Chapter 1

Outline of chapter One:

Verses 1-2, Prologue.

Verses 3-7, the purpose of the pastor.

Verse 8-11, the purpose of the Mosaic law.

Verses 12-17, the purpose of grace.

Verses 18-20, combat orders for Timothy.

The subject if the chapter, which is really an introductory chapter: Purpose in the Church Age.

Verse 1 — the human author. “Paul” — this is the name he adopted after salvation: Pauloj. The word means “little.” His pre-salvation name was Saul. Saul is Hebrew. He was from the tribe of Benjamin and a lot of people in that tribe were named Saul. The assumed name connotes grace orientation — 1 Corinthians 15:10; 1 Timothy 1:12-16 explain his name as well as it can be explained.

“apostle” — this is one time when the human writer pulls his rank. The Greek word is a)postoloj. This is rank. “Apostle” is a Greek word, not a Latin word. It is a navy word The highest-ranking admiral in the fleet was called A)postoloj. It doesn’t refer to a missionary. The word is taken from the Greek a)po; stolh means to send. The last apostle, John, died in AD 96, or thereabouts. There are no apostles today. Paul was not only an apostle, he was the highest-ranking apostle. No one in the Church Age ever had as much authority as Paul. The word was derived in the days when the Athenian navy ruled the seas. But people found that you couldn’t defeat the Athenians on the water, the only way they could be defeated was with money — bribe the admiral to throw the battle. The Spartans had a lot of money and they used to do that. So the council of ten finally got wise and the Archon who was the head of the council of ten would meet with the council. Outside would be four of the highest ranking admirals in the Athenian navy. The fleet is ready to set sail. The council of ten would then decide which one of the admirals was going to be a)postoloj to be sent to command the fleet. He was then escorted to his ship. He is then a)postoloj, sent to command that fleet. It doesn’t mean one sent, it means one sent to command. When God sent the apostle Paul into the church the church was in a state of confusion and consternation. The reason was that someone by the name of Saul was persecuting the church and the church couldn’t take it. The gift of apostleship is the highest rank that God ever gave in the church. Paul was an absolute dictator and an absolute communicator to all the churches. The apostle had the authority to establish churches, to appoint pastors, to regulate doctrine, to judge dissension, train pastors, until the canon of scripture was completed. He had the authority to write scripture. The gift was a temporary one carrying all of this tremendous weight.

The doctrine of apostleship

1. The etymology of a)postoloj: Used for the Athenian admiral appointed by the Archon to command the fleet. The appointment was made just before weighing anchor to avoid bribery. It was used in the New Testament for the highest spiritual gift ever given in the Church Age. 1 Corinthians 12:11, 28; Ephesians 4:11 specify apostleship as a spiritual gift.

2. The function of apostleship. Since the gift carried absolute authority it was designed to carry the church during the pre-canon period of the Church Age (from AD 30-96). The function can be classified under two categories: apostles or someone closely associated with apostles were the human authors of scripture; apostles established the early local churches, communicated the doctrine, appointed and trained the pastors, acted as policy-makers, prior to the completion of the scriptures. Once the New testament is completed and the doctrine of the mystery is recorded then it is no longer necessary for apostles to set the policy, the policy is in written form.

3. The time of appointment. The apostles were not appointed until after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the completion of His strategical victory — resurrection, ascension, session. This is taught in Ephesians 4:8 cf. verse 11. Jesus Christ did all of the appointing. There was no voting. Matthew 10 has twelve apostles but they were apostles to Israel and had nothing to do with the church. There were no apostles to the church until after the resurrection. That means that the eleven surviving apostles to Israel had to be reappointed before they were apostles to the church.

4. The extent of the gift. It carried as much authority as God ever gave in the Church Age or ever will give. The apostle had authority over all the local churches, in contrast to the pastor who has authority over one local church. It was a temporary gift removed at the completion of the canon of scripture. Today all local churches should be autonomous with authority vested in the completed canon of scripture and the local pastor-teacher.

5. The distinction between the apostles to Israel and the apostles to the church. Matthew 10:2ff — Jesus appointed apostles to Israel during the course of His earthly ministry. With the exception of Judas Iscariot the personnel were the same but with an entirely different function and ministry. Paul was appointed by God to replace Judas Iscariot — 1 Corinthians 15:7-10. In Acts chapter one Matthias was elected by the church but he was not an apostle because the church cannot elect apostles. They are appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ — Ephesians 4:11. All spiritual gifts today are appointed by the Holy Spirit but the apostles were appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

6. The qualifications. Apostles were qualified by receiving the gift of apostleship from Jesus Christ — Ephesians 4:11. After the initial appointment all selection of spiritual gifts became the sovereign ministry of the Holy Spirit — 1 Corinthians 12:11. All apostles had to be an eyewitness to the resurrection of Christ. This qualified the eleven but Paul was qualified on the Damascus road — Acts 1:22; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:8,9.

7. The identification of apostles. Apostolic authority resides in the gift of apostleship. There were other gifts which went with apostleship — identification gifts. Paul had ID cards: the gift of healing, the gift of tongues, and the gift of miracles. All of the apostles had these three as ID cards. They were, by the way, inferior gifts. They were subordinate, temporary gifts — Acts 5:15; 16:16-18; 28:8,9. One the authority of the apostle was established and once he was identified as an apostle in the early church these ID cards were pulled away immediately. So when he wanted to heal Epaphroditus he had to pray for him, he couldn’t heal him — Philippians 2:27. The same thing is true of Trophimus in 2 Timothy 4:20. Everyone knew he was an apostle by this time, he didn’t need his ID card even though it would have been handy in those two cases.

8. The roster of the apostles. This includes the eleven minus Judas Iscariot. The election of Matthias — Acts 1:15-26 — was a farce. The twelfth who replaced Judas was Saul of Tarsus, the apostle Paul, the human writer of 1 Timothy — 1 Corinthians 7-10.

9. The delegation of apostolic authority gives some people the title of apostle without the gift of apostleship. E.g. Barnabas was not an apostle but he had the delegated authority of an apostle — Acts 14:14; Galatians 2:9. John Mark was not an apostle but he was Peter’s delegate in writing the second Gospel and carried the title under delegated authority. James, the Lord’s half-brother was delegated by the Lord to write the epistle of James, and Jude , the Lord’s half-brother, also the same. Apollos, Paul’s delegate to Corinth — 1 Corinthians 4:6,9. Silas and Timothy were mentioned as Paul’s delegates in 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2:6. They carried delegated authority for a short time.

“of Christ Jesus” — the word “Christ” refers to Messiahship, David’s greater son. Whenever you fin Xristoj in the Greek it means the one anointed. It means the son of David and indicates the Davidic covenant. “Jesus” is the humanity of Christ.

“by the commandment” — the preposition kata plus the accusative of e)pitagh, one of the strongest words for an order or a command. It should be translated “according to the command.”

“of God” should be “from God” — the ablative of source from qeoj. “God” is the deity of Christ here.

“our saviour” — swthr is His humanity. We have the hypostatic union here. Notice again that the apostle Paul was not self-appointed. He was the twelfth apostle and was appointed by the resurrected Christ — Ephesians 4:7-11.

“and” is incorrect. This is “even.”

The last word in verse 1 is the possessive genitive singular of the noun e)lpij and it means confidence or security. Hope these days implies possibility; hope in the Bible means absoluteness. So it should be, “even Christ Jesus our confidence.”

Translation: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the command from God our Saviour, even Christ Jesus, our confidence.”

Verse 2 — the direction of this verse: “Unto Timothy.”

Profile of Timothy

1. He was the son of an unbelieving Greek and a Jewess — Acts 16:1-3.

2. He possessed a spiritual heritage in Bible doctrine — 2 Timothy 3:15. The spiritual heritage was of no use to him until he was born again. In other words, he was taught all of the Old Testament scriptures.

3. He was converted under the ministry of the apostle Paul in the second missionary journey at Lystra — Acts 14:6, 23.

4. Paul had him circumcised — Acts 16:3.

5. He was ordained to the ministry because he recognised his own spiritual gift — 1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:5.

6. He went to Philippi with Paul, Silas and Luke — Acts 16:12.

7. However, Paul thought that he could trust him with a congregation so he was left behind at Philippi to supervise the new Philippian church — Philippians 2:22.

8. He was left behind with Silas at Berea — Acts 17:14 — and joined Paul in Athens. There was no problem with these churches where the congregation was positive to doctrine.

9. From Athens he was sent to Thessalonica — 1 Thessalonians 3:2, and there was no problem there because the Thessalonians were strong for doctrine.

10. He was sent to Corinth and this is where he washed out — 1 Corinthians 16:10 — and failed miserably because the Corinthians were tough, hard-nosed, realistic, hell-raising. They tossed him around like a football and punted him through the door. He failed completely. The only person who ever tamed Corinth was Titus. Timothy had to be hauled back under Paul’s wing and trained again.

11. He shared the first imprisonment in Rome — Philippians 1:1; 2:19; Colossians 1:1; Philemon 1. This is a training period, he is licking his wounds from Corinth.

12. After his first imprisonment he went with Paul to Ephesus where he remained as the pastor. At the time of this epistle Timothy was the pastor of Ephesus and his failure at Corinth comes out. He was great where people were positive. Timothy was a great teacher.

“my own son” — Paul is talking to his student, to someone who is under strict academic discipline to him. He is a general talking to a private. We have here a dative of possession of an adjective, gnhsioj; its meaning is explained two ways: “not a bastard” or “legitimate.” This also have a figurative connotation meaning “reliable.” In other words, “Timothy you are my legitimate son, you are always under my authority.” The word also means reliable, and by this he means a faithful student. This is what is going to cause Timothy to turn out all right eventually, after the canon is closed. No matter how he fails he stays in there with doctrine. So the dative of possession is followed by the dative of advantage of the noun teknon which has a dual connotation. It is a child with relationship to parents, under discipline to parents, but here it is technical for Timothy as Paul’s student — under discipline to Paul. “To Timothy, reliable student.”

“in the faith” — preposition e)n plus the locative of pistij. Pistij has three meanings, here the meaning is doctrine.

“Grace, mercy, and peace” — Xarij, e)leoj e)irhnh. This is a full salutation with great meaning. Xarij or grace = God’s plan. E)leoj [mercy] is grace in action and is what Timothy is going to get throughout this epistle. E)irhnh means here “prosperity,” the result of the plan.

“from God” is the preposition a)po plus the ablative from qeoj. There are no verbs in the prologue. The Holy Spirit is not mentioned in the salutation and this is compatible with the present ministry of the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus Christ — “from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Translation: “To Timothy, reliable student in doctrine: Grace, mercy, prosperity, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The doctrine of grace

Definition: Grace is all that God is free to do for man on the basis of the work of Christ on the cross.

Grace is God’s freedom and consistency to express His love for mankind without compromising or jeopardising His essence. No one can truly give and rightly give apart from freedom, and God gives out of total freedom because of the cross. Consequently, grace is the plan of God on behalf of man beginning at the cross. Grace is both God’s plan and God’s policy regarding mankind. Grace therefore is the plan, the policy, the function, the mechanics of divine modus operandi. Under grace God does all the work, all the providing; man does all the receiving, all of the benefiting.

Under the concept of grace, grace depends on the essence or 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 essence. Grace is God’s relationship with the believer as well as God’s way of salvation. Grace is all that God can do for man from salvation to eternity totally apart from man’s merit, ability, plans or talent. In other words, grace is the genius of God and doctrine is the manifestation of that genius.

The great enemy to grace is legalism, reversionism, and evil. Legalism as the enemy of grace is man’s intrusion into the plan of God with his own works, ability, talents, plans, schemes, or man’s intrusion into the plan of God with his own spiritual declension — reversionism, or man’s intrusion into the plan of God under the influence of evil. That is why grace is so antagonistic to evil, to legalism, to religionism; and that is why when a believer is influenced by legalism or reversionism or evil he intrudes into the plan of God. The difference is that if he is influenced by legalism it is his own personal energy-of-the-flesh intrusion. If he is influenced by evil it is a Satanic intrusion since evil puts the believer under the influence of Satan and Satan’s policy. If it is reversionism it is an apostate intrusion which combines the first two.

So the believer must learn to sort out the difference between grace and legalism, the difference between being influenced by doctrine and being influenced by evil, the difference between spiritual growth and super-grace versus reversionism or spiritual declension. The believer often clings to some talent, some ability, some plan, some gimmick by which he seeks to infiltrate the plan of God. Anything that man could throw into the plan of God would destroy the concept of grace. So the plan of God, operation grace, is never destroyed or neutralised because grace rejects human energy of the flesh, human ability, human talent, human viewpoint ideas. Legalism and grace cannot coexist, evil and grace cannot coexist, reversionism and grace cannot coexist. A little leaven of legalism or evil or reversionism leavens the whole lump.

Verses 3-7, the purpose of the pastor-teacher. This is not a detailed study of the pastor-teacher at this point. Timothy has already had that and understands all the principles of the pastor-teacher. These are special selected things to cause Timothy to refocus on his purpose, to fill in some gaps where he has failed to apply what he has learned from Paul.

Verse 3 — “As” is an adverb used as a casual conjunction: Kaqwj is translated better, “since.”

“I besought” — aorist active indicative of parakalew, which means here to command. It means a command given in a nice way. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it refers to a momentary action in which Paul commands Timothy to remain at Ephesus. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb as an apostle and Timothy’s commanding officer. The indicative mood is declarative indicating the reality of Paul ordering Timothy to remain at Ephesus in spite of the fact that up to this point he has failed. In other words, failure is no reason to run. Principle: You don’t run away because you fail.

“thee” should be “you” — accusative singular direct object of the personal pronoun su.

“to abide still” — the aorist active infinitive of prosmenw which means “stay where you are.”

“when I went” — present middle participle of poreuomai. The participle is a temporal participle and it should be translated “while I went into Macedonia.”

“that” is the conjunction i(na introducing a final clause — purpose, aim, goal.

“thou mightest charge” — aorist active subjunctive paraggellw which means to instruct by direct command. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety the action of the verb. It takes the ministry of Timothy and gathers it into one entirety, regardless of its duration, and Timothy has to “crack heads,” he has to get tough, he has to use his authority. The active voice: Timothy produces the action of the verb by commanding, instructing, directing pastors in Ephesus not to teach false doctrine. The subjunctive mood is used to state the objective as potential.

“some” is the dative plural of disadvantage from the indefinite pronoun tij, it refers to those under the influence of evil, those in reversionism, those who are legalistic, all of those who are troublemakers, and those who are positive toward doctrine but troublemakers — “certain ones.”

“that they teach no other doctrine” — all one verb: the negative plus the present active infinitive of e(terodidaskolew. Didaskw means to teach; e(tero means other of a different kind of doctrine. When put together it means not to teach heretical doctrine. The descriptive present tense denotes the teaching of false doctrine in the process of occurrence. The active voice: evil and reversionistic people are producing the action of the verb by teaching something wrong. The infinitive of intended result fulfills a deliberate objective to stop false teaching in the Ephesian church.

Translation: “Since I ordered you to remain behind at Ephesus, while I went to Macedonia, in order that you might exercise command over certain ones not to teach heretical doctrine.”

Verse 4 — the second purpose: to orient to dispensational theology. The Old Testament scriptures can be easily distorted into legalism. That was one of the problems with the Mosaic law and one of the problems in Galatia.

“Neither” is a negative disjunctive particle mhde and should be translated “Nor”; “give heed” is the present active infinitive of prosexw which means to occupy one’s self with something. The present tense is a descriptive present, which means to indicate what was going on at that moment in Ephesus. The active voice: people in the Ephesian church are under the influence of evil and are producing the action of the verb under those conditions. The infinitive plus the negative indicates a negative purpose.

“fable” is muqoj, dative plural of disadvantage, from which we get the English words “myths” or “stories” — “Nor to become occupied with myths.” This refers to the pseudo spiritual heritage of the Jews. Not their true spiritual heritage but their pseudo spiritual heritage; not what is found in the Old Testament canon but what is found in the Jewish legends, legends which claimed that Moses had not written down all the mysteries that were revealed by God, and they claimed to have some extra information that Moses didn’t write. This is called the Kabbala in which certain legends and myths were accumulated referring to angels, philosophical concepts, miracles, and the myths of Gnosticism. The Ephesians had become fascinated by these.

“endless genealogies” — the dative plural of disadvantage from genealogia, from which we get our English word “genealogy,” plus the adjective a)perantoj which means ‘limitless,” tiresome enumeration of detail. This is a reference to Gnostic aeons as a series of emanations from divine unity. It also refers to the Old Testament genealogies which had been allegorised. They were interpreted allegorically by Philo and made the basis of a system of psychology. The genealogies in the scripture are all important, and the Old Testament genealogies were taken away from their literal interpretation. So this is what is called a distortion of scripture. The genealogies have a purpose. For example, from David to Christ is very important. It establishes a literal purpose, a principle in the Davidic covenant. It is not designed to teach allegorical truth, it is a literal genealogy. But it can be distorted. This whole system was used by Judaisers to propagate their legalism and ignore the fact that the Age of Israel was interrupted and the dispensation of the royal family was inserted — doctrine of intercalation. Therefore myths and genealogies describe a failure on the part of Timothy to put a stop to these things, to take a stand. Myths and genealogies describe a system of false doctrine which disoriented believers and led them astray from the Church Age. They ignored the Church Age, so myths and genealogies were used to perpetuate the Jewish Age when a new dispensation had begun. The significance of the resurrection, ascension and session of Christ were lost to these false teachers, these Judaisers, and the suspension of the Age of Israel for the purpose of calling out the royal family, the postponement of the Jewish Age, was completely ignored. They went right on with the Jewish Age.

“which minister” — the nominative plural qualitative relative pronoun o(stij — “which category of things minister” — plus the present active indicative of parexw which means to be the cause of something. The present tense is the customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs. The active voice: categories of pseudo doctrine produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative.

“questions” is literally, “useless speculations” — e)kzhthsij.

“rather than godly edifying” is wrong. It should be “rather than the dispensation of God” — o)ikoinomian qeou. There is no “edifying” here. This is a reference to the Church Age which is being ignored by these false teachers. Jewish myths and genealogies are seeking to perpetuate the Age of Israel and cancel out the Church Age. This was a Satanic attack upon Church Age doctrine. The people and the “sharers” who have succumbed to this heresy and apostasy have failed to orient to dispensational theology, therefore Timothy must emphasise dispensational theology. Every pastor in interpreting the Word of God must emphasise dispensational distinctions.

“which” is a definite article used as a relative pronoun; “is in faith” — there is no verb here, but there is a preposition plus the instrumental of pistij,. and it should be translated “which comes by means of doctrine.”

Translation: “Nor become occupied with myths and endless genealogies, which category of things [false doctrine] are the cause of useless speculations, rather than the dispensation of God [Church Age doctrine] which comes by means of doctrine.

Principles

1. Ephesus and all local churches will succumb at certain times of false teaching unless there is an emphasis on dispensational theology. All believers of this dispensation must first be oriented to the Church Age.

2. No pastor can lead his congregation to spiritual maturity or fulfill his ministry apart from dispensational orientation.

3. Therefore it is important to review dispensational categories of doctrine when they occur in expository teaching.

Verse 5 — the objective of the ministry, the purpose for our being here. Everything revolves around doctrine. The objective of the ministry is to fulfill the objectives of Bible teaching in the sphere of capacity for love. There are three capacities which are absolutely necessary in the mature believer: capacity for life, capacity for happiness, capacity for love. Without these capacities nothing in life is very meaningful. Of these capacities the capacity for love is foremost, this is the every key to the spiritual life.

“Now” — a postpositive conjunction de, it is used as a transitional or continuative participle to make a transition from the negative to the positive side of the gospel ministry. Since the transition is in the nature of a contrast between false doctrine in the previous verse and the truth of this verse it becomes therefore an adversative conjunction and it correctly translated “But.”

“the end” — the noun teloj is used here and it means the end in the sense of a goal or objective. Therefore we translate, “But the objective.”

“of the commandment” — this is a descriptive genitive of paraggelia which means “command, precept, instruction.” Arndt and Ginchgricht contends that it is equal to preaching; “is” — present active indicative of the verb e)imi, the verb of absolute status quo. The present tense is a static present, it represents a condition which is assumed as perpetually existing throughout the Church Age. There never will be a time when the teaching of doctrine does not produce a true capacity for love.

“charity” — the predicate nominative of the noun a)gaph which means love. This word actually implies five different doctrines of scripture: the doctrine of love, the doctrines of categories 1,2,&3 love, and the doctrine of spirituality. “But the objective of preaching is love [or capacity for love].”

The doctrine of love

1. Definition:

a) Love is maximum concentration. Love is so concentrated as to exclude others from the same consideration. It is maximum concentration, maximum affection and personal attraction emanating from the soul of mankind, and exercised in the direction of God, persons, things.

b) Love is a soulish predilection expressed in admiration, devotion, craving, delight, pleasure, caresses, passion, show of affection, resulting in intimacy toward God, human beings, or even things.

c) Love in the embodiment of soul function and concentration directed toward someone else with or without intimacy.

d) This means that sometimes love is not returned.

e) Love is awareness and tenderness of soul producing emotional sensitivity toward a person or object.

f) Love is devotion, concentration, dedication to, and consecration of maximum esteem and intense loyalty to the object of attraction.

g) Attraction in itself is not love but a preliminary to love or hate.

h) The perpetuation of love is attachment, affection, stimulation of soul (in the case of category #2 it is also stimulation of body), devotion, consecration, intimacy, passion, enthusiasm, and adoration.

i) However, passion is not always love. Passion is like a fuse of a fire cracker, it burns quickly, explodes, and that is all. In contrast, love is like an old yew log in a fire place. Sometimes it bursts into flames and sometimes it glows but always with a steadiness and always with a white-hot heat.

j) There are some comments on love which are not true, some definitions of love which are erroneous, anti-scriptural. For example, “love is an egotism of two.” That is pseudo-love. For example, “love is a long lesson in humility.” Some definitions are humorous. For example, “she loves so many soldiers it is platoonic.” Some definitions are catchy. For example, “ a loveless faith is cruel and a faithless love is sentimental.”

2. There are some interesting words for love found in Greek literature. However, in all of the realm of the Greek language the Bible only uses two of these words.

The Attic Greek word e)roj is much more extensive than simply sexual love, it is love of symmetry, love of beauty, as well as sexual love. It is not used in the New Testament.

A second Attic Greek word is storgh, used for love of parents, for children, or some form of family love. This word is never used in the New Testament.

The Koine Greek word a)gaph also has a cognate noun a)gapaw. These two words are a specialised type of love which is strictly mental. This is love which exists only in the mentality of the soul, therefore in humanity a thinking type love. In God this would be essence type love. This love can be summarised quickly as a mental attitude.

The next word found in the Bible is the verb filew and its cognate filoj. This word has been badly abused. This is a general type love related to all facets of the soul. Generally in the Bible this type of love is more mature, it expresses greater capacity for love as in the indignation of the apostle Peter in John 21:15-17. The passage in the English doesn’t tell us a thing. In fact, two different Greek words are used throughout.

John 21:15 — “Simon … lovest thou me ...? The present active indicative of a)gapaw is used in the question. It refers to a relaxed mental attitude, a mental attitude love free from mental attitude sins. This type of love is basic to the spiritual life of the believer and is found under the concept of the filling of the Spirit — Romans 5:5; Galatians 5:22; and the third floor of the ECS — 1 John 2:5. This is a sense is a great insult to use a)gapaw. A)gapaw is a mere mental attitude. It has the concept of merely a relaxed mental attitude toward someone. It is not the highest word for love in the Greek language. Peter answers: “You know that I love thee.” Now he uses the present active indicative of filew. He answers with indignation: “It is not a)gapaw with me, it is filew.” Filew is a total rapport love. Peter’s first answer therefore distinguishes between a)gapaw as a relaxed mental attitude and filew as an advance on this.

There is a bad tendency to slur the distinctions, to go to John 3:16. Since God is the subject of a)gapaw in John 3:16 it must be the highest type of love, so this is called divine love and filew is called human love. That is not only oversimplification but it is failure to recognise the very distinctions that the Bible itself makes, especially in time where God is the subject of filew as well as a)gapaw. Therefore to make one divine and one human love is to ignore the scripture itself. Not only is God the subject of a)gapaw at certain times but He is also the subject of filew. Not only is man the subject of a)gapaw but unbelievers are the subject of a)gapaw — Man loves darkness [a)gapaw].”

A)gapaw is used with God as the subject when it is a relaxed mental attitude toward some very unlovely people. God loves sinners — John 3:16. This means that God had a relaxed mental attitude toward the sinner in that He provided him eternal salvation, but it does not mean the intimacy of love of filew.

Archbishop Richard Trench wrote a book on Greek synonyms. On page 41 of that book he made a great discovery, one which philologists have known for many years, that in the time of the Roman empire at the time when the Bible was written there was a language division. Everything west of the Adriatic the Roman empire spoke Latin; everything eats of the Adriatic they spoke Greek, the change in Greek which had come about through Alexander’s conquest and the Hellenistic empires. By the time that the New Testament was being written Latin and Greek had become exact equivalent languages. In other words, there were certain words in the Greek that had been brought into the Latin, there were certain Latin words that had been brought into the Greek. So whether you spoke Latin or Greek — and all Roman officials were bilingual — you could understand and translated exact equivalents. This was true of a)gapaw and filew, both were used in the Greek of the Roman empire. So in studying New Testament words we can sometimes pick up some etymology by going to the Latin. The Latin had two words which were exact equivalents to the words we have here. One of these was diligo and the other was amo. Diligo was simply a mental type of love, a relaxed mental attitude toward someone. The mind was totally free from hatred, jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability. Amo was a very strong type of love, a more advanced type of love, it involved not just the mentality but the emotion and all facets of the soul. Trench demonstrates in his book how in the two literatures these words become exact equivalents. In that way he helped us to understand that with a)gapaw and filew one was not divine love, the other human , because it all depends on the subject. If someone says, “I love you,” that kind of love depends on who “I” is. If it is God, that is divine love; if it is a human being, that is human love. It is always the subject.

Now we have a command in verse 15. “Peter, if it really is filoj, if you have a total love, then do something: Feed my lambs.” The word “feed” is the present active imperative of the verb boskw. It means to feed as a shepherd with faithfulness in the true sense of responsibility. So this emphasizes the importance of the pastor’s self-discipline in studying the Word and communicating doctrine to the sheep. The present tense is a static present, it represents a condition which will perpetually exist throughout the Church Age. In every generation, depending on where positive volition is, God will provide faithful pastors to study and teach. The active voice: the pastor teacher produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood: this is a command to all pastors. “My lambs” is the accusative plural direct object of a)rnion which refers to new believers, ignorant believers, believers who do not understand what is going on in the Christian life. This refers to the basic category of believers, the ones who are just saved or the ones who have been saved for fifty years and have yet to learn a point of doctrine. “Feed my little lamb.” These are the most helpless in the flock.

Verse 16 — “Do you love me?” He repeated a)gapaw again. This time it is a retroactive progressive present to indicate what has occurred in the past and continues into the present time. Peter’s three denials before the crucifixion indicate a weak mental attitude and therefore Jesus is reminding him of this. The second interrogation therefore indicates that no one can love Jesus Christ apart from Bible doctrine in the soul, and that merely to say that you love Jesus Christ is not enough. Peter had previously declared his love in words but the words are no stronger than the person who utters them. Therefore for a second time Jesus asks exactly the same question, same morphology in the Greek language. And He received the same answer, “You know I love you.” Again filew is used. Peter is indignant that that Lord would insult him for a second time, and therefore the Lord gave a second command, “Feed my sheep,” but He used a different verb — the present active imperative of poimainw which means to shepherd the sheep. It connotes to lead, to feed, to protect, to exercise authority over sheep as a shepherd. “My sheep” indicates the fact of adolescent sheep — probaton. These are the ones who are the most dangerous, they know a little doctrine, just enough to be dangerous.

Verse 17 — a third time Peter gets the question. But this time the Lord changed up the verb. Instead of a)gapaw as previously we have this time the verb filew. This time it is to follow Peter’s answers. Peter has said twice, filew. Is it really true? This is the great challenge. Peter, instead of realising the challenge, reacted. He did not respond, he reacted. “Peter was grieved” is the aorist passive indicative of the verb lupew, and in this verb we have exasperation of grief. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views Peter’s exasperation in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its results. As a result of persistent interrogation Peter had become exasperated. The passive voice: he receives exasperation. The indicative mood is the reality of his exasperation. In his third answer he replied as he had before, “You know.” This, again, is a reference to the omniscience of Jesus Christ as God. “Thou knowest that I love thee.” He uses o)ida again for the great omniscience of God. Then he adds to o)ida the word ginwskw which is to know from the experience of observation. “Lord you know all things; you know from observation that I love you.” Then the Lord said to him, “Feed my adult sheep.”

In this passage we are dealing with the distinctions between two biblical words for love. No passage ever dramatised the difference between these two words more than this one.

4. A summary of distinction between the two biblical words for love.

a) A)gapaw and a)gaph. This is a mental attitude love and its basic characteristic is freedom from mental attitude sins. In other words, it is a mental attitude toward all believers that is commanded. We are commanded not to be bitter or jealous or vindictive, etc. toward any other believer. These are mental sins. This love is free from mental sins.

b) The noun filoj is maximum capacity for love. it is capacity for love which is the objective in 1 Timothy 1:5; to so communicate Bible doctrine that you will have true capacity for love. All believers are commanded to have a relaxed mental attitude love. The filling of the Holy Spirit produces this. But the capacity for love in filoj only comes through maturity. This, therefore, is the great difference. When you are filled with the Spirit at that moment all sin is excluded from your mind and therefore you have a)gaph type love. Then when you grow up to super-grace you have filoj. In fact, as the ECS is developed you will first of all have grace orientation. Then the second floor that will be built up and constructed in your soul, the mastery of the details of life. This is the construction built up in our soul on the basis of e)pignwsij type doctrine. Then the relaxed mental attitude where you get a)gaph love. Then you finally go to the fourth floor where you get filoj or capacity for love. That takes you to the fifth floor of +H which moves you into the super-grace life.

5. Both types of love are found in the believer’s balance of residence. One of the great doctrines in the doctrine of the balance of residency. Actually there is a combination of doctrines. The first deals with the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit in ever believer at the point of salvation. He is said to specifically indwell the body of the believer, He is never said to indwell the soul. But there is an issue. We are never commanded to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, it is automatic at the point of salvation. We are told that we never lose this indwelling, God the Holy Spirit remains whether we are carnal or spiritual, whether we are in reversionism under the influence of evil, or whether we are in super-grace receiving super-grace blessings. But there is a command related to the Holy Spirit and it has to do with the soul. We are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit and this is accomplished by means of the rebound technique. It has no manifestation in the early spiritual stages because there is no doctrine. As long as you are minus doctrine the filling of the Spirit has no manifestation. It must be remembered that those who were gathered on the Day of Pentecost and were filled with the Holy Spirit were mostly mature believers and their maturity had manifestation in certain spiritual gifts and functions. But the filling of the Spirit does not manifest itself until there is spiritual growth. The first function of the filling of the Spirit is the function of GAP, and when that has occurred over a period of time so that the believer is mature there is manifestation. Both types of love are found in the balance of residency in the soul.

6. Scholarship in fundamental circles has declined to a point of being ludicrous and we have to recognise failure in scholarship occasionally.

7. There are three general categories of human love. Category #1 is toward God. Category #2 is toward right man and right woman. Category #3 is human friendship. Category #1 is for super-grace believers only. Category #2 is for the human race. Category #3 is for the human race.

8. The problem of divine love toward man.

a) Because God is absolute righteousness and justice it is impossible for God to love sinful man without compromising the holiness of His essence. God cannot love sinful man, He can only judge him.

b) Therefore when John 3:16 says that God so loved the world it demands that God’s righteousness and justice remain uncompromised. It is a biblical fact that God loves sinful man and therefore we must look for some way in which God has resolved the problem.

c) God cannot love on a sentimental or emotional basis, it would compromise His holiness.

d) God’s love is no stronger than God’s righteousness. (This is true of human beings as well)

e) The true basis for love is always righteousness, character, honour, integrity.

f) Therefore Jesus Christ had to go to the cross not only to bear our sins but to propitiate or protect the righteousness of God the Father is loving the world. That frees the Father to love the world and still not compromise His righteousness and His justice. So for God to love the world cost God the Father a great deal more than we realise.

g) Because Christ was perfect in His deity and humanity on the cross the Father is propitiated, His righteousness uncompromised, and the way is paved for God to love the world.

h) Therefore propitiation makes it possible for God to save man and love the believer with maximum love. When you and I come to the cross and believe in Christ we pass the point of propitiation and God now loves us with maximum love no matter what kind of a believer we are.

i) At the point of salvation every believer passes the point of propitiation whereby God loves that believer with maximum love and without compromising His essence — 1 John 2:2.

j) This was portrayed in the Old Testament through the ark and the mercy seat in the holy of holies.

k) In addition to propitiation positional truth for the Church Age believer guarantees that every member of the royal family of God will be loved with the same amount of love that God the Father has for God the Son — 1 John 3:2.

l) This means that God loves the carnal believer as much as the spiritual believer. God loves the reversionist as much as the super-grace believer. God loves the believer influenced by evil as much as the believer influenced by doctrine. This is grace; this is divine love.

In this particular passage there is an emphasis on category #1 love.

The doctrine of category #1 love

1. Definition. Love comes in three categories: #1 toward God; #2 right man, right woman; #3 friendship. In addition there is an obligatory relaxed mental attitude toward all members of the royal family of God, better known as loving the brethren. Category #1 is the believer’s capacity to love God and to respond to God’s love based on Bible doctrine resident in the soul. When the believer reaches maturity — known as super-grace status — this category #1 love is called occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. The command to category #1 love is first found in Deuteronomy 6:5 as an expression of worship.

2. The means of category #1 love. Since God is invisible and since at same the time He is the object of category #1 love we must see and love God through His Word. In other words, you cannot see God, therefore the ordinary means of loving is out. It is Bible doctrine resident in the soul that makes it possible for us to love God. The reversionistic believer, for example, is incapable of loving God because he lacks the basic ingredients: doctrine in the soul. The immature believer does not love God because he lacks doctrine in the soul. And while for different reasons they do not love God, nevertheless the fact remains. You cannot love God unless you know God. You cannot know God unless you have Bible doctrine resident in your soul. You cannot have Bible doctrine resident in your soul unless you are positive toward doctrine — “Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together” and putting yourself under the authority of your right pastor-teacher. Without this it is impossible to love God. 1 Peter 1:18 — Jesus Christ is invisible, and to love the invisible God requires more than a lot of emotional nonsense, it requires doctrine in the soul, Ephesians 3:18,19.

3. Category #1 loves sets up a standard for grace — Psalm 119:132; 31:32. So the command is to love the Lord and the basis for doing so is doctrine in the soul.

4. Category #1 love is the basis for super-grace blessing — 1 Corinthians 2:9; Psalm 37:4,5. “Delight” is making love to. Making love to the Lord is taking in doctrine, taking in doctrine, taking in doctrine, and capacity for loving Him develops from that doctrine.

5. Category #1 love is the basis for personal as well as national blessing — Deuteronomy 30:15-20. So the principle is that your personal blessing and your national blessing are tied up in your attitude toward Bible doctrine. Maximum doctrinal in your soul leads to another principle, the salt principle, whereby you are the preservative of the national entity.

6. Category #1 love motivates combat courage and military victory. The believer in a combat situation is in a maximum pressure type situation, and in this situation doctrine makes the difference — Joshua 23:10,11. One super-grace believer with maximum category #1 love puts to flight a thousand enemy soldiers. As you are occupied with the Lord you are able to face maximum pressure in life, whether it is combat or something else.

7. Category #1 love provides strength for adversity and pressure — Hebrews 11:27; 12:3.

8. There is a special curse on believers who fail to become occupied with the person of Christ under category #1 love — 1 Corinthians 16:22. “Anathema Maranatha” is really not Greek, it is Aramaic. It means “cursed until our Lord comes.” For the believer who does not get with doctrine, who does not take in doctrine, he will not be occupied with Christ, and he will be under a curse. The curse continues until the Rapture. This curse dramatises the fact that divine discipline is the life of all believers who neglect Bible doctrine. In other words, the plan of God is something that all believers are involved in. Both the mature believer and the reversionist is in the plan of God. The former is going to super-grace, the latter is under divine discipline. There is no in between. Either the plan of God carries you to great blessing or the plan of God crushes you, but there is no in between. Your attitude toward doctrine determines which it will be.

9. Witnessing must be motivated by category #1 love — 2 Corinthians 5:14.

10. A description of category #1 love — 1 John 4:15-19. When a believer has maximum doctrine in his soul he has maximum category #1 love, He is occupied with Christ. Therefore the fear factor is eliminated and love and capacity for love becomes the great factor in his life.

“out of a pure heart” — the word “heart” always refers to something that processes the thoughts in your soul. It refers, therefore, to the mentality of your soul. Heart is used in the Bible for your mentality. “Out of a pure heart” is a prepositional phrase and it starts out with the preposition e)k plus and adjective kaqaroj. Kaqaroj is in the ablative — e)k plus the ablative. Then we have the ablative singular of the noun kardia. Kardia refers to the thinking part of the soul. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” The passage here should read, “From [the source of; e)k plus the ablative] a pure heart.” In other words, love is from the source of a pure heart.

Love is a characteristic of the soul with emphasis on what you think in your right lobe. Love is thinking, thinking about something else. Love has an object and you think about that object in one of many categories. Love is what you think about someone else. Capacity for love therefore demands that in your heart or right lobe you have the proper accouterments. For example, you must have a frame of reference for the object of your love. You must have a memory centre. All categories of love are related to memory. And you must have vocabulary. Then there are the norms and standards; the conscience, a very important part of the function of love. Your conscience automatically eliminates certain crude types as the object for love. Then you must have a launching pad where all love goes out, first in thought and then expressed in action under certain categories.

“Purity” here has the concept of freedom from evil, freedom from reversionism, freedom for things which are anti-doctrinal. Love is a mental attitude, it expresses itself in many ways but it still is a mental attitude.

The adjective kaqaroj, “pure,” indicates that all true lovers have a certain kind of righteousness, integrity, character, honour, freedom from mental attitude sins, freedom from evil. A person who is jealous or vindictive or implacable has no capacity for love in any of the categories. Such a person is not a lover, nor can such a person respond to true love. So love demands righteousness, integrity, honour, character, freedom from mental sins, from reversionism, from evil.

The doctrine of the heart

1. The physiological heart is in the human body and is a very intricately-woven muscle which by contracting rhythmically causes circulation of the blood. It is a double pump composed of two valves and the pumps and valves circulate the blood n much the same manner as doctrine is circulated in the right lobe of the soul. It is for this reason that the very close correlation between the mechanical function of the heart and the mechanical function of our mentality that the heart is a Bible word for the right lobe or the mentality of the soul.

2. The Bible heart. The word heart has many connotations in the English language. For example, it is called the part nearest the centre, like the heart of the earth, the core of something. It is sometimes used in connection with cards. The heart has a shape, like on Valentines Day. It is the seat of the spiritual or the consciousness of life, the soul. So the word “heart” as used for the soul is also found in the English as well as the Greek and the Hebrew. Sometimes “heart” in the English has an emotional connotation; the heart has no emotional connotation in the Bible. Whenever you see a verse with heart in it, it does not refer to emotion. For emotion we have such words as “bowels” and “kidneys.” The Bible never uses “heart” for the emotions in a physiological sense. In other words, the Bible heart is used always for the mentality of the soul. The heart in the Bible is the organ of thinking — Proverbs 23:7; 1 Samuel 16:7; Genesis 6:5 distinguishes between imaginations and thoughts of the heart. The heart is the residence of Bible doctrine in the soul — Proverbs 2:2,10; 3:3; 15:14.

3. The essence of the heart. The heart is composed of parts. The first part is the frame of reference, the basic area of the heart where all thought receives its basic training for function in your own soul. The frame of reference is mentioned as a part of the heart in Proverbs 4:4, it is a sort of antechamber for understanding life. Secondly, we have the memory centre which is a pump which circulates doctrine into the various parts of the right lobe as well as the soul. The memory centre should be related to the doctrine of memory. The vocabulary storage is a supply place to develop thought. Your ability to think depends upon your vocabulary. The greater your vocabulary the greater your capacity for thought. Words are the vehicle for thinking. Then we have conscience, the norms and the standards which you develop in life. This is a constantly changing thing. Your norms and standards will change as you learn about life. If you are an advancing believer your norms and standards will advance so that they will be doctrinal in their viewpoint. If you are in reversionism your norms and standards will decline until the decline of your norms and standards leads to being influenced by evil. Once all of your norms and standards are evil then you are a candidate for the sin unto death. This is a very important function in your soul. Then there is the application of these things to life, so you have a launching pad where you apply these various concepts in your soul to life.

4. Therefore the doctrinal content in your soul resides in your heart or your right lobe — Proverbs 2:2,10; Psalm 119;11; 19:14; Proverbs 15:14; Job 38:36; 1 Kings 3:9,12.

5. The facets of heart function. The heart can reject Bible teaching — Proverbs 5:12,13. The heart is the source of discord and trouble-making — Proverb 6:14,18. The heart of the prostitute is said to be subtle is Proverbs 7:10. Hatred is related to the heart in 2 Samuel 6:16. The heart suffers disappointment from promises not kept — Proverbs 13:12. The heart promotes mental attitude sins — Proverbs 14:10; sorrow and disappointment — Proverbs 14:13; pride — Proverbs 21:4; Obadiah 3; worry, Ecclesiastes 2:23. It is said in the Bible that women use the heart to trap men — Ecclesiastes 7:26. The frantic search for happiness is related to the heart — Ecclesiastes 1:13. Reversionism is described in terms of the heart — Jeremiah 17:5,9; Zechariah 7:12. Revolution, insubordination is described as being in the heart — 2 Samuel 15:6; Jeremiah 5:23; Ezekiel 6:9. Hypocrisy is in the heart — Job 36:13; Psalm 55:21. Now you are to deduce from these various facets of heart function that the heart can be influenced by evil, that the heart becomes a major factor in reversionism as well as a major factor in spiritual growth. The heart can be influenced by doctrine, the heart can be influenced by evil. Whichever way it goes determines your function in the plan of God. You can be blessed if your heart is influenced by doctrine, you can be disciplined and cursed if your heart is influenced by evil

6. The heart is related to the function of thinking and perception. The heart related to the function of GAP is thinking and perception — Deuteronomy 29:4. The thinking of a reversionist is related to the heart — Psalm 10:6,11,13. The atheist also uses his heart for thinking — Proverbs 14:1. The rationalising of education — Ecclesiastes 1:13-18 is the heart related to thinking. The rationalising of mental attitude sins — Isaiah 47:10. False teachers communicating deceit from their heart — Jeremiah 14:14. The heart is used for meditation on doctrine — Luke 2:19. Thinking superiority comes from the heart — Luke 9:46,47.

7. In the analogy of right man and right woman the heart comes into the picture. The heart is analogous to the right man even as the emotion is analogous to the right woman in the various functions of the parts of the soul. Psalm 26:2; Jeremiah 11:20; 17:10; 20:12.

8. The heart is also related to capacity for life (not your emotion). The capacity for life is in the heart, not in the emotion. Your capacity for life is in what you think, not in what you feel. Emotion is a responder to capacity for life but there is no capacity for life in emotion. All capacity for life resides in your frame of reference, your memory centre, your vocabulary thinking, categorising, the conscience of your right lobe. From these areas the heart initiates and the emotion responds. It is the same way in sex: the man initiates, the woman responds. After she responds she becomes an initiator. There are positive and negative capacities for life. On the positive side is love — Deuteronomy 6:5; 11:13; Joshua 22:5. Happiness — Psalm 19:8; 28:7; dynamics — Job 9:4. On the negative side we have sorrow — Leviticus 26:16; pressure — Psalm 34:18; cowardice — Joshua 14:8; 1 Samuel 17:32; discouragement — Numbers 32:7,9.

9. Therefore the heart is the basic area for happiness or unhappiness. The emotion merely reflects what is in the heart.

10. The heart is an area for 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 psychosis in Isaiah 13:7,8. Mental sins relate to the old sin nature in the heart. In other words, all mental attitude sins come from the old sin nature but they are transmitted through the heart — Psalm 66:18; 101:5: Proverbs 6:18; Matthew 12:35; 15:18,19.

11. The heart is a blessing to the growing believer because the heart is related to grace function — Proverbs 24:17. The heart is related to grace orientation — Exodus 23:9. Id related top happiness 1 Samuel 2:1. Is the basis of stability in the crisis — Psalm 112:7,8.

12. The heart is also the motivator of life: for temporal life — Exodus 35:25,26,35; 36:8; for spiritual life — 2 Corinthians 9:7; 1 Kings 8:17.

13. The heart is related to positive volition — Romans 10:9,10.

14. The heart is used as an anthropopathism. In other words, the heart of God becomes an anthropopathism — 1 Samuel 2:35; Psalm 78:72; Jeremiah 23:20; 30:24.

Verse 5c — “and a good conscience.” We have a connective use of the conjunction kai, then a prepositional phrase, e)k plus the ablative of suneidhsij. Sun is a preposition meaning “with,” and e)idhsij is taken from o)ida which means to know. So it means to know along with something. The something with which we know is simply a norm or a standard we have in the soul and this becomes the basis for determining certain things in life — determining whether something is acceptable or not acceptable, good or bad, moral or immoral, and all of the many other concepts, true or false. The standards in life are designed for that and also for what we personally like and what we don’t like.

The word for “good” is the ablative singular of the adjective a)gaqoj which is the word for good of intrinsic value, and here it refers to absolute good. A good conscience is one saturated with doctrine forming the norms and standards of life. Obviously there are various sets of norms and standards. For example, doctrine does not set up empirical standards. Empirical standards are based upon taste, sight, smell, hearing. In other words, the sensory systems. So the sensory system sets up its own standards. There are standards which are not covered in doctrine but you do have certain doctrinal standards. If there ever is a conflict between a doctrinal norm and any other standard you have established in your soul the doctrinal norm supersedes all others.

The doctrine of conscience

1. A conscience is the accumulation of norms and standards in your right lobe or heart. The conscience is all of the norms and standards that you possess, whether they are right or wrong, good or bad. They are your very own norms and standards and they belong to your conscience. Doctrine and the learning of doctrine will correct many of your erroneous norms and standards. One of the many advantages in being a mature believer is to have good norms and standards about everything. A good conscience, in other words, is a conscience where Bible doctrine establishes all of your norms and standards. A conscience is that part of the soul’s right lobe where you have computerised all of your norms and standards.

2. The conscience is located in the right lobe or the thinking part of the soul — Romans 2:15; Titus 1:15. The conscience establishes norms for both human and divine relationships — Acts 24:16.

3. The conscience convicts of sin, evil, and wrong doing. In other words, the conscience is a warning. If you are in sin were it not for your conscience you would not know what to rebound. It also warns of evil as your conscience advances in the doctrinal field and as you mature. And so you are aware of reversionism, you are aware of evil, you are aware of sin — John 8:9.

4. The conscience establishes norms for both morality and the laws of establishment — Romans 2:15.

5. False norms and standards in the conscience produce legalism and self-righteousness — 1 Corinthians 8:7. Immediately after the fall of man false norms and standards were established in the conscience resulting in the first act of legalism in the Genesis 3:7 — operation fig leaves which was a conscience-type sin. A self-righteous conscience demanded that the man and the woman put on clothes. This was a false conscience function. Our norm and standard to day is to wear clothes.

6. The law of freedom and certain superseding laws such as love, expediency, supreme sacrifice, are also related to the function of the conscience in 1 Corinthians 10:24-29. In other words, your conscience also develops concepts of superseding laws where you are free to do something but because of the law of love [directed toward the weak believer] or the law of expediency [directed toward the unbeliever] or the law of supreme sacrifice [directed toward God] this means that you will have established norms which are superseded under the function of these laws. So your conscience knows when you have a correct, perfectly moral, upright norm or standard that must be superseded or set aside under these laws.

7. The conscience is the basis for patriotism — Romans 13:5.

8. Human happiness in the field of neutral H [legitimate happiness for believers and unbelievers] is based on compliance on one’s own conscience. When you meet your own standards this contributes to neutral H — 2 Corinthians 1:12.

9. Norms and standards reside in the conscience for the communication of doctrine — 2 Corinthians 4:2. This avoids intellectual dishonesty and intellectual snobbery.

10. The function of GAP builds up the divine standards in the human conscience — 1 Timothy 1:5,19; 3:9.

11. Conscience can be distorted or destroyed by negative volition toward doctrine — scar tissue of the soul, blackout of the soul, being influenced by evil — 1 Timothy 4:1,2.

12. Conscience establishes norms and standards for serving God — 2 Timothy 1:3; Hebrews 9:14.

13. Conscience containing doctrine is the basis for enduring suffering, maltreatment, misunderstanding, without trying to apologise for yourself, defend yourself in some way — 1 Peter 2:19; 3:16. In this sense, by the way, your conscience is a great protection in avoiding any ego trip. The way to protect from that is to develop firm standards from doctrine and stick with them. Your conscience is a computer that is related to your capacity for life, and that is why the conscience is mentioned so many times in the scriptures.

The good conscience is one saturated with doctrine forming norms and standards and grace concepts in life.

“and faith unfeigned” — again, a connective kai, the preposition e)k plus the ablative singular from the adjective a)nupokritoj. Krith is an actor; with u(po it means to act behind a mask. They used wax masks in the Hellenistic world of drama. The adjective actually means without hypocrisy. The a means without having on a mask. The word pistij refers to doctrine. So it should be, “from doctrine without hypocrisy.” Doctrine without hypocrisy means learning doctrine without using doctrine as an excuse for sins, for evil, or for some form of reversionism or rationalisation. The tendency in the adolescent stage of spiritual life is to start “using” doctrine as an excuse. Some people use certain grace doctrines to “raise hell,” some as an excuse to do something. Some people sit in Bible class waiting for some that resembles a biblical excuse for something they always wanted to do and the knew it was always wrong. The sophomore stage: the word is made up of two Greek words — sofoj which means wise; morh which means fool. A “wise fool.” The Greek had a beautiful way of describing adolescence. So we have the sophomore stage of spiritual life.

Translation: “But the objective of preaching is love from a pure heart [right lobe], and from a good conscience, and from doctrine without hypocrisy.”

The objective of communicating doctrine or preaching is to produce in the soul of the believer a tremendous categorical development of the soul’s norms and standards so that the individual recognises his slavery to doctrine and not his “using” of doctrine.

In verses 6 and 7 the purpose of the ministry: to avoid apostasy, arrogance, and stupidity.

Verse 6 — “From which some.” We have the ablative plural of the relative pronoun o(j plus tij, the indefinite relative pronoun which refers to pastors who have become reversionists who have become reversionists, which as resulted in arrogance, apostasy or stupidity.

“having swerved” — aorist active participle of a)stoxew which means to swerve or to deviate or to go astray. The verb describes pastoral reversionism. It warns of the areas in which a pastor is hurt in communicating doctrine. The aorist tense of the participle is a constative aorist, it contemplates the three problems — arrogance, apostasy, stupidity — in their entirety. The active voice: the pastor produces these things to fail as a pastor. The participle is a causal participle. Reversionism causes pastors to swerve, to deviate, to turn aside. Furthermore, the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, “have turned aside” —

the aorist passive indicative of e)ktrepw, they have turned aside from their responsibility. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the result. The passive voice has a middle voice sense. It is an indirect middle emphasising the agent, the failing or reversionistic pastor, as producing the action of the verb. The indicative mood is indicates the main verb: “they themselves have turned to.”

“vain jangling” — preposition e)ij plus the accusative from the compound mataiologia. Mataioj is a vacuum. It means empty. Logia is taken from logoj: “words” or legw, “to speak.” It comes to mean empty or ineffective teaching, empty talk.

Translation: “From which some pastors having deviated they themselves have turned to empty talk.” It is a reference to the teaching of reversionistic pastors who under the influence of evil cannot communicate doctrine. They are arrogant, stupid, apostate; their teaching becomes ineffective. It is not accomplishing the objective for which the Holy Spirit gave them the gift of pastor-teacher.

Verse 7 — the false standard. “Desiring” is the present active participle of the verb qelw. The present tense is a descriptive present, or called a pictorial present. It describes the action in progress. The active voice: the reversionistic pastor produces the action of the verb by trying to jump back into the dispensation of Israel and become a teacher of the law. This was the big problem in the first century. They were just a few years removed from the Age of Israel and as far as they were concerned there was no new dispensation. To them the big problem was, “There is no dispensation.” A far as they were concerned they were still in the Age of Israel, and the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ, and then the calling out of the royal family of the Church, didn’t exist. They were still living under the old dispensation. In other words, their stupidity was being anti-dispensational.

This is a stupidity which had bugged in the last few hundred years of Church history, the fundamentalists. Their great problem has been that they are anti-dispensational and dispensational theology has not even been recognised, except in a handful of seminaries. All denominations are traditionally anti-dispensational. Were it not for the Plymouth Brethren who have always been very strong for dispensational theology, and places like Dallas Seminary and one of the independent Presbyterian groups, there would really be no emphasis on dispensational theology. The traditional theology is called covenant theology which destroys and blurs all dispensational theology distinctions.

The active voice: the reversionistic pastor produces the action of the verb by ignoring dispensational distinctions. The participle is circumstantial.

“to be” — present active infinitive of e)imi denotes an intended purpose, but really they can’t carry it out the way they want to.

“teachers of the law” — predicate nominative plural of a sort of coined word, nomodidaskoloj which is obviously a teacher of the law — “Desiring to be law teachers.”

The Judaisers have come to Ephesus. Many of them are believers but they are very legalistic. They are believers who are still depending entirely upon the Mosaic law and do not recognise any change in dispensations. Therefore they come to teach legalism, distorting the Mosaic law into a system of legalism. They emphasise the Mosaic law as the way of salvation, keeping the law as a way of spirituality. So keeping the law was a popular form of reversionism in the early church, a form of reversionism that belonged to pastors and teachers who did not know of the change of dispensation or were blanked-out on it. To become a teacher of the law is not only apostasy but, worse than that, it is dispensational disorientation.

The doctrine of dispensations

1. Definition and description. A dispensation is a period of human history expressed in terms of divine revelation. God has divided human history into its proper segments. The dispensations as a whole become the divine outline of human history, as well as God’s categories for human history. History is often divided up by historians based upon certain functions, certain changes in history into periods, based upon their own interpretation or upon cataclysmic events in history. God also has the perfect interpretation, the spiritual interpretation of history, and this is called dispensations. It is God’s plan for man related to time. The believer’s orientation to time and to history is vitally necessary for understanding God’s plan and purpose in time. In every dispensation God administers His plan through specific agencies. That is where we get the word “dispensation.” It means stewardship. For example, God always has communicators. In the Age of Israel the communicators were the Levitical priests, the Levites, and the prophets. In the Church Age bona fide communicators were apostles — until AD 96 — and now pastor-teachers. Outside the local church there is a bona fide gift of communication called evangelism. God administers through specific agencies, He has His stewards in every dispensation. The progeny of Seth, the patriarchs, the nation Israel, were administrators in the past. Today the Church is the administrator. Salvation in each one of these dispensations was always the same, only the manner in which Jesus Christ was revealed has changed as history has developed. Jesus Christ was first revealed through animal sacrifices and since that time, right up to the present time, He has been revealed in different ways. After the cross he is revealed historically; before the cross He is revealed prophetically, as in the classical illustration of Isaiah 53.

2. There is a biblical vocabulary and it is necessarily Greek since dispensational teaching is revealed in the New Testament. There are quite a few words which refer to dispensations.

Xronoj is the basic word for time in the Greek language from which we get the word chronology. it means time as a succession of events. It can be time as a succession of minutes, as a succession of hours. But Xronoj is often used in the Bible in the New Testament for time as a succession of events. This is a related dispensational word.

Kairoj is much more specific in connection with dispensations. It denotes time as an epoch or an era. it is used for the organisation of historical events into their dispensational categories in 1 Thessalonians 5:1.

A)ion refers to dispensations as ages or periods of time. it is a divine category of human history and therefore it is often translated correctly, “age”, as in Ephesians 3:2; Colossians 1:25.

Then the word “dispensation” itself: o)ikonomia. This word refers to management of an estate, administration of an estate. It also means dispensation or the divine administration of time. God has an administration in each one of His periods of time.

3. The first dispensation is the Age of the Gentiles covering Genesis chapters 1-11. It is divided into three periods: The period of positive volition — Adam in the garden with the woman; from the fall on we have negative volition; this is followed by the laws of divine establishment. The characteristics of this age are one language, one race [Gentiles], the angelic attack is on establishment — on free will in chapter three, marriage and family in chapter six, on nationalism in chapter 11. The scope of this dispensation goes from creation to Babel. There was no written scripture, all of it was revealed by God or through various agencies, there was no missionary agency but salvation was by faith in Jesus Christ. People reached super-grace on the basis of the doctrine they had received. We know this from a study of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.

4. In the second dispensation we have the Age of Israel which is, again, divided into three parts: the period of the patriarchs, the period of the law which was interrupted by the resurrection, ascension and session. The interruption is so that Jesus Christ who is alone at the right hand of the Father might have a royal family. The Church Age is the calling out of the royal family. Once the royal family is completed then the Age of Israel resumes with the seven years of the Tribulation. The period of the patriarchs goes from Abraham to Moses, the law from Moses to Christ, and then the conclusion of this dispensation, the Tribulation from the Rapture to the second advent. It is a period of many languages, many races, the development of Israel from a race to a nation — Abraham at the point of circumcision became the father of a new race, the latest and newest race. Moses is the father of the nation. The security of the nation came through its unconditional covenants and the whole concept of this dispensation is that there might be a custodianship for the scriptures as they began. This custodianship was the nation Israel. Everything centres around the Jews. Technically, when a Jew believes today he is a member of the royal family and in the royal family there is neither Jew or Gentile but an entire new category and concept. The national security, prosperity and blessing came through the delineation of the laws of divine establishment as they were portrayed in the Mosaic law. National discipline: the five cycles; salvation was by faith in Jesus Christ; spirituality was through the faith-rest technique, and a number of believers reached super-grace.

The problem of the Judaisers of Paul’s day and the great attack upon the Ephesians complex all came because of ignorance on the part of pastors of the doctrine of intercalation.

The doctrine of intercalation

1. Intercalation means insertion. The Jewish dispensation was interrupted by the insertion of a new dispensation. The strategical victory of Jesus Christ, the cross, resurrection, ascension and His session at the right hand of the Father immediately demanded that the Jewish Age be interrupted and that a new dispensation be inserted.

2. The new dispensation inserted was the dispensation of the royal family of God. It generally derives its name from its classroom. The local church is the classroom for the royal family. It is the only time they assemble and meet together without portfolio. When the royal family meets in the local church they have no rights or privileges, only the opportunity for concentration on the teaching under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. One teaches, all learn. That is why it is called the Church Age, but it is better termed the age of the royal family of God, an absolute unique age.

3. Intercalation is the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. The calling out of the royal family immediately intensified the angelic conflict.

4. The doctrine pertaining to the Church Age is called “mystery” because it was 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 scriptures. Where Church Age doctrine would have occurred there is a parenthesis.

6. Doctrine pertinent to the Church Age is intercalated, inserted, by the New Testament epistles.

7. Illustrations of the great parenthesis concept in the Old Testament: Daniel 2:40 comes right up to the Church Age. Between verses 40 and 41 the Church Age would be inserted but it was not mentioned because it was part of the mystery doctrine. We have the same thing between Daniel 7:23 and 24, between 8:22 and 23, and Daniel 11:35 and 36, or Hosea 3:4 and 5.

8. The Old Testament reveals doctrine up through the session of Christ and then skips the Church Age and reveals Tribulational information as well as the second advent and the Millennium. But never once does it say anything about the Church Age. That is why the baptism of the Holy Spirit was such a surprise on the Day of Pentecost and no one could understand it, and there is very little way of explaining it which is why a passage had to be lifted by Peter out of Joel to explain why they weren’t all drunk but were in something brand new.

The Church Age is the key and the important factor, and it was being ignored by pastors, and we still have that brand of pastor today. He is called a covenant theologian and he does not see the Church Age as being any different from the Old Testament. In the writings of covenant theology you will find the word “church” used in connection with the Old Testament.

We have an absolutely unique age. The baptism of the Holy Spirit made us royal family of God. The demand for our day is something that never existed before: the balance of residency. The body of the believer is always indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The soul of the believer never is indwelt by the Spirit but when the Holy Spirit controls the soul we call that filling of the Spirit. When the believer is carnal or when the believer is reversionistic he is either quenching or grieving the Spirit but the Holy Spirit, either in quenching or grieving, never leaves our bodies. Therefore there is no such thing as demon possession. There is something worse, the thing about which our Lord warns us: “Do not be afraid of that which destroys the body, beware of that which destroys the soul.” Being influenced by evil destroys the soul. Reversionism and influence of evil meet and that is where the soul becomes destroyed. Minus doctrine and the filling of the Spirit sets up an out-of-balance condition and this is balanced out through the daily function of GAP. The sanctification of the royal family is this balance of residency. So we have the baptism of the Spirit, the universal priesthood of the believer, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sealing of the Spirit. We have a completed canon of scripture. We have all of these things that pertain to the royal family of God that are absolutely unique. Never in history has there been such an opportunity for believers as there is in this particular dispensation.

This is what these pastors do not understand, this is what Judaism has done.

In the middle of verse 7 we have the phrase, “understanding neither.” For “neither” we have the negative mh plus the present active participle of the verb noew. It should be translated, “not understanding.” The present tense is the retroactive progressive present which denotes what has begun in the past with reversionism and continues into the present under the influence of reversionism and evil. The pastors in the Ephesus complex had entered into legalistic or Judaistic type reversionism. The active voice: the Ephesian pastors and those of that area, the Roman province of Asia, produce the action of the verb by entering into legalistic reversionism. The participle is causal and should be translated literally, “since they do not understand.”

Neither” is “either”; “what they say” — the present active indicative of legw plus mhte. Mhte is what is called a negative copula and it should be translated “either.” The nominative plural neuter of the relative pronoun o(j is also involved here: “either what they are teaching” is the best translation. The present tense indicates linear aktionsart, retroactive progressive present. They have been teaching in the past and they are teaching right now. They are law teachers, they know nothing of the Church Age, they know nothing of the royal family of God.

“nor whereof” — whereof is a preposition, peri plus the genitive of the indefinite pronoun tij — it is “concerning the things.”

“they affirm” — a fair translation. It is the present middle indicative of diabebaioomai. The word means to make confident assertions which are untrue. To be full of hot air and to be dogmatic about it is what it really means. We will simply translate it, “they make confident assertions.”

Both verbs also are descriptive presents, they are occurring right now. We have the active voice in the verb legw for teaching here, meaning that the pastors are producing the action. But we have the deponent middle in the second verb, again meaning the pastors are producing the action. And we have the indicative mood for a declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is a fact, these pastors are arrogant and stupid. When it comes to the Mosaic law pastors are at their worst, it sneaks up on their blind side. Many pastors have a trend toward legalism anyway and this merely contributes to it. So without seeing objectively why the Mosaic law is in the Bible they just simply set that aside and become subjective about the Mosaic law and make it a basis for legalism. So you come up with salvation by keeping the law, which is apostasy; spirituality by keeping the law, which is also apostasy.

Translation: “Desiring to be teachers of the law; since they do not understand either what they are teaching or concerning things about which they speak dogmatically.”

1. It is obvious that the reversionistic and apostate pastors in the Ephesus complex are teaching a legalism related to the Mosaic law.

2. They are teaching it from arrogance and dogmatism. They are dogmatically wrong.

There are two doctrines which make the next paragraph which is the purpose of the Mosaic law.

The doctrine of the covenants to Israel

A. Definition.

1. The Hebrew berith and the Greek diaqhkh are two words which do not mean testament. A testament is some kind of official thing whereby you anticipate your death and you want your will to be superimposed on others after your death. Therefore you must die before this official document becomes operational. That is exactly what we do not have. What we really have is a new covenant and an old covenant. Berith in the Hebrew and diaqhkh in the Greek refer to a disposition made by party of the first part in favour of party of the second part. In other words, party of the first part is God in all these covenants, and He makes a disposition while God is alive and in fact God is still alive. Christ was alive and died twice on the cross. These covenants were made prior to the cross — all of them — so they are not waiting for the death of Christ; even the cross is not involved here directly. A covenant means party of the first part makes a favourable disposition to party of the second part, apart from party of the second part having to do anything. In other words, we are talking about the principle of grace. Party of the second part is generally regenerate mankind. The one exception is the Mosaic law which is addressed to the Jewish nation.

2. Neither of these biblical words refer to a will or testament, for a will or a testament is activated by the physical death of the testator.

3. Such is not the case with God. God lives and cannot die.

4. While the new covenant, for example, depends upon the spiritual death of Christ on the cross providing redemption, reconciliation and propitiation, it is not activated because of His physical death.

5. To the contrary it is guaranteed by His resurrection, ascension and session; it is guaranteed by His life, not by His dying.

6. Therefore both diaqhkh and berith require a compact between two parties with one party favouring the other.

7. All biblical covenants are made between God and man as the two parties, and always God favouring man on a grace basis.

8. Each dispensation contains one or more covenants. For example, the age of the Gentiles: the Adamic covenant, the Noahic covenant. The Age of Israel: the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New covenants to Israel. The Church Age: the new covenant to the Church. And to be fulfilled in the Millennium, the new covenant to Israel.

9. While some covenants to Israel have been classified as unconditional and others conditional, this is a misnomer. All covenants to Israel are gracious promises and provisions on the part of God as party of the first part toward Israel or toward individuals as undeserving party of the second part.

B. General classification.

There are five individual covenants to Israel or to individuals in Israel: the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Mosaic, Davidic, and New covenants.

C. The covenants of the Messianic line. Some covenants deal with the whole Messianic problem and therefore they are not confined to the Age of Israel, though Jewish covenants are also related since Messiah came from Israel. For example, by covenants of the Messianic line we again refer to five: the Adamic covenant of Genesis 2:15; 3:15, the seed of the woman, the humanity of Christ will come as Adam’s seed when he is called the seed of the woman. In the Noahic covenant — Genesis 6:18; 8:21-9:17 — the seed of the woman or the humanity of Christ wll come through the line of Noah, specifically through Seth. In the Abrahamic covenant the seed of the woman will come from the line of Abraham’s descent. In the Davidic covenant the seed of the woman, the humanity of Christ, will come from the line of David through Bathsheba and through two sons of Bathsheba — Solomon and Nathan. Then the New covenant to Israel: the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, will return to the earth to reign over Israel and to reign over the world forever. This is the restoration under the Millennial reign of Christ.

D. The covenant to Abraham. The unconditional grace covenant in which God as party of the first part makes a favourable disposition to party of the second part, Abraham. Part of the disposition of this covenant promises to Abraham both a new race — the Jews — and a new nation — Israel. The original three-paragraph covenant in found in Genesis 12:1-3, with amplification which came later. It included the promise of real estate and so it has the seed for the Palestinian covenant. The geographical location, is described in the Abrahamic covenant — Genesis 13:14-16; 15:18-21. It includes an eternal city, the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation 21:2,10. The covenant pertains to the seed of Abraham, specifically through Isaac and through Jacob. The covenant is the basis for the Exodus deliverance and the beginning of the nation in Exodus — Exodus 6:2-8.

E. The covenant to Moses. Unlike all the other covenants this one as party of the second part is to a group of people, a nation. It is to the nation Israel. Therefore, since Israel is always made up of unbelievers and believers it is a slightly different type of covenant, but it is not a conditional covenant — only in the sense when anyone observes the laws of divine establishment certain blessings are going to accrue. So it is different from the other covenants in that its beneficiary is a nation. So it must be classified as the national heritage covenant because the national heritage of Israel is spiritual as well as establishment. It is a beautiful combination of spiritual factors and establishment factors. The spiritual factors teach grace — the Levitical offerings, the tabernacle, the Levitical priesthood; the establishment factors always made Israel a great nation and establishment blesses the unbeliever, gives the unbeliever the same freedom and opportunities that the believer has. It was definitely not given to the Gentiles and definitely not given to the Church. It is divided into three groups: the basic heritage for freedom, the spiritual heritage, and the establishment heritage.

F. The Palestinian Covenant. God as party of the first part makes a land grant to party of the second part, the nation Israel in the Millennium. The nation Israel in the Millennium is going to be made up of believers and unbelievers, starting out with believers but ending up with believers and unbelievers. But this goes on forever so that eventually on the believers will enjoy this covenant forever and ever. The borders are described in Numbers 34:1-12; Deuteronomy 30:1-9; Joshua 1:3,4. The beneficiaries will be the nation Israel in eternity as well as the nation Israel in the Millennium.

G. The covenant to David.

H. The covenant to Jeremiah, called also the New covenant to Israel. God confirms the fact that He will keep all of these covenants. There is one covenant during Israel’s dispersion and that is the New covenant to the Church, the basis for the New Testament which is really the New Covenant.

The doctrine of the Mosaic covenant

1. The Mosaic covenant is divided into three categories.

The first part called the ten commandments is the freedom code. They do not describe morality, the describe freedom. The fact that morality is mentioned is simply to prove the fact that freedom is based upon establishment. Establishment functions on morality. You don’t have many sins mentioned, only those where freedom is violated. These commandments form the heritage of freedom for the Jewish nation. Human freedom is described in terms of establishment, it is described in terms of morality, the basis for human freedom and privacy.

The second part of the Mosaic law called the ordinances is the spiritual or the theological code. This is the spiritual heritage of Israel recognising that this nation as well as this race was born from regeneration. When the race was born Abraham was born again, Isaac was born again, Jacob was born again. The nation was born from Moses, Moses was born again, and the Passover commemorates the fact that those liberated, 20 and over, were also born again or they died. So we have a great spiritual heritage in codex #2. This heritage includes primarily doctrines of soteriology and Christology. It emphasises the fact that believers are designed to function under both the laws of divine establishment as well as doctrine resident in the soul. It includes such subjects as the tabernacle, the holy days, Levitical offerings, modus operandi of the Levitical priesthood, and many other factors connected to the spiritual life.

The third category under the Mosaic law, called the judgments in the KJV, is really the establishment code. It is perhaps the most understood of all and the one that is often distorted into some brand of legalism. It was definitely misunderstood in the days when Paul wrote to Timothy. It includes political as well as the functional heritage of the nation Israel. It covers many subjects: freedom, privacy, marriage, divorce, military service, taxation (tithing), diet, health, sanitation, quarantine, criminal law. And it delineates free enterprise as the only basis for national prosperity.

2. The recipients of the law was the nation Israel — Exodus 19:3; Leviticus 26:46; Romans 3:19; 9:4. It was definitely not given to the Gentiles — Deuteronomy 4:8; Roman 2:12-14. It was, furthermore, not given to the Church — Acts 15:5,24; Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:19.

3. Jesus Christ and the law. Jesus Christ kept the law perfectly during the period of His incarnation. This is a part of the doctrine of impeccability, it is also a part of His patriotism. Christ condemned the legalistic distortions of the law and the Pharisees who sponsored them. Christ fulfilled the law — Matthew 5:17, and Christ is the end of the law for believers — Romans 10:4.

4. Keeping the law is not a way of salvation, never was and never will be — Galatians 2:16. While the Mosaic law reveals the way of salvation it is not the means of being saved. The Mosaic law teaches the gospel but is not the way of appropriating the gospel. It is the way of human freedom, the way of human blessing and prosperity under establishment, but it is not the way of salvation.

5. Keeping the law is also not spirituality. Believers in the Church Age and/or the royal family of God are under the higher law of spirituality related to God the Holy Spirit, related to the function of GAP — Romans 8:2-4; Galatians 5:18,22,23; 1 Corinthians 13.

6. Therefore the Mosaic law is limited as far as this dispensation is concerned. We are in the intercalated dispensation and therefore its limitation:

a) It cannot justify — Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:20,28; Acts 13:39; Philippians 3:9.

b) It cannot give life — Galatians 3:21.

c) It cannot provide the Holy Spirit — Galatians 3:2.

d) It cannot solve the problem of the old sin nature — Romans 8:4.

7. Other nomenclature for the Mosaic law. It is called the book of the covenant in Exodus 24:7,8; 34:27,28; Deuteronomy 4:13-16, 23, 31; 8:18; 9:9, 11, 15. In other words, throughout the Old testament in the Pentateuch you are going to stumble over the phrase “this book of the covenant.” This is a specific reference to the Mosaic covenant. The addendum to the Mosaic law found in Deuteronomy 29-32 is definitely a part of the Mosaic law. Prophecies of breaking the covenant are found in Deuteronomy 31:16, 20; Jeremiah 22:9. The book of the covenant is the subject of Jeremiah 11 but is not to be confused with the new covenant to Israel in Jeremiah 31:31ff.

8. The past purpose of the Mosaic law in the Age of Israel.

The Mosaic law was the authorising agent for a specialised priesthood — the Levitical priesthood — Hebrews 7:11,12. It authorised the tabernacle as a sacred building and training aid for teaching doctrine — Hebrews 9:1-6. The law authorised Levitical sacrifices — Hebrews 9:12,13. It authorised the blood of animals as a dedication of shadows — Hebrews 9:18-22 cf. 10:1, and it established the pattern for blessing and prosperity in the nation for believer and unbeliever under the laws of divine establishment.

9. The present purpose of the Mosaic law in the Church Age. It is written for our instruction — Romans 15:4. Our confidence in certain areas, like free enterprise. It was written for our example — 1 Corinthians 10:11,12. It also has another purpose, to convince by divine standards that the unbeliever is a sinner and needs a saviour. In other words, it is a prelude to gospel presentation — Romans 3:20,28; Galatians 2:16.

So the Mosaic law and its principles form the pattern of policy for all good national government.

We are now dealing with the purpose of the Mosaic law which came out of the phrase about desiring to become law teachers and yet coming up with empty talk.

Verse 8 — the abrogation of the law does not imply that the law is bad. To the contrary, the law is good. It does not have the same purpose that it had in the Old Testament in many ways because Jesus Christ having come in the flesh, having gone to the cross, died for our sins, was raised again, ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father, broke into the Age of Israel which came to a halt in order for a royal family to be formed. We live in the dispensation of the royal family of God. When the royal family is completed and we are all resurrected, then the dispensation of Israel will continue throughout the course of the Tribulation and to the point of the second advent.

The Mosaic covenant was designed to set up for the nation Israel two things: their spiritual heritage and the basis of national prosperity in the laws of divine establishment The spiritual heritage came from codex #2 and was designed to portray who and what Christ is. The laws of divine establishment set up the principles of prosperity for a national entity as well as social, sexual, and spiritual blessing in a national entity.

All of this is fine if you understand the law in its proper concept, but once we break into the Age of Israel with the Church Age, immediately these have a different purpose. Now instead of laws of establishment and instead of the spiritual heritage which moved with the Age of Israel we come to a stop and we learn that there is a purpose in teaching the law in this age but entirely apart from the purpose which the Judaisers have set up. In fact the law as the authorising agent for the Levitical priesthood and for the modus operandi of Israel is abrogated. The abrogation of the law does not remove the teaching of the law.

“But we know” — you must understand doctrine to orient to any factor in the royal priesthood. We have a post positive conjunctive particle de used as an adversative conjunction and translated “But.” It sets up a contrast between the distortion of the law by the Judaisers, previously mentioned in verses 6,7, and the true perspective of the law for the Church Age. We have with this particle the perfect o)ida used as a present tense for knowledge in the frontal lobe — understanding of a doctrinal perspective.

“that” — the conjunction o(ti is used after verbs of thinking, verbs of conclusion, to show the content of the conclusion or the results of the verb of thinking.

”the law” — o( nomoj. The law is used for the Old Testament scripture. It is used for the Pentateuch, it is used for the Mosaic covenant. Here it is used for the Mosaic covenant.

“is good” — we have a predicate adjective, kaloj, not a)gaqpj. Kaloj means here “noble.” It is used here in its qualitative sense of noble, useful, blameless, good.

“if” is a conjunction used to introduce a third class condition, e)an, and it means maybe yes and maybe no.

“a man” — the indefinite pronoun tij and it means “anyone.”

“uses it” — present middle subjunctive of the verb xraomai which means to employ, to make use of. The present tense is the tendencial present for an action which is purposed though not actually taking place. The middle voice for a deponent verb is the same as the active voice. In other words, someone might use the law properly and lawfully and when they do it still has function. The subjunctive mood goes with the third class condition for potentiality.

“lawfully” is an adverb, nomimoj, and it means according to the rules or lawfully.

Translation: “But we know that the law is excellent if anyone uses it lawfully.

Principles

1. The law must be used according to the principles within its own context. The law itself will determine its usage. You do not have to go outside of the Word of God for the proper use of the law in any dispensation.

2. In view of dispensational teaching, which these pastors do not understand and the Judaisers are not aware of, this means that certain things that the law advocated in Israel are not transferred to the Church. This means that tithing as a system of taxation, the specialised priesthood, the observation of a Sabbath day, and other concepts which have been distorted in the Church Age, are no longer valid.

3. The law was used in the dispensation of Israel by the nation Israel within a lawful context of spiritual heritage and national blessing. Once Christ comes in the flesh and fulfills certain principles, certain shadows of the law, the law is immediately abrogated. Once the Church Age began the law was completely and totally abrogated.

4. Only evil and reversionism distort the law with an unlawful usage.

The proper teaching of the law

1. The Mosaic law must be taught under the ICE principle for interpretation. I = isagogics; C= categories; E = exegesis. Under isagogics this demands that the law be related to the nation Israel in the dispensation of Israel. You must teach the law in its context.

2. Under categorical teaching the categories of the law must be delineated in biblical terms. For example, in the KJV we have “commandments.” That is codex #1. There are ordinances for codex #2, judgments for codex #3. Then we have to suddenly advance over 300 years of English and redefine them. Codex #1 is the spiritual heritage of freedom as well as establishment freedom. Codex #2 is the spiritual; heritage of the people, and codex #3, the laws of divine establishment which is the basis for good government in a nation. Under exegesis it is imperative that the Pentateuch be exegeted in the Hebrew language in analysing the Mosaic law.

The ten commandments in relationship to human freedom. The only part that is really misunderstood is the ten commandments. They are designed to determine human freedom in the angelic conflict. It is not a system to define sin. There are certain prohibitions against certain sins because there are certain sins that destroy human freedom and privacy. There are very few sins mentioned in the ten commandments but all that are are designed to protect freedom and they are delineated as enemies of freedom. The Levitical offerings are a picture of salvation. Salvation is historically accomplished and therefore it becomes illustrative material to understand certain facets of salvation. Doctrinal teaching related to the tabernacle, like propitiation and the mercy seat, portrayed propitiation in the Old Testament but it now illustrates propitiation. It is still in the Bible, it hasn’t changed, but once Christ dies and fulfills propitiation then it becomes an illustration.

3. The abrogation of the Mosaic law in the Church Age demands that every believer, sooner or later, understands the book of Hebrews. No one truly understands the law until he has mastered the doctrine in the book of Hebrews.

4. However, though abrogated and rescinded in the Church Age the law continues to be in the scripture to validate and document certain principles of establishment. The principles of establishment found in the Mosaic law are as apropos right now as they were in the Age of Israel. For example, the Mosaic law says that if you want to maintain freedom you must have universal military training. The law says that if you want to stimulate your economy you must have free enterprise and you must have system of taxation that does not in any way hinder those who have business ability. In other words, a flat ten per cent for all people in the field of income tax. The law says that if you want to have certain proper functions in life then you must observe certain establishment principles — based on marriage, based on the family, based upon good law, and so on. In other words, the law defines freedom and privacy. The law relates prosperity and national blessing to establishment. it portrays the principle that man is a sinner and needs a saviour. The law reveals Christ in His saving work as the only way of salvation. These principles remain in their status regardless of the change in dispensation. So even though abrogated and rescinded the doctrinal content of the law has not changed. It simply had a direct interpretation to Israel and these things still have an application to any nation wise enough to pick up the concept.

5. The law must be revealed as a shadow pointing to the reality. The law is not the reality, so when teaching the law it must be made very clear that when you get to salvation and things of this sort we are talking about the shadows of salvation — shadow soteriology, shadow Christology. The reality is all fulfilled in Christ.

6. Keeping the law must be disassociated with either salvation or spirituality. The trend of legalism is to associate these things with the law.

7. Morality is the basis for the function of establishment and morality belongs to the human race in general, believer and unbeliever. Morality is the fuel that makes establishment function.

The law was used in the Age of Israel as a means of condemnation. The law is also used in our time as a standard of condemnation. So the correct use of the law in the Church Age is found in verses 9,10. The law is a means of condemnation, never a means of salvation.

Verse 9 — “Knowing” — o)ida, the perfect active participle. This is not used as a present but as a true perfect tense. The intensive perfect indicates something that happens in the past with the result that it is firmly fixed in your soul so that you will never have any doubts about the true function of the law in the day in which you live.

“this” — the accusative direct object neuter singular of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. You always have to watch out for these demonstrative pronouns. It is translated “this” but it goes far beyond that in its meaning. The demonstrative always calls attention with special emphasis to a designated object. The designated object under review is the Mosaic law and therefore o(utoj is used to refer to something close at hand, like the law, rather than something more distant. This what is called an immediate demonstrative pronoun to designate something in the context and to give it special emphasis in the context. So we translate it “this.”

“that” — we have that conjunction o(ti after verbs of knowing to express the conclusion of the thinking of o)ida.

“the law” — nomoj, but this time minus the definite article because this emphasises the qualitative aspect of the law. The law has high quality. Here is one of the fundamental differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament under the law blessing was related to establishment, except in rare cases where the blessing was permanent. In David is an illustration apart from establishment. David was one of the few people in the Old Testament who was totally influenced by doctrine. As a result, when he hit paragraph SG² he first of all became the wealthiest man in the world. He not only kept all of that money but he never lost it no matter what he did because he was always influenced by doctrine and never by evil. In the Old Testament the law was the basis for prosperity for most people, exceptions were David and Saul. Most people in the Old Testament had their prosperity from establishment. There are two kinds of prosperity, establishment and spiritual. The difference is that spiritual prosperity has capacity; establishment: you have the prosperity and no capacity.

In the New Testament establishment prosperity still exists but the emphasis is on the spiritual prosperity of the super-grace life which includes spiritual, material, and dying blessing.

“is not made” — the present active indicative of the verb keimai plus the negative o)uk. Keimai means to validate, to apply. But the negative means “does not apply.”

Then we have to insert something that is further down in our passage, the dative of reference, dikaioj, which means “a righteous one.” “Knowing this, that to the righteous one the law does not apply.” This does not mean legalistic righteousness, this means grace righteousness. In other words, the law is not validated for the righteous person. The righteous one is establishment righteousness apart from self-righteousness, or super-grace righteousness which is free from self-righteousness. Remember that self-righteousness or legalistic righteousness is never valid to the believer.

What is the purpose of the law? The purpose of the law is now stated on the other side of the post positive conjunctive particle de. it is used as an adversative conjunction setting up a contrast between the righteous one for whom the law is not validated and the categories of persons to whom the law applies. These categories are picked by God the Holy Spirit. The first one is “for the lawless” as a general category. This is a dative plural of disadvantage from the noun a)nomoj — “lawless ones.” Lawless ones are antiestablishment types. So it connotes both those who reject the law and those who violate the law.

Now to get down to specifics we start with the word “and.” This really sets up a colon, and on the other side of “and” we have the dative plural of disadvantage from a)nupotaktoj which means rejecters of authority. This is true of believer and unbeliever. Undisciplined people always have a miserable time in life. A person who has no self-discipline is going to be a miserable person all of his life. God has set up systems of authority spiritually, and He has set up systems of authority from the establishment side. When any type of authority is rejected then that person is in trouble.

The people who do not accept authority:

a) Those who are on an ego trip. Arrogant people do not accept authority, they resent it in any form. They also are jealous of authority and they set up a barrage of mental sins against authority that cause them to be jealous, and jealousy leads to them becoming unstable. Some people cannot stand anyone’s authority but their own and they are the leas capable of administering authority.

b) Those, for example, who are against establishment. Those who are using establishment as a cover for crime.

Generally the big problem is always arrogance. Pride is the basis for rejection of authority.

“for the ungodly” — the dative plural of disadvantage, a)sebhj which refers to those influenced by evil — “ungodly ones.”

“for sinners” — dative plural of disadvantage: “and to sinning ones.” These are the ones influenced by sin in contrast to those influenced by evil. This time the noun is a(martwloj. Sinning ones are not people who sin. We all sin. It means to be influenced by sin. To be influenced by sin is to be under the domination of a sin. If you reject authority, if you reject law, some type of sin will come around to influence you. For example, a murderer is a person influenced by sin. He keeps murdering people. That is being under the influence of a sin.

“for unholy” — dative plural of disadvantage, a)nosioj, usually translated by such words as impious, but it means reversionistic believers.

“and profane” — dative plural of disadvantage from bebhloj meaning reversionistic unbelievers.

Now we get into something a little different:

“for murderers of fathers” — this can be traced all the way through. A child resents the discipline of the parents, he gets into all kinds of trouble on the outside, resents the teacher at school, resents the coach, resents the police officer, resents everyone, and he winds up blowing his cork at some point and murders one of his parents.

“manslayers” — simply a murderer in general.

We have three words here. We have patrolwaj, someone who murders their father; mhtralwaj, someone who murders their mother; a)ndrofonoj, [onoj means to murder; a)droj means man] which is a murderer in general.

Translation: “Knowing this, that to the righteous one the law does not apply, but to the lawless one [antiestablishment] and undisciplined ones [rejecters of authority], to ungodly ones [influenced by evil] and sinning ones [influenced by sin], to unholy ones [reversionistic believers] and profane ones [reversionistic unbelievers], to murderers of fathers to murderers of mothers, to murders.”

The doctrine of murder

1. The devil was said to be a murderer from the beginning — John 8:44.

2. The devil motivated reversionistic Cain to commit the first human race murder — 1 John 3:12.

3. Mental attitude sins as reactor factors motivated the first murder — Genesis 4:5. Cain was jealous.

4. Murder is definitely prohibited by the Word of God — Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17; Matthew 5:21. The problem with the one in Exodus 20:13 is that it is mistranslated — “Thou shalt not kill.” The word for “kill” is qatal, and it is not found in this verse which does not mean “Thou shalt not kill.” What we have is the qal imperfect of ratsach which means to murder. It should be translated, “You will not murder.” There is a difference between qatal and ratsach. Qatal is what you do as a representative of your country in time of war; ratsach is what you do not do, which is to murder.

5. Capital punishment or the death penalty is the administration of justice for murder — Genesis 9:6; Numbers 35:30,31; Romans 13:4. Capital punishment is the basis for controlling crime.

6. Murder is listed as one of the seven worst sin in Proverbs 6:16-19. Furthermore, murder is the only overt sin in that list.

7. Anger as a mental sin is a cluster which leads to mental murder — Matthew 5:21,22.

8. Murder always involves certain mental attitude sins. There are two passages where jealousy precedes murder and becomes the motivator — Romans 1:29; Galatians 5:21.

9. Murder is a part of crime and should be punished by death — Matthew 26:52, gar o(i labontej maxairan e)n maxairh a)polountai: “For the one taking the sword [the criminal] by the sword shall be destroyed.” This has nothing to do with military service.

10. While murder is the worst of all overt sins it still can be committed by a believer out of fellowship or in reversionism. David is an illustration. Cf 1 Peter 4:15. 1 John 3:15 — “Every murderer does not have eternal life abiding in him.” The startling thing about that statement is that those who have eternal life do commit murder.

Verse 10 — “For whoremongers” is the dative plural of disadvantage, pornoj, simply means fornicators of all kinds (normal fornicators).

“for them that defile themselves with mankind” — a)rsenokoithj, it includes homosexuality of all types.

The doctrine of adultery

1. Definition. This refers to sexual activity outside of the divine institution of marriage. Sex is designed as an expression of love between right man and right woman. As an expression of category #2 love sex is not only legitimate but very beautiful. It expresses the coalescence of soul and body. Adultery may be categories as fornication, seduction of a member of the opposite sex.

2. The prohibition of adultery or fornication. The prohibition of the decalogue refers to freedom — Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18. In the New Testament it is also prohibited — 1 Corinthians 6:18; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3. Mental adultery is prohibited — Matthew 5:27,28. Incest is also forbidden — Leviticus 18:6-17; 20:14; 1 Corinthians 5:1-7. Homosexuality is forbidden — Leviticus 18:22. It is never called a disease — “You will not have sex with a male as with a female, it is an abomination [not a disease].” Leviticus 20:13 — “a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.” Cf. Romans 1:26 — “degenerate passions.”

3. Phallic reversionism is destructive to the soul — Proverbs 6:32; Ephesians 4:18,19.

4. Fornication and the frantic search for happiness — Ephesians 5:3.

5. The destructive force of promiscuity is found in 1 Corinthians 6:13-18.

6. Adultery is a bona fide basis for divorce — Matthew 5:32; 19:9; Luke 16:18. The various stages of phallic reversionism destroy rapport between a husband and a wife. Deuteronomy 24:4 — if a marriage breaks up and there is interim sex they should never be reconciled.

7. Adultery or fornication is often used in a spiritual sense to describe reversionism and apostasy — Jeremiah 3:8-10; Ezekiel 16:23-43; 23:24-28; Revelation 17:1-5; Hebrews 11:16.

8. The sanctification of category #2 love is said to be marriage — 1 Thessalonians 4:3,4.

9. The glory of category #2 love is described in the spiritual analogy of Ephesians 5:28-31.

10. The biblical application of category #2 love for the single person:

a) The right man and right woman were designed by God in eternity past. Therefore you must assume that there is a opposite number for you of divine design, or that God will provide something better.

b) The exception is the rare case of celibacy or function under the law of supreme sacrifice, where the apostle Paul is the perfect illustration — 1 Corinthians 9:5.

c) Every believer under the principle of grace and the plan of God will eventually meet his opposite number. At the right time and circumstances God will bring together right man and right woman. However, if you are in reversionism or under the influence of evil you may not identify.

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 from the negative viewpoint the avoidance of fornication or adultery. This means from the positive standpoint the capacity for category #2 love, for maximum doctrine in the soul.

e) Consequently, the thought and life pattern must be based on the doctrinal principle that there exists on this earth your right man or your right woman designed by God, 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 and emotional or biological passion. Fornication or adultery is a part of the frantic search for happiness, the second stage of reversionism.

g) The antidote to temptation in the area of fornication is found in spiritual growth, super-grace life, the erection of the ECS, the establishment of a command post in the soul.

h) Under phallic reversionism fornication builds scar tissue on the soul while destroying the physical abilities and capabilities in the field of sex.

i) Maximum doctrine resident in the soul plus abstinence from sex become the basis for maximum pleasure from sex in category #2 love. The persistence and daily function of GAP translates the principle of doctrine into the pleasures and realities of a great capacity for life and a great capacity for happiness.

j) Therefore the preparation for life is a persistent and daily function of GAP as a member of the royal family of God. In this way part of the super-grace blessing is this wonderful blessing of sexual prosperity.

Verse 10b — “for menstealers,” a)ndrapodisthj which means kidnapper. The law is very much against kidnapping and the abuse of children in any way. Children are to be disciplined but they are to be protected and never to be abused. They are not to be abused by kidnapping or stealing, they are not to be abused sexually, they are not to be abused by lack of discipline. Here the law is very strong against kidnappers.

“liars” — the dative plural of disadvantage yeusthj which means liars and deceivers. This is the habitual sin of lying and deceiving as over against an occasional sin. We really have the case of a psychopathic liar here.

“for perjured persons” — the dative plural of disadvantage e)piorkoj — e)pi means over; orkoj means oath. So over your oath means to violate your oath or perjury: “to perjurers”, those who lie under oath.

We have enough categories here to see one of the great thrusts of the Mosaic law as a part of the Word of God, and one that jumps over the boundaries of dispensational teaching. However, this is not the type of teaching they were getting in Ephesus. They were getting teaching that you must keep the law to be saved; you must keep the law to be spiritual. In other words, they were getting legalism, not this particular thrust.

“and if” — the continuative use of the conjunction kai plus the conjunction e)i. E)i introduces a first class condition and it can be translated, “and whatever [else].”

“there be” is not in the original, but we do have “any other things,” the nominative neuter singular of the indefinite pronoun tij. Also with that is the nominative neuter singular of e(teroj. These words really mean “whatever else.”

“that is contrary” — the present active subjunctive from the compound verb a)ntikeimai which means to be hostile or opposed to. The present tense is the present of duration or the retroactive progressive present, something that has begun in the past and continues to the present time. The active voice: we have a middle in form but active in meaning, a deponent verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality, certainty and fact. This is the mood of unqualified assertion, this is a state of simple fact.

“to sound doctrine” — the dative of advantage of the definite article plus the dative singular present active participle of the verb u(giainw. This is a participle which means to be healthy, to be pure, to be correct. Since we have the ascriptive use of the participle here, the participle used as an adjective, the participle simply means “correct.” Then we have the dative of advantage didaskolia which means teaching or doctrine.

Verse 11 — the law is not the means of salvation. Instead the gospel is said to be the means of salvation, not condemnation, whereas the law is the means of condemnation, not salvation.

“According to the glorious gospel” — kata plus the accusative singular of the definite article plus the accusative singular of the noun e)uaggelion. We also have with that an ablative singular of source from doca. Altogether it is, “According to the gospel from the glory.” “The glory” represents the essence of God. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The essence of God is the source of the good news of the gospel. All facets of the gospel, including redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, are all related to the essence of God.

The doctrine of the gospel

1. Definition. To define the gospel you must look at the Greek word — e)uaggelia. It is compounded: e)u means good; a)ggeloj means message or news. The gospel, then, by definition is some kind of good news: the communication of doctrines pertaining to salvation. Gospel or good news pertains to the message and communication of doctrines pertaining to the work of Christ on the cross.

2. The boundaries of the gospel — 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. The first boundary is the fact that Christ died for our sins, and “according to the scriptures” refers to the Old Testament. It is taught in the Old Testament as well as in the New. “He was buried” is to indicate that after He died for our sins He died physically. So we have spiritual death; physical death. “That he was raised in the third day, according to the scripture.” So the gospel ends with resurrection. There are the boundaries. If you go away from the cross you are out of bounds; if you go away from the physical death you are out of bounds; if you deny the resurrection you are out of bounds. The playing field with boundaries is from death to resurrection.

Note that the gospel the fact of sin or the penalty of sin. These are true doctrines but they are out of the boundary. In other words, when you give the gospel the doctrine of hamartiology is true but it is not the gospel. The good news is that Christ did something about it on the cross. Preaching the gospel is the explanation of salvation in terms of redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation. The boundaries of the gospel run from the death of Christ for our sins to the resurrection of Christ. Those are boundaries.

3. The enemy of the gospel — 2 Corinthians 4:3,4. Satan is the enemy of the gospel.

4. Usage of the word “gospel.” Gospel is often used with other words. It is used with adjectives, participles, with all kinds of words. Therefore there are words with most contexts which describe certain emphases of the gospel. For example:

a) We have “the gospel of Christ” in Romans 1:16,17. This is emphasis on the person of the gospel.

b) We have the “gospel from the glory” in 1 Timothy 1:11. This gives us the source of the gospel which is the essence of God.

c) We have “my gospel” or “our gospel” as in 2 Timothy 2:8; 2 Corinthians 4:3,4. This emphasises the fact that the gospel is the same but it belongs to us as believers. We possess it, therefore we propagate it.

d) We have in Ephesians 6:15 “the gospel of peace.” This is not a different gospel but the emphasis in this passage is on doctrine and the doctrine is reconciliation.

e) We have “the gospel of the Kingdom,” the same gospel exactly, found in Matthew 24:14. It emphasises the fact that the unconditional covenants to Israel are only fulfilled to those Jews who believe in Christ or appropriate the gospel. That is why it is called the gospel of the kingdom.

f) In Revelation 14:6 we have “everlasting gospel,” which is the same gospel but the emphasis is on the preparation for eternity.

All of these have the word “gospel” but they have defining words, emphasising words. The content of the gospel never changes but the emphasis of the gospel changes with the defining words in context.

5. The attitude toward the gospel is found in Romans 1:16.

6. The emphasis of the gospel — 1 Corinthians 1:17. Salvation is not by baptism even as salvation is not by keeping the law. “Not in cleverness of speech.” When you get clever about the gospel you void the power of the cross.

7. The place for the gospel — Romans 15:20. Proselytising is not preaching the gospel.

8. The gospel without charge — 2 Corinthians 11:7,8.

9. There is a false gospel — Galatians 1:8.

10. The gospel belongs to the Old Testament — Galatians 3:8, “preached to Abraham, saying ...”

11. The gospel is revealed by the Holy Spirit — 1 Peter 1:12.

Verse 11b — ”of the blessed God” — ablative of source from makarioj. God is the source of blessing. When makarioj is mentioned it also indicates something else. It indicates that is His objective where the believer is concerned. It is God’s objective to bless the believer in the devil’s world. he can bless you in heaven, he can also bless you in the devil’s world. He can bless us at any time but He has chosen to bless us on the basis that glorifies Himself. That is the whole principle of moving toward maturity or the super-grace life.

Translation: “According to the gospel from the glory of the God, the source of blessing [or happiness].” The objective of God is to bless the believer. He is glorified when He can bless us.

“which” — the accusative neuter singular from the relative pronoun o(j, and it refers back to the gospel. It should be translated “with which [gospel]” in the accusative.

“was committed to my trust” should be translated, “I have been entrusted” — it includes the personal pronoun e)gw in the proleptic position. It indicates great stress on the apostle Paul as one who responded to his trust. The aorist passive indicative of pisteuw: we generally translate this verb “to believe.” However, it is in the passive voice. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It contemplates the fact that from the time that Paul was saved until the time that he died, as one with the spiritual gift of communication, God entrusted him with doctrine. God has not entrusted anyone except the pastor-teacher. The pastor-teacher is like the congregation’s trust fund for growing up spiritually. The passive voice: Paul receives the action of the verb. He is entrusted with doctrine. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative viewing the action of the verb from the viewpoint of dogmatic reality.

The passive voice again: doctrine is entrusted to the pastor-teacher and he must communicate it. That is his responsibility.

Translation: “According to the gospel from the glory of the God, source of blessing with which I have been entrusted.”

Beginning with verse 12 we have a new paragraph: the purpose of grace — 12-17.

Verse 12 — Paul is going to use himself as the illustration. “And I thank” — there is no verb here for thanksgiving. We have Xarin e)xw, a noun and a verb. Xarin in the accusative singular direct object of the noun xarij; e)xw is the present active indicative. So it simply says, “I have grace.” But it is stronger than that and probably is best translated, “I keep having grace.” There is no conjunction here, so we can cross out the word “and.” The present tense is the present of duration, sometimes called retroactive progressive present, denoting what has begun in the past and continues into the present time. The active voice: Paul produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality, certainty, and absolute unqualified statement. This phrase is an idiom for gratitude but it is more than that. This is a paragraph of the dynamics of God’s grace.

The next phrase is the basis for all of this, it is the dative singular of reference “Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is also the dative of indirect object, that is, the one for whom the act of grace is performed. “I keep on having grace toward Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“who hath enabled me” — the articular dative singular aorist active participle of the verb e)ndunamow. E)n is the preposition; dunomow is power. It means to invigorate, to empower, to pour power into. The dative singular definite article is used as a demonstrative pronoun for someone near at hand in the context, namely the Lord Jesus. It is not used as a relative pronoun as in the KJV translation. The aorist tense of the participle is constative, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, from the time that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to the time that you depart from this earth and live forever with God in eternity, there never will be a time when He ceases to turn away grace from you. The active voice: Jesus Christ pours the power into the apostle Paul who in turn teaches the Word, pours it out. The participle is circumstantial. This means it also has antecedent action to the main verb.

“I keep on having grace to the one having poured the power into me to Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The power poured into Paul was Bible doctrine resident in his soul; he became one of the great writers of the scripture. The source of the written Word is the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The pastor must be occupied with the living Word to communicate the written Word. And so it must be with the congregation. They must be so occupied with the written Word so as to be occupied with the living Word.

“for that” is the conjunction o(ti used in a causal sense for a subordinate clause. It should be translated simply, “because.” The cause for doctrine resident in the soul is the faithfulness and consistency of the apostle Paul as a student of doctrine and the faithfulness and consistency of God as the provider of doctrine.

“he counted me” — aorist active indicative of the verb e(geomai. The word means to think, to guide, to consider, to be an expert. A guide is an expert, because he knows something he can direct you to the right spot and explain it all to you, and so on. This should be translated, “he had considered.” God is the expert, and in eternity past God looked down the course of history considered and took the worst human creature who ever lived and made him the greatest man of the Church Age. That is exactly what grace does. This aorist tense is an occurrence in eternity, looking at Saul of Tarsus. The active voice: God produced the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the action of the verb from the viewpoint in reality. There is something that happened in eternity before time began.

“me” — the accusative singular direct object from the pronoun e)gw. E)gw is not pride, it is self-consciousness. He uses the personal pronoun for himself, and that isn’t pride. Use of the personal pronoun is just good English/Greek and self-consciousness.

“faithful” — the accusative singular direct object from pistoj. Pistoj as an adjective means faithful. It is sometimes used as a substantive to mean dependable. Whichever is used — dependable, faithful, or trustworthy — it was the one thing that always characterised Paul that was totally non-meritorious. Dependability is really the key. You could always depend on Paul to follow a certain pattern — “he had considered me dependable.”

“putting me” is erroneous. This is the aorist middle participle of the verb tiqhmi. In the middle voice it means to establish. The constative aorist gathers the action of the verb into one entirety — the establishing of the apostle Paul. He was established in his lifetime and he is still established to day as the greatest believer of the Church Age. The indirect middle emphasises the fact that God in His grace as the agent produced the action, and the action is total establishment. The participle is circumstantial. We would simply translate it, “having established me.”

“into the ministry” should be “with reference to the ministry” — e)ij plus the accusative diakonia.

Translation: “I keep on having grace to the one having poured the power into me. to Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me faithful [in the function of GAP], having established me with reference to the ministry.”

Principles

1. Note that this verse is not referring to the bestowal of the spiritual gift of apostleship which Paul did receive at the point of salvation. It is referring to something that happened after salvation, the establishing of Paul as a minister, the establishment of his ministry. So it is not the gift in view here but the ministry that resulted from that gift. It is the ministry which is established on the basis of Bible doctrine in the soul.

2. We must learn to distinguish between appointment and establishment of the ministry. All pastor-teachers today receive their appointment at salvation. The spiritual gift of the pastor-teacher is a communication gift. That is appointment. The establishing comes with spiritual growth, preparation, faithfulness to the Word. The establishing is the super-grace status of the pastor-teacher.

3. The appointment occurs at the moment of salvation. This appointment is the sovereign decision of God the Holy Spirit who provided for Paul the gift of apostleship and provides for certain men the gift of pastor-teacher.

4. The establishment of the ministry comes through the consistent intake of doctrine over a period of time.

5. The inculcation of doctrine through the daily function of GAP not only results in super-grace status but establishes the ministry.

6. Note that for all believers the principle remains the same: Doctrine in the soul must precede service for the Lord.

7. Doctrine in the soul is the basis for service and doctrine in the soul establishes the ministry.

Verse 13 — the power of grace. We start out with the definite article, not the relative pronoun. The definite article goes with an articular participle here, it is used as a demonstrative pronoun. The phrase “was before” is a neuter singular from proteroj meaning formerly. Next we have the present active participle of e)imi, the absolute status quo verb. Proteroj plus e)imi and the present tense of the participle being a historic present which views the past event with the vividness of a present occurrence. The active voice: Paul as an unbeliever produces the action of the verb. The participle is concessive and you always translate a concessive participle with the English word “though.” We have to translate this, “Though I was formerly.”

“a blasphemer” — the accusative of general reference singular from blasfhmoj. This word means that Paul was once a slanderous critic of God. The accusative case matches the accusative case in the participle. So it is not a direct object, it is a predicate nominative type of thing.

“and a persecutor” — the accusative singular of reference from diwkthj which means a vigorous persecutor of the Church.

“and injurious” — another accusative singular of reference u(bristhj which means “arrogant, insolent, violent.” But the violence comes from arrogance. U(bristhj means a violent, insolent man.

“Though I was formerly blasphemous [a slanderous persecutor of God], and a persecutor, and a violent, insolent man.” This takes us back to some of Paul’s testimony in the book of Acts. For, example, in Acts 22:3,4; 26:9-11.

“but” is an adversative conjunction a)lla. It sets up a contrast between Paul’s unsaved state as Saul of Tarsus and his saved state as Paul the apostle.

“I obtained mercy” — the aorist passive indicative of h)leeo. This means to find mercy. In the passive voice it means to receive mercy, and to receive mercy means to be graced out — “but I have been graced out.” The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist, it states a present reality with the certainty of a past event. This is an idiomatic device for grace emphasis. This is also a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety all the way from saving grace to living grace, super-grace, dying grace, and surpassing grace. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic unqualified statement of reality.

“because” — the causal use of the conjunction o(ti; “I did it” — the aorist active indicative of the verb poiew which means here to produce or to cause, rather than to do — “because I produced these things.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist gathering all of Paul’s arrogant blasphemy, all of his murders, all of his persecutions of the Church, into one entirety. The active voice: Saul of Tarsus, the unbeliever, produced the action of the verb. The indicative mood is for historical reality where Paul was the worst person who ever lived before his salvation.

“ignorantly” is translated like an adverb in the KJV, but actually it is a present active participle of the verb a)gnoew. The present tense of the participle is descriptive or pictorial describing Paul’s continual status as an unbeliever. The active voice: Paul the unbeliever, a zealous, legalistic Pharisee, produced the action in ignorance. The participle is a causal participle which should be translated here, “since being ignorant.”

“I acted in unbelief” is the correct translation — e)n plus the locative of a)pistia. “Because since being ignorant I acted in unbelief.”

Unbelief is not only the status of being unsaved but it is the condition of being totally ignorant of God. Translation: “Though I was formerly blasphemous [a slanderous critic of God], and a persecutor, and a violent, insolent person: nevertheless I have been graced out, because since I was ignorant I acted in unbelief.”

Summary

1. The transformation of Saul of Tarsus into the apostle Paul was one of the greatest demonstrations of the power of God’s grace in human history.

2. God’s grace took the worst sinner and the most evil man in history and transformed him into the greatest member of the royal family of God. It is strictly a grace function.

3. Only grace could take such a person and not only save him but continue to mould him into the quintessence of spiritual greatness.

4. Saul of Tarsus not only took the road to Damascus but that was the road to saving grace, living grace, super-grace, dying grace, and surpassing grace.

5. His purpose in taking the road to Damascus was to extent his ministry of blasphemy, arrogance, violence, persecution, to all the Church everywhere.

6. But the grace of God changed all that. Grace found Saul at his lowest and raised Paul to the highest level of spiritual life.

7. Therefore Paul is the historical demonstration of the power of God’s grace.

The doctrine of grace

1. Definition:

Grace is all that God is free to do for man on the basis of the work of Christ on the cross. Grace is the genius of God directed toward man. Grace is God’s freedom and consistency to express His love toward mankind without the compromise of His essence. Grace is God finding a way to bless believers without putting His essence in jeopardy. God gives out of total freedom because of the cross. God had to be free to give and that means His essence was not put in jeopardy by giving to sinners. Consequently grace is the plan of God on behalf of man beginning at the cross. Grace is both God’s plan and God’s policy regarding mankind. Grace, therefore, is the plan , the policy, the function, the mechanics of divine modus operandi in blessing man. Grace is the genius of God and doctrine is the revelation of that grace genius. Satan’s genius is evil; God’s genius is grace. Under grace God does all the work, all the providing; man does all of the receiving, all of the benefiting , and receives all of the happiness.

2. The concept:

Grace depends on the essence or character of God. Therefore grace always depends on who and what God is. Grace is what God can do for man and be consistent with His own essence. And there is no limit to what God can do for man under the principle of grace.

The issue then: The great enemy of grace is evil. Evil includes many different types of concepts, everything but sin. Sin and evil often cross but sin and evil are not the same. Sometimes evil is motivated by sin but evil and sin must be kept separate.

3. Grace and the new contract for the Church.

a) The glorification of Christ by His resurrection, ascension, and session, is the strategic victory in the angelic conflict. This dramatic victory interrupts the Jewish Age in order that the royal family of God might be formed to commemorate that victory. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father alone. He is the only person in heaven with a resurrection body. When He sat down He was sitting in His resurrection body. The only royalty in heaven right now is Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords. So in the future the Rapture of the Church will occur and at that moment all of the believers of the Church Age will receive their resurrection bodies and Christ will no longer be alone. Therefore the Age of Israel was interrupted, it was not finished, the Tribulation will finish it up. At the point of the interruption God begins to call out the royal family, the Church Age, which is really the dispensation of the royal family. When the royal family is completed the Rapture will occur. Then when it is all over the royal family comes back with Jesus Christ at the end of the Age of Israel.

The royal family of God is formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit and at the same time we are put under the New Covenant to the Church or the new contract to the royal family. The new contract is a grace contract, and under all grace contracts party of the first part is the members of the Godhead; party of the second part: believers, royal family of God. The royal family receives; doesn’t earn, deserve, but simply receives by grace.

One of the great aspects of the new contract is sanctification. For example, positional sanctification. Never before in history did God take any believer and enter him into union with Christ. But God the Holy Spirit does it in the Church Age and it is called baptism of the Holy Spirit. In other words, baptism means to be entered into union/identification with Christ. At the point at which we believe God the Holy Spirit enters us into union with the person of Christ. This is called positional sanctification.

b) The second paragraph in the new covenant provides for the tactical victory of the angelic conflict and basically this is the doctrine of the balance of residency.

c) The third paragraph is ultimate sanctification, it deals with eternity. Again, we have been graced out forever. The royal family of God receives a resurrection body exactly like that of Jesus Christ, minus the old sin nature, minus human good, minus evil, minus the lake of fire.

5. There are five stages in the function of grace.

a) Stage one is saving grace, that is what Paul is discussing in this paragraph of our chapter. Every believer has tasted the grace of God at least once in his life. That once was the day he personally believed in Jesus Christ. Salvation is called tasting both in Hebrews 6:4 and in 1 Peter 2:3. We have all tasted grace. The point is, once you have tasted grace the amazing this is when you don’t want more of it. Once you have tasted grace you should never, never think of anything else but how wonderful grace is and want to know more about it. So the moment of salvation brings the believer to that first taste of grace. In that first sip of grace by which we are saved we just simply say, “Father I believe in Christ.” The moment we do we receive from God at least 36 things which are irrevocable and they cannot be canceled by anything that we can ever do. because of propitiation every believer is also under maximum love from God, and maximum love from God frees God to pour out maximum grace. The pattern remains the same. We are saved by grace therefore we can only be blessed by grace. All of our blessing is related to the same principle by which we were saved. Therefore, of course, we move into the next stage of grace.

Grace can only benefit where there is capacity for grace. All capacity for grace is based on Bible doctrine in the soul. Capacity for grace, like capacity for life, is always based upon the amount of doctrine in your soul and to what extent you are influenced by doctrine in your life.

So the point is obvious. The believer is saved by grace, all of the Trinity are involved in this. The Father planned it, the Son executed it on the cross, the Holy Spirit reveals it.

b) The next stage is living grace. Living grace is all that God is free to do for the believer on the basis of Bible doctrine. God does something totally apart from any merit, like keeping us alive on this earth. God provides for everything. He provides for spiritual growth by means of a right pastor-teacher, a classroom called the local church, a textbook called the Word of God. He provides every thing necessary through the Holy Spirit instinctive good manners, concentration, poise, academic discipline. For the negative believer God also provides something, and that is divine discipline. So He provides two kinds of academic training: classroom academic training or disciplinary training.

c) The third stage of grace is super-grace which is synonymous with maturity. in 1 Timothy 1:14 super-grace is described as abundance. Super-grace is the adult stage of spiritual growth attendant by maximum blessing from God which glorifies God. Super-grace is the ultimate is spiritual growth in time, it is the basis for the normal function of the royal priesthood. It is the way in which God can provide maximum blessing which glorifies Himself.

d) The fourth stage is dying grace. This is the transfer from time to eternity by way of dying blessing. Dying grace is the experience of physical death under special grace provision. However, it is not always accomplished by death. There are some cases where dying grace is walking over the high golden bridge while you are still alive, like Enoch and Elijah, and like super-grace believers at the time of the Rapture. But it is better than anything in life. Dying grace is better, surpassing grace is better than the best (super-grace is best).

e) The next stage is surpassing grace. This is the final stage of special blessing and reward for all eternity.

4. The modus vivendi of grace. Grace is the means of growth — 2 Peter 3:18. This is the basis for stability — Hebrews 13:9. Your stability comes through grace. It is grace stability that keeps you consistent in the intake of doctrine. 1 Peter 5:12 — “stand fast in it.”

5. Grace is also then basis for production — 1 Corinthians 15:10. The failure to utilise grace — Galatians 5:4.

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

7. The axioms of grace.

a) God is perfect, His plan is perfect.

b) A perfect plan can only originate and function from the source of perfect God.

c) If mankind can do even one meritorious thing in the plan of God that plan is no longer perfect because man is imperfect, he cannot contribute to a perfect plan. Imperfection cannot contribute to perfection.

d) A plan is not stronger than its weakest link. There are no weak links in God’s plan.

e) Grace excludes all human merit and ability, all human good and legalism, all self-righteousness and arrogance, all evil.

f) Legalism is the special enemy of grace, there is no place for legalism and human good in the plan of God.

g) All legalism and human good is associated with the great mental attitude sin of pride. Arrogance is where evil and sin cross. Arrogance is the motivator of most types of evil. Arrogance was the motivator of evil in the Satanic revolution against God and arrogance was the motivation of evil in man’s fall.

8. Four areas in which pride or arrogance rejects grace:

a) The pride of the believer who rejects the doctrine of eternal security. The believer who rejects eternal security thinks that his sins are greater than the plan of God. He is the kind of person who thinks that he must do something to contribute to the plan and his failure to contribute is his sin, therefore he assumes that his failure to contribute cancels the plan. In other words, the old idea “it all depends on me.” Nothing depends on me, it all depends on God.

b) The pride of the believer who succumbs to pressure or adversity. He thinks that his sufferings and adversity are greater than the provision of God, mentioned in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

c) The pride of evil which is also the pride of reversionism. The pride of evil is to assume that your thoughts are more important than Bible doctrine, that your opinions are more important than Bible doctrine, that what you think is more important than what the Word of God says. That is the pride of evil.

d) The pride of pseudo-spirituality. This is the believer who thinks that his system of energy of the flesh spirituality is greater than the true function of the Holy Spirit in his life. In his arrogance he becomes a holy roller, or he enters into some form of taboos or, some form of asceticism, or some point program which impresses him or others and therefore he assumes it impresses God.

Verse 14 — the perpetuation of grace. It begins with the conjunctive particle de used as a transitional particle. it is used under the translation, “Moreover the grace of our Lord.”

“was exceeding abundant” — the aorist active indicative from u(perpleonazw. This is a compound made up of the word u(per, the preposition “over,” and the verb pleonazw which means to increase or to abound. The entire word means to “superabound.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results, i.e. super-grace status. The aorist denotes the process of GAP, resulting in taking the high ground and holding it. The active voice: grace produces the action of the verb: saving grace, living grace, GAP. The indicative mood is declarative for absolute dogmatic reality. It should be translated, “Moreover the grace of our had superabounded.”

“with faith” — meta plus the genitive singular of pistij, and it should be translated “with doctrine [what is believed].”

“and love” — the genitive singular of a)gaph which is the object of the preposition meta. Meta with the genitive has one meaning, with the accusative it means something entirely different. It should be translated “with love” or “associated with love.” The principle here is category #1 love, our great objective. When we reach that category and fulfill it we then have the capacity for living; we have the capacity for love, capacity for happiness, the capacity for every blessing that God could ever give us. Blessing is wasted on those who do not have the capacity for the blessing.

Category #1 love

1. Definition. Love comes in three categories for the royal family of God. Category #1 is directed toward God; Category #2, right man or right woman; Category #3, friendship. In addition to that are obligatory type loves: relaxed mental attitude toward all members of the royal family of God, commonly called “loving the brethren.”

Category #1 love is the believer’s capacity to love God, and the believer’s capacity to respond to God’s love based on Bible doctrine. “We love him because He first loved us.” This category is perhaps the most difficult because it demands that we have Bible doctrine in the soul. Category #2 love does not call for Bible doctrine. The unbeliever actually has the opportunity of enjoying category #2 love. He experiences category #2 love and doctrine is not necessarily the issue. Also, category #3 love or friendship is open to unbelievers. But category #1 love is unique. In this dispensation it belongs to the royal family of God only and it requires maximum doctrine in the soul. While love does not make the world go around love makes our world function., and especially category #1. When the believer reaches maturity, known as the super-grace status, this category #1 is called also occupation with Christ. The command for it is found in Deuteronomy 6:5 — “power” simply refers to doctrine resident in the soul.

2. The means of category #1 love. The means is expressed under the principle that God is invisible. Not only is God invisible but God is unknowable by human systems of perception. The invisibility of God also has a corollary. God is His essence is sovereignty, absolute righteousness, justice, love, eternal life, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability, veracity. We know these things because of pertinent doctrine, but God is unknowable and invisible. Rationalism cannot know God. The same thing is true of empiricism. Neither empiricism nor rationalism are capable of understanding God in any way. Nor is faith in the unbeliever. The unbeliever also has faith, everyone has faith, it is the basic system of perception. But unbeliever faith definitely cannot understand God. None of these systems can even give us the beginning of an understanding of God. God must reveal Himself, and one of the sovereign decisions of God was to reveal Himself to the believer. The unbeliever cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are learned by the Spirit. But God has revealed Himself to the believer and in our dispensation we have the completed canon of scripture as the means by which He does. No one can understand God, and therefore no one can know God, apart from Bible doctrine in the soul. And, by the way, you can’t love someone until you know them and have some understanding of them. You do not love God because you’re saved. The day that we received Christ as saviour we didn’t know God at all, we just knew that Christ was our saviour and we believed in Him. We knew absolutely nothing., and our capacity to love God was exactly the same as a baby’s capacity to love its parents. That is the way we are, we are spiritual babies, and when we are born again we do not have any capacity, we do not have any love for God. Since God is invisible and since at the same time God is the object of category #1 love we must see and love Him through the Word and/or Bible doctrine resident in the soul. You cannot love God unless you know God; you cannot know God unless you have maximum doctrine resident in your soul. You cannot have doctrine resident in your soul apart from the daily function of GAP. So coming to love God is not an easy thing, it requires many, many hours of Bible study. 1 Peter 1:8; Ephesians 3:18,19 — “the surpassing knowledge-love of Christ.” The principle is also found in Hebrews 6:10; 2 Timothy 1:13,14.

3. Category #1 love sets up the standard for grace — Psalm 119:132; 31:23 [the “arrogant-doers” are reversionists].

4. Category #1 love is the basis for super-grace blessing — 1 Corinthians 2:9 [Isaiah 64:4; 65:17]. Blessings come from maximum love of Him. If you are influenced by doctrine it is inevitable that you are going to be blessed by God, and that you will not only be blessed but have the capacity for it. If you are influenced by evil it is also inevitable that your life is going to be miserable and that your life will wind up under maximum discipline, your life is going to be one of a constant curse — constant misery and constant discipline — and you are minus category #1 because evil is also a minus doctrine situation. So the principle is that your occupation with Christ, maximum category #1 love, also is related to maximum blessing, all that God has prepared for those who love Him. Psalm 37:4,5 uses the background of right man, right woman. When it says “Delight thyself also in the Lord” it is incorrect. It is the hithpael imperative of anag and in the hithpael stem it means to make love. It is actually used for the category #2 amorous behaviour. It also means to take an exquisite delight in someone. “And he will give you the desires of your right lobe has to do with the super-grace blessings that come from maximum category #1 love. “Commit your way to the Lord [daily function of GAP], trust also in Him, He will do the work.” He works to provide you blessing.

5. Category #1 is also the basis for both personal and national blessing, as in several verses in Deuteronomy 30. For example, verse 15 which gives alternatives. Attitude toward doctrine determines whether we are influenced by doctrine or influenced by evil. Evil is the genius of Satan; doctrine is the way in which the genius of our Lord is revealed — grace. Verse 16 — category #1 love. Verse 20 — by loving the Lord, by obeying His doctrine, by holding fast to Him in category #1 love, this is your life. “your length of days, in order that may live in the land which the Lord has promised to you and your ancestors ...”

6. Category #1 love motivates combat courage as well as military victory — Joshua 23:10,11. One super-grace believer puts to flight a thousand enemy soldiers.

7. Category #1 love provides strength for adversity and pressure — Hebrews 11:27.

8. There is a special curse on believers who fail category #1 love — 1 Corinthians 16:22. In other words, if you don’t love the Lord you are going to be influenced by evil. If you’re influenced by evil your life is under a curse. This dramatises the divine discipline to the believer who neglects Bible doctrine and falls into reversionism.

9. Witnessing must be motivated by category #1 love, not by the boys or the girls of some rah, rah, rah organisation — 2 Corinthians 5:14, “the love of Christ controls us.” This is what is wrong with witnessing today. The believer is encouraged and bullied into witnessing as a means of spirituality when he is totally ignorant of doctrine and has never been encouraged to GAP it. We must be motivated by love to witness for the Lord. You can’t love the Lord Jesus Christ unless you have doctrine in your soul.

10. The description of category #1 love is found in 1 John 4:15-19. Verse 16 — “we have come to know.”

“love” here in verse 14 is category #1 love, occupation with Christ. Love must have two things. No matter what category it is it must have security and privacy.

“which is” — there is no verse here, it is used to smooth out the translation and is legitimate in that sense. We have the definite article used as a relative pronoun.

“in Christ Jesus” — there is love in its best concept of security and privacy. Each one of us is in Christ Jesus, e)n plus the locative. There are two principles that come out of this: the doctrine of positional truth and the doctrine of the royal family of God. Being in Christ is also security, every security imaginable.

Translation: “Moreover the grace of our Lord had superabounded with doctrine and love which is in Christ Jesus.”

This verse tells what happened after salvation. The key is the verb u(perpleonazw which means to superabound. Through the faithful intake of doctrine saving grace is parlayed into super-grace. In the status of spiritual maturity grace superabounds. This is accomplished with doctrine resident in the soul plus resultant occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

Verse 15 — this is a very poor translation in the KJV. It starts pistoj o( logoj, this is the name of a hymn here. It means “faithful is the word.” This was Paul’s favourite hymn. This phrase or title of the hymn occurs five times in the pastoral epistles: 1 Timothy 1:15; 3:1; 4:9; Titus 3:8; 2 Timothy 2:11. It is interesting to note that the literal title of the hymn id “Faithful is the doctrine.” In each of these five references some aspect of the faithfulness of doctrine is discussed. Here is the faithfulness of doctrine related to saving grace. Remember that is simply a title and a reference to the hymn.

“and worthy of all acceptation” — kai pashj a)podoxhj a)cioj, “and worthy of unqualified acceptance.” We have the genitive of paj and a)podoxh. With it we also have a)cioj used in describing things in relationship to things. The word “all” here is not all, paj is usually translated “all” but it here with a)podxh which means “acceptance” it means “unqualified.” The word a)cioj is “worthy.”

Now he goes back to the hymn. Title of the hymn: “Faithful is the word/doctrine.” Paul adds “worthy of [your] unqualified acceptance.” Now he goes to the word which starts the quotation of the hymn. The word “that” is the conjunction o(ti used as quotation marks or to show the content of the hymn. This indicates the content of what is worthy of unqualified acceptance on the part of all members of the royal family of God.

Xristoj I)hsouj {Christ Jesus], emphasising the hypostatic union,. Christ as the God-Man.

“came” — aorist active indicative of the verb e)rxomai which means to come or to go. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the action of the verb in its entirety all the way from the incarnation and going all the way to the end of the cross, resurrection, ascension and session — Christ coming into the world — all of the way through the first advent but regarding it from the viewpoint of existing results. The entire first advent had results, so this is a culminative aorist tense emphasising the results of the first advent — eternal salvation on the cross emphasised here. The active voice: Christ produced the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of unqualified reality.

“into the world” — the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of kosmoj. This is the devil’s world, the devil’s kingdom. Satan is the ruler of this world. The other side of the coin is found in Hebrews 10:1-10. And Christ finally came into the cosmos as a member of the human race and He came to save.

“to save” — aorist active infinitive of swzw used here for eternal salvation. The aorist tense is also a culminative aorist viewing the work of Christ on the cross in its entirety but regarding it from the viewpoint of actual result. We have two aorists in this verse. One starts from the incarnation and goes down to the cross, and this second one simply covers the cross. We are now picking up the cross here and moving it into a second culminative aorist. A culmination of two culminative aorists is very unusual and wouldn’t be possible except that one is in the indicative and one is in the infinitive. The active voice: again Christ produces the action, on the cross this time. In the other one it was simply the incarnation in general. Now we have the infinitive and this is a result infinitive. The problem is there are three kinds of result infinitives. There is the conceived result {not here], the intended result when the result is represented as fulfilling a very deliberate aim or goal. This blends purpose and result, but it isn’t used here. This is an actual result. The infinitive related to the indicative mood of two culminative aorists always gives us an actual result. Christ came into the world to save, that is an actual result.

“sinners” — the accusative plural direct object of the infinitive, a(martwloj which means “sinning ones” or “sinful ones.” A(martwloj, if it is taken as an adjective, simply means sinners, but here it is taken as a substantive and it means “sinning ones.” The adjective applies to the entire human race. The human race is sinful because of Adam’s sin which is imputed to each one of us at the point of our physical birth. The human race is sinful because each one receives the old sin nature at the point of human birth. And the human race is sinful because each one of us commits personal sins, and this is dealing with the personal sins from which Christ saved us. The whole thing is involved but the personal sins were the judgment of the Christ, the principle that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

“of whom” is the genitive plural of reference from the relative pronoun o(j. The relative pronoun here refers to the sinful ones — “with reference to which sinful ones.” It is a genitive of reference.

“I am” — present active indicative of the absolute status quo verb e)imi, the verb to be. This is without equivocation. This is a static present., it represents a condition as perpetually existing. Paul will always be the worst sinner who ever lived. He becomes a trophy of grace, the monument of saving grace in human history has already been saved. Paul produces the action of the verb as the worst sinner in history. The indicative mood is declarative, this is an unqualified assertion of face. There never was anyone as bad as Paul.

Now we have the predicate adjective prwtoj, translated “chief.” It connotes “foremost.”

The word “chief”

1. The predicate adjective prwtoj connotes foremost or most prominent in rank and degree.

2. By degree is meant above all, first place, or record-holder.

3. Paul therefore is the worst sinner in all of human history.

4. Paul was the chief or foremost sinner because he was more saturated with religion than anyone who ever lived.

5. Since religion is the devil’s ace trump and one of the worst forms of evil it is religion that makes Paul the worst of sinners.

6. Saul of Tarsus, then, was the most religious, therefore the most evil, therefore the record-holder in the field of sinning ones. Paul isn’t bragging, he is simply stating fact in order to illustrate how great is grace.

7. God took the worst man who ever lived and made him the greatest believer.

8. This is the illustration of the transforming power of God’s grace, and therefore the transforming power of doctrine. The principle is grace, the mechanics doctrine.

9. If God can save the worst sinner who ever lived, God can save anyone. If He transforms by grace the foremost of sinners in the human race He can through grace transform anyone of us.

Translation; “Faithful is the doctrine, and worthy of unqualified acceptance, that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinful ones; with reference to which [sinful ones] I keep on being the record-holder.”

Verse 16 — the prototype of grace. “Howbeit” — the adversative conjunctive particle a)lla, it always is used to set up a contrast or a transition. In this case we have the transitional use and it should be “Nevertheless.”

“for this cause” — the preposition dia plus the neuter singular accusative of the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. Literally, it means “because of this,” but the preposition is idiomatic and it actually means “for this reason.”

“I obtained mercy” — the aorist passive indicative of the verb e)leew. In the active voice this word means to show mercy or to express grace, but in the passive voice it means to receive or find mercy. We would say to be graced out. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist, it states a present reality with the certitude of a past event, and it is an idiom or a device for grace emphasis. This is also a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, including saving grace, living grace, and all of the other factors of Paul’s blessing in time. The passive voice: Paul received the action of the verb. So the constative aorist contemplates the first three stages of the grace plan — saving grace, living grace, super-grace. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of grace reality. “Nevertheless, for this reason I have been graced out.”

“that” is the conjunction i(na introducing a purpose clause. I(na plus the subjunctive in the verb is what is called a final clause expressing aim, purpose, goal, or objective.

“in me first” — the preposition e)n plus the locative of e)gw plus the locative of prwtoj. Prwtoj is a technical word in Timothy, in this passage it means record-holder. It should be translated, “in me, the record-holder.” Paul was the worst sinner in the record books and he is the great trophy of God’s grace. God took the worst person who ever lived and made him the greatest of believers. This was accomplished through the principle of grace and the mechanics of Bible doctrine in his soul. So Paul is the product of what grace can do. He is the prototype, the eternal illustration of the transforming power of Bible doctrine resident in the soul. More than anyone who ever lived Paul was a man of doctrine, doctrine was truly his life.

“Jesus Christ might show forth” — the subject is I)hsouj Xristoj. I)hsouj emphasises the first advent and the objective of providing salvation for the human race. It is taken from the Hebrew “Joshua”; it means saviour in the Greek even as Joshua means saviour in the Hebrew. Xristoj emphasises the second advent. It means anointed one. When Christ came the fist time He came as saviour; when He comes again the second time He comes as the anointed one. He is the son of David. Just as David was anointed king so Jesus Christ was anointed, and Xristoj means Messiah, anointed one. The Davidic covenant is fulfilled in the word Xristoj. He is the Messiah, the son of David, the one anointed in the line of David to reign over Israel during the Millennium and then for all eternity.

In addition to this we have a verb — “might show forth,” the aorist middle subjunctive of the verb e)ndeiknumi which means to demonstrate something by means of someone. Christ demonstrated grace by means of Paul. That is what this passage is about in the prototype of grace. Jesus Christ demonstrated grace by means of Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the apostle. The aorist tense of e)ndeiknumi is constative, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. This demonstration of grace covers the span of time and eternity and is gathered up into a single whole by the constative aorist. The middle voice is permissive in which Jesus Christ secures the results of the action in His own interest. He uses Paul to demonstrate grace but it is in the interest of Jesus Christ that we have this great prototype. The subjunctive mood is a part of the purpose clause in which the divine objective or purpose is delineated.

“all longsuffering” — the word “all” is the accusative singular direct object from a(paj meaning “entire,” plus the accusative singular direct object of the definite article used as a possessive pronoun: “his entire,” plus the accusative singular direct object from the noun makroqumia, meaning patience, steadfastness, endurance. It should be translated, “his perfect patience.”

“for a pattern” — now we come to the prototype, proj plus the accusative of u(potupwsij. The word means a delineation, a pattern, a model, an example, or a prototype. The best translation here is prototype since it includes an original or model after which everything else is copied.

Principles

1. Being the record-holder or the worst of sinners Paul becomes an example, model, pattern, prototype of God’s perfect patience. If God did not run out of patience with Saul of Tarsus He won’t run out of patience with you.

2. If God can save Paul through the blood of Christ God can save anyone through the blood of Christ. The worst sinner in history has already been saved.

3. The prototype of worst sinner in history has come and gone.

4. He made his record as the worst sinner, then believed in Christ, and broke a new record and became the greatest believer for saturation of doctrine.

5. Like all who believe in Christ for salvation he, the worst, was saved.

6. The prototype has been saved by grace through faith, the pattern of God’s grace has been established.

7. There will never be a worse person than Paul. If the worst person can be saved by the cross then all of us inferior types can also be saved — inferior in the sense that he was the worst, we cannot be the worst.

8. The greatest challenge of grace, therefore, was the foremost sinner Saul of Tarsus.

9. The challenge was met and overcome on the road to Damascus.

10. But the prototype of grace continues with the fact that the foremost sinner, the record-holder, became the greatest believer of the Church Age and one of the all-time great believers.

11. For Paul converted, living grace is parlayed into super-grace through the establishing of the command post of his soul. This command post was composed of maximum resident doctrine, including more about the doctrine of the mystery than anyone who has ever lived.

“to them which should hereafter believe” — this includes the articular present active participle of the verb mellw which means to be about to be. It is often translated “about to.” With it we have the definite article, a genitive plural of reference of the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun. It is the remote type for that which is relatively distant, like the 20th century believer. So, “to them who are about to.” The futuristic present denotes an event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already existing. The active voice: all Church Age believers produce the action of the verb when they understand this passage. This is a circumstantial participle connoting predestination or foreordination. With this is the present active infinitive of pisteuw which means to believe — “to them who are about to” means “to them who are destined to believe.” Paul didn’t know us personally but God knew in eternity past that we would believe.

“on him” — the preposition e)pi plus the locative of the intensive pronoun autoj. E)pi is an interesting preposition. Certain little things must be remembered. E)pi with the genitive emphasises contact; with the locative case emphasises position; with the accusative case emphasises motion or direction. Here we have e)pi plus the locative case which emphasises position. The function of the intensive pronoun is to emphasise the identity of the one and only saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. It should be translated “in him.”

“to life everlasting” — another prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of zwh — “for life”; and with that an adjective, a)iwnioj which means eternal — “for eternal life.”

Translation: “Nevertheless for this reason I have been graced out in order that in me the record-holder, the foremost sinner, Jesus Christ might have demonstrated his perfect patience, as a prototype to them who are destined to believe in him for eternal life.”

Note that in this verse both the divine side of salvation, which is predestination, and the human side of salvation, faith in Christ, are mentioned.

The human side of salvation

1. Clearly stated in this verse the human side of salvation is faith in Jesus Christ: the verb pisteuw, to believe.

2. Faith is a non-meritorious system of perception in contrast to rationalism and empiricism.

3. The present active infinitive of pisteuw is a transitive verb. This means that the pisteuw has a subject and an object stated or implied. All transitive verbs have a subject and an object.

4. The subject of pisteuw in salvation is any member of the human race. The object is always the same, the Lord Jesus Christ the only saviour.

5. All the believing in the world provides nothing but condemnation from God. You can believe in anything you want to and all you have is condemnation from God. We all believe, we all have objects of faith from time to time. Believing is the most common type of perception, it is the normal system of perception for all of us in the learning process.

6. However, the tiniest faith in Jesus Christ secures eternal salvation. In other words, all you have to do is have is as much faith as you would find in the nucleus of an atom, just a little more than no faith.

7. The efficacy of faith lies in the object of faith, Jesus Christ.

8. Since Christ accomplished all the work of salvation on the cross the only way of salvation is to believe in Jesus Christ.

9. Therefore faith is not something we do but the channel by which we appropriate what God has done for us. E.g. John 3:16-18; 6:47.

The divine side of salvation

In eternity past the omniscience of God had the good sense to know that certain members of the human race would believe in Jesus Christ — Ephesians 1:3-9.

Verse 17 — the doxology. “Now unto the King” starts out with the post positive conjunction de used as a transitional particle to introduce Paul’s burst of praise for the fact that, he, the worst unbeliever who ever lived was not too sinful for the grace of God.

We have also the dative of the indirect object of the noun basileuj, indicating the Father as the member of the trinity for whom the praise is given. He is called “King” here which is not quite what it means. Basileuj also means sovereign, and it is the sovereignty of God the Father which is in focus at this point: “Now to the sovereign.”

“eternal” is the descriptive genitive plural a)iwn — “sovereign of the ages.” God the Father is the King or the sovereign of dispensations. In the dispensation in which we find ourselves we have the record-holder of all time in two areas — the worst sinner and the one who knew more doctrine than any other believer in history. Satan is the ruler of the world but God the Father is the sovereign of the ages, and Jesus Christ controls history.

“immortal” — dative of indirect object from the noun a)fqartoj which means immortal or incorruptible. It means here “incorruptible one.” The Koine Greek took its adjectives and often used them as a substantive, and that is exactly what we have here. As the sovereign of the dispensations God the Father cannot be corrupted by evil, He is totally free from evil, it is impossible for Him to be corrupted by any creature, and the greatest of all creatures is Satan, the father of evil. God can exercise His sovereignty without jeopardising or compromising His essence. This He does throughout human history.

“invisible” — dative of indirect object from a)oratoj. It means “the invisible one.” God the Father has never been seen.

“the only wise God” — dative of indirect object from the adjective monoj, meaning here “unique.” But the adjective here is used as a substantive. This only happens in the Koine Greek. Therefore it is translated “the unique one” or “the unique God.” God is unique in every sense.

This is, of course, a burst of praise directed to God the Father. His uniqueness comes from His volition. His volition is always in existence, there never was a time when the sovereignty of God did not exist. “honour and glory” — timh kai doca, predicate nominatives.

Translation: “Now to the sovereign of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, unique God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen [I believe it].”

This is written as a result of grace. Grace is the genius of God, just as evil is the genius of Satan. Grace is manifest through doctrine; evil is manifest through everything from socialism, welfare, etc.

This is really the end of the introduction. The rest of this epistle is a series of orders to a weak-sistered wimp by the name of Timothy, a person who was brilliant academically but a person who had a hard time applying what he knew. He was afraid of people.

Verse 18 — “This charge” is the accusative singular from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. O(utoj means near at hand; plus the accusative singular of paraggelia which means command, a very strong command. It is to be obeyed without question, it demands instant obedience. Everything in Timothy demands instant obedience.

“I commit” — the present middle indicative of paratiqhmi. This is a banking term which means to deposit. He is making a deposit. Notice that the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj is in the accusative, it is not the subject. Also, paraggelia is the accusative. They are the direct objects of the verb paratiqhmi, and so it should be translated “I am depositing this order.” The present tense is the aoristic present, punctiliar action in present time. The middle voice is the indirect middle, stressing the agent Paul as producing the action. He is using his rank. The indicative mood is declarative for unqualified dogmatic assertion from a direct order, a series of direct orders in written command form.

“unto thee” is not correct. This is the dative case, indirect object, of the personal pronoun su and it should be translated “with you.”

“son Timothy” — teknon means “son” all right but it also has another meaning, a student. Teaching is a job for the pastor-teacher. Teknon means a student without portfolio. Timothy is Paul’s student. Paul is using his academic authority to deposit a series of commands with Timothy, and at the same time with us.

“according to the prophecies” — there were no prophecies out on Timothy. This is the preposition kata plus the accusative plural of the present active participle proagw. The participle is sometimes used as an adjective, and so it is here. It should be “with reference to previous.” The final word is the noun that goes with the participial use of the adjective — profhteia which refers to the Old Testament doctrinal class. Paul taught Timothy Old Testament doctrine. So, “with reference to previous prophecy.”

“which went before on thee” should be “communicated to you.” It is the preposition e)pi plus the accusative of the personal pronoun su. E)pi plus the accusative emphasises direction. He was taught these things. They aren’t about him, they are taught to him. It is a reference to Paul’s academic teaching of Timothy. Timothy had been Paul’s theological student. Paul now commands Timothy to apply what he has learned. Timothy must be influenced by doctrine rather than by evil. Doctrine must become Timothy’s life, it must become more important than anything else in life, and that has not occurred just yet. He is ahead academically, he is behind in application.

“in order that” — the conjunction i(na introduces a purpose clause, a final clause which denotes purpose, goal, objective.

“by them mightest war” — e)n plus the instrumental plural of the intensive pronoun a)utoj. This means by the same inculcated doctrine. With this is the present middle subjunctive of strateuw. It means to enter combat, to serve, and so on. The present tense is customary present to denote what may be reasonably expected to occur when you have doctrine in the soul. The middle voice is the indirect middle emphasising Timothy as producing the action as the agent rather than by participating in the results of the action. The subjunctive mood is used for part of the purpose clause with i(na. Then there is the cognate accusative strateia which means combat or campaign, and with it is an adjective also in the accusative, kaloj, which means “honourable” here. It does not mean to fight a good fight, this is an idiom for honourable combat experience. That is the problem at this point, he does not have honourable combat experience because he has not learned to apply doctrine.

Translation: “I am depositing this order with you, student Timothy, on the basis of previous prophecies [Old Testament doctrines] taught to you, in order that by these same inculcated doctrines you might have honourable combat experience.”

Summary

1. This first order deposited with Timothy embraces the entire epistle. Every command from now on in 1 Timothy is a new paragraph in this field order from headquarters.

2. The epistle is written like a postgraduate correspondence course.

3. Paul the human author is the professor and Timothy is the teknon, the student under strict academic discipline.

4. The combat experience is a reference to Timothy’s ministry in Ephesus and the whole surrounding area related to the angelic conflict.

5. Honourable combat experience reduces itself to the believer in phase two/time being influenced by doctrine rather than by evil.

6. The believer influenced by doctrine receives blessing which glorifies God.

7. The believer influenced by evil receives cursing and discipline in the plan of God.

8. The believer influenced by doctrine reaches super-grace or spiritual maturity.

9. The believer influenced by evil passes through the various stages of reversionism and divine discipline culminating in the sin unto death.

10. The believer influenced by doctrine has both dying grace and eternal reward in phase three. The believer influenced by evil has painful disciplinary death and no reward in eternity.

The doctrine of evil

Introduction

1. Evil is a factor the believer must face which was not judged on the cross — Hebrews 5:13,14. The mature or super-grace believer can distinguish between honourable and evil things. He is influenced by doctrine rather than being influenced by evil. This gives him the ability to make the greatest distinction of the Church Age, the distinction between honour and evil.

2. The mature believer rightly divides the Word of truth so that he correctly distinguishes between sin and evil which both have their sources in Satan but have different sources in the human soul. In the human soul sin comes from the old sin nature, evil comes from the heart or the right lobe of the mentality of the soul.

3. This verse suggests that the mature believer distinguishes between doctrine as the manifestation of God’s grace and evil as the manifestation of Satan’s genius.

4. God’s grace, therefore, is the manifestation of God’s genius while evil is the manifestation of Satan’s genius.

5. The balance residence in the believer’s soul avoids thinking evil — 1 Corinthians 13:5. The body is balanced out at the point of salvation by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There is a problem in the soul. The problem is in the balance of residency. Whenever a believer is in fellowship he is filled with the Holy Spirit. When he is out of fellowship he is said to be quenching or grieving the Spirit which indicates that the Holy Spirit has no control of the soul. You cannot lose the indwelling of the Holy Spirit but you can lose the Spirit’s control of the soul through sin or the influence of evil, or a combination of both. So that immediately we have a soul out of trim, and in order to trim it up there must be a balance. So we have a minus doctrine as we begin our spiritual life and that minus doctrine must become plus. The filling of the Spirit plus maximum doctrine in the soul equals the balance of residency of the soul and/or experiential sanctification.

6. Sincere do-gooders impress people at Easter, Christmas, and at other times. Sincere do-gooders practice evil — Romans 7:19, 21. Sincere do-gooders have no roots of the soul, no content of the soul whereby they can avoid evil; so in doing good it comes out evil. Being under the influence of evil their good always turns out evil or the policy of Satan.

7. Therefore the believer is warned to beware of evil practitioners — Philippians 3:2. Evil practitioners are those believers or unbelievers who through evil thinking are under the influence of evil.

8. Those under the influence of evil always have a price — 1 Timothy 6:10. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, which means that people under the influence of evil can be bribed.

9. Believers are specifically warned never to be influenced by evil but by doctrine — 3 John 11.

10. Influence by evil explains the basic reason why believers’ prayers are not answered — Job 35:9-13.

11. Submission to the authority of establishment prevents evil and the influence of evil — Ecclesiastes 8:2-5.

12. False doctrine is both evil and insanity — Ecclesiastes 9:3. To say that there is one faith for all men and that all roads go to the same place is declared to be an evil. To be under the influence of evil as a believer means to be negative towards doctrine. Doctrine insulates the believer from evil. To be under the influence of evil means loss of blessing in life, loss of dying grace, loss of reward in eternity.

Definition of evil

1. Evil is the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world.

2. Just as grace and doctrine represent the genius of God in relationship to the human race so evil represents the genius of Satan in relationship to the human race. Doctrine is a series of thoughts; evil is a series of thoughts. Doctrine are God’s thoughts for the human race; evil, Satan’s thoughts for the human race. It is thought versus thought and the struggle is for your soul. Which type of thinking will control your soul?

3. Evil is the distortion of doctrine and establishment. Doctrine and establishment came first so evil always tries to distort. Evil is not only a Satanic system but it is also a distortion. Since the truth came before the false obviously one part of evil must be to distort the truth into the false. Add something to truth to make it false.

4. Evil, therefore, comes in many forms. Some of the forms of evil include religion, legalism, reversionism, socialism, welfare, political internationalism, religious practice of brotherly love, the attempt to abolish all human problems apart from doctrine and establishment. You can’t abolish problems by passing laws against problems. That is evil.

5. Evil includes such practices as social security, governmental welfare, governmental abuse of power, governmental interference with industry and free enterprise, governmental policy of curtailing the military, gun legislation, catering to minorities (There are citizens but there are no minorities).

6. Evil includes all systems of Christian function outside of and apart from the local church which was ordained and authorised by God as the only means of spiritual growth in the dispensation of the Church.

7. This means that not only are denominations evil but all organisations are likewise evil. They have distorted Christian service into growth. You cannot distort service into growth since spiritual growth only comes through doctrine resident in the soul. Spiritual growth, therefore, only comes through GAP and the only bona fide function of GAP is in the local church.

8. The worst and most detrimental thing that can happen to any believer is to be influenced by evil. Remember that evil is a system of thinking that captures your mind.

Evil is the modus operandi of Satan as the ruler of this world. Evil includes many, many things besides sin (occasionally sin is included). It includes human good, the attempt to solve the problems of life apart from God and doctrine. Evil includes anthropocentric altruism, humanitarianism, philanthropy, socialism, sociology, public welfare. It includes the social gospel, social action, the restriction of human freedom for the greater good, the distortion of law, the distortion of any system of establishment in order to solve social and economic problems. Evil is religionism, legalism, reversionism, apostasy, every deviation from Bible doctrine and the laws of divine establishment.

The super-grace believer is protected from evil — Psalm 21:11; Proverbs 12:12,20,21. Obviously the super-grace believer has doctrine in his soul. Having doctrine in the soul is insulation against evil. The doctrinal thoughts of the soul come through the daily function of GAP. Bible doctrine is communicated and this doctrine goes into the left lobe. There it becomes objective reality called gnwsij. It is understood by means of God the Holy Spirit who controls the soul at the time that the information is presented. God the Holy Spirit then makes it gnwsij or objective reality, but having it in the left lobe it is not useable, it is not practical as yet, it is strictly academic. At this point the human volition must go into operation. Positive volition toward gnwsij type information results in it being transferred to the human spirit where it becomes e)pignwsij. Now it is usable. E)pignwsij is cycled into the right lobe, the frame of reference or the heart. There it resides to become the basis of understanding and orientation to life and insulation against evil.

Genesis 5:20 — the concept that evil is eliminated by the principle of Romans 8:28.

Genesis 48:16 — all blessing, all happiness is based upon being free from evil.

Psalm 37:16-19 — if you have abundance but have an evil soul then the abundance will make you miserable. Whatever it is that you attain it brings misery instead of happiness.

Psalm 97:10 — you come to love the Lord by maximum doctrine in the soul. The more doctrine that you have in your soul the more that you are going to love the Lord. The greater your capacity for loving the Lord the more that you will despise evil. The thinking of evil will therefore have no effect in your soul. Thinking is using your soul as a battleground and all thoughts in life are actually fighting over your soul. When you take in doctrine this repels all of the thoughts which are related to Satan’s policy known as evil.

Psalm 119:101 — restraint which guards doctrine.

Psalm 121:7 — the Lord protects from evil, guards the soul. This is accomplished through Bible doctrine.

Proverbs 1:33 — security and ease from the dread of evil.

Proverbs 2:10-14 — application of doctrine delivers from the way of evil. Everywhere you turn in the Bible it is doctrine which protects from evil. Doctrine is divine thinking; evil is Satanic thinking.

Proverbs 19:23 — never touched by evil. Doctrine in the soul is the only protection against evil.

9. Negative volition toward doctrine causes the believer to be changed by evil. When you reject doctrine you reject your only protection against evil.

Proverbs 5:13,14 — “I have not listened to the voice of my teachers … I was immediately in all evil.” He did not listen to Bible teaching.

Doctrine is our only protection, and therefore we are warned in Proverbs 3:7 — “Do not be wise in your own eyes, become occupied with the Lord so that you can turn away from evil.” You cannot turn away from evil unless you become occupied with the Lord.

10. The issue to the royal family of God: Are you influenced by doctrine or are you influenced by evil?

Proverbs 11:18,19 — “The reversionist earns wages of deception, but he who sows super-grace has a true reward … he who pursues evil pursues his own sin unto death.”

Proverbs 14:22 — “Will they not go astray who devise evil? But grace and doctrine to doctrine to those who devise the absolute good.”

Proverbs 15:3 — “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good.” Divine omnipresence is a factor in providing discipline for the reversionistic believer, the believer who is influenced by evil, and at the same time providing blessing for the super-grace believer who is under the influence of doctrine.

Proverbs 16:6 — “By grace and doctrine one recovers from reversionism, and by occupation with the Lord one is insulated from evil.”

Proverbs 22:3 — “The wise (super-grace believer) sees the evil, and he hides himself; but the stupid one (negative toward doctrine) goes on into the evil and is punished by it.”

Proverbs 24:1-4 — the warning never to be influenced by evil. It has a pseudo stimulation which is destructive.

Ephesians 5:16 — “… redeeming the time because the days are evil.” Time is redeemed through the establishment of a command post in the soul, through the consistent intake of Bible doctrine.

2 Thessalonians 3:2,3 — “And that he may be delivered from perverse and evil men, for all men do not have doctrine; but the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from evil. ”

11. Doctrine neutralises evil. The is the basic concept of the recovery from the influence of evil. Psalm 54:5 — “The evil will return for those who lie in wait for me; put them in silence with your doctrine.” The concept of doctrine neutralising evil means that once you have come under the influence of evil the only possible recovery demands that you take in necessary doctrine in order to eliminate the erroneous human viewpoint thought, or the Satanic policy which lies within your soul. For that reason Romans 12:21 says, “Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with the absolute good [Bible doctrine].”

12. On the other hand evil distorts grace. In this distortion we have the concept of how one little evil thought, one Satanic viewpoint, can cause the infiltration of evil into the soul. Psalm 38:19,20. The concept is that any time a person follows the absolute good, any time a person begins to realise the importance of doctrine, he immediately is subjected to many subtle and many obvious attacks. The attacks of evil are subtle and they distort to the point where the person goes negative toward doctrine.

Psalm 52:1 — “Why do you boast in evil O mighty man? The grace of God endures all day long.” The fact that the grace of God endures in spite of evil indicates that in spite of the fact that evil attacks by distorting grace, grace is the factor that brings us back around.

1 Corinthians 15:33 — “Be not deceived, evil company corrupts good morals.” Evil company refers to some of the nicest people, some attractive people, successful people, people in whom you enjoy their company. But in social intercourse it is inevitable that they will throw out thoughts, concepts that are evil, and when you accept these concepts because you accept the person, then you have been corrupted in the soul. It is the concept of corruption of soul that is found in this stage of 1 Corinthians 15.

13. Evil also distorts establishment — Psalm 50:16-21. Evil is related in this passage to the sins of the tongue.

14. Reversionists are influenced by evil — Psalm 36:1-4. In this passage we have the principle that evil begins at certain stages of reversionism. For example, in the opening stages of reversionism which is the reaction stage you generally have reactor factors such as self-pity, loneliness, and so on. But once you start the frantic search for happiness it is inevitable that you will contact evil, and while it is still in a stage where it isn’t dangerous by the time that you get into operation boomerang, the intensification of reaction, you’re off to a flying start. Then with emotional revolt, when the emotion revolts against the right lobe you are in trouble and once your negative volition is consolidated and the vacuum is opened up, through that vacuum go all the doctrines of demons or evil thoughts. This leads to blackout of the soul which leads to scar tissue of the soul, which leads to reverse process reversionism. And from emotional revolt on there is evil in every stage of reversionism so that evil and reversionism become the same thing at that point. In fact, evil becomes the thinking of reversionism.

Psalm 36:1 — it is an arrogant thing that you relate yourself to people when the demand is that you relate yourself to God. Your job is to relate your life to God, not to people. When you relate your life to God you’re safe from evil but the very moment that you start relating your life to people you become arrogant.

John 3:19 — “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” The reason why people like certain forms and activities in life is simply because it matches what they are doing. What they are doing is evil, therefore they like to have it match up with what is in their souls, especially in the conscience of the soul.

15. Evil rationalises. One of the things that evil must do is to avoid any guilt reaction, and to do so evil therefore has its own system of rationalisation. In order to rationalise you must distort the conscience, and so the conscience ignores the norms and standards of the scripture and sets up its own human norms or standards. With these human norms and standards then you can go out and do anything you want to because the reality of what you are doing is lined up with the reality of the norms and standards in your soul. Therefore the Bible says, “Woe to them who call evil good, and good evil.” Once you set up a series of norms and standards in your soul you call those good.

16. Conspiracy and revolution is also evil — Psalm 64:4,5. Verse 4 describes assassination as murder, verse 5 describes it as evil. When you have sin plus evil you have the worst possible combination.

Proverbs 17:11 — “A rebellious man seeks only evil.” Revolution and evil are synonymous terms.

17. Evil is obviously self-destructive.

Psalm 34:21— “Evil shall slay the wicked, and they who hate the righteous will be condemned.” Evil people are always trying to solve the world’s problems by violence.

Proverbs 24:19,20 — “Do not fret yourself because of evildoers, or be jealous of the ones who are evil; for there will be no future for the evil one; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.” The lamp of the wicked will be put out at the second advent of Jesus Christ. In the meantime, the lamp of the wicked is dimmed and put out in any generation by the saturation of Bible doctrine. This is the answer.

18. Evil seeks to build happiness on someone else’s unhappiness.

Psalm 35:12 — “They repay me evil for good to the bereavement of my soul.” So when evil is repaid for good it always hurts the soul of the one who did the good.

19. The laws of divine establishment protect the human [believer and unbeliever] race from evil. We are all born unbelievers. How can we be protected until we get to the point of evangelisation? How can we be free to hear the Word? How can the gospel come to us under conditions of freedom? There must be freedom for evangelisation. The answer is found in the laws of divine establishment. That is why Bible Christianity is always pro-establishment.

Romans 13:3,4 — “For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behaviour [establishment], but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good [stay with establishment], and you will have praise of the same; for it [the laws of divine establishment] is a minister of God to you for absolute good. But if you do what is evil, then be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings judgment on the one who practices evil.” This time crime produces certain types of sin, and crime is not only sin but crime is evil. The evil in crime is antiestablishment. The sin in crime plus the evil in crime mean that you must have capital punishment to control crime because those who are involved in crime are also involved in evil. They must be extracted and removed from the human race, and capital punishment is the basic system for controlling crime, says the Bible. The reason why capital punishment is so important is because it eliminates from society those who are influenced both by sin and evil at the same time.

20. There is no evil in God.

Psalm 5:4 — “Thou art not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells in you.”

James 1:13 — “Let no man say when he is tempted, I have been tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted by evil, he himself does not tempt anyone.”

21. God judges evil.

Psalm 34:16 — “The face of the Lord is against evildoers.” The face of the Lord is His essence. Every part of divine essence is opposed to evil.

22. In spite of evil Jesus Christ continues to control history.

Proverbs 16:3,4 — “Commit your works to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for his own purpose; even the wicked for the day of evil.”

Isaiah 45:7 — “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.”

The verbs for creation: a) bara, which means to create out of nothing. It was used in the creation of man’s soul; b) asah, means to manufacture something out of something, out of existing materials. It is used for the creating of man’s soul resulting in man’s personality. Man’s personality is related to his soul. Our soul is bara, [Ex nihilo] and from this comes a personality. Secondly, we have asah which is the personality which emerges from the soul. The soul was created out of nothing, the personality is derived from the soul — asah; c) Jatsar, has to do with the body in the human race. The man’s body is said to be moulded; d) bana, the woman’s body taken from the man’s body, means to build.

Three of these words are used in Isaiah 45:7. “I form the light” — the qal active participle of jatsar. Not only was the body of man formed but light [Heb. or] was also moulded. This is an excellent way to describe light. Light generally represents truth and the wonderful things we see in colour, and so on, but the reason that it is said to be moulded is because light comes in waves. The waves of light are actually moulded and in light are all of the colours that we see.

The previous verse, verse 6, said, “I am the Lord, there is no other.” Verse 7 — “Forming light.” This is the beginning of a structurised concept. A structurised concept in the Hebrew generally has four phrases. They are all qal active participles, so they are parallel and they all relate. Then we have the word bara, a qal participle. The qal participle sets up a structurised system in the Hebrew. The object of bara is different, it is choshek, “darkness.” Darkness is caused by the fall of Satan, according to Genesis 1:3-5. It is used, therefore, in connection with Satan. So we have an antithesis in the beginning of our structure, we have light formed and darkness created. Then fact that darkness comes from bara and light from jatsar is extremely important in this passage because there will be something set up to relate to this. Bara will be repeated. Darkness is not created directly by God, but God created the creature who brought darkness into the world. This is not darkness as we understand it when we walk outside at night but this actually refers to Satan as the author of darkness. God created Satan as Lucifer the angel of light. When God created him he was absolutely perfect, but in his volition were certain negative elements which were contrary to doctrine and contrary to God. And from those negative elements came darkness. So while God created Satan and gave him a free will, what did Satan do with it? He created darkness, the antithesis of the light formed by God. Since yatsar is used here we are to think of light not in terms of colour right now but in terms of wave length. Light travels in waves and darkness breaks the waves. So the point is, God created the creature, gave him a free will, and the first thing the creature did when he finally got oriented in heaven was to make sure that he broke the waves, the vibrations as it were, that God had set up. He went against them. Darkness is the creation of Satan, it was caused by the fall of Satan and by the angelic revolution. In preparing earth for man’s habitation God corrected the situation with light when He restored the earth. Light would provide heat energy which would melt off the ice pack and make it possible for man to live on the earth, for man was created to resolve the angelic conflict. But in this verse it declares that God created the darkness and bara is used because God created Satan who is called the prince of darkness as the ruler of this world. Satan is a creature; God is the creator. The whole blessing we are to derive from this structurised system is the fact that the creator continues to control even though the creature from his own free will went away from what God had formed. The point is, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.” What this actually says so far is that Jesus Christ controls history even though the greatest genius that ever came from the hand of God was Lucifer the son of the morning, and even though Lucifer the son of the morning is the author of darkness.

Now we go back to asah — “I make prosperity [not peace].” God is the manufacturer. He manufactures shalom which means “prosperity.” God manufactures prosperity, but asah says you do it out of something. God manufactures prosperity for us out of doctrine — paragraph SG². Our shalom glorifies God.

What doesn’t glorify God? What is the antithesis of the believer reaching SG²? Evil. Therefore in the antithetical structure of the second phrase , “and create evil,” we have the qal active participle of bara — to create out of nothing. Bara is used again because we are dealing with that same creature who was the author of darkness. Satan is the author of darkness, God is the one who created Lucifer son of the morning. Now you would think we would have the most common word for evil ra’a, but you can’t have this one because ra’a is a woman, feminine gender. Satan by sex is male. So instead of ra’a we have the masculine form, “the evil one.” Ra is an adjective used as a substantive just as in the Koine Greek we have the same concept of kakoj used as an adjective as well as a substantive. When it is kakoj or ra, as here, it is “evil one” referring to Satan — “the one creating the evil one.” Darkness is used in scripture not only for literal darkness but for the policy of Satan. Evil is the policy of Satan in action. So darkness and evil are synonymous terms for Satanic policy. What is in contrast to darkness and evil? Light [doctrine] and prosperity [result of doctrine].

“I, Jehovah, am the one manufacturing all these things.” This time He uses asah to indicate” All right, creatures have free will. Angels have it, man has it, but I still asah history; I manufacture out of history my plan and I am the sinner!

Literal translation: “I am Jehovah, and there is no other. Forming light and creating darkness; the one manufacturing prosperity, and the one creating the evil one; I, Jehovah, am the one manufacturing all of these things.”

23. The saturation of evil means national destruction or the fifth cycle of discipline. Nothing is more destructive to a national entity than to become saturated with evil. People sin in a country but the country continues on. Vigorous nations have vigorous sinners but the nation goes right on. Sin is not the issue in the survival of a nation, it is evil that is the issue. This does not condone or excuse sin but it does make clear that sin in itself is not the cause of a nation’s downfall. It is evil that is the cause of downfall of a national entity. This is portrayed in Isaiah 47:10,11.

Verse 10 — this is talking to the empire of Chaldea which has had a great spiritual revival after Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion. Men like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo were not only great administrators in the Chaldean empire but at the same time they were a great spiritual influence. They were the salt of the empire. They had the privilege of leading many to the Lord, of dissemination of doctrine. Daniel himself was a communicator of Bible doctrine. Therefore the empire flourished. But in the time of Nebuchanezzar’s grandson the empire has reverted to the saturation of evil which existed in the early days of Nebuchanezzar’s reign. Therefore this warning prophecy to the Chaldean empire from the pen of Isaiah:

“For thou hast trusted” is the qal imperfect of batach. This word is often used for the believer trusting but it is also used for anything in which anyone trusts. Here the trust is misdirected because it is said to be “in thy wickedness.” This is wrong, it should be “in your evil.” Altogether it should be translated, “Because you have trusted in your evil.” In other words, nations not influenced by doctrine, nations minus any kind of a spiritual life, inevitably are going to be taken over by evil because eventually the very structure of establishment is undermined. There are three protections from evil. The first is a spiritual vigour from evangelism — commonly called revival. Evangelism, however, does not mean spiritual growth. There is no spiritual growth in evangelising. Evangelism has a very simple objective, to lead the individual to the understanding of the issue of the gospel and to lead him to the place where he personally believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as his saviour. Evangelism and the perpetuation of missionary activity in a country is a protection against evil. The second and most obvious protection against evil is in the field of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth can only be accomplished inside of the local church. The only possible way to ever grow up is to be under your pastor-teacher, under his authority, under his teaching consistently, so that you can fulfill the function of GAP as recorded in the Word of God and grow up. This is the basis of the salt function. Salt is the preservative of the nation, and inevitably as in the time of the Chaldean empire, the time of this passage, the nation was preserved in the time of Nebuchadnezzar because men like Daniel communicated Bible doctrine. There is a third protection of a national entity against being overtaken by evil and that is in the field of establishment. The laws of divine establishment are for the entire human race. They are designed to perpetuate the human race during the course of the angelic conflict. Satan is a genius and he knows that the simplest way to win the victory is to destroy the human race or corrupt the human race. These are through principles of evil but establishment stands as a bulwark against the destruction and the corruption of the human race. When establishment goes in a national entity the national entity is overtaken by evil and the result is the destruction of the nation.

Therefore we conclude that there are three things that a nation must have for survival: evangelism, the local church and the pastor-teacher communicating doctrine for the spiritual growth of those who are evangelised, and it must have the laws of divine establishment functioning within the framework of its government. These are absolute necessities without which no nation can be protected from evil. So nations not influenced by doctrine and nations not influenced by the laws of divine establishment have a tendency to be influenced, infiltrated, inculcated, and eventually destroyed by the principle of evil.

Remember that evil is the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world. While both evil and sin originate from Satan, and both have the same source in that super angel, they have different sources in your life. The source of sin in your life and in the life of each one of us is the old sin nature. The source of evil is the heart or the right lobe in the mentality of the soul. And while both sin and evil originate from Satan they do have these two different sources in mankind.

Evil includes human good, social and economic panaceas, trying to solve the problems of life through legislation, social gospel, social action, or through psychology, through some system of counseling, through socialism. Evil includes any form of anthropocentric altruism, humanitarianism, religion, legalism, reversionism. It includes victorious life panaceas, any system of pseudo spirituality of which fundamentalism is loaded down today. Sin was solved at the point of salvation, sin is solved in the work of Christ on the cross; evil was not even dealt with at the cross. Evil was, as it were, ignored at the cross so that evil could continue to be the issue in the angelic conflict all of the way to the second advent of Christ. The sins of humanity were judged on the cross but evil was not dealt with at all. The problem of evil will not be solved until Satan is removed as the ruler of this world, and that occurs at the second advent. Evil, therefore, can only be handled in each generation by those in a generation who are influenced by Bible doctrine.

Sin can be solved in your life as quickly as you can rebound or cite the sins since it was judged on the cross. Anytime, however, a believer becomes legalistic that believer becomes influenced by evil. To be influenced by evil is the be under the direct policy and therefore the control of Satan himself. If you do not stay with Bible doctrine, if you do not get with Bible doctrine, if you do not grow up with Bible doctrine, if you do not GAP it daily, then you will eventually come under the influence of evil. So only the daily function of GAP can protect the believer from evil.

And here in Isaiah 47 we find a nation which has trusted in evil. In other words, the Chaldean empire has become a Satanic stronghold, a place of national apostasy and reversionism, a place under the influence of many kinds of evil. The manifestation of Old Testament evil often takes the turn toward idolatry and this will be included in the context.

“thou hast said” — the qal perfect of amar represents the concept of the people. In other words, this is public opinion at the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson.

“None seeth me. Thy wisdom and they knowledge, it hath perverted thee.” So when public opinion says, Well no one is really checking on me, this means that establishment has gone. “None seeth me” means that establishment is no longer hindering or restraining people from evil. There is no system of establishment that is impressive enough to stop them. This is what happens when establishment itself is eroded away by bribery, or when it is administered by those who are evil themselves.

“Thy wisdom and they knowledge, it hath perverted thee” is incorrect. The pilel perfect of shub. The pilel stem of this particular verb means to seduce — “Your wisdom and your knowledge have seduced you.” Both wisdom and knowledge here refer to a saturation of evil in the souls of the Chaldean people. Anthropocentric knowledge becomes evil. Evil is a thought; evil is humanitarianism in its thinking; evil is a thought in the right lobe that can make or break you, and it always breaks. What you think, therefore, influences you. And what the Chaldeans thought has influenced them and they are therefore about to be completely destroyed.

“and hast said in thine heart” is “Therefore you have said in your right lobe” — and here it comes now. The word for arrogance in this case is ani — “I am.” Then to make sure you understand that this is not simply self-consciousness the next phrase is “there is no one else beside me.” This is the phrase of arrogance. Arrogance is a sin that always links up with evil. Arrogance and reversionism meet at the point of evil. In some stage of reversionism where arrogance exists evil is the result. Satan’s original sin was arrogance or pride from which Satan’s policy of evil originated.

So this first verse says, “Because you trusted in your evil; you have said, No one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge has seduced you; therefore you have said in your right lobe, I am, and there is no one else beside me.”

This is the point at which sin and evil cross. Arrogance or pride meet reversionism and the result is evil.

Verse 11 — “Therefore evil shall come upon thee.” “Shall come” is the qal perfect of bo and it is translated, “Therefore evil shall come upon you.”

“thou shalt no know” — the qal perfect of jada plus the negative, and it means “you won’t understand its origin.” You won’t know what hit you!

“mischief” is not quite correct. It is the feminine singular noun howah which actually means “disaster.” It is a reference to the destruction of the Chaldean empire because of the evil engendered within it. Evil is the source of national destruction; evil brings on the fifth cycle of discipline.

“thou shalt not be able” — the hophal imperfect of the verb jakal plus the negative. Helplessness is the only thing that can occur when the fifth cycle of discipline is in the process.

“thou shalt not be able to put it off” — the piel infinitive of kaphar means to avert it.

“and suddenly destruction [5th cycle of discipline] shall come on you, and you will not understand.” Evil people cannot interpret history.

Translation: “Therefore evil shall come upon you; you will not understand its origin. Consequently disaster [national] shall fall on you; you will not be able to avert it, and suddenly destruction [5th cycle of discipline] shall come on you, and you will not understand it.”

There is no way that you will understand any disaster in history if you are under the influence of evil. This tells us something on the side. If you are under the influence of evil there is no way of coping with disaster. Your only hope in coping with disaster is to add disaster to disaster. This is why people get into narcotics and become drug users and use stimulants on which to lean. This is because they do not know how to cope with evil. They have no understanding of the problem and therefore they seek some easy way out which merely compounds the problem.

24. Evil never understands grace function.

25. Evil is distinguished from other categories in the scripture. There are three basic distinctions in the realm of evil.

a) Evil is distinguished from war and disease — Jeremiah 28:8, “The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war and of evil and of disease.” Under the Hebrew language structure here war, evil, and disease are distinguished. Evil is distinguished from war and disease. In other words, war is not evil and disease is not evil. Evil is separated from war and disease. This passage is saying that evil must be distinguished from war, that warfare is not classified as evil; neither is disease. Warfare is the means of maintaining national freedom. It is a means of suffering as well as pressure but it is not evil. It is possible to take this separate entity and insert evil into warfare, or to insert sin into warfare; but warfare is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. Warfare is a part of the function of establishment whereby a national entity maintains its freedom. The infiltration of sin or sinful things done, or evil things accomplished during warfare, does not change the principle. The principle of warfare remains the same; it is a good principle, not a bad principle. The same thing is true of disease. Disease is not evil. People may have disease because of sin or because of evil but in principle disease in itself is not an evil thing at all. Both sinful and evil things may be done in war but war in itself is not evil. Sinful and evil things may be done and as a result there may be disease, but disease in itself is not evil. It may be punishment but in itself it is not evil.

b) Evil must be distinguished from sin. 1 Chronicles 21:17 — “And David said to God, ‘Is it not I who ordered the census of the people? Indeed, I am the one who has sinned ...” David said, “I have sinned” — That is the qal perfect of chata — “and done evil.” Now we have the hiphil infinitive absolute and a hiphil perfect of the verb ra’a, which is different from chata. So David distinguishes between his sin and his evil, and he puts great emphasis on his evil because he doubles the verb. There are two hiphils. The hiphil is causative active voice. And we have the infinitive plus the perfect tense of the hiphil. It is very strong. “I myself have personally cause the evil.”

“but these sheep, what have they done?” All of us are going to commit sins until the day we die because we have an old sin nature. And on the cross Christ died for every sin we will ever commit. Therefore we simply cite or name that sin and we are forgiven immediately. But evil was not judged on the cross. Evil is not judged until the second advent. At the second advent Jesus Christ will judge evil by the removal of Satan from the world. Remember that evil is not only the genius of Satan but evil is the policy of Satan. Everything related to evil is Satanic and Satan’s genius expresses itself through evil the way God’s genius expresses itself through grace, and grace is expressed in doctrine. So the great issue is always doctrine versus evil. David was a man of doctrine and avoided evil, but when he did not avoid evil he knew what he had done and he expressed it beautifully and distinguishes between sin and evil. He confesses his sin and he declares that he is the cause of the evil, but he makes the distinction between them. The sin, of course, is forgiven. Recovery from evil is something else and takes a little more time. But it brings up an issue. Satan himself, when he was Lucifer son of the morning, originated both sin and evil; he is the author of both. He is the evangelist of evil throughout all of human history.

Since sin and evil have a common origin we often confuse them, but when it comes to man sin and evil are separated in man’s soul. The old sin nature is the source of sin but the heart or the right lobe of the soul is the source of evil. Evil is a thought, a Satanic policy, a Satanic viewpoint. Sin is a violation of the laws, the standards of God. They are separate and distinct in the human race even though they had a common origin in Satan himself. David knows all of this, so in the first half of this verse, 1 Chron. 20:17, teaches that sin and evil are not the same though both were involved in David’s numbering of the people. The sin of David was arrogance or pride of prosperity; the evil of David was in checking up on God. As it says in the same chapter, verse 1, “Then Satan stood up against Israel and motivated David to number the people.” Both sin and evil are involved here and are distinguished as separate categories of failure.

c) Evil is distinguished from evil. Many times the Word of God talks about evil and evil, and makes a distinction. There are two kinds of evil found in the scripture. There is evil in a national entity when they reject (go negative) the laws of divine establishment, or when the believers reject doctrine and go into reversionism. This, when it reaches a saturation point, results in the fifth cycle of discipline. The fifth cycle of discipline is from the Lord, but when it is used to destroy a nation which is under the influence of evil it is called an evil to an evil nation. In other words, God matches the punishment and the crime and therefore we have the double use of evil.

A good illustration of this is found in Jonah 3:10 — “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their way of evil; then God repented of the evil which he declared that he would do to them, and therefore he did not do it.” This is what made Jonah so mad. He was an unwilling missionary, not very much in favour of being a missionary to the Assyrians. It says God repented of the evil. The evil is the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline. Evil destroys evil. God calls it fighting fire with fire or fighting evil with evil. He was about to destroy Assyria but He did not do so. They “turned away from their evil”; they actually made a recovery. So the distinction becomes obvious. The Assyrians practiced evil in the sense of following the Satanic policies; they were about to be overtaken by evil, God makes the punishment fit the crime. This is a manifestation of His perfect justice. Jonah’s great mission saved the day.

This brings us to the concept that rightly dividing the Word of truth not only means recognising dispensational differences but it would mean recognising other differences when the Bible makes a distinction. These distinctions become the basis of great wisdom.

26. It is obvious, then, that evil is often mistaken for good. Micah 1:12 tells us about a little suburb of Samaria. Samaria became the final capital of the northern kingdom. The northern kingdom had many capitals after it broke away from the southern kingdom and from the house of David, but the city of Samaria finally became the capital and was the last capital. It was the Assyrians who besieged this capital and finally took it. One of the problems in the northern kingdom was the infiltration of evil. The only insulation against evil is Bible doctrine in the soul. The only protection against evil is the function of the laws of divine establishment. In the northern kingdom there was a dearth of both.

“For the citizens of Maroth” — a little suburb of Samaria. Maroth means ‘bitterness’ — “waited anxiously for good.” In other words, they were waiting for something good to happen. Just like to day everyone thinks that something good is going to happen, someone is going to get in and change things. But the system is anti-doctrine and antiestablishment and has to be destroyed. No person can change things. Yet people are going to go right on “waiting for good,” and while people are standing around waiting for good, evil overtakes them. That is what this passage is all about. The citizens of Maroth had the same attitude, they became weak while waiting for good. While we wait for good we become weak.

“but evil came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem” — notice the evil came from the Lord. This means the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline. While they are waiting around for good to come the fifth cycle of discipline takes them. What were they doing? They weren’t just waiting around by sitting down and looking heavenward, they were bucking the tiger for their own system. In 20th century terms they would be saying: “We’ve got to get more welfare; we’ve got to have more labour unions; let’s abolish war by abolishing our military; let’s solve crime by gun legislation.” This is what is called waiting for good. Everyone has an angle how it is all going to be solved and worked out. “Let’s put more taxes on industry, let’s nationalise industry.” This is called waiting for good. It means taking some solution other than Bible doctrine. The people of the northern kingdom thought that evil was good.

When it says the citizens of Maroth became weak waiting for good we have an interesting verb in the Hebrew — chalah, which does not mean to be weak in muscle, it means to be weak in the soul, to be weak in the mind. It is what happens when you sit around and watch television too long, you get weak in the mind.

27. Evil provides false security for reversionism — Micah 3:11. “Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe.” Here are the judges in the northern kingdom and they are determining cases on the basis of who gives them the most money.

“her priests instruct for a price” — the priests taught the written Word of God as it existed at this time — “her prophets divine for money” — the prophets taught the spoken Word of God. Both are doing it for money. This is evil. No one has the right to sell the truth.

“yet will they lean on the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord in our midst?” — they try to justify the fact that they are charging for it by saying that it is the Lord’s truth. “No evil can come upon us.” They are involved in evil. Evil rationalises the existence of security from the Lord. Evil uses the Lord as a front for the false security.

Verse 12 — “Therefore [on account of you evil types] Zion will be plowed as a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins.” When you start selling doctrine the next thing is the destruction of a nation. Doctrine is free, it is not for sale. All doctrine is related to grace. Grace is not for sale. It is an evil policy for any Christian institution of any kind to ask for money. The truth is free; it is evil to charge for doctrine.

28. Evil national leadership is always opposed to God — Nahum 1:11, “From you has advanced one who plots evil against the Lord.” He is described as “a wicked counselor.” That is a mistranslation. We have the qal active participle of ja’atz which means to counsel or to decree, that much is all right; but the rest of it is beilial, and it means maximum evil. So it should be translated, “From you has advanced one who plots evil against the Lord, a counselor of maximum evil.” This is a description of the leadership in the land at this time. Nahum as a prophet is warning that the leadership of the land is evil and their policy is evil.

Translation: “From you has advanced one who plots evil against the Lord, a policy-maker of maximum evil.”

29. Evil will be eliminated in the Millennial reign of Christ — Zephaniah 3:14,15. The two great issues that Satan brought up in the angelic conflict are sin and evil. They are separate issues. Sin was covered in the first advent at the cross. Christ was judged for our sins. At the second advent evil is handled.

Verse 14 — “Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion; shout O Israel; rejoice and be happy with all your right lobe, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Verse 15 — “The Lord has removed his judgments [fifth cycle of discipline], he has mopped up your enemy; the Lord is the King of Israel, he is in your midst, you will not see evil any more.” Evil is eliminated by Jesus Christ superseding Satan as the ruler of this world.

30. When Satan succeeds in inculcating evil, that evil is located in the soul of the individual whether he is a believer or an unbeliever — Matthew 6:23. The eye being evil is evil resident in the soul. Or, as it says in Matthew 15:19, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts.”

31. Remember that evil is altruistic. Luke 11:13 — “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” This has to do with the previous dispensation when it was necessary to ask for the Holy Spirit to receive the Spirit; and this was on a limited basis, not like we have it in the Church Age. The point is that parents, even though they are evil, know how to give good gifts to their children. Evil knows how to give and the whole system of altruism comes out of that first phrase.

32. Evil is related to Satan in many ways. For example:

a) Satan’s angels are called “evil spirits” in Luke 7:21; 8:2; Acts 19:12-16.

b) Satan’s domain is called an evil world — Galatians 1:4.

c) Satan’s policy is called evil — 1 Thessalonians 5:22; 2 Thessalonians 3:3.

d) Those under Satan’s policy and influence are called evil men — 2 Timothy 3:13; Job 35:12; Matthew 12:35; “evil workers” in Philippians 3:2.

e) Satan’s administrators are called inventors of evil things — Romans 1:30.

1 Timothy 1:19 — “Holding” is the present active participle of e)xw which means to have and to hold. Here is means to be having and holding since the participle takes the place of an imperative. This is an imperative participle The present tense is the present of duration, sometimes called the retroactive progressive present denoting what has begun in the past and continues to the present time. Timothy is still positive toward doctrine, his problem is not reversionism, his problem is the failure to apply it under the authority of his own spiritual gift. The active voice: Timothy produces the action of the verb.

“faith” — the accusative singular direct object from the noun pistij. Pistij has three meanings. The first of these is that which causes trust or faith. In other words, faithfulness, reliability, pledge, proof, or solemn promise. This is perhaps the least used meaning of pistij in the New Testament but it does actually occur. Faith is the active sense is the second meaning of pistij, therefore it is translated in the active sense as faith, trust, or confidence. This also includes faith as recognition and acceptance of Christian doctrine. The third use is the one which is found most frequently in Hebrews and in the pastoral epistles: that which is believed, the passive sense of the noun, the body of belief or doctrine. Here we translate it simply “doctrine.” “Be having and holding doctrine.”

“good” — a)gaqoj, the accusative singular direct object. It means good of intrinsic value and refers to doctrinal standards in the conscience; “conscience” — suneidhsij. O)ida means to know; sun means with: to know with. It means a norm or standard in the right lobe of the soul. Nearly all of the problems we will face in all of the commands Timothy will receive have to do with gaps or problems in his conscience where this fantastic amount of Bible doctrine resident in his soul has not filtered down into his conscience.

“which” is the accusative feminine singular from the relative pronoun o(j. The antecedent is the good conscience.

“some” is the nominative masculine plural of the indefinite pronoun tij [no accent on the Greek pronoun] and it means “certain ones.” He veers away from Timothy for the moment. There are others who need the attention of the apostle, real recalcitrants who are bothering the local assemblies and they need to be dealt with. Since Timothy has not had the temerity to deal with it then Paul himself will step in and do so. In other words, here is a weakness of Timothy again. There are a couple of men who are completely out of line and who need to be removed. Timothy is just too nice. A weak conscience is a conscience which is missing certain norms and standards for certain situations. Here we have a good conscience required, a good conscience as in norms and standards for every situation.

“having put away” — the aorist middle participle of a)poqew which means to push aside, to reject, to repudiate, to cast off, to thrust away. All of these meanings are pertinent because all of them deal with reversionism and the influence of evil. The aorist tense is a constative aorist which takes the occurrence of reversionism and regardless of its extent or duration gathers it up into a single whole. Therefore it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, namely the various stages of reversionism. The middle voice is indirect middle, it emphasises the agents, the reversionistic believers, the bad conscience types, as producing the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial for reversionism. It also has antecedent action to the main verb.

“concerning faith” — peri plus the accusative definite article used as a possessive pronoun plus the accusative singular of pistij, used again for doctrine. It should be “concerning their doctrine.”

“have made shipwreck” — the aorist active indicative of the compound verb nauagew. This is taken from two words, the Greek noun nauj, a word which means a ship. With it is the verb a)gnumi which means to break up, and both words together mean shipwreck. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the event of reversionism in its entirety but it emphasises the results of reversionism: shipwreck of doctrine, the influence of evil, resulting in bad norms and standards. The active voice: certain reversionists produce the action of the verb by being reversionistic, coming under the influence of evil. The declarative indicative views the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality. The indicative mood also indicates the main verb and now we have a setup between the aorist participle whose action is antecedent to the main verb. The mood declares reversionism a fact. The prepositional phrase should follow this verb.

Translation: “Be having and holding doctrine, and a good conscience [freedom from evil]; which certain ones [reversionists] having rejected have suffered shipwreck concerning their doctrine.”

Verse 20 — the result of being influenced by evil and reversionism. This came out of the last phrase, “some have suffered shipwreck concerning their doctrine.” Shipwreck means not only being influenced by evil but it means the whole realm of reversionism. Now, two of these are mentioned specifically.

“Of whom” is the genitive plural from the relative pronoun o(j, and should be translated “among whom.”

“is” — the present active indicative of e)imi. The present tense is a static present, they keep on being in this condition. Even though they will make one recovery attempt they will still fall back into it. This is not only what we have in the context here but there are other passages on these two men.

The first of them is a man by the name of Hymenaeus. He is a reversionistic believer living in Ephesus. He is mentioned twice, here and in 2 Timothy 2:17. Hymenaeus is guilty of having a loose, fat mouth. He is a gossip, a maligner, a woman in his soul, is filled with all kinds of the influence of evil and reversionism. He is more or less a hopeless case because of in-built blind arrogance. The other man is Alexander, a reversionistic believer mentioned also in 2 Timothy 4:14 where he is called Alexander the coppersmith. He is the one who will eventually be responsible for the death of Paul. He is the one who betrayed Paul to Roman authorities so that he was apprehended, brought to trial a second time and executed. It was Alexander who brought in lying, perjured evidence against him. These two men are declared here to be reversionists, they are under the influence of evil, and their end is now described.

“whom” is the accusative plural direct object from the relative pronoun o(j.

Timothy is a wimpy type and has the tendency to procrastinate, to put off a strong decision of any kind hoping that the Lord will work it all out for him, or that if you ignore the problem the problem will go away. He allowed Hymenaeus and Alexander to run loose through the congregation, never challenged them, never did a thing about them in any possible way. As a result the apostle Paul had to lower the boom.

To be turned over to Satan is one of the most horrible things that could ever happen to a believer in dying. It is not only the sin unto death but it is the administration of the sin unto death under maximum pain and disaster. This is exactly what happened to these two men. Paul turned them over to Satan for the administration of the sin unto death. “Whom” is a relative pronoun referring specifically to Hymenaeus and Alexander whose reversionistic and evil activities have gone unchallenged in the Ephesian complex.

“I have delivered” — the aorist active indicative of the verb paradidomi which means to deliver over, when it was used of Judas Iscariot it meant to betray; “delivered over” is a good translation. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, the constative aorist gathers up into one entirety paradidomi. It could be just a few seconds or a long period of time, but here it was the elapse of a very short time. Apparently this was accomplished through prayer. The apostolic authority included a great power of turning a reversionistic believer over to Satan for the administration of dying discipline. This was possible for apostles, it is not possible today for pastor-teachers. Paul did the same thing to the incestuous reversionist in 1 Corinthians 5:5. The active voice: Paul as an apostle produces the action of the verb which is maximum use of his apostolic authority. The indicative mood is declarative representing the action of the verb from the viewpoint of historical reality.

“unto Satan” is a dative of disadvantage. Dying discipline administered by Satan has no advantage to the believer involved, it is misery all the way. The phrase implies intensive and dying discipline as the last two punitive stages of reversionistic discipline.

“that” is the conjunction i(na used as a final clause. It is used with the subjunctive mood to denote a final clause which has aim, purpose, goal, or objective.

“they may learn” — learning it the hard way. The aorist passive subjunctive of paideuw. Paidoj means child; paideuw means to train children with pain. It means to tell them not to touch a hot stove and let them touch a hot stove. It means they have to learn by being hurt. It finally came to mean training anyone by means of discipline. It should be translated, “in order that they may be taught by discipline.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views intensive and dying discipline in its entirety but it regards them from the viewpoint of the existing result. The results are potential, says the subjunctive, namely the recovery of those involved. This is the last great warning. Sometimes people realise what they have done and what they are involved in and they recover. Hezekiah is an illustration from the Old Testament, the incestuous Corinthian is an illustration in the New Testament. The passive voice: Hymenaeus and Alexander received the action of the verb, learning the hard way. The subjunctive mood indicates the fact that that this is last call to straighten out or die miserably.

“not” — the particle mh is what is called qualified negation. It is in contrast to the particle o)uk which is very strong negation. When you have mh plus the subjunctive it implies uncertainty. Therefore the negative mh only denies hypothetically like o)uk would do. In other words, it is questionable whether they will straighten out or not. In the meantime they are blaspheming.

“to blaspheme” — present active infinitive of blasfhmew which means here to slander God. It means to malign the character and the grace of God. The descriptive present indicates events in the process of occurrence which should not occur. The active voice: Hymenaeus and Alexander as reversionists are under the influence of evil and they produce the action of the verb which is maligning God’s essence and plan. The infinitive is the intended result. The result indicates the fulfilling of a deliberate aim or goal or objective. This is intended though not actually taking place.

Translation: “Among whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered over to Satan in order that they might be taught by discipline not to blaspheme.”

The doctrine of reversionism

1. By definition reversionism is negative attitudes toward doctrine on the part of the believer. Reversionism is characterised by two principles: negative volition toward Bible doctrine resulting in failure to function under GAP, and a system of perpetual carnality in the life which results in perpetual discipline. This is called being influenced by sin. There are two factors, then, in reversionism. It is one thing to sin, it is another thing to be influenced by sin. But reversionism has two factors: to be influenced by evil which means negative volition toward doctrine; to be influenced by sin, which results in perpetual carnality. All of us sin but that does not mean that we are influenced by sin. To be influenced by sin you have to be in a pattern of sin that excludes taking in Bible doctrine on a regular basis. So we have negative volition toward doctrine and/or influence by evil, perpetual carnality in the life resulting in perpetual discipline in the life, as in Hebrews 12:4-15.

Reversionism is recession from any stage of spiritual growth, whether it is partial spiritual growth or the completed spiritual growth of super-grace and/or maturity. Reversionism, therefore, is lack of spiritual growth, it is neglect of Bible doctrine. It crosses a point with evil and becomes the principle of being influenced by evil. Reversionism crosses a pattern of sin at certain times and results in being influenced by sin. While the super-grace believer is in a progressive state in time the reversionistic believer is in a retrogressive state in time. Reversionism in the believer is analogous to apostasy. Reversionism in the unbeliever is rejection of and departure from the laws of divine establishment — 2 Peter 2:17-22.

Reversionism must be distinguished from carnality in the same way that spirituality must be distinguished from super-grace. Spirituality is an absolute whereby God the Holy Spirit controls the soul of the believer. Super-grace is a relative status of maximum spiritual growth whereby the believer is under maximum influence of resident doctrine. Carnality is also an absolute state, the absolute state of being out of fellowship through sin. Reversionism is a relative status of varying degrees of spiritual failure. The carnal believer can be positive toward doctrine and recover through rebound; the reversionistic believer under the influence of sin can rebound but he is far from recovery. So reversionism becomes a technical theological synonym for being under the influence of evil, being under the influence of sin, being negative toward doctrine. God blesses the believer influenced by doctrine, He curses the believer under the influence of evil. Therefore reversionism can apply to apostasy, to influence of evil, to influence of sin or all of them, or part of them.

2. The mechanics of reversionism are divided into eight stages:

a) The reaction stage means instability and includes discouragement, boredom, disillusion, inability to cope with loneliness, being overcome by self-pity, being in some stage of frustration. It includes also rejection of authority of one’s right pastor, personality hang-ups with members of the congregation or the pastor, hypersensitivity and lack of objectivity under rebuke or under normal conditions of life. It includes mental attitude sins such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, arrogance, guilt complex, operation vengeance, seeking to build you happiness on someone else’s unhappiness. It includes such things as distractions which lure you from Bible doctrine. Part of the reaction stage, but not quite as common, is drug addiction, mental illness, academic or mental incompetence which distract from one’s consistency and ability to take in the Word of God, even under GAP.

b) The frantic search for happiness. This is how you try to assuage the reaction. The function of the reactor factors in the life of the believer result in the frantic search for happiness. This becomes the alternative to the daily function of GAP and is the accepted solution for the frustrations in the first stage called reaction. The frantic search for happiness follows the trend of the old sin nature. As a rule it follows your trend toward asceticism or your trend toward lasciviousness. Both exist in the old sin nature and everyone at some time or another will have one or both of these trends. The trend toward asceticism leads to the false emphasis on experience, construing Christian service as both spirituality and maturity. So-called victorious life gimmicks, emotional stimulation [the tongues movement is a part of this], legalism, the get-involved-in-works programs, spirituality by self-denial [fundamentalism flagellation], discipleship, throwing a fagot on the fire type of panacea — in other words, one shot decisions and everything is all right again., tabooism, getting involved, social action, the social gospel, loving everyone, trusting everyone [naive stupidity]. All of these are in the ascetic trend. Some of these are the beginning of evil and this is where evil often begins for some in reversionism.

Then there is also a trend toward lasciviousness that hardly need amplification. Debauchery, drunkenness, chasing, seduction, becoming users of narcotics and drugs apart from medicinal purposes, female nymphomania, homosexual-lesbian activity.

c) Operation boomerang. This means the frantic search for happiness intensifies the reaction stage. Frustration becomes intensified. In other words, greater frustration. Whatever the problem, whatever the search for happiness, it will only make the individual more miserable rather than solving anything.

d) The emotional revolt of the soul. The emotion is a responder of the soul and it was designed to respond to the heart or the right lobe. Emotion is equivalent to the right woman whereas the heart is equivalent to the right man. The soul has male and female parts even as the body has male and female hormones. So the emotion is the female part of the soul designed to respond to the right lobe or the heart which is the male part. The heart or the right lobe of the soul is equivalent to the right man.

Emotion has no doctrinal content, no mentality, no character, and it can only respond to what is found in the right lobe. It is designed in the spiritual life to respond to doctrine. Once emotion revolts it becomes the aggressor, it loses all capacity for life, it becomes distorted, it becomes the tool for the old sin nature, it becomes the basis for launching into many types of evil.

The emotions of the reversionists resist Bible doctrine and resist Bible teaching. They do not find it pleasant, entertaining, or conducive to any type of blessing that they are interested in — 2 Corinthians 6:11,12. We are warned to stay away from people who are going in this direction — Romans 16:17,18. The emotional revolt of the soul causes the emotion to respond to the old sin nature instead of responding to the heart or the right lobe. The emotion, therefore, takes over the dictatorship of the soul, becomes aggressive, neutralises doctrine in the right lobe. The emotion becomes a tyrant, a nagging bitch, shutting out doctrine, short-circuiting grace in any form, causing malfunction of every normal function of the soul. Believers who live by their emotions or use their emotions as a criterion are invariably apostate, disoriented, flaky, degenerate, mentally ill and many other factors.

e) Negative volition toward doctrine. This is characterised by many types: 1. Indifference or apathy to doctrine; 2. Too busy for Bible teaching; 3. Antagonism or personality hang-ups regarding the pastor; 4. Antagonism or personality conflict with other members of the congregation; 5. Failure to utilise grace provision for GAP, including assembly at the local church, failure to rebound, lack of respect for authority, poor manners, lack of concentration, no poise, no objectivity in the function of the local church in the intake of the Word of God; 6. Inability to handle prosperity; 7. Disorientation to the factors of living grace. Under living grace God keeps us alive in the devil’s world. He provides food, shelter, clothing, transportation. Disorientation is failure to appreciate these factors and utilise them in the assimilation of doctrine; 8. An active campaign to discredit, remove or destroy the ministry of one’s own pastor.

f) The blackout of the soul. This is the opening up of mataiothj, the vacuum through which doctrine of demons comes. These doctrines of demons include religionism, liberalism, every form of evil and therefore being influenced by evil. This stage always find anyone totally under the influence of evil. The infiltration of Satanic doctrine leads to demon influence, the blackout of the soul, and coming under the control of evil — Ephesians 4:17,18.

g) Scar tissue of the soul whereby the valves of the soul are frozen, the right lobe’s frame of reference, memory centre, vocabulary, categorical storage, conscience and launching pad malfunction and doctrine is no longer applied. Doctrine is eventually destroyed by misuse or no use. It is also known as hardness of the heart. Proverbs 21:29-31. Scar tissue is also a state of revolt against the Lord — Jeremiah 9:16,17. Hardness of the neck is a synonym and it means insubordination to the point of revolution. Scar tissue of the soul, then, is related to negative volition toward doctrine — Jeremiah 7:25-27.

h) The final stage is reverse process reversionism. This is the stage where all of the values are destroyed and one becomes occupied with the things that are the antithesis of spiritual values. In category #1, blind arrogance. In stead of occupation with then person of Christ, having the vocabulary [”Oh how I love Jesus”, etc.!] and on an ego trip. Common sense, judgment, poise, goes in a different direction. In category #2 love there are false lovers. In category #3 love, false friends.

3. The discipline of reversionism — 1 Timothy 1:20. There are three stages:

a) The warning stage — Revelation 3:20. This is designed by God to give believers warning that they are going in the wrong direction. Disciplinary warning is designed to remind them that they are in the first stages of reversionism. Therefore these various types of things are brought about by God to hurt, to awaken, to make one realise that he is moving in the wrong direction. James 5:9.

b) The intensive stage. For those who reject God’s knocking on the door of the life by discipline prosperity of every type begins to shrink away, is removed, and life becomes very miserable. This category of discipline is generally found in the last four stages of reversionism. It is best described by Psalm 38:1-14. It is also found under the category of strong delusion in 2 Thessalonians 2:11. This is getting very close to the next stage, the final stage, which is dying.

c) The dying stage. This is equivalent to the sin unto death and generally this is exercised by Satan himself. God often permits Satan to take believers slowly out of the world in this manner.

4. The principle of reversionism is found in Galatians 5:4 — “You reversionists have become a casualty [ineffective, neutralised] from Christ, whoever are being vindicated by means of the law; you have drifted off course from grace.” Drifting off course from grace perfectly describes the principle of reversionism.

5. There are a number of categories of reversionism. a) Phallic reversionism — 2 Corinthians 12:21; Ephesians 4:19; 5:5; Colossians 3:5; Revelation 2:14. b) Legalistic reversionism — Galatians 5:4; Colossians 2:16-18; Hebrews 5:11-6:16. c) Monetary reversionism — Ecclesiastes 5:10-16; James 4:13,14; 5:1-6; Revelation 3:14-20. d) Alcoholic and narcotic reversionism — Isaiah 28:1-9; Galatians 5:20. e) Anti-establishment reversionism — Romans 1:18-32; Hosea 4:1-7. e) Mental attitude reversionism. f) Verbal reversionism — James 5:9,12. g) Psychotic reversionism — 2 Peter 2:15-19.

6. The biblical nomenclature for reversionism is quite varied. Galatians 5:4 — drifting of the course from grace; Philippians 3:18 — being the enemy of the cross; Jeremiah 9:25,26 — being uncircumcised of heart. In other words, the evil has not been cut away from the heart; Hebrews 12:15 — failing from the grace of God; 2 Peter 2:7,8 — being a tortured soul; 2 Peter 2:14 — being an unstable soul; Revelation 2:4 — leaving your first love. Revelation 2:5 — fallen; Revelation 3:15,16 — lukewarm; 1 Timothy 1:19 — suffering shipwreck from doctrine.

7. A profile of a reversionist is given in Psalm 7:14-16.

8. The contamination of reversionism is found in Hebrews 12:15.

9. The psychosis of reversionism is found in 2 Peter 2:15-19.

10. Reversionism eliminates special blessing paragraphs for time and eternity — Hebrews 3:10-12.

11. Hebrew reversionism. Hebrews 5:11-14 — the recipients of Hebrews were involved in reversionism. As a result it says in verse 14, “But solid food [doctrine] belongs to the super-grace believer; because of self-discipline they keep having their perceptive faculties well-trained with reference to being able to distinguish between what is honourable and what is evil.” Hebrews 6:1-3, reversion recovery is impossible apart from the daily function of GAP in the field of doctrine. Hebrews 6:4-6, reversion recovery is impossible when religious reversionism is perpetuated. The blond arrogance factor takes over.

12. Reversion often leads to perversion — Romans 1:26,27 — and produces national disintegration — Romans 1:29, 32; Hosea 4:1-6.

13. Reversionism intensifies suffering — Psalm 77:1-10.

14. The doctrine of reverse process reversionism.

Chapter 1 via Matthew 19:27-20:34

Principles

1. God’s standards for maturity and qualifications for blessing are the same for every believer.

2. It therefore becomes blind arrogance for any believer to imply that he has achieved what no other believer ever has, or that he has some unique experience or that his life is more important than anyone else’s.

3. Blind arrogance comes in many forms. Legalism is a manifestation of blind arrogance — legalism in three categories: salvation by works, spirituality by works, maturity by works.

4. Emotional arrogance of the Holy rollers who associate spiritual advance with an obsolete spiritual gift known as tongues is blind arrogance. Everyone involved in the holy-roller movement is a victim of blind arrogance.

5. The self-centred arrogance of that believer who assumes that his life, his activities, his opinions, are more important than those of anyone else is in blind arrogance.

6. The person who assumes that the plan of God stands or falls on the basis of his behaviour is in blind arrogance.

7. It is arrogance to assume that the plan of God depends on any believer. It is obvious that the plan of God depends on God, that’s grace.

8. The arrogance of the person who sets up false standards and then complies with these false standards, and by his compliance concludes that he is a great believer, is blind arrogance.

9. The person who assumes that any form of kindness or friendliness from the opposite sex means that the person is madly in love with him is in a state of blind arrogance.

10. The arrogance of assuming that a few dates is a declaration of love or a silent agreement of marriage is blind arrogance.

11. The arrogance of perpetuating your enthusiasms on others who are not interested, and judging them with harsh criticism because they are not interested, is blind arrogance.

Matthew 19:27-20:34. In this passage we meet the blind arrogance of Peter the apostle, the blind arrogance of labour unions, the arrogance of the wife of Zebedee and Salome, the mother of James and John. We meet the arrogance of James and John, in fact the twelve disciples. We meet the arrogance of the mob of Jericho. Only three people in this entire concentration of the Word of God come up smelling like a rose — grace orientation.

First of all a capitalist and two blind men from Jericho. We are going to see the principle reiterated twice, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” The first refers to blind arrogant types under the influence of evil, and they are last in God’s economy of things. The last refers to super-grace humility from the influence of doctrine in the soul, and they are first for blessing in time, first for rewards in eternity. The occupational hazard of blind arrogance is obviously the subject of this area. While arrogance or pride is a sin it combines with reversionism to form a concentrated system of evil. Pride and evil meet to form the occupational hazard for believers, which we will call simply blind arrogance. Blind arrogance is the hindrance to and the frustration of spiritual advance to the high ground of the super-grace life.

The outline of the passage is very simple. There are four paragraphs.

Paragraph one is the case of the arrogant apostle — Matthew 19:27-30.

Paragraph two is the grace illustration — Matthew 20:1-16.

Paragraph three is the arrogant mother — Matthew 20:17-28.

Paragraph four is the grace illustration — Matthew 20:29-34.

Matthew 19:27 — Peter the arrogant apostle. There is a parenthesis beginning in verse 28 after the words, “ye which have followed me in regeneration.” The parenthesis is closed in verse 29 after the words “for my name’s sake.” The text within this parenthesis has nothing to do with the sentence which begins in verse 28. Remove the parenthesis and we have, “Ye which have followed me in regeneration also shall inherit everlasting life.”

We begin in verse 27 with a correlative adverb tote. “then.” “Then answers” — the aorist passive participle from the verb a)pokrinomai, which means a reply as a result of a lot of questions which are not shown in this context. “Then Peter having replied said to him” — the aorist passive participle has antecedent action to the main verb, the main verb is the aorist active indicative of legw which is translated “and said.” All of the way through this passage extra “ands” are thrown in which are not found in the original.

“we have forsaken” — the first statement of blind arrogance, the aorist active indicative of the verb a)fihmi which means to leave, to abandon, to give up. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Peter implies that they had given up everything to follow the Lord. This is not true, this is blind arrogance. The active voice: Peter alleges to produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for implied reality, not actual reality.

“all” — the accusative neuter plural of paj is the direct object. The neuter would imply more things than people.

“and followed you” — the aorist active indicative of a)kolouqew. The word occurs twice in this context. Actually the chapter should have begun at verse 27 of chapter 19, and the chapter should end where it does in chapter 20:34, “and they followed him.” Our dissertation on blind arrogance starts with a)kolouqew in verse 27 of chapter 19 and goes to a)kolouqew in verse 34 of chapter 20. This time when the word is used it is a case of blind arrogance. As it is used at the end of chapter 20 it is a case of grace orientation and grace dynamics.

Please notice that blind arrogance always emphasises the person. Notice that Peter emphasises himself. He puts it in “we” because he and the disciples have discussed this thing and they are all guilty of the same thing, they are carried away with pride, they are filled with their own self-importance, they have assumed that because Jesus has given them a little authority that somehow what they think and what they do is more important than anything in the world. Peter is trying to emphasise to the Lord just how important Peter is. So here is arrogance of legalism, reversionism and evil all tied up in the pride package. Here is what cause the fall of both Satan and the woman.

“What shall we have therefore?” Here is the arrogance again. He is interested in what he is going to have by way of reward.

The verse says literally, “Then Peter, having answered, said to him. We have given up all things and have followed you. What therefore shall we have?”

In this passage we have a future active indicative of e)imi — “What shall we have?” — indicating Peter’s very arrogant confidence in future reward. Peter has lost the perspective of grace by emphasising what he has done for the Lord, rather than what Christ has done for him. So far all that Peter has done that counts is that he has followed the Lord in regeneration. So verses 27-30 gives us the picture. Note: When you come to the point of regeneration be sure to put in a parenthesis, for what is found in the parenthesis is dealing with the subject of reward in eternity and is not a part of the sentence which answers the question. The rest of the question is answered at the end of verse 29 with the adjunctive use of kai and is translated “also” — “also you shall inherit eternal life.”

Within the parenthesis it says, “When the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, you also [and this includes the apostle Paul] shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up” — now He mentions things in the future that are rewardable but have no basis for reward now because they have not given up any of these things because of Bible doctrine. They have given up nothing for doctrine. Bible doctrine in the soul often displaces certain things in the life. They have made no doctrinal decisions and therefore they have no basis for reward at this moment.

Verse 30 — “But many first shall be last [in blessing and reward]; and many last shall be first [in blessing and reward].”

The word “first”

1. The first are those guilty of blind arrogance. They are last in blessing in time and last in reward for eternity. In other words, the word for “first” here refers to blind arrogance. There are minus their paragraph SG², they will be minus dying grace if they persist and will be minus SG³ in eternity. That is what last means.

2. The last are those who through doctrine resident in the soul have grace humility, grace orientation. They are moving toward the high ground. They will be plus SG², plus SG³. In other words, they will keep advancing and follow the colours to the high ground.

Matthew 20:1-16, the grace illustration. Jesus illustrates by setting up a parallel between God’s policy of grace and the policy of a capitalist in the agricultural economy of the ancient world. One of the great things about the Roman empire was its free enterprise.

In this passage are found two kinds of labour. One is “union” labour. They are the first who are going to be last. They illustrate blind arrogance. Then we have “scab” labour. That means free labour, non-union. “Scab” labour illustrates grace orientation humility, and they will be first. The first will be last; the last will be first. Jesus advocated free enterprise.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder” is wrong. The word o)ikodespothj means a capitalist, a man who is the lord of an empire. A capitalist is a man who invests money into business. He is the one who declares the policy. It is his money that is invested in the business. He is the one who creates jobs for labour.

Verse 2 — he starts out with union labour. “And when he had bargained with the labourers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.” He went out at 6am and picked up the first group. These men are union men, they bargained for the day’s labour. They are the only bargainers in the whole setup.

Verse 3 — the third hour is 9am.

Verse 4 — “whatever is right I will give you. And they went their way.” No bargaining.

Verse 5 — “the sixth and ninth hour” is twelve noon and 3pm.

Verse 6 — “the eleventh hour” is 5pm.

In all but the first group there is no bargaining, they trust management to do the right thing. The union crowd are the first, the last are the “scab labour,” non-union, who have no contract. Only the 6am union crowd have a contract.

Note that in verse 2 we have labour union workers. They have bargained with the capitalist for a day’s wages, a denarius, and they have a union contract for that day. They were under contract to management. The capitalist needed more labour so he went out and hired non-union labour. Management invests the money, management makes the policy. Labour does not dictate to management under establishment, only under a principle of evil does labour ever dictate to management. It was the policy of this management to hire all of the non-union labour he could find and to treat them right. Under the laws of divine establishment capitalists, those who put up the money and management, have the sole right to make policy for their business. Neither the government nor labour have a right to make policy in free enterprise. Note that the non-union labour did not bargain with management but left it up to the discretion and policy of management what they should receive for that day’s work or part of a day’s work. In this way a parallelism is set up between labour unions and legalism on the one hand, and on the other hand grace orientation and non-union labour. In this way the labour union represents blind arrogance and the non-union labour represents grace humility.

Verse 8 — “And when evening [6pm] was come.” The non-union labour was divided into four groups. Each group had worked a different number of hours. This management has a policy, it is going to pay them all the same. He could pay them anything he wanted to. He chose to pay those who didn’t bargain with him the same, even though they didn’t work twelve hours. That’s grace. And if that is the policy, that is the law for that day.

“beginning with the last to the first” — Verse 9 — and when the 5pm group came each one received a denarius, a full day’s wages. They had no contract, they depended upon the policy of the capitalist.

Verse 10 — the labour union crowd came “they supposed that they would receive more.” They assumed it. It was blind arrogance on their part, they had a firm contract which they had bargained for. They assumed wrong, they held the capitalist to one denarius and he is going to stay with that contract.

The non-union crowd made no bargain for labour but they trusted management to do what was fair. Their faith was met by grace. They did not earn or deserve by the bargaining standards, they received it anyway and that is grace. The union labourers who worked for twelve hours had contracted for a specific amount. The management was fair and just in giving them what they had bargained for. Not only does the parable advocate free enterprise in business but it emphasises the importance of God deciding the eternal rewards on the basis of His policy. Peter is trying to contract with the Lord for his reward in advance. You don’t bargain with the Lord for reward, for blessing, that is blind arrogance.

Verse 11 — they began to complain against the capitalist.

Verse 12 — “These last have worked only one hour.” Union doesn’t like it!

Verse 13 — “I am doing you no wrong: did you not bargain with me for a denarius?”

Verses 14,15 — the capitalist has a right to do what he will with his own money. Blind arrogance does not understand grace, it maligns and judges grace. Blind arrogance has not doctrinal standard on which to appreciate grace. The evil eye is the evil thinking of the labour union. They are anti-establishment and condemned by our Lord. Like Peter, the labour union crowd suffered from their own blind arrogance. Blind arrogance keeps the believer from yielding to the superior standard of God’s matchless and perfect grace. Grace is related to doctrine, never to works.

Verse 16 — “Thus the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.

Principle

1. Rewards for believers in eternity depend on the policy of God, not the arrogant, legalistic, anthropocentric standards of evil and blind fundamentalism.

2. God does not bless the believer in time nor reward the believer in eternity on the basis of the arrogant standards of evil. Nor does He reward on the basis of any form of legalism.

3. Arrogance is always critical of grace. When arrogance becomes critical of grace this becomes evil.

4. The first, those under the influence of evil, have blind arrogance. They have the evil eye — arrogant thinking.

5. The last are those who through doctrine resident in the soul have true grace orientation, therefore true grace humility.

6. The last are those super-grace believers who avoided the influence of evil in time. They will be first in heaven, first in reward, first in paragraph SG³.

The last half of verse 16, “for many be called, but few chosen,” is not found in the original.

Verses 17-19, the Jericho discourse (verse 29). Here is there answer to blind arrogance. Jesus is going to tell them what is about to happen. This is a week before the cross. They have been with Him for three years and still the only thing they understand is salvation. They are full of blind arrogance. “And the third day he shall be raised up.” This is the future passive indicative of the verb e)geirw and it refers to resurrection. This is the predictive future, He is announcing the fact that He is going to rise again. The disciples didn’t even start to grow until the resurrection.

Verse 20 — “the mother of Zebedee’s children”, i.e. Salome, the sister of Mary. She is the mother of James and John. Salome is guilty of the same blind arrogance as Peter. Like Peter she wants to bypass the objective of the first advent, the cross, and take the crown which is the objective of the second advent. She fails to see that the cross must come before the crown. Her pride has caused her to only listen when Jesus talks about the kingdom coming in the future and she wants to make sure that her boys are in the top rung of the future kingdom.

Verse 21 — Salome’s blind arrogance. It ignores the very teaching which Jesus has just made.

Verses 22 & 23, a dialogue with James and John. “You do not know what you are asking.” The cup is going to the cross. “We are able.” Blind arrogance!

1. This is arrogance, legalism and idiocy in view of everything that Jesus taught them.

2. The baptism of the cup is the cross where Jesus Christ is going to provide our so great salvation.

3. Neither James nor John could provide salvation on the cross, they could not die for the sins of the world, as per the baptism of the cup just stated.

4. If man can do anything to provide salvation then there is no salvation.

5. Man can appropriate salvation by faith in Christ but man cannot provide salvation by being judged for our sins on the cross. Only the God-Man Jesus Christ can do that.

6. Only a perfect man could do this, hence the impeccability of Christ.

7. Blind arrogance is a combination of the sin of pride plus evil thinking. Blind arrogance is minus the doctrine. The doctrine has just been taught, the doctrine has not been accepted.

“Ye shall drink indeed my cup.” James was the first disciple to be martyred; John was the last one. James and John would die but not for the sins of the world.

“But to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give” — The Father is the author of the plan — “but it is for those for whom it has been prepared in the past with the result that it stands prepared by my Father.”

Verse 24 — the other ten were indignant with their arrogance.

The concept behind blind arrogance

1. God’s standards for maturity and qualifications for blessing are the same for every believer.

2. It therefore becomes blind arrogance for any believer to imply that he has achieved spiritually what no other believer ever has, or that he has some unique experience, or that his life is more important than anyone else.

3. Blind arrogance comes in many forms: in the form of legalism, like salvation by works, spirituality by works, maturity by works.

4. The emotional arrogance of the holy rollers who associate spiritual advance with the obsolete spiritual gift of tongues is also blind arrogance.

5. The self-centred arrogance of that believer who assumes that his life, his activities, his opinions are more important than those of anyone else is also blind arrogance.

6. The person who assumes that the plan of God stands or falls on the basis of his personal behaviour is in blind arrogance.

7. It is arrogance to assume that the plan of God depends on any believer. It is obvious that the plan of God depends on the essence of God. This is the concept of grace, everything depends on who on what God is.

8. The arrogance of the person who sets up false standards and then by complying to these false standards concludes that he is a great believer.

9. The person who assumes that any form of kindness or friendliness from the opposite sex means that the person is madly in love with him. This is blind arrogance.

10. The arrogance that assumes that a few dates means a declaration of love and a silent agreement to marry is blind arrogance.

11. The arrogance of perpetuating your enthusiasms on others who are not interested and judging them with harsh criticism because they are not interested. This is blind arrogance.

Verse 25 — Jesus called them to solve the problem of blind arrogance with doctrinal teaching.

“rulers of the Gentiles (the Romans) lord it over them (the Jews), and their great men (who are in command of the province) exercise authority over them.” An historical trend which had been noted by all of the disciples.

Verse 26 — “But it shall not be so among you” — Don’t learn anything from the Romans in their administration of the province of Judea, some of you are already acting like Romans — “but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.”

In the spiritual realm service must be based on grace orientation. Grace orientation is based on doctrine in the soul, the utilisation of the inner resources of doctrine.

Verses 27, 28 — “And whosoever wills to be first among you shall be your slave: just as the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for the many.”

In effect He has said this. In the royal family of God greatness is being under the authority Bible doctrine. There are all kinds of authority in life but true greatness for the believer and the avoidance of both evil and blind arrogance comes from being under the authority of doctrine, not exercising authority over others. This will come in due time for many believers. Believers will exercise and utilise authority. How they utilise that authority will be based on doctrine in the soul. Human standards always relate greatness to the obtaining of and the exercising of authority. Divine standards demand that all believers be under authority for greatness, and the authority is Bible doctrine in the soul. Therefore the importance of the principle of learning doctrine, the function of GAP to establish an inner dictator of the soul. Maximum doctrine in the soul insulates the believer from the influence of evil and protects him from blind arrogance. All believers must come under the authority of the Word of God and Bible doctrine.

We now come to the grace illustration. We are going to get a transition, some blind arrogance, but now the entire situation switches to show us true greatness in two that you would never think of as being great.

Verse 29 — we have the Lord Jesus Christ leaving the area of Jericho, the place of the curse, to go back to Jerusalem — “a great mob followed them.”

Verse 30 — the word for “sitting” in the Greek is the present active participle of the verb kaqhmai. The present tense is a pictorial present, it presents to the mind a picture of an event in the process of occurrence. In other words, you have to picture the Lord Jesus Christ on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. It is a gradual climb but it gets very steep. Behind Him are the twelve disciples and behind them a tremendous mob of people who have been under the ministry of our Lord in Jericho, people who have been curious, people who have sought miracles, people who have heard something of the controversy about our Lord and about the Sanhedrin; but regardless of what it is they are now following the Lord out of curiosity, at least for a short time.

Everything about these blind men speaks of helplessness. They are not moving with the crowd, they are not following the Lord, they are blind, they are dumped, as it were, out of life by the side of a road. Their helplessness is described by the fact that both of them have physical blindness.

When they heard that Jesus was passing by the shouted, they didn’t cry out, saying, kurei, the vocative of the Greek word kurioj which stands for deity. We now have two blind men who as soon as they hear that Jesus has just moved by they identify Him as God. The recognise Him for what He is, that He is God, that He is co-equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Then they cry out, “Have mercy on us” — the aorist active imperative of the verb e)leew which means here, “Grace us out.” Then they cry out, “son of David,” speaking of the humanity of Christ. So add to the deity of Christ perfect humanity.

Jesus is going to use this as the illustration. He is followed by twelve arrogant disciples. There is also in that mob the mother of two of the disciples, Salome the wife of Zebedee, and she is arrogant. Everywhere our Lord has encountered blind arrogance and this hinders the intake of the Word of God, it hinders the concept of grace orientation. Jesus illustrated that it wasn’t what the blind men could do — they could do nothing but sit — it was what the blind men were thinking. Jesus gives a perfect illustration not only to His disciples but to us today. These two men were sitting, they were blind, they were handicapped, they were helpless, hopeless, useless. They were out of society as it were, they were dragged upon life, absolutely and completely helpless. Yet the Lord says that these two were the only two great ones that He encountered in all of His trip to Jericho. These two were great not because of what they could do, they greatness lies in what they were thinking. A thought can make or break you. Greatness lies in the soul, not in the service and in the function. What you think is infinitely more important than what you do.

Believers who are under the influence of evil, believers who have rejected doctrine, are spiritually blind. So we have a whole crowd of spiritually blind people following the Lord, they have blind arrogance. Believers influenced by doctrine, even though they are physically blind, are spiritually very alert and they see with the eyes of the soul, they have the sight of grace orientation.

Verse 31 — the blind mob: “multitude” is o)xloj which does not mean a multitude, it means a mob. This refers to a mob of people with blind arrogance. Many of these people are saved, some are unbelievers, but they are still blindly arrogant.

Mobs

1. Mobs cannot think, cannot reason, cannot accomplish anything worthwhile in life. Mob activity and mob rule is absolutely contrary to the laws of divine establishment.

2. Mobs are the historical illustration of mass blind arrogance.

3. Mobs are the are the antithesis of the laws of divine establishment by which we have our freedom.

4. Mobs destroy freedom, privacy, and hinder spiritual growth.

5. Mobs are anti-authority, anti-discipline, anti-establishment, anti-revival.

6. This mob was typical. It was a case of non-authorised persons sticking their nose into someone else’s business, a typical invasion of the privacy and freedom of the two blind men. Blind arrogance is always guilty of the long proboscis.

7. The doctrine of the long proboscis is a great detriment to spiritual growth.

8. Nosy-type people who invade your privacy are reversionistic, influenced by evil, and guilty of blind arrogance.

9. The mob is guilty of blind arrogance. The two blind men have not gained the approbation of the mob, and that speaks well for them, the mob is very antagonistic. If the judgment of the mob had prevailed these two blind men would have been ignored.

“and the mob rebuked” is wrong. It is the aorist active indicative of e)pitimaw which actually means to censure or reprimand very severely. It can be translated, “and the mob severely rebuked them.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the manifestations of blind arrogance as they existed in the mob, sticking its nose into the business of the two blind men, and gathers it all into one entirety. It was a reprimand for speaking up and declaring true doctrine. It was not only the fact that the two blind men were shouting, but it is the content of their shouting. The mob did not understand what was being said — the hypostatic union, the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, any more than they understood the resurrection of Christ which Jesus had just discussed with them. The active voice: the mob in blind arrogance produces the action of the verb. Blind arrogance always censures, always criticises. In other words, blind arrogance always goes where angels fear to tread. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical reality of the fact that the mob was in arrogance.

“them” is the dative plural indirect object from the intensive pronoun a)utoj which refers to the two blind men sitting by the road of Jericho. The intensive pronoun emphasises their identity as two grace oriented persons, entirely different from those who were rebuking them. We might translate this, “these same ones.”

“because” — the conjunction i(na which introduces a final clause. It denotes purpose, objective, and here is should be translated “that.”

“they should hold their peace” — in other words, this is what the mob gives by way of advice. The aorist active subjunctive of the verb siwpaw means to shut up, stop speaking, keep silent. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the action of the verb in its entirety, regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The active voice with the subjunctive mood indicates that the mob intended for the two blind men to blend into the background and be neither seen nor heard. The subjunctive mood is potential, it goes with the conjunction i(na for the final clause.

“the mob severely reproved these same ones in order that they might keep silent.”

Now we have the word “but,” the adversative use of the conjunctive particle de. This sets up a contrast. We have a contrast between the persistence of the super-grace vision versus the blindness of evil arrogance. The mob has that same evil eye as the union labourers in verse 15.

“they shouted the more” — they began to shout all the more. Now we have the word krazw for shouting. They not only wouldn’t shut up but they even made more noise than they did before. This is the loudest possible shout. The ingressive aorist means that they began to shout louder. The active voice: while physically blind these grace oriented believers persisted in expressing their doctrinally oriented humility. The indicative mood is declarative. Historically this is what they did. They were not intimidated by the mob. They could easily be abused by the mob and yet they stuck to their guns. The dynamics of life are not in physical activity, the dynamics of life are always found in the soul of the believer. It is a thought that makes or breaks you.

“Have mercy” — this should be “Grace us out.” Again we have the same aorist active imperative of the verb e)leew. The culminative aorist regards grace in its entirety but emphasises the result. The active voice: Jesus Christ must produce the action. They are helpless, this is the contrast with blind arrogance. The imperative mood: the command is based on maximum knowledge of doctrine, especially the hypostatic union and the Davidic covenant.

Translation: “And the mob severely reproved these same ones, in order that they might shut up: but they began to shout all the more, saying, Grace us out, O Lord, son of David.”

Verse 32 — “And Jesus stood still” is the aorist active participle of i(sthmi and it really means here to stop. The aorist tense here is the constative aorist, it refers to momentary action. Jesus produces the action by stopping as he hears these shouts. The participle is circumstantial.

“and called them” — the word fonew means that He summoned them. In the aorist tense it means a momentary summons.

“what do you wish” — the mob could not handle them and therefore the Lord turns around and handles the whole situation. We have an interrogative pronoun for “what,” the present active indicative of qelw which means a desire. He is still dealing with the soul. He knows what they think.

“that I shall do to you?” — the future active indicative of poiew indicates that He will do whatever they want. They’re straight, their doctrine is straight, they now have His attention as it were, and He is ready to do whatever they want. Notice the emphasis on free will and human volition in the historical stage of the angelic conflict.

Principle: The free will of man never detracts from the sovereignty of God under grace. Under grace these men have made their grace appeal. Doctrine is the basis for their appeal. Under grace the sovereignty of God says to their volition, “What do you wish?” Under grace free will compliments, glorifies the sovereignty of God. Only arrogant blindness is in opposition to the sovereignty of God. Jesus Christ as God made an issue of their free will by asking them what they desired. This is because their volition so orients to the will and plan of God as to be non-meritorious, totally compatible with grace. They are grace oriented, they are the antithesis of blind arrogance. So here is grace humility in contrast to blind arrogance.

Verse 33 — the grace petition. The blind men ask for something which they could never do themselves. Grace always puts the emphasis on the sovereignty of God; they put the emphasis there. “You can do something that no one in the world could do for us, you can heal our blindness.” Their case is hopeless.

“They said to him” — the historical present is often translated like a past tense. Plus the dative of indirect object, “They said to this same one.”

“Lord”, and then they used the final clause, “that our eyes may be opened.” In their request they merely asked for sight in the sense of opening the eyes. The aorist passive subjunctive of a)noigw is the word that is used here. Actually, the Lord is going to do more than that, He is going to make it possible for them to have perfect eyesight. The word a)noigw merely means that they will be able to see a few things.

Verse 34 — the dynamics of grace oriented humility, or how the last shall be first. Remember that the first are those guilty of blind arrogance. The last are those who through doctrine resident in the soul have true grace humility. Throughout this passage there is a contrast between blind arrogance and grace humility. They see with the eyes of the soul, their sight is based on doctrine, they do not have that evil eye of verse 15.

“So Jesus had compassion” — the aorist active participle of splagxnizomai which means here to be moved with compassion. The constative aorist refers to the action of the verb in its entirety. As God Jesus always had compassion. As member of the human race the son of David He has compassion in a moment of time. So the constative aorist gathers up eternity past and links it with this point of time, it is all gathered together. The active voice: the Lord Jesus as the God-Man produces the action. The participle is circumstantial.

The word “and” is not found in the original. “So Jesus moved with compassion touched their eyes.” The aorist tense indicates that He simply did it momentarily, so it is what is called an instant constative. The word is a(ptw.

“and immediately” — literally, “at once”; the words “their eyes” is not found in the original, it simply says “at once they recovered their sight.” The word for recovering sight is the aorist active indicative of the verb a)nablepw. Blepw means to see; a)na means again and again and again, which means that they had perfect eyesight. This is a culminative aorist to indicate the result of the grace dynamics in their thinking.

“and they followed him” — this is in contrast to the following which we saw in chapter 19:27 where we find blind arrogance following the Lord. Now we have grace humility following the Lord. This is a dramatic aorist. it presents the reality of the fact that they went with Him wherever He went. They could see now, they no longer had the handicap, which implies that they went on and took in more and more doctrine, always understood the point of the first advent, were never shook up like the disciples.

Principles

1. To follow Christ initially is to believe in Him.

2. To follow Christ for the believer is to be faithful in the intake of doctrine. It is what you think that counts, the content of your soul.

3. There is only one way to follow Christ after regeneration and that is to be consistent in the intake of doctrine, following the colours to the high ground which is super-grace.

4. Once the believer has established a command post of doctrine in the soul he is free from the influence of evil. But more than that, he is free from blind arrogance.

5. He sees with the perceptive grace eyes of the soul. He fulfills the phrase which occurs twice in this context, “the last shall be first” in reward and blessing.

6. The super-grace believer is first in blessing in time, first for reward in eternity, whereas “the first” is blind arrogance, last for blessing in time and in eternity last means none at all.