The doctrine of the open door

1. An open door is opportunity, grace opportunity, God-given opportunity, an opportunity related to giving meaning, purpose and definition to your life, an opportunity that results in happiness and blessing for the person who fulfills the plan of God.

2. The first door of opportunity in the scripture is the door of salvation, John 10:9, “I am the door; if anyone enters through me, he shall be saved; furthermore he shall go in and out, and find pasture [logistical grace provision for the believer in Christ].” Acts 14:27 puts it this way: “And so when they had arrived an gathered the church together, they began to report all the things that God had done with them and the fact that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.” This was a church made up of Jewish people. The fact that Gentiles could be saved apart from Judaism was foreign to their thinking. The open door of salvation is “Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life,” it is not exclusive.

3. There is a second door of opportunity in life, the door of communication of truth. The communication of category #2 truth is the gospel and it is related to an open door, 2 Corinthians 2:12. There is also the open door mentioned in connection with category #3 truth, teaching doctrine to believers, Colossians 4:3. There is also the communication of all three categories of truth in relationship to an open door [Category #1, the laws of divine establishment for the entire human race; category #2, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for unbelievers; category #3, Bible doctrine for believers], 1 Corinthians 16:9.

4. The third door of opportunity in life is the provision of the divine dynasphere and its resultant historical impact, Revelation 3:8. The fact that the divine dynasphere is available to you as a believer is the greatest opportunity for historical impact that individual believers have ever had in any dispensation of history.

5. The fourth door of opportunity in life is the door of reversion recovery. In Revelation 3:20, “Now hear this, I have stood at the door with the result that I keep standing at the door and I knock repeatedly [warning discipline]; the door of opportunity for rebound and recovery from the cosmic system often comes through warning discipline, “if anyone hears my voice and opens the door [the use of rebound], I will come into him [face to face with him] and have dinner with him, and he with me.” The open door of opportunity is related to recovery from the cosmic system through the rebound technique.

6. There are open doors in heaven, Revelation 4:1, the open door of the Rapture; Revelation 19:11, the open door of the second advent; the same door of the second advent is related to our Lord’s triumphal procession in Revelation 19:11-21 as quoted from Psalm 24:7-10, “be lifted up O everlasting doors.”