, management is the function of logistics, and the two therefore become inseparable.

The word actually comes from two Greek words. The first is logisthj which means an inspector of accounts, an auditor, a calculator. With this is another Greek word, logismoj, which means a thinker. It takes a lot of thinking in order to put troops in the field and sustain them. (In our case the thinker is God Himself who has provided for each one of us under the principle of logistical grace.) Logistics becomes a very important part of national life under the principle of freedom through military victory. Therefore, logistics is a technical military term for sustaining troops in every form of its activity and manoeuvre.

There is a spiritual analogy to logistics. From the military nomenclature comes the spiritual analogy and we call it logistical grace. The definition of logistical grace is found in 2Corinthians 9:8 — "And God is able to make all grace abound to you; that always having all sufficiency in everything [reference to life support to both winners and losers alike], you may have an abundance [logistical grace blessing to winners and losers alike] for every good of intrinsic value production." This applies to all of us; this is why we are alive; this is why God blesses us even when we have failed Him in so many ways. Logistical grace actually includes three categories: life support for every Church Age believer, winner or loser; blessing for every Church Age believer, winner or loser; divine provision for every Church Age believer to execute the protocol plan of God.

The basis for logistical grace is divine holiness. The word holy is actually taken from Greek word which means set apart to God, or God set apart in a unique way. Holiness is perhaps not the best word today; integrity may be better. Logistical grace is divine integrity.

Four principles emerge: 1. What the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God condemns (Righteousness and justice are God's holiness). God's standard is always in His perfect righteousness. What the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God judges; what the righteousness of God accepts the justice of God blesses. That second principle is where we have the basis for logistical grace; 2. What the righteousness of God accepts the justice of God blesses; 3. The justice of God administers what the righteousness of God demands; 4. At the moment of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ the justice of God is one of the forty things given to every believer. Every believer receives from the justice of God the righteousness of God imputed.

Every believer possesses God's righteousness and the fact that you possess it is just like a radar going to heaven demanding support. We are blessed, we are sustained, we are supported by the justice of God which, by the way, is our point of reference. The righteousness of God rejects certain things in us, such as our sin, our fragmentation, etc. When we are involved in certain things the righteousness of God rejects and, therefore, God sends divine discipline. The divine discipline comes in three categories: warning discipline, intensive discipline, dying discipline — outside of logistical grace. Then, the righteousness of God takes the loser who is under discipline as well as the winner, and demands blessing [life support] from the justice of God. They don't deserve it; it is simply because of God's grace, His policy.

So God has given to us as children of God something that we possess from the moment of salvation and forever. It is the basis of justification it is the basis of the fact that the righteousness of God indwelling each one of us demands life support [whether you fail or succeed] and demands blessing [whether you fail or succeed], and this is never turned off, it goes on as long as we live. It is the basis of this wonderful principle of logistics.

Logistical grace is defined as divine provision for every Church Age believer whether he succeeds in fulfilling the plan of God or not. Logistical grace is in three categories: life support for every Church Age believer; blessing for every Church Age believer; divine provision for every Church Age believer to execute the protocol plan and therefore to glorify God.

God doesn't bless us because of what we do, God blesses us because of who and what He is. And so a pipeline is established for all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. At one end of the pipeline is the justice of God, the frame of reference for mankind since the fall of man. On the other end of the pipeline is the righteousness of God which each one of us has received at the moment we believed in Jesus Christ. The pipeline excludes all human ability, morality, talent, giving, sacrifice, service, and all patronising function of legalism as a source of blessing — God cannot be patronised. Because God is love it doesn't mean that you can play games with Him.

The existence of this pipeline after salvation means that God is free to bless all believers, not on the basis of who and what the believer is but on the basis of who and what God is. Without compromising His own divine attributes God found a way. The principle: God found a way to bless us through the divine policy called grace. The second principle: God cannot accept anything less than perfect righteousness and He cannot bless anything less than perfect righteousness. He gave us that perfect righteousness, His own, at salvation — not only for justification but for blessing. Consequently the justice of God sends down the grace pipeline every day our life support, our blessing for every member of the royal family, winners or losers.

This means that in logistical grace the justice of God is the source of all divine support, all divine blessing, and the righteousness of God which we now possess is the recipient of that life support and blessing. From the moment of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ perfect divine righteousness resides in every member of the royal family. And don't try to compete with God's perfect righteousness by thinking that you can do something to extrapolate blessing from God. In this way logistical grace avoids compromise with the divine attribute and in this way logistical grace is compatible with the integrity of God. God loves His own integrity. We talk about how God loves us but what is important is that God loves His own perfect righteousness. That is divine self-esteem. It is because God has never made a mistake and can't make a mistake. He never has failed, He never will fail. And God's self-esteem is divine self-esteem. God cannot bless you because you have done something wonderful. The only production that ever counts in eternity for reward is production which results from what God has provided in grace through the filling of the Holy Spirit and operation Z, a grace system of production by which we gain momentum in the spiritual life and by which we are motivated. God loves His own righteousness, not ours.

Principles

1. Righteousness demands righteousness; justice demands justice. Therefore, it is what the righteousness of God demands that the justice of God executes.

2. This is compatible with the fact that divine righteousness is the principle of divine holiness.

3. What the righteousness of God the rejects the justice of God condemns.

4. What therighteousness of God accepts the justice of God blesses.

What is it that the righteousness of God accepts? Take a look at the pipeline. The righteousness of God accepts His own righteousness; we have it. That is where our life support comes and that is where our blessings come from.

5. The justice of God administers what the righteousness of God demands.

Put all that together and you have the principle of logistical grace.

In addition to the grace pipeline located between the justice and righteousness of God there is also another pipeline. That is between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit — that is operation Z. That is how we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ.

The testimony of logistical grace

Throughout history there has been a testimony recorded in the Word of God since believers of all time receive the righteousness of God. In this dispensation we receive forty things; in the old dispensations they received five. So we have a testimony.

Psalm 37:25 — "I have been young, but now I am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed begging bread."

Psalm 23:1 — "The Lord is the one shepherding me; therefore, I cannot lack anything. He causes me to lie down in pastures of choice food: He leads me to waters of refreshment. He restores my soul [rebound]. He guides me in paths of righteousness [the ten problem-solving devices] because of His reputation [holiness]. Also when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I cannot fear evil; because you are with me: Your rod [divine discipline] and your staff [deliverance — the pipeline] they comfort me [David knew he had the righteousness of God and that righteousness was the principle of divine integrity and the justice of God was the function of divine integrity and he can only derive comfort from logistical grace and from discipline by grace]. You have prepared before me a table in the presence of my enemies [David's enemies always rose up to ridicule and malign him when he failed and was under discipline. But he was still the King even though he was driven out; he still had rulership, he still had blessing, etc.]: You have anointed my head with oil [promotion]; my cup [escrow blessings for time] is overflowing. Only the prosperity and grace [the good, the absolute good] shall pursue me all the days of my life [David recognised that there never was a day after he believed in Jesus Christ that grace did not pursue him because he had the righteousness of God]. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever [status quo eternal security]."

Philippians 4:19 — "My God shall supply all of your needs [logistical grace support and blessing] according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." What are His riches in glory? Riches refer to virtue — God's virtue.

2Corinthians 12:9 — "My grace [the provision of our portfolio of invisible assets] has been and is sufficient for you: for the power is achieved with weakness [weakness refers to grace orientation as a problem-solving device, humility or lack of arrogance, suffering for blessing in three categories. Weakness means orientation to logistical grace, understanding the pipeline]. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, in order that the power of Christ may reside in me [he had come to the place of occupation with Christ in the suffering for blessing category]."

Lamentations 3:20 — "Surely my soul remembers, and is humbled within me. This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope [hope — jachal, which means faith under pressure]. The Lord's gracious functions never cease [the perpetuation of logistical grace], his compassions never fail [the integrity of God is the basis for logistical grace support and blessing, not the worthiness of the believer]. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion says my soul [logistical grace rations]; therefore I have faith under pressure in him." The Lord is good to those who trust in him [qawah — to have consistent faith-rest drill]."

Psalm 56:13 — "For you have delivered my soul from death; indeed my feet from stumbling. That I may walk with God in the light of life."

Psalm 116:8 — "For you have rescued my soul from death." Under logistical grace God can and does prolong life.

There are many other passages which all add up to this fact: fear, worry, anxiety, apprehension, is rejection of logistical grace provision — ignoring it, refusing to accept the reality of it, and yet God continues to provide. The principle is: God provides logistical grace support to losers as well as winners.

therefore to glorify God.

Ephesians 4:30 is the recovery of the power of the Holy Spirit. We start out with the conjunction kai, used as an adverb. Kai is occasionally used as an adverb and when it is it means "furthermore," in addition to what we have in the context. Now we are going to get an overall picture of our failure in he spiritual life from our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Next we have the present active imperative from the verb lupew. And with it we have the negative mh, and when you have the negative mh plus the present active imperative it means to stop doing something that you are already doing. So we have an overall command now to finish up this chapter.

Remember that the fourth chapter is what the Ephesians were doing and generally what was happening in the Roman province of Asia. These Ephesians in their Christian sinning were second only to the Corinthians and actually they were more diversified in their areas of sinning than the Corinthians. The Corinthians had very few legalists; there was more legalism and more moral degeneracy in Ephesus at this time. However Paul cleaned it up pretty well and it became the basis for one of the greatest pivots of all time.

"Furthermore, stop grieving." This is a durative or progressive present tense. It denotes what was begun in the past and continues up to the present time. The active voice: believers involved in moral and immoral degeneracy produce the action of the verb.

With this we have the accusative singular, direct object from four words. We begin with the definite article to, and with it we have pneuma, the proper designation of the third Person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit. The definite article is repeated to again emphasise the proper name, a(gioj. With this we have a genitive of apposition, called the genitive of identity, meaning the proper noun in the genitive is identical with the word that it modifies. In other words, what we have is simply, "Furthermore, stop grieving the Holy Spirit, the God." This emphasises our first doctrine in this passage which is the deity of the Holy Spirit.

Grieving the Holy Spirit is a sin against the Holy Spirit and therefore we note some of the sins against the Holy Spirit which are mentioned in the Bible. Some of these can only be committed by an unbeliever.

Inasmuch as God the Holy Spirit has certain specific relationships with members of the human race there are certain ways in which mankind sins against the third Person of the Trinity. And since the human race is divided into two categories, believers and unbelievers, the sins against the Holy Spirit are divided into two categories: sins committed by the unbeliever and sins committed by the believer.

Sins committed against the Holy Spirit by the unbeliever are sins related to spiritual death. For example, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in Matthew 12:13-42, is a sin committed in spiritual death by unbelievers only; believers cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Secondly, resistance of the Holy Spirit in Acts 7:51 is a sin committed against the Holy Spirit by the unbeliever only. These illustrate the principle that in spiritual death certain members of the human race commit sins against the Holy Spirit.

There are also sins against the Holy Spirit committed by believers only. For example, we will note lying to the Holy Spirit in Acts 5:3. We will note quenching the Holy Spirit in 1Thessalonians 5:19. We will note grieving the Holy Spirit which is our passage in Ephesians 4:30.

The first of the sins committed against the Holy Spirit actually recorded as such in the scripture: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 12:24 — "But when the Pharisees heard it (His healing of the demon-possessed man), they said, This man casts out demons only by Beelzebub the ruler of the demons.

Verse 25 — "And knowing their thoughts he said to them, Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined; and any house divided against itself will not stand:

Verse 26 — "Consequently, if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand?

Verse 27 — "Furthermore, if I by Beelzebub cast our demons (and you assume I do), by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they will be your judges.

Verse 28 — "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come in your midst" .(He is casting our demons, not in the power of His own deity but in the power of the Holy Spirit)

Verse 31 — "Therefore, I say unto you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men (Why? Because every sin and blasphemy was judged on the cross. Only rejection of Christ was not judged on the cross); but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven."

Jewish religious types such as the Pharisees were unbelievers. They rejected Christ as saviour, as Messiah. And when our Lord performed signs of Messiahship in the power of the Holy Spirit they rejected Christ as Messiah. Therefore, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an unbeliever, like a Pharisee, in the dispensation of the hypostatic union rejecting Christ as saviour in the face of overwhelming evidence presented in the power of God the Holy Spirit.

There is one other sin against the Holy Spirit which is committed by unbelievers in this dispensation. It is found in Acts 7:51, resistance of the Holy Spirit. This is the statement of Stephen prior to his martyrdom. He is describing scar tissue of the soul and reverse process reversionism among the Jews. By "ears" he meant hearing the gospel and rejecting it; by "heart" he meant understanding the gospel and rejecting it. Therefore the ears indicate rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour at the point of common grace; the heart represents rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour at the point of the divine call or divine invitation. "Uncircumcised" means they were unbelieving Jews. "Resisting" the Holy Spirit means rejection of Christ at the point of gospel hearing, rejection of Christ at the divine invitation or call of God. And then Stephen added, You are doing exactly what your ancestors did. This is tantamount to John 16:9 — "concerning sin because they do not believe in me."

No believer can resist or blaspheme against the Holy Spirit because he has heard an understood the gospel through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in common grace. He has heard the divine call and he has responded as one who is spiritually dead by believing in Jesus Christ. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is tantamount to rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour; it is called resistance of the Holy Spirit; it is committed by unbelievers only.Inasmuch as God the Holy Spirit has certain specific relationship with members of the human race there are certain areas in which mankind sins against the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has a relationship with unbelievers — common and efficacious grace, and in between the two of them is sandwiched the divine call. And since the human race is divided into two categories, believers and unbelievers, sins against the Holy Spirit are divided into the same two categories.

There are five such statements in the Word of God. Two of these statements talk about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and resistance of the Holy Spirit. And these are sins that only the unbeliever can commit. Actually, blasphemy is a sin against the Holy Spirit which can only be committed in the dispensation of the hypostatic union, which is the context for Matthew chapter twelve. Resistance of the Holy Spirit is rejection of Christ at the point of gospel hearing, at the point of divine invitation or the call of God. This is tantamount to John 16:9: "concerning sin because they believe not on me."

Resistance of the Holy Spirit includes three stages of negative volition: negative volition at the point of gospel hearing, negative volition at the point of divine invitation or the divine call, negative volition at the point of salvation opportunity through faith in Christ. In other words, at each stage of the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit to the unbeliever the person in spiritual death is negative.

There are two categories of negative volition in operation Z. In the dispensation of the hypostatic union hearing the gospel from our Lord Jesus Christ and rejecting it is called blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; or seeing signs of Messiahship and rejecting it — blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In the dispensation of the Church, hearing the gospel from an evangelist, a pastor, or a witnessing believer is called resisting the Holy Spirit. Note that these two categories of sins against the Holy Spirit are committed by unbelievers only.

Three sins that are committed by those who are born-again believers

1. Lying to the Holy Spirit, the sin of implosion or self-fragmentation. The Biblical illustration is inordinate competition in Acts 5:3. The background for this is the fact that Barnabus owned a tract of land in Jerusalem. He sold it and gave the entire proceeds to the apostles in order to support their ministry. Ananias and Sapphira heard the praise of Barnabus, they were under inordinate ambition, they were in competition with Barnabus. In competition, in arrogance and jealousy of Barnabus, Ananias pulled the pin of the grenade by coming and lying. He said: "This is all of it," and it wasn't .He didn't have to give all of it but he had to try and put himself in competition with Barnabus who had given it all. This was "lying to the Holy Spirit."

2. Grieving the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 4:30. Lying to the Holy Spirit is simply related to the sins of self-fragmentation. Grieving the Holy Spirit refers to perpetual living inside of cosmic one, the arrogance complex. However, grieving the Holy Spirit also refers to polarised fragmentation.

Ephesians 4:30 — "Furthermore, stop grieving the Holy Spirit, the God, by whom ye have been sealed to the day of redemption." The day of redemption is the redemption of the body which is resurrection. There are two categories of redemption found in the scripture: the redemption of the soul which is salvation through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ — the moment we believe in Christ the redemption of the soul has occurred — and then there is the redemption of the body which occurs at the Rapture or the resurrection of the Church when we receive our resurrection body.

Principles of grieving the Holy Spirit

1. Grieving the Holy Spirit refers to perpetual living in cosmic one.

2. Grieving the Holy Spirit refers also to polarised fragmentation. Polarised fragmentation in the sin nature trend of arrogant self-righteousness or legalism; polarised fragmentation in the sin nature trend of lascivious lawlessness or antinomianism.

3. Furthermore, grieving the Holy Spirit refers to the first five stages of reversionism, or what we might classify as the early stages of Christian degeneracy. The first one is reaction and distraction as far as Bible doctrine is concerned. The second is the frantic search for happiness which always comes from negative volition — a dead end always. The third stage is operation boomerang; it comes back and hits with great misery. The fourth stage is emotional revolt of the soul. The fifth is locked-in negative volition and at that point you cannot distinguish between the thinking of the believer and the thinking of the unbeliever counterpart.

The third and final sin against the Holy Spirit is called quenching the Holy Spirit: "Quench not the Spirit," the present active imperative of the verb sbennumi. The word means three things: to extinguish, to suppress, to quench. With this we have the negative, mh. It is translated "stop quenching," "stop extinguishing," or "stop suppressing." The present tense is called the durative or progressive present. It is used for an action or a state which began in the past and continues into the present. In other words, the past and the present are gathered up into a single affirmation. The active voice: believers actually produce the action of the verb. They do it by entering into the last three stages of reversionism. The sixth stage is blackout of the soul; the seventh stage is scar tissue of the soul; the eighth stage is reverse process reversionism. The result of quenching the Spirit is either moral or immoral degeneracy and it is now locked in.

The imperative mood is called the imperative of prohibition. It means to stop an action already in progress. The Holy Spirit is in view because of the accusative singular direct object from two words. The first is the definite article, to; the second is the noun pneuma. How do we know it is the "Holy" Spirit? The definite article calls attention to the proper name and pneuma refers to the Holy Spirit.

What is quenching the Spirit? First of all it refers to perpetual living inside of cosmic two. Secondly, quenching the Holy Spirit refers to the final stages of reversionism or the final stages of Christian degeneracy, stages 6-8. Christian degeneracy comes in two categories: moral degeneracy which extends legalism into the eight stages of reversionism, or immoral degeneracy which extends antinomianism into the eight stages of reversionism.

We should note carnality. Carnality is taken from the King James version and it is the Greek word sarkinoj, which means fleshly but it really means old sin naturish. It refers to being under the control of the old sin nature: "Are ye not carnal and walk as men?" — 1Corinthians 3:3.

Basically there are two categories of believers out of fellowship which we call "carnal Christians." They are defined as: a. The positive believer who sins but recovers quickly through the use of the rebound technique — 1John 1:9; b. The negative believer whose sins remain unchecked. He gets out of fellowship; he stays out of fellowship, and as a result he enters into the pattern — implode, explode, revert.

The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is one of the things that happens to us at the moment of salvation. We start out with a prepositional phrase, en plus the instrumental singular of agency from the relative pronoun o(j. O(j is referring to God the Holy Spirit. "By whom" is the translation. This is a reference to one of the seven things that God does for each of us at the moment of salvation — specifically these things are done by God the Holy Spirit.

The seven things that the Holy Spirit does for us at the moment of salvation

1. The doctrine of efficacious grace starts out with the gospel being presented to those who are in spiritual brain death, and therefore God the Holy Spirit makes the gospel perspicuous because spiritual brain death cannot understand any part of spiritual phenomena. The gospel is spiritual phenomena. The Holy Spirit makes the gospel perspicuous under the concept of pneumatikoj which is spiritual phenomena. Now it goes down the pipeline to the nouj where the spiritually dead person understands that Christ is the issue, not sin, not human works, but Jesus Christ. That is the point of the divine call to believe which is nothing more or less than an invitation from the Father to believe in Christ, and an invitation that is given through our understanding of the issue. Then in spiritual death we can believe in Jesus Christ. Only faith in Jesus Christ can be taken by God the Holy Spirit and made effective for eternal salvation. This is called efficacious grace, a ministry of God the Holy Spirit at salvation which cannot occur if you add anything to faith.

The positive volition of the spiritually dead person is described in two non-meritorious functions: a. The spiritually dead person can do one thing that is non-meritorious: he can listen to the gospel; b. The unbeliever believes in Christ.

Because the unbeliever has spiritual brain death, according to 1Corinthians 2:14, he does not understand what he hears. He uses his volition to listen because listening is non-meritorious. But the problem is that when you hear what is being said with regard to the gospel you cannot understand it apart from the ministry of God the Holy Spirit who makes it understandable. The Holy Spirit acting as the human spirit makes the gospel perspicuous and this is what we call common grace.

The faith of the spiritually dead person has no power to produce the intended effect — salvation — and therefore God the Holy Spirit has to take our faith and make it effective for salvation. Common grace understands the gospel, the divine invitation or call works on the human will, not common grace. Efficacious grace is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in taking faith in Christ of the spiritually dead person and making it effective for salvation. Efficacious grace works on the faith of the spiritually dead person, not his will. The decision to believe has already been made and the Holy Spirit makes that faith effective.

The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is related to common and efficacious grace. When we believe we are spiritually dead. The Holy Spirit makes our faith effective and that is sealing salvation. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is actually a signature guarantee that includes four principles: the guarantee of the ministry of the Spirit in efficacious grace; the guarantee of eternal life; the guarantee of eternal security; the guarantee that in eternity past God the Father provided for each one of us our very own portfolio of invisible assets. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit covers eternity past, time, and the eternal future in these four guarantees.

2. Regeneration — Titus 3:5; 1Peter 1:23. Defined as the ministry of the Holy Spirit at salvation in creating a human spirit which causes the believer to become instantly trichotomous.

The origin of the body is conception — biological life. There is the old sin nature in the biological life but it is not active in the womb because there is no human being, there is no volition, there is not temptation in the womb. But when biological life emerges from the womb (and simultaneously the OSN) God creates soul life and imputes it to biological life, and now you have a human being. In physical life we become dichotomous: a body, biological life, and soul life created by God imputed to it — a human being and a spiritually dead one.

So we need salvation, the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life. How? Because at the moment we believed in Christ God the Holy Spirit created the human spirit. This is the second birth, this is what it means to be born again. God the Father imputed eternal life to the human spirit. We had soul life prior to salvation, now we have soul life and eternal life.

3. The baptism of the Holy Spirit.

God the Holy Spirit takes each one of us at the moment of faith in Christ and enters us into union with the person of Christ. We are in that circle and we can never get out. That is positional sanctification. The baptism of the Spirit is the basis for the new spiritual species and the royal family of God. (The baptism of the Spirit is the only case in all of history where everyone is on an equal basis. There is absolute equality because every believer receives the same baptism of the Spirit at salvation). The baptism of the Spirit distinguishes the Church Age believer from all other dispensations. It never occurred before and it will never occur again after the Rapture.

4. The Holy Spirit indwells every believer at the moment of salvation.

This is something that never happened before. Neither the Father nor the Son nor the Spirit indwelt Old Testament saints. When the Rapture occurs and the Tribulation and Millennium there will be no indwelling by any member of the Godhead. Scripture for indwelling: 1Corinthians 3:16; 6:19,20; 2Corinthians 6:16. These passages are important because they also explain the purpose of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit indwells our bodies. Why? To provide a temple. In every cell of the body, with one exception, the old sin nature resides. The Holy Spirit provides a temple for the indwelling of God the Father and the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

5. The filling of the Holy Spirit.

It occurs at the moment of salvation but it is experiential.

6. The sovereign distribution of a spiritual gift.

God the Son, who was involved in the initial distribution of spiritual gifts in the beginning of the Church Age, Ephesians 4:7,8, has now turned that over to the Holy Spirit. So at the moment of salvation, 1Corinthians 12:11, God the Holy Spirit gives to each one of us a spiritual gift.

7. The sealing ministry of the Spirit — a signature guarantee.

(Sealing in the ancient world was a signature guarantee) It is a signature guarantee of four things: a. Efficacious grace — the Holy Spirit takes the faith of the spiritually dead person and makes it effective for salvation; b. The guarantee of eternal life; c. The guarantee of eternal security; d. The guarantee of your very own portfolio of invisible assets which God the Father prepared for each one of us in eternity past.

The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit covers eternity past, our life in time, and our eternal future. That is the subject of Ephesians 4:30. Corrected translation of Ephesians 1:13,14 where this subject is first encountered:

"In whom also, when you heard the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, — in whom also when you believed, you were sealed by means of the Holy Spirit with reference to the promise,

"Who is the guarantee of our inheritance, for the release of your assets for the praise of his glory."

Ephesians 4:30b — "by whom." Now we come to the verb, the aorist passive indicative of the verb sfragizw. It means to seal. "You have been sealed" is the correct way to translate it. That is because it is a culminative aorist tense, it views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The passive voice represents subject, every Church Age believer, as being acted upon by God the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation. Therefore, the subject receives the action of the verb at the moment that he believes in Jesus Christ. That is faith plus nothing. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit is the unqualified statement of fact, a dogmatic statement of Bible doctrine.

Next we have our prepositional phrase. We have e)ij plus the adverbial accusative of two words. We have the adverbial accusative of the extent of time from the noun h(mera, correctly translated, "you have been sealed to the day." Now the day is given in the adverbial genitive of time, a)polutrwsij — redemption. A)polutrwsij or redemption is used two ways in the scripture. First of all there is the redemption of the soul, freedom from the slave market of sin at the moment of salvation through faith in Christ — Romans 3:24; 1 Cor. 1:30; Ephesians 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:12; Gal. 2:13; 1Peter . 1:18. It is the redemption of the soul. The second redemption in the Bible is the redemption of the body, and it is a reference to ultimate sanctification or resurrection — Rom. 8:23.

Redemption of the soul is related to the salvation work of Christ on the cross whereas the redemption of the body is related to the resurrection body of the believer, which is provided courtesy of God the Father whose omnipotence is involved, and God the Holy Spirit whose omnipotence is involved in, our resurrection.

Ephesians 4:30, corrected translation: "Furthermore, stop grieving the Holy Spirit, the God, by whom you have been sealed to the day of redemption."