Chapter 6

via Genesis 3:17-19

Genesis 3:17-19, the origin of business. Adam has just sinned. He had a choice between Jesus Christ in the garden and the woman outside of the garden. As a result of the fall Adam now discovers that he must enter the business world which is now under the control of Satan. Satan is the ruler of the world.

Verse 17 — “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife.” This was one of his greatest mistakes. “Because thou hast hearkened” — the qal perfect of shama means to listen, to concentrate and obey. Adam should have been running the show. He had double authority over the woman. He was not only the ruler of the world but he was her right man. As the ruler of the world he should have had the respect of the woman, and Adam as the right man should have had the respect of the woman. Adam instead did not have the respect of the woman because the woman lost capacity for love and her loss of capacity came through indifference to Bible doctrine, as taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. So Adam finally came under the influence of the woman when he should have been influencing her. He decided to go with the woman, to follow her. He had one authority as the world ruler, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who appointed him. But he rejected Jesus Christ in the garden and stepped out of the garden to be with the woman. He should have recognised God’s authority but he did not, he only recognised the authority of the woman. When a woman is put in charge of any man there is always trouble. By subordinating himself to a creature over whom he had authority he lost dominion over the world, he lost his status quo of innocence, he too became spiritually dead as he ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree. Notice he obeyed the voice of his wife. In other words, by now she was giving commands.

The Lord made the issue clear to the man as well as the woman and He kept repeating certain phrases. The sin of Adam’s disobedience is specifically mentioned while the woman’s part in the transgression is not mentioned. This dramatises the difference between the man’s sin and the woman’s sin. The woman with her free will is just as guilty and just as spiritually dead.

Being “cursed” is a very important phrase. It indicates that business will never be easy and right from the start it was under a curse. The woman is under a curse, she is going to stay home and bare children, but the man is under a curse, he is going to work. He is going to find resistance in his attempts to earn a living. “Being cursed” is the qal active participle of arar and it has very strong linear aktionsart which says the business is always under a curse and always will be under a curse. The first system of free enterprise was agriculture, it begins at this point. It is the ground which becomes the industry of the ancient world and the ground is under the curse here. The curse, by the way, will be removed by the second advent of Christ and the Millennial reign, says Romans 8:19-22 and Isaiah 35.

“for thy sake” is literally, “because of you.”

“in sorrow thou shalt eat” — this means that there is great suffering in business. It is a great area for disappointment, for frustration, for temptation, everything that could cause difficulty in life, everything that could make you miserable. But God also makes a promise when He says, “thou shalt eat,” the qal imperfect of akal which also means earning a living. “In sorrow you are going to learn a living,” it is going to be difficult.

“all the days of thy life” — not until he reaches 65 or until he gets fired. So it is an unending thing.

Verse 18 — “Thorns also and thistles” simply refer to various types of plants that grow up and stick you. The point is that you are going to get hurt many times with many different types of adversity. In earning a living there is an awful lot of adversity, antagonism and misery in life.

Verse 19 — “in the sweat of thy face” — this doesn’t mean that he is going to have to work physically necessarily. There are two kinds of sweat here. It does refer to physical labour but it also refers to mental labour. Both types are involved in the business world.

“until you return to the ground” — eventually you are going to die and you can stop working.

“because from it [the ground] you were taken: you are dust, and to dust you shall return” — so you spend your life in dust, you spend your life in work, you never get away from it. That is the concept here.

The ground was cursed; Christ was cursed — Galatians 3:13. The earth produces thorns; Christ wore a crown of thorns. Man works either mentally or physically producing sweat of the face; Christ sweat great drops of blood on the cross. Man returns to the dust; Christ was brought up from the dust in resurrection. Man by an act of disobedience dies spiritually; Christ by bearing our sins died spiritually. Man dies twice — spiritual death, physical death; Christ died twice on the cross — spiritual death, physical death.

Business

1. Business is a part of the laws of divine establishment: those laws of divine establishment that deal with the economy.

2. The principle of business is the antithesis of the principle of grace. You work for a living; you do nothing for blessing under grace.

3. In business you must work to produce; in grace you cannot work to receive divine blessing, whether it is salvation or some blessing in phase two, or some future blessing in phase three.

The function of business

1. The function of the believer in business is found in a number of passages of the scripture. The royal family believer, Church Age believer, is found in Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-4:1; 1 Timothy 6.

2. It is a part of the divine plan for every believer in the royal family of God to represent the Lord in the business world in time. John 17:15-17 is a business passage.

3. God has a plan for the believer in the business world. His plan calls for believers to be blessed in the business world.

4. God’s plan calls for believers not only to be in the business world but to be fortified with doctrine in the business world. This, then, makes a believer in the business world a very definite part of the angelic conflict.

Outline of 1 Timothy chapter six

Verses 1-8 deal with labour

Verses 9-19 deal with management

Verses 20,21 is a final dissertation to Timothy.

Verse 1 — relationship with unbelieving management. “As many servants as are” — nominative plural from a correlative adjective o(soj, and adjective of quantity which should be translated “as many as.” Plus the nominative plural of douloj which in the first century referred to slaves but here it refers to the working class, anyone who works for someone else. Plus the present active indicative of the verb e)imi, the verb to be. The present tense is a static present for a continued status in life. The active voice: certain believers produce the action of the verb being in the category of labour in the business world. The indicative mood is the declarative indicative for historical reality. “As many as are workers.”

The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. This passage was written around AD 66, in the first one hundred years of the Roman empire. At this time slavery was one of the chief sources of labour, and the reason why slavery was the source of labour was because the labour unions had priced themselves out of the market. There was a strong labour union movement that began at the time of the second Punic war and it reached such a tremendous peak that it was impossible for industry to keep going with these labour unions. By application to the 20th century this passage refers to those who work for unsaved management under the category of labour. Christian slaves often had masters who were unbelievers. While slavery was in many ways a social evil Paul did not become diverted long enough to condemn it or to seek to rectify the problem. The answer was always doctrine and Paul stayed on the track. Therefore Paul’s approach is that of a super-grace believer rather than a reversionistic bleeding heart or some believer under the influence of evil. There are much greater issues than the problem of slavery — issues like salvation by grace, growth in grace on the part of believers, blessings of paragraph SG², dying grace, and paragraph SG³. The angelic conflict, then, is more important than the status of the individual in the devil’s world. Once you believe in Christ you belong to Christ, so you need not be concerned about your own status. Your concern must be directed toward doctrine, the written Word, and Jesus Christ, the living Word. At this time of writing slaves had a great deal of freedom. They had working hours and then they could attend the local church and advance to the high ground of super-grace. It is important to realise that slavery did not ever hinder spiritual growth in the Roman empire, and furthermore slavery did not hinder evangelism in the Roman empire. Therefore, when we have the Greek word “slave” here it is simply referring to labour.

“under the yoke” — the preposition u(po plus the accusative of zugoj. The thing that is important about yoke is the fact that it was originally a harness that put two animals pulling together. The idea with labour is that there are a lot of people around you, you are working with others, and yoke simply means that you are in the category of labour with other people, and you are not only working for management but you are working with others. But yoke has another connotation. It has the connotation of authority which must exist in the sphere of establishment and in the industrial complex of any national entity. No authority, no success in business. No success in business, no prosperity. No prosperity, no jobs. No jobs, eventually depression. No economy can survive the loss of authority. There must be a good labour market but that labour market must recognise the principle of authority.

The believer in labour has a job which is his full-time Christian service. He is under the policy of management, he is under the payment of management. Part of the function of that job is obedience to the authority as well as obedience to the policy of that company. Economic prosperity and effectiveness in the industrial complex demands national freedom, individual respect for authority and management. Management makes the policy, management represents the investor, the investor is capital. The one who invests the money has the right to set the policy in the business. Bad management is never the excuse for the believer rejecting the principle of authority in business.

“count” — e(geomai, present active imperative. The word means to think, to consider, to esteem, to regard. The customary present denotes what has happened in the past and continues into the present time for what may be reasonably expected to occur under the laws of divine establishment. This is a deponent verb, middle voice in form, active in meaning. Christian labour produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a command.

“their own masters” — touj i)diouj despotaj. All the way through here we have the accusative plural. Touj is the accusative plural of the definite article. I)diouj is the accusative plural of i)dioj which means one’s own; possession is the connotation of the word. Despotaj is also an accusative plural and it refers to management or capital. Management sets up the policy for business, not labour.

The accusative of despothj is a feminine noun and it is used for a tyrant, but eventually it comes to mean someone who has absolute authority. Here it refers to management. It refers to those who invest their money in business who are commonly called capitalists. The principle is those who establish the business make the policy for the business. Labour has no rights except to do their job and to function under the policy set up for them.

“worthy of all honour” — regardless of what a stinker a person may be in management he is to be regarded as worthy of all honour, the accusative plural direct object of the adjective a)cioj. This is an adjective that means that regardless of any personal conflict, personal feeling, you are to completely concentrate on the principle “worthy of.” Plus the genitive singular adjective paj and the genitive singular noun timh — “all honour.” These are descriptive genitives indicating the mental attitude with which everyone should go to work every day. “Worthy of all honour” is a mental attitude. This is a principle and the distortion of the principle does not change the principle. The violation of the principle by management does not give you an excuse to violate the principle as labour. Sinful man often distorts divine principles but this does not change or rescind the principles. The principle is not rescinded because it was abused. “All honour” is respect for the authority of management.

The doctrine of authority

1. Authority is legal power delegated by God to the human race. The sum total of legal power delegated to the human race is summarised by a series of principles called the laws of divine establishment. So by its correct technical definition establishment represents the principle of authorised authority. Establishment indicates that certain members of the human race have received from God jurisdiction and responsibility for others in the human race. This principle of authority extends both in the temporal as well as the spiritual realm. In the temporal realm it is called establishment, in the spiritual realm it is called the church in this dispensation.

2. Authority has been an issue since the beginning of the human race. The fall itself is the first illustration of the rejection of authority in the human race. The rejection in the fall was twofold. The woman rejected the authority of God and accepted the authority of Satan under the principle of evil. In doing so she was deceived into the first sin in the human race. Man who had delegated authority from God over the woman also ate of the forbidden fruit by throwing his authority away and accepting the authority of the woman, not authorised in the human race. Therefore authority was the issue with both the man and the woman in the fall. The woman failed under the principle of authority, she rejected the authority of the Word as taught by Jesus Christ. She rejected the authority of her right man who was both the divinely-commissioned ruler of the world and her husband or right man. Man threw away his authority by accepting the dictates of the woman. So authority has always been an issue in the human race and man’s fall can be directly related to his rejection of authority clearly defined and clearly delineated.

3. It is obvious, then, that history is perpetuated by the perpetuation of the principle of authority. It can be categorised under at least seven principles:

a) We have direct authority of God as revealed through Bible doctrine. God’s will, God’s plan, God’s authority, is clearly defined in the scripture.

b) The authority related to the communication of doctrine: the authority of the pastor in the local church, the authority of the administrators in the local church.

c) Life in general has authority called divine institutions. The first and most basic authority in your life is your own free will. This is the basis for every mistake you ever make, for every advance you ever make. Decision is a part of respect for your own authority in your own soul. Divine institution #2 is the husband having authority over the wife. Divine institution #3 is the parents having authority over the children. Divine institution #4 is the system of government having authority over the people.

d) Academic. In academic life there are two basic categories of authority. First there is the policy system of authority. Any academic organisation has policy and the policy system is carried out by the administration. In addition to that there is authority in the local classroom — the teacher or the professor, whoever is the communicator in the classroom.

e) Business has authority, like everything else.

“that” is i(na, it denotes a final clause or a purpose clause. It means goal, objective, purpose.

“the name of God” — to o)noma tou Qeou refers to the person of God, His perfect plan, His perfect essence. If you work for someone else and they pay your salary you are classified as labour. Your job is your full-time Christian service and you are to do it as unto the Lord. This means there must be respect for management. There is the principle of respect and there is the application of the principle. Capacity for life comes from doctrine resident in your soul. The more doctrine you have in your soul the more you will fulfil the principle of this verse as a part of your capacity for life, as a part of the function of your royal priesthood. The believer’s job, duty, skill, is not only his means of livelihood but it is an integral part of the Christian way of life, part of his function.

“and doctrine be not blasphemed” — the name of God is the person of God: “that the person of God and doctrine be not blasphemed.” This is the present passive subjunctive of blasfemew which means to malign. This is the iterative present tense, it describes what occurs at those times when Christian labour revolts against the authority of management. If you go to work with a bad mental attitude, if you loaf on the job in some way, if you are not doing your job as unto the Lord, then this is for you. You are maligning God’s character and the Word. The passive voice: the name or essence of God and doctrine receive slander, defamation. The subjunctive mood plus i(na is a negative purpose clause.

Translation: “As many as are servants [labour] under the yoke [authority of management] must consider their own masters [management] worthy of all honour, in order that the name [essence] of the God and Bible doctrine may not be maligned.”

Principle

1. Every believer should do his job as if Jesus Christ was your boss, for in effect He is.

2. No matter how menial the job it should be done with maximum efficiency as unto the Lord.

3. Management may not always be around to supervise but the Lord sees you every minute — Hebrews 4:13.

The doctrine of the function of the soul in labour

1. Self-consciousness is the place where you concentrate, where you merge yourself into the policy of your company, the policy of the business organisation where you draw your pay cheque. Self-conscious means your ability to concentrate on the job and to fulfil the job profile laid out and specified for your job.

2. Mentality. A good mental attitude on the job is the key. Some people have a little difficulty learning the job but with a good mental attitude they master the job. You cannot enter a job of any kind and have a bad mental attitude. A bad mental attitude contributes to doing a bad job. A good mental attitude reflects spiritual growth, Bible doctrine in the soul.

3. The function of volition, your free will. When you connect it with your mentality it means that your decisions are based upon maximum objectivity in every facet of your job: objectivity in relation to fellow workers, with regard to management. Freedom from mental attitude sins then hooks up with volition and you have a recognition of authority. All decisions on the job must be loyal to company policy.

4. The emotion then becomes involved. Appreciation for the Lord motivates the believer to function in his job under the principle of grace orientation. He expresses his love toward Christ as recorded in Colossians 3:17. His emotion never gets out of line with the job or out of line with who and what Christ is.

5. His conscience also enters the picture. The conscience is the residence for the integrity principle on the job — loyalty to management and honour and integrity no matter how menial the task. 6. The old sin nature seeks to frustrate all of these principles in working for someone else, in working for a living. Therefore the importance of rebound, the importance of the daily function of GAP to maintain proper perspective on the job.

7. Principles:

a) Under the original interpretation of this passage in its application to the labour market of the first century Roman empire, which was primarily slavery, neither revolution nor manumission was recommended as a solution for anything.

b) No social action is ever commanded by the Word of God. It is doctrine in the soul that changes things historically from the inside but the Word of God is opposed to social action.

c) The Word of God condemns but never commends labour unions and guilds. A person must make it on his own, the Word of God emphasises the individual, not some organisation making it for you.

d) It becomes obvious, then, that the solution to labour problems does not lie in strikes. Not working doesn’t solve anything, it merely changes the course of the industrial complex. Many, many machines were invented because people went out on strike and therefore jobs were destroyed. Things are solved by doing a better job and things are solved by doctrine but strikes are not the answer to anything ever.

e) Doctrine resident in the soul makes permanent changes in life. Our blessing and our prosperity is related to Bible doctrine resident in our souls. Social action creates more problems; Bible doctrine is the solver.

f) Regeneration, not legislation, is always the answer. Regeneration and spiritual solutions. Legislation is designed to stop crime, to protect freedom; to give you the right to live among other people, the right to privacy, the right to property, and the right to take your volition and to go as far as you can go inside the law. The law was never designed to try to solve problems in the industrial complex. Colossians 3:22.

Verse 2 — Christian management. Just because you work for a Christian it doesn’t give you the right to take advantage of him. “And they that have believing masters.” The phrase is made up of a number of things., first of all the nominative plural of the definite article. It is used as a personal pronoun referring again to the labour market at the time of writing, slaves in the Roman empire. It refers now to labour in the 20th century. Plus the present active participle of e)xw recognising the reality of a situation. This is the iterative present which means not all believers work for a Christian. The active voice: the believer producing the action of the verb is in the category of labour working for someone else. The participle is circumstantial indicating that some believers do have Christian management as the authority over them. Also is the accusative plural direct object of pistoj, wrongly translated “believing.” Pistoj, and adjective, is also used as a substantive and this should be translated, “who have believers as their masters.” We also have here the accusative plural direct object of despothj for management, plus a post positive conjunctive particle de used to emphasise a contrast between Christian labour who have Christian management and non-Christian management. “Now on the other hand those who have believers as their management.”

“let them not despise” — present active imperative of katafronew which means to look down on, to despise, to scorn, to treat with contempt. The present tense is a customary present for what is reasonably expected to occur. The active voice: labour produces the action of the verb. The negative says they should not. They should not be disrespectful. The imperative mood plus the negative is a prohibition: “should not be disrespectful toward them.”

Principle

1. There is a tendency on the part of some ignorant and reversionistic believers to take advantage of Christian management.

2. Being a fellow believer in the same local church does not give labour the right to take advantage of management on the job.

3. In the name of Christian brotherhood no believer in labour has the right to take advantage of Christian management by loafing on the job, being late, ignoring company policy, demanding special privileges and special consideration not extended to other people working in the same job.

4. Working for believers should not only intensify faithfulness and diligence, loyalty, but it should also mean your production is better.

5. As a believer under Christian management you should be the best employee in the industry.

“because they are brethren” — the excuse to be slipshod. This is a causal use of the conjunction o(ti, plus the present active indicative of e(imi. The present tense is a static present indicating eternal security, indicating that they are born again — once saved, always saved. The active voice: management produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality in every generation. Plus the predicate nominative plural of a)delfoj, members of the same royal family. Principle: Spiritual equality does not set aside authority. As believers you are subject to many kinds of authority, including that from fellow believers.

“but rather” — the adversative conjunction a)lla plus the comparative adverb of degree, mallon. It should be translated “but to a greater degree.”

“do them service” — present active imperative of douleuw, literally, “be serving them.” That means respect, obedience and function under the profile of the job. The present tense is a descriptive present to indicate what should now be going on if you are working for Christian management. The active voice: Christian labour should produce the action of the verb. The imperative mood: this is an order.

“because” — a causal o(ti; “they are” — present active indicative of e)imi. The present tense is retroactive progressive present, it denotes what was begun in the past and continues into the present time. The active voice: Christian management produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative, this will always be; there will always be believers in management.

“faithful” — pistoj, “believers.” This the predicate active plural. The adjective is used as a substantive: “because they are believers.”

“and beloved” — nominative plural predicate adjective a)gaphtoj. God loves all believers.

The doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit

1. The baptism of the Holy Spirit as a doctrine is absolutely unique. The uniqueness is based upon the fact that, first of all, prior to the Church Age it did not occur. It occurred only in connection with the Church Age, it is the monopoly of the Church Age. Reason: Because it is the mechanics by which we become members of the royal family of God. Learn to distinguish between the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the agent of regeneration, the one who causes you to be born again. Regeneration is the basis for establishing the family of God. At the point of salvation in the Old Testament when any person believed in Jesus Christ God the Holy Spirit regenerated him. That ministry continues throughout all of human history, it makes the believer family of God. But the family of God is definitely divided into those who are in the ranks of the Old Testament saints, Tribulational saints, the Millennial saints and royalty — those who are in the palace. The Church Age are those who are in the palace. Therefore in the Church Age with Jesus Christ ascended, seated at the right hand of the Father, God the Holy Spirit in addition to regeneration does one other things. He takes every believer at the point of salvation and enters him into union with Jesus Christ. This makes it a unique doctrine and this gives our salvation a strong uniqueness that no other salvation has. The ministries of God the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation, of which there are five, include some which are unique. The regenerative work of the Holy Spirit is peculiar to every generation and to all of human history. From then on things are different. The sealing ministry of the Spirit, the giving of a spiritual gift, the indwelling of the Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, are absolutely unique and belong to us, members of the Church Age only. Therefore the uniqueness of the doctrine must be emphasised.

Them uniqueness of the doctrine is very important because morale in the royal family of God begins with an understanding of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Our esprit decor, living in the palace forever, living in the holy of holies, is based upon our orientation to this great doctrine.

2. The prophecy of the baptism of the Spirit was first accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. Just before the Age of Israel was interrupted, and just before the new dispensation began, Jesus prophesied in Acts 1:5. In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was the first one to announce this unique factor.

3. By definition and by mechanics the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity taking every believer at the moment that he believes in Jesus Christ and entering him into union with Christ. Baptism means identification, it means union. Water baptism is a ritual and it means union with the water. Real baptism is an historical fact, a spiritual factor, and all real baptisms are real identifications.

4. The baptism of the Spirit is definitely, therefore, related to the essence of the royal family. The baptism of the Holy Spirit unifies all members of the body of Christ. We are unified whether we like it or not — Ephesians 4:5. All members of the body of Christ have the same baptism and there is an equality that is provided at the second that the baptism of the Spirit occurs that could never be provided at any other time. This equality is describes in Galatians 3:26,27.

5. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is related to positional sanctification, it is the basis for positional sanctification — Romans 6; Colossians 2:12; 3:1,2. The basis for current positional truth is found in Ephesians 1:3-6; Colossians 2:10. The royal family has a personal relationship with the King of kings forever as a result. The link between our royalty and the royalty of Christ is the baptism of the Spirit.

Jesus Christ as God is eternal royalty. He is sovereign forever. Jesus Christ as a Man is royalty. He is the son of David. So as God he is sovereign, as the son of David He is royalty. He is a Jew born literally in the line of David. he is descended from David and Bathsheba through their son Nathan. But it is not in this area that our royalty exists. Jesus Christ now seated at the right hand of the Father is the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords, and that is a new royalty that began with His ascension and session. So when Christ was resurrected He was unique, when He ascended that was unique, when he was seated at the right hand of the Father that was unique. The Father never said “Sit down at my right hand” to anyone else. The whole thing was unique. And Jesus Christ then becomes what He never was before. As God He was never King of kings, as the son of David He was not the King of kings; but as the God-Man seated at the right hand of the Father He is the King of kings. And as King of kings there is a new royalty established on that basis, for this new and unique royalty demands a royal family.

Now the uniqueness of the royalty of Jesus Christ also leads to the fact that the Church Age believer is unique in that he has a unique system by which he becomes royalty. That uniqueness is based upon the baptism of the Holy Spirit which is unique.

6. The baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at the moment of salvation — Colossians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 12:13. Principle: The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience.

7. The baptism of the Holy Spirit interrupts the Jewish dispensation and begins a new dispensation — Matthew 16:18 cf. Acts 1:5 which have to be compared to Acts 11:15-17.

8. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is one of seven Bible baptisms: three ritual, four real baptisms.

The result of this is positional truth. This means a lot of things to us. For example, positional truth means that whether you are carnal or spiritual, in super-grace or reversionism, you have it. Positional truth is the very foundation of the royal family. You have a position in Christ, you will always be in Christ. This is taught in 1 Corinthians 1:2,30. There is no judgment ever in eternity because you are in union with Christ — Romans 8:1. Positional truth qualifies you to live with God forever, you couldn’t live with God forever unless you were in union with Christ. Christ has absolute righteousness, you share His righteousness. That is the basis for imputation and justification. Christ is eternal life, you have His eternal life. If you have eternal life you can live with God forever. If you have justification you can live with God forever. Christ was elected from eternity past if you are in union with Christ you share His election. Therefore you are foreordained or predestined. You are foreordained or predestined because you share the destiny of Christ. Christ is a high priest, you share His priesthood. That is why all believers are members of the royal priesthood. Jesus Christ is the King of kings and therefore we are royal family. It all adds up to eternal security, you cannot lose your salvation either — Romans 8:38,39. You have eternal security because you have been born into the family, you cannot be born out. The baptism of the Holy Spirit resulting in union with Christ means that it is not an experience, you don’t have an emotional experience. It is not progressive, you cannot improve on it, eternity won’t improve on it.

Verse 2b — “partakers of the benefit.” This is a nominative plural from the definite article used as an intensive pronoun. It should be translated not partakers but “these same ones.” Christians, your boss, whoever it is who has the authority over you in business. God loves that believer in management just as much as he loves the believer in labour. Then there is a present middle participle from the compound verb a)ntilambanomai. It means to be recipients — “these same ones being recipients.” It is a customary present tense for what may be reasonably expected to occur when any believer in management continues to take in the Word. The daily function of GAP on the part of Christian management leads to maturity and super-grace blessing. The indirect middle voice emphasises the agent, Christian management, producing the action of the verb. It is a causal participle.

Also with this is an objective genitive singular from e)uergesia. Here is where we get the word “benefit” — “because these same ones are recipients of benefits.” There is also an intensive pronoun here emphasising the identity of these specific blessings which are designed for super-grace believers.

Summary

1. This phrase says that first of all God has designed in eternity past special blessing paragraphs for every member of the royal family of God.

2. Furthermore, special blessing paragraphs, when they are received, always glorify God. When you GAP it daily and follow the colours to the high ground of super-grace you establish a command post in the soul. Here is the point of maturity, the super-grace life. At this point you receive paragraph SG² and when you receive that God is glorified. Dying blessing is a PCS from phase 2, time, to eternity. If you get SG² in time and hold, you get SG³ in eternity, and these glorify God. Your decorations in eternity are based upon your performance in time with regard to Bible doctrine.

3. Christian management and Christian labour are both beneficiaries of these same benefits. Whether management or labour benefits depends upon the attitude toward Bible doctrine, the daily function of GAP and following the colours to the high ground.

4. Therefore both Christian management and Christian labour must follow the colours to the high ground, possessing Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

5. So while one is working for the other both should be accumulating doctrine resident in the soul through the daily function of GAP.

6. Therefore in the local church each category is royal family learning Bible doctrine. But outside of the local church one works for the other.

Translation: “Now on the other hand they who have believers as bosses should not be disrespectful to them, because they are brothers; but even more [to a greater degree] be serving [with respect and obedience] them, because they are believers and beloved, because these same ones are recipients of the same benefits.”

Verse 6:2c — “These things teach.” This command is a command to teach how to apply doctrine. The doctrine has been stated time and time again. “These things” is an accusative neuter plural from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. Demonstrative pronouns are extremely important in the pulling together the continuity of the New Testament. O(utoj calls special attention with emphasis on a designated object. Here the demonstrative emphasises the doctrinal teaching of the pastor who encourages people to function well on he job, the doctrinal teaching of the pastor who emphasises the fact that as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are royal family of God forever and that you have been left on this earth to enter into full time Christian service. Therefore whatever your job is, no matter how humble, it is your full time Christian service and you therefore do your job as unto the Lord. “These things” refers to the various doctrines in the Word of God. The pastor has to dig them out and communicate them. Every pastor is sitting on a gold mine, but the gold is in the mine. Between “these things” and “teach” he digs. The word “teach” assumes that the Word has been passed from the Bible to the right lobe of the pastor-teacher. The only thing the pastor-teacher can communicate is what is on the launching pad. “Teach” is the present active imperative of didaskw — “doctrinise.” The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what should habitually occur in the assembly of the local church when the pastor-teacher has studied. The active voice: starting with Timothy and going to every pastor in the 20th century, that means that the man with the gift of pastor-teacher must produce the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a command not just to Timothy but to everyone who has the gift of pastor-teacher and have a congregation. The word didaskw literally means communication of doctrine.

Didaskw

1. It means that God has ordained a classroom. Teaching must occur in a classroom. It can be anywhere, but wherever there are three believers and a pastor-teacher that is a classroom. The public assembly of the local church is the classroom for this dispensation.

2. It means authority, to communicate with authority — monologue, no dialogue, no sharing.

3. It means moral courage, the courage to teach what is said no matter what anyone thinks. Once you know you have the truth you communicate it.

4. Function. Function is communication. It demands that you concentrate, it demands that the pastor gets your attention and holds it. While it is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to give you concentration it is a part of the gift of pastor-teacher to illustrate, to lend colour to, and hold attention.

5. Observation. The pastor observes the congregation, he knows what is going on. This is important. There are times when the teaching must finish a little early because the congregation has had all it can take at the moment and it is no longer listening. Or it is getting restless.

6. Didaskw means a system of discipline in the association of the royal family. Not only does it mean academic discipline in the classroom, it means a system of discipline in the royal family.

7. It means a system of priorities for the royal family of God. Priority #1 is Jesus Christ, a priority you cannot achieve until priority #2 is fulfilled in part — doctrine. So priorities must be kept straight. Jesus Christ must be first, but that is simply a principle without practice when you are born again. The only way that it becomes a principle with practice is for priority #2 to come. Priority #2 during the early stages of your spiritual life is really priority #1, for all we know about the living Word we know from the written Word. Priority #1 is Bible doctrine until you reach super-grace and then occupation with Christ puts a mature system of priorities into operation: Christ is #1 and doctrine is #2. Next in your priorities must be the assembly in the local church to learn the Word of God.

“and exhort” — didaskw means to lay out the principles of doctrine, then you must teach how to apply. To teach how to apply is “and exhort,” the present active imperative from verb parakalew which means to teach how to apply. There is a long way to go between learning it academically and putting it into operation. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what is reasonably expected to occur when a pastor is faithful in studying the Word. The active voice: the pastor produces the action in teaching you how to apply as he teaches the passage. The imperative mood is a command to all pastors of all generations to fulfil the second principle as well as the first.

Translation: “Now on the other hand they who have believers as bosses should not be disrespectful to them, because they are brothers; but even more [to a greater degree] be serving [with respect and obedience] them, because they are believers and beloved, because these same ones are recipients of the same benefits. Be teaching and exhorting these things.”

Verses 3-5 is one sentence and is a conditional clause. It is opposition from believers under the influence of evil. Some believers are not going to accept the principle of the authority of management. We have three verses to point out to labour that opposition to that authority is totally out of line, it is a matter of doctrine, a matter of the believer’s full-time Christian service. It is a matter of obeying your boss, management, the company policy, as unto the Lord. Verse 3 is the protasis; the apodasis is verses 4,5.

Verse 3 is the protasis of a first class condition recognising the fact of opposition and then some conclusions that will be drawn from it. “If” is the key. The conjunction e)i introduces a first class condition. The protasis is true, there is opposition to what has been taught in verses 1 and 2.

“any man” — an indefinite pronoun from tij. It is in the nominative case and the subject of the verb. The indefinite pronoun refers to a category in the royal family of God, believers who are working for someone else and who are in some stage of reversionism and under the influence of evil. They don’t like the idea of accepting the authority over them. It should be translated “If anyone.”

“teaches otherwise” — present active indicative of a compound verb, e(terodidaskalew, a word which means to teach a different doctrine than what has been taught in verses 1,2. E(teroj is the adjective which means other of a different kind; didaskalia is the noun which means to teach. It means to teach a different type of doctrine in opposition to what has been specified in the context. “If anyone teaches a different doctrine.” The present tense is retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has begun in the past and is continuing into the present time. The believer is never commanded to be disruptive of authority and this is the principle that is being advocated by false teaching in Ephesus. The active voice: the reversionist under the influence of evil produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical reality of the fact that labour was antagonistic to biblical principles of their function.

“and consent not” — the connective conjunction kai plus the negative mh, and with it is the present middle indicative of the verb proserxomai which means here to concur. It should be translated, “and does not concur with.” The present tense is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has begun in the past and is continuing at the present time, and therefore is wrong. It is wrong for anyone working for someone else to be disruptive and antagonistic toward authority. The conjunction actually separates two different types of apostasy. The first apostasy is to be under the influence of evil teaching, the second category is to be under the influence of evil rejecting doctrine. The middle voice is the indirect middle in which the agent produces the action of the verb rather than participating in its results. The indicative mood is declarative, this was actually happening then.

“to wholesome words” — the dative plural present active participle of the verb u(giainw which simply means to be healthy, to be well, or to be sound. The adjective is used as a participle here plus the dative plural of the noun logoj, referring to doctrine, to words, to thought. Here it means doctrine — “to sound doctrine.” The dative of indirect object plus the dative of disadvantage: it is to the disadvantage of any believer to ignore the teachings of the Word of God. The word for “words” is a dative plural definite article used for a demonstrative pronoun — “those words of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The second time we have the word logoj here it is used for the teaching or the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

Next we have the ascensive use of the word kai which is not translated “and” but “even”; “to the doctrine” — dative singular of the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun, placing special emphasis on doctrine and its relationship to the prince ruler of the church, Jesus Christ, plus the dative singular of the noun didaskalia which means teaching or doctrine.

“which is” is not found in the original, it is used to smooth out the translation.

“according to godliness” — kata plus the accusative of e)usebeia, translated “pertaining to godliness.”

Translation: “If anyone teaches a different doctrine, and does not concur with sound doctrine, namely those doctrines of our Lord Jesus Christ, even to that doctrine pertaining to godliness.”

The doctrine of godliness

1. Godliness is derived from the Greek word e)usebeia. There is also another word that goes with it: qeosebeia. It actually means duty to God. But that doesn’t explain its technicalities. Technically, it is the doctrine of the balance of residency of the soul. It is a synonym for maturity actually. Godliness is a mature believer as over against an immature believer. The principle is found very simply in three different doctrines. The moment you believe in Jesus Christ God the Holy Spirit comes to indwell your body. Reason: you are royal family of God forever. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit indicates that we are different from all believers in other dispensations, all believers in past dispensations. It also means that in this stage of the angelic conflict demon possession can never occur. There is also the filling of the Spirit. Spirituality and godliness are two simple doctrines that everyone must understand. Spirituality is God the Holy Spirit controlling your soul, not your body. Therefore you must learn to distinguish between salvation, the ministry of the Holy Spirit at salvation, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit after salvation. At salvation God the Holy Spirit does five things for each one of us in this dispensation. In the Old Testament he did one thing: regeneration. The Holy Spirit is the agent in every person being born again at the moment he believes in Jesus Christ. There are 36 things accomplished when you believe in Christ, one of them is regeneration. We have the vocabulary of Paul when he says, “Be filled with the Spirit” in Ephesians 5:18; “walk in the Spirit” in Galatians 5:16; or John’s vocabulary “walk in the light” in 1 John 1:7. Peter also has his technical nomenclature for the Holy Spirit controlling the life — “partakers of the divine nature.” We call it simply the filling of the Spirit but there are a number of technical phrases for God the Holy Spirit controlling the soul.

2. There are two concepts of the believer basically and fundamentally: spirituality and carnality. Spirituality and carnality are mutually exclusive, therefore they become absolutes in phase two — 1 John 3:4-9. Light and dark are mutually exclusive; spirituality and carnality are mutually exclusive.

3. The great issue that starts your Christian life and becomes an issue always is imitation. Spirituality is imitation of God — 2 Corinthians 3:3; Ephesians 5:1; 2 Peter 1:4. On the other hand, carnality and reversionism is imitation of the unbeliever. All of your Christian life you are either imitating God or you are imitating the unbeliever. Carnality and reversionism, imitation of the unbeliever — 1 Corinthians 3:3; Galatians 5:19-21; 1 John 1:6.

4. Spirituality, then, is a function of the royal priesthood. Therefore it is not subject to the Mosaic law or any Levitical system of the previous dispensation — Romans 8:2-4; 10:4; 13:8; Galatians 5:18. All of these say that if you are filled with the Spirit you are not under the law.

5. In keeping with partnership with the divine essence through the filling of the Spirit — 2 Peter 1:4 — spirituality produces the character of the incarnate Christ. Now the character is produced to the extent that this also includes doctrine in your soul. Galatians 4:19 tells us that we are to become imitators of Christ, Christ must be produced in us. In the same context of Galatians 5:22,23 we find out what this means. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc. This is the production of the character of Christ. The same thing is founds in 2 Peter 1:4 and 1 John 2:5,6.

6. The general objective, then, of the filling of the Spirit is the control of the soul. This has a relationship with at least five different factors in your life: a) It has to do with your partnership with divine essence. Since 2 Peter 1:4 says you are in partnership, the filling of the Spirit is the means of fulfilling it. b) It has to do with imitation of God — Ephesians 5:1. c) It has to do with glorifying Christ — John 7:39; 16:14; 1 Corinthians 6:19,20. d) The law is fulfilled — Romans 8:2-4. e) The purpose of the filling of the Spirit in the new believer, the immature believer, and the adolescent believer is the proper function of GAP. The proper function of GAP always depends upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit — John 14:26; 16:12-14; 1 Corinthians 2:9-16.

7. Spirituality is lost through carnality but recovered through the rebound technique. Volition is always involved in sinning and therefore volition must be involved in recovery. The recovery is rebound.

8. Some results of spirituality.

a) Christ is magnified in the life — Ephesians 3:16,17; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Philippians 1:20,21.

b) You can understand doctrine when exposed to teaching — 1 Corinthians 2:9-16; 1 John 2:27.

c) You can be effective in witnessing — Acts 1:8; 2 Corinthians 3.

d) You can have guidance from God and assurance under these conditions — Romans 8:14-16.

e) It is the basis of all true worship — John 4:24; Philippians 3:3.

f) It becomes the basis for effective prayer — Ephesians 6:18.

g) it means to help carnal or reversionistic believers get back in fellowship — Galatians 6:1.

10. Spirituality, then, is one of the original sources for divine good. Divine good is rewardable — 1 Corinthians 3:12ff; human good produced in carnality and reversionism is destroyed at the judgment seat of Christ.

11. Nomenclature for spirituality.

Positive, like “walk in the Spirit” — Galatians 5:16; “walk in the light” — 1 John 1:7; “be filled with the Spirit” — Ephesians 5:18; “be a partaker of the divine nature” — 2 Peter 1:4. When we sin under carnality, that is grieving the Holy Spirit.” Grieving and quenching of the Holy Spirit means you are not filled with the Spirit, but when you rebound then the Holy Spirit controls again and you go back to the filling of the Spirit — spirituality.

Negative, like “Quench not the Spirit” — 1 Thessalonians 5:19. When a believer is under the control of his old sin nature it is because he has sinned. Quenching the Spirit is producing human good from the area of strength.

12. Emotion or ecstatics does not characterise spirituality in the Church Age — 2 Corinthians 6:11,12; Romans 16:17,18. Only in the Millennial dispensation is any spirituality related to ecstatics. In the Church Age the believer is representing the absent Christ in the devil’s world. Therefore since this is the devil’s world in the Church Age and every believer is an ambassador representing Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is not on the earth, therefore we represent Him. Therefore the filling of the Spirit does not have ecstatics related to it. Not that you won’t be emotional and not that your emotions won’t appreciate the Lord, but the actual filling of the Spirit has no ecstatics. You do have spiritual emotion but it is not the filling of the Spirit. In the Millennial reign of Christ, Christ will be on earth and therefore the filling of the Holy Spirit will be plus emotion.

However, it does say in many passages that in the Millennium believers will be indwelt by the Spirit — Ezekiel 36:27; 37:14; Jeremiah 31:33 — and that the filling of the Spirit will produce within itself ecstatics — Isaiah 29:19; 32:15; 44:3; Ezekiel 39:29; Zechariah 12:10; Joel 2:28,29.

13. The royal family is in partnership with the Holy Spirit — Philippians 2:2.

14. Confidence regarding the filling of the Spirit comes from understanding doctrine — 1 John 3:20,21.

15. There must be a clarification between means and results. There is the power involved, the means of obtaining that power, and then the results of that power. There are two basic powers in your life as a believer. One is the power of the Holy Spirit and the second is the power of the Word. These are the two that lead to the balance of residency. The means of obtaining the power of the Holy Spirit is the rebound technique. The means of obtaining the power of the Word is the function of GAP. The results are often confused with the means and therefore we should notice that the results of spirituality are not spirituality itself. For example, the result of spirituality is the function of GAP, divine guidance, yieldedness, witnessing, prayer, legitimate functions of the spiritual life. But they are not the means. You are not spiritual because you witness, because you pray, etc. These are results, not the means.

16. Pseudo spirituality.

a) Spirituality is not yielding. This system assumes that the believer is spiritual because of something he does such as yielding or dedicating, etc. Yieldedness to God is a result of the filling of the Spirit, it is not the means — Romans 6:13,19; 12:1. The state of being filled with the Spirit plus having doctrine in the soul is the state of yieldedness but never is yieldedness a means to an end. You don’t yield to anything.

b) One of the great spiritual hazards in all periods of time is personality imitation, always trying to imitate the personality of someone you admire.

c) Spirituality by self-crucifixion. This originated from the erroneous interpretation of Romans 6 whereby the believer claims spirituality or virtue by crucifying self. However, ego never cancels ego. Self is crucified on the basis of retroactive positional truth. A failure to understand positional truth leads to a pseudo experience of going around trying to crucifying self.

d) Spirituality by tabooism, the idea that you are really not a great believer until you have given up something. A taboo is a prohibition set up by religious or social groups. The taboo is a forbidden activity which is not forbidden by the Word of God but is forbidden by this group. Taboos, therefore, are legalism. It is a legalistic superimposition on believers. It is spiritual bullying. Taboos are customs of the religious or the legalistic, self-righteous type of believer — e.g. don’t drink, don’t dance, etc.

The doctrine of godliness

1. Godliness is derived from two nouns; e)usebeia and qeosebeia. These means duty toward God but they are technical for the balance of residency in the soul. The first noun and the second noun both have the connotation of responsibility to God. The second noun includes the connotation of occupation with Christ. Godliness, then, is a synonym for spiritual maturity. It refers to the balance of residency and is technical in emphasising that aspect. It refers also to the concept of experiential sanctification. Godliness is based on the escutcheon of the royal family of God in which God the Holy Spirit indwells the body of every believer. Godliness is that balance of residency in the soul between the filling of the Spirit and the possession of maximum doctrine through the function of GAP. Godliness is the status quo of every mature believer, every person who is occupied with Christ.

2. 1 Timothy 2:2, the importance of establishment and human authority for the function of GAP and the result of godliness. It is imperative that we recognise that our spiritual life and our spiritual growth is related to certain factors in life which are brought up under the concept of authority. There can be no spiritual maturity apart from the teaching of the Word. There must be maximum doctrine resident in the soul. There is no possible way to properly teach the Word of God unless certain authorities are established in the national entity and unless certain freedoms exist.

3. Godliness is related to knowledge of Bible doctrine — Titus 1:1. Godliness in this passage is simply a synonym for maturity.

4. Therefore godliness demands certain types of discipline. For example, in 1 Timothy 4:7, “Have nothing to do with worldly fables [evil] fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. So it must be recognised that no one ever achieves spiritual maturity without a certain amount of self-discipline.

5. Godliness is profitable. It comes through respect for authority, self-discipline, the filling of the Spirit, from the daily function of GAP; but however it comes it is profitable — 1 Timothy 4:8.

6. The basis for godliness is the strategical victory of our Lord Jesus Christ during the first advent. At the end of the first advent when Christ died on the cross, rose again, ascended and was seated at the right hand of the Father, this became the strategical victory and on this godliness is based. 2 Timothy 3:16.

7. Godliness is distorted by reversionists who are under the influence of evil — 1 Timothy 6:3-5. Pseudo godliness is a form of blind arrogance where pride, reversionism, and evil all meet — 2 Timothy 3:2-5. Pseudo godliness is a distortion, it is the believer under the influence of evil, the believer who is in a phoney type of life.

8. The great gain of godliness is found in 1 Timothy 6:6.

9. Godliness is attained under the principle of living grace — 2 Peter 1:3.

10 Godliness is a Christian virtue — 2 Peter 1:6,7; 3:11.

Principles

1. The only standard and the ultimate objective in phase two is godliness, spiritual maturity.

2. This spiritual maturity is accomplished through the daily function of GAP and/or concurrent with the doctrines of our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Concurrence demands consistent, daily concentration on the teaching of the Word of God.

4. Furthermore, it demands consistent Bible teaching and the function of GAP.

5. Therefore consistent positive volition is the secret to fulfilling godliness in contrast to negative volition expressed in this protasis.

6. In a conditional clause in the Koine the protasis contains a supposition. In the first class condition this supposition is said to be true, it is a supposition of reality. Therefore the protasis presents a fact that in every generation of the Church Age there will be those who do not concur with doctrine. Next comes the apodasis in the next two verses and it states the result of being a reversionist under the influence of evil.

As we approach verses 4 and five, notice some principles:

1. The outline of verses 3,4 & 5: Verse 3 is the protasis of a first class condition. Verse 4 & 5 is the apodasis of that first class condition. The supposition from the viewpoint of reality and the conclusions based upon those realities.

2. The apodasis is the clause based on the supposition of the protasis, the if clause or conditional part of the sentence.

3. Therefore because certain believers are apostate, in reversionism, under the influence of evil, the fulfil the information given in the apodasis of these two verses. While the interpretation deals with labour only it is a general malady among believers who are not interested in Bible doctrine.

4. When the protasis is a fact, as here, then the apodasis is a resultant fact.

5. Therefore the conditional clause (verses 3-5) is a challenge to keep priorities straight.

6. In anticipation of the priority problem doctrine must be first.

7. Doctrine must be transferred from the written page of the Bible to the soul of the believer to avoid what happens in these two verses.

8. This can only be accomplished by consistent function under GAP.

9. Therefore the real issue in the Christian life is the believer’s attitude toward Bible teaching or doctrine.

10. The only way to progress, grow, be effective, is to have maximum doctrine resident in the soul. This is where the effective function of the royal priesthood begins.

11. Hence it is not what you do but what you think that counts in the Christian way of life. There is no substitute for doctrine resident in the soul, including working for God.

Verse 4 — “He is proud.” We must remember that the difference between blind arrogance and arrogance is that a person is aware of his pride under arrogance. Under blind arrogance he isn’t even aware of his problem. We have here the perfect passive indicative of tufow and it should be translated, “He has received blind arrogance.” The reason is that it is the perfect tense and because the intensive perfect always indicates completed action and results which follow. And the results are emphasised. He has received blind arrogance in the past with the result that he remains an arrogant ass. The passive voice: the subject receives the action of the

verb. The subject is a reversionist under the influence of evil. The indicative mood is declarative for reality. Blind arrogance is a condition of the soul. The indicative mood indicates the reality of the protasis.

“knowing nothing” — all arrogant people are stupid, arrogance is a state of stupidity. It is inflating one’s self beyond one’s ability. This is the present middle participle of e)pistamai. The word means to comprehend, to perceive, to understand something in its entirety and to understand it’s mechanical functions. It is a technical word for perspicacity. With it is the accusative neuter singular of mhdeij, the direct object of the verb — e)ij means one; mh means none, and so we have not one or nothing. So we translate it, “Understanding not even one thing [of doctrine].”

“but” is an adversative conjunction, a contrast. In contrast with his stupidity — a)lla.

“doting” — present active participle of nosew which means to have a morbid craving for something, or to have an excessive and vicious fondness for something. It also means to be sick, which is where morbidity comes into it — “but he has a morbid obsession.” The present tense is a customary present, what you would expect from a reversionistic believer under the influence of evil. The active voice: the reversionistic believer produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. In other words, it is true that a certain number of believers are going to be arrogant and have even blind arrogance. They are also going to have morbid obsession which come from this.

“about questions” — the preposition peri plus accusative of zhthsij which means controversies. Reversionism thrives on controversy. In other words, the reversionist like to become involved in controversy or likes to stir up controversy. He stirs up controversy by being jealous of someone and slandering them, or being implacable.

“and strifes of words” — this is a compound noun, logomaxia; logoj means words; maxomai means war. Verbal conflicts is the more modern term.

“whereof” is a preposition phrase — e)k plus the genitive of the relative pronoun o(j. It should be translated “from which.”

“cometh” is not a good translation of ginomai which means to become but it never means to come. It often means to originate and that is the meaning here. This is a present active indicative of ginomai. The static present represents circumstances which perpetually exist where the reversionistic believer under the influence of evil is a troublemaker, always causing trouble, always causing controversy, always using his mouth to start trouble between people, always having his nose into the affairs of other people, always upset about someone, always disturbed, bitter or jealous or reacting toward someone. The active voice: controversies and verbal conflicts among believers under the influence of evil produce the following list. The indicative mood is declarative: this really happens.

“envy” — the predicate nominative singular from the noun fqonoj which means jealousy.

The doctrine of jealousy

1. Definition.

a) Jealousy is a mental attitude sin which demands exclusive devotion and is intolerant of rivalry.

b) Jealousy is chagrin or discontent at the blessings, successes or status symbols of other people.

c. Jealousy is the resentment of the attractiveness or the approbation that someone else has received.

d. In the old English jealousy also had the connotation of ardent devotion. God would say, “I am jealous of my people.” So it has to be remembered that the old English has to antithetical meanings for jealousy, one is a mental attitude sin and the other is a synonym for love.

e. This study will be confined to the mental sin of jealousy or envy.

2. The source of jealousy. There are two basic sources for all mental sins of jealousy.

a) The old sin nature’s area of weakness. This produces the source of all categories of sin, including mental, verbal, and overt.

b) It also emanates from reversionism or being under the influence of evil, as in this passage, 1 Tim. 6:3,4.

3. Therefore jealousy is a sin inevitably related to reversionism. Jealousy crops up in unbeliever reversionism, mentioned in Romans 1:28,29. Jealousy also crops up in any type of believer reversionism — James 3:14-16.

4. Jealousy rejects Bible doctrine, therefore jealousy characterises reversionism — Acts 13:45; 17:5.

5. Jealousy motivates religion — Mark 15:10.

6. Jealousy of authority — e.g. the authority of Joseph motivated his brothers to sell him into slavery — Acts 7:9.

7. Jealousy can split all kinds of organisations and jealousy actually split the nation Israel. We have the northern and the southern kingdom because of jealousy — Isaiah 11:13.

8. So great was the sin of jealousy in Israel that a special offering was designed for it under the Levitical code — Leviticus chapter 5:11-31.

9. Jealousy was the basis for the destruction of category #2 love. Any true love can be in danger when jealousy attacks — Song of Solomon 8:6.

10. Jealousy is a self-destructive sin — Job 5:2; Proverbs 14:30.

11. Jealousy, therefore, is the strongest of the mental attitude sins — Proverbs 27:3,4.

“strife” — e)rij which means discord. Much of the discord among believers in the local church is motivated by jealousy: operation sour grapes.

“railings” — the predicate nominative plural from blasfhmia and the word actually means “malignings.” This refers to sins of the tongue.

The doctrine of the sins of the tongue

1. Category and definition:

a) Sin is defined as transgression of the law of God.

b) A known sin is a transgression or a violation of divine law.

c) An unknown sin is likewise a transgression of divine law.

d) In both cases human volition is involved.

e) Therefore the difference between a known and an unknown sin is cognisance of divine law or the biblical doctrine of hamartiology.

f) Whether the divine law is known or not human volition is involved in transgressing any law of God.

g) All sin therefore combines the function of the old sin nature’s area of weakness with human volition. Therefore ignorance is no excuse. Therefore sins of ignorance get you out of fellowship as quickly as sins of cognisance. You did it because you wanted to.

h) Three categories of sin exist in the human race. The first: the imputation of Adam’s sin to each member of the human race directly; inherent sin; personal sin.

i) We also have three categories of personal sin: mental sins; verbal sins; overt sins.

j) All personal sins originate from the old sin nature. This means that verbal sins originate from the old sin nature, they are activated by human volition. No one ever commits a sin unless he wants to.

2. Out of the seven worst sins listed by God, three are sins of the tongue — Proverbs 6:16-19.

3. Verbal sins are related to reversionism — Psalm 5:8,9. They are motivated by mental attitude sins like pride, jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, pettiness. Verbal reversionism causes the believer to fall under heavy divine discipline — James 5:12. Verbal reversionism produces treacherous and unreliable people — Psalm 12.

4. The sins of the tongue produce triple-compound discipline — Matthew 7:1,2 in the Greek.

5. God protects the super-grace believer who is the victim of verbal sins — Job 5:21.

6. The congregation and the tongue:

a) Control of the tongue plus avoidance of verbal sins is the sign of spiritual maturity, the sign of a super-grace believer — James 3:2.

b) Verbal sins can destroy an entire congregation — James 3:5,6.

c) Since the sins of the tongue can destroy an entire congregation of believers it is the solemn responsibility of the pastor-teacher to warn against this category of personal sins — 2 Timothy 2:14-17.

d) Trouble makers in the congregation are characterised by sins of the tongue — Psalm 52:1,2.

e) Separation from those guilty of the sins of the tongue is an absolute must — Romans 16:17,18.

7. The blessing which comes from the avoidance of the sins of the tongue is listed in Psalm 34:12,13. In other words, there are special blessings for people who avoid this area of sin.

“evil surmisings” — predicate nominative plural of u(ponoia. This is a compound word: noia means thinking; noia means down or under. It comes to mean evil conjectures, evil speculation. In other words, you dislike someone, you are angry at someone, you are jealous of someone, and you begin to speculate. You are now guilty of looking at someone’s life, trying to penetrate the veil of privacy, and coming up with speculations about their failures, their weaknesses or their sins.

The doctrine of privacy

1. Definition: Privacy is a state of being apart from observation and the company of others. It is the innate right of the human race for seclusion when desired. Privacy is the principle of freedom whereby the individual member of the human race has the right to retire from the company of others, remain in seclusion, or to associate with others and still keep his business to himself. Privacy and property and life are the three basic concepts of human freedom. The laws of divine establishment guarantee the privacy of every member of the human race so that he can exercise his own volition uncoerced. In addition to freedom in establishment every believer has the additional privacy of the royal priesthood. This is the double privacy.

2. Privacy and the royal priesthood. Every believer is a royal priest. We are a kingdom of priests, we are royal family of God forever. 1 Peter 2:9. We are here to live our life as unto the Lord. We therefore have our right to live as unto the Lord because we are priests. To live our life as unto the Lord we must have as our constant possession privacy to live our life as unto Him. So the royal priesthood does have as its basic connotation privacy to fulfil the mission of phase two and to live as unto the Lord, to fulfil Colossians 3:17.

3. No other believer has the right to intrude into your privacy or the privacy of another believer. Peter was guilty of the doctrine of the long proboscis when he inquired of the Lord how John would die. The Lord had to put him down, to tell him that it was none of his business — John 21:21-22. Peter had his eyes on John instead of being occupied with the resurrected Christ.

4. The violation of privacy always results in judging — Romans 14:4,10.

5. Privacy therefore includes the principle of live and let live — 2 Thessalonians 3:11,12.

6. Reversionists violate the privacy of others — 1 Timothy 5:13.

7. Violators of privacy of others is comparable to other freedom violations. Again, freedom means life, privacy, property. Life is violated by murder or tyranny of slavery. Property is violated by stealing. Privacy is violated by meddling or gossiping. Therefore an intrusion into the privacy of others can be compared to murder and stealing — 1 Peter 4:15.

Verse 5 — “Perverse disputings” is a predicate nominative plural of diaparatribh which means constant irritation, constant friction, incessant quarrelling. Some people love to fight all the time.

“of men” — the word for men here means male and female; it is the ablative plural from a)nqrwpoj which means a category of creation. The ablative plural is translated “between” instead of “of.”

“corrupt minds” — the perfect passive participle of diafqeirw. It means to corrupt or to distort, and it is in the intensive perfect tense denoting something which is completed by way of action but the results are continuous. The passive voice: the reversionistic believer under the influence of evil receives the action of the verb: constant friction. The participle is circumstantial. With it is the accusative singular, the definite article which is used as a possessive pronoun, plus the noun nouj for “minds.” “Incessant quarrelling between people who have become distorted in their minds.”

“and destitute of the truth” — the connective particle kai is a conjunction which connects one participle with the other, the perfect passive participle of a)posterew which means to be destitute or to be devoid of — “that doctrine.” The perfect tense is an intensive perfect, devoid in the past with the result that this void of doctrine continues in reversionism. The passive voice: negative volition toward Bible doctrine receives a void into the left lobe into which the policy of evil enters the soul. This is a circumstantial participle. With it is a demonstrative pronoun and the genitive singular of a)lhqeia for doctrine or truth — “having become devoid of that doctrine.”

“supposing” is a present active participle from nomizw which means to presume. The present tense is retroactive progressive present, it denotes what was begun in the past and continues into the present time. It is also a descriptive present to denote events in the process of occurrence. This type of present tense has great linear aktionsart and we translate it “constantly presuming.” The active voice: the reversionist always produces this action, he produces it constantly. He is always making estimates that are erroneous and out of line. The circumstantial participle with the other circumstantial participle indicates that we have a very bad case of reversionism described in the passage.

“that gain is godliness” — one is the subject and the other is the predicate nominative, and they are linked by the verb to be. The question is, which is the subject and which is the predicate nominative. The only way you can tell when you have this kind of a situation is that the definite article always goes with the subject. Therefore it is actually “godliness is gain” because we have a definite article with e)usebeia, a synonym for maturity, the balance of residency in the soul. The word “is” is the present active infinitive e)imi. The reason it is in the infinitive form is because it follows a verb of presumption, nomizw. This is a customary present for an erroneous conclusion habitually occurring among reversionists. It is very rare for a reversionist to ever come up with a correct conclusion about anything. The active voice: godliness as the accusative of general reference with the infinitive acts as the subject and produces the action of the verb in this statement of false conclusions. The infinitive is one of conceived result. Gain or prosperity is assumed as being godliness. The word “gain” itself is the accusative which matches the accusative of general reference and acts as a predicate nominative. It is the word porismoj — prosperity.

The presumption

1. Whenever a believer is prosperous it does not mean that he is also mature. Prosperity does not imply godliness. Godliness is the basis for true prosperity but prosperity does not imply godliness.

2. Because a believer becomes prosperous or successful, or even temporarily happy, it does not imply that he is in super-grace status.

3. While super-grace brings prosperity, prosperity is not super-grace.

4. While prosperity is one of the characteristics of super-grace it does not imply that all prosperity is super-grace status.

5. Therefore being prosperous does not mean super-grace or godliness. A prosperous believe cannot assume that he is also a mature believer.

6. To assume godliness or super-grace the believer must have functioned daily under GAP for a long period of time. It must be remembered that the devil is also in the prosperity business. He just has a different system of providing it and it doesn’t last very long, and what starts out to be fun turns out to be hurt under this system for the believer. The believer may receive a temporary happiness, a prosperity system, promotion or success from cosmos diabolicus. All that indicates is that he is in reversionism and certainly lining up with the policy of evil. However divine discipline removes the prosperity or uses the prosperity as the system of discipline.

So while godliness is prosperity, prosperity is not necessarily godliness. We are godly because of maximum doctrine in the resident soul.

.Verse 6 — “But” is the adversative use of the conjunctive particle de. We have a contrast between the false concept of prosperity given in the previous verse and the true concept of prosperity which will be given in this verse. In fact, this verse is the principle of prosperity from the divine viewpoint. The false principle was stated as the fact that anyone who is successful or wealthy or has any prosperity in life is automatically a super-grace believer. This is untrue.

“godliness” here is the word used for super-grace status. It is the nominative singular of e)usebeia and is a synonym for maturity with emphasis in the balance of residency.

Synonyms for maturity

1. The language synonym. It is almost untranslatable but generally it is translated poorly by the word “knowledge.” It might be translated super knowledge or resident knowledge or, better yet, resident doctrine. The Hebrew word for resident doctrine is chakmah and it is generally translated “knowledge” which is a little weak because it refers to doctrine resident in the right lobe, in the human spirit of the believer. It’s counterpart in the New Testament is e)pignwsij which is translated “knowledge” and occasionally a better translation “full knowledge.” it again refers to doctrine resident in the soul of the mature believer.

2. The theological synonym. It is one which comes from the literal Greek though it is not found in the English translation. James 4:6: “He gives more grace” — meizona xarin. These are both in the accusative, they are direct objects of the verb to give. One is a comparative, meizona is a comparative of megaj and it should be translated either “greater” or “super.” So it should be translated, “He gives greater [or super] grace.” This is the technical theological designation for the mature believer.

3. The priestly synonym. From the standpoint of our royal priesthood maturity is described as having erected an altar of the soul — Hebrews 13:10. Bible doctrine resident in the soul is the altar of the royal priesthood and when the altar is completed the person has maximum doctrine in his soul and is able therefore to offer the various priestly sacrifices, many of which are mentioned in the context of Hebrews 13.

4. The construction of a backbone in the soul. This backbone is called an edification complex of the soul. It is mentioned in Ephesians 4:12,16.

5. Time. Redeeming the time is the function of the believer with maximum doctrine in his soul. The word to redeem means to purchase, and his capital for purchasing time is that same maximum doctrine which he possesses in his soul. The purchase of time with doctrine has two directions: toward God — Ephesians 5:16-18; toward the unbeliever — Colossians 4:5.

6. A central control system, which is really the dictator of the soul. The dictator is Bible doctrine in the soul controlling the life. In Ephesians 6:10 it says in the future, “Keep on becoming strong in the Lord (a reference to maturity) by means of the inner rule” — This inner rule is doctrine set up as the dictator; doctrine directing your life — “of his endowed power” — the endowed power is doctrine in the canon of scripture. It is transferred to the soul under the principle of “keep on becoming strong in the Lord.”

7. Military synonyms.

a) Putting on the full armour from God — Ephesians 6:11-13. Once you get it all on, that is maturity.

b) Following the colours to the high ground — Hebrews 12:1,2. The high ground in maturity.

c) Establishing a command post of the soul — Colossians 2:5,8.

8. The crucifixion principle, not used in connection with salvation and not referring to the cross of Christ which did not occur at the time our Lord said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Actually, this is a command to the function of GAP. It is not a command just to GAP it but a command to do it daily, in spite of everything, letting nothing get in the way. “Follow me” is the daily function of GAP eventuating in spiritual maturity — Matthew 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27.

9. A chemical synonym: salt. Basically, when Jesus said “You are the salt of the land” He is referring to a mature believer with maximum doctrine in the soul. Because he is a part of a remnant this remnant becomes the preservative of the entire nation.

10. A sanctification synonym: godliness/ e)usebeia.

When it says “godliness” in verse 6 it is a reference to getting to the high ground, establishing a command post and establishing paragraph SG². Everyone of us in eternity past had from God a paragraph SG². This is the sum total of our prosperity and blessing as a believer in time. This is the achievement of tactical victory. God provides this at the point at which we have contentment, we have capacity, we have the basis of enjoying this paragraph. He doesn’t give it to us too soon and He doesn’t give it too late. God’s timing is perfect.

“with contentment” — these two words actually describe the difference between super-grace believers having blessings and unbelievers or reversionistic believers having these same things. This is the preposition meta plus the genitive of a)utarkeia. Meta plus the genitive means “associated with” and a)utarkeia means sufficiency, competence, contentment, or self-sufficiency. Here it connotes mental attitude capacity for life. It means contentment in the sense of great capacity for life when you have nothing or when you have everything. It doesn’t make any difference what you have or do not have. Contentment here is a technical word for capacity for life. A)utarkeia and a)utarkhj are both capacity for life words. Contentment is as close as you can come in a one-word translation. Self-sufficiency is good if you understand its implications, as is confidence. Philippians 4:11,12. The secret to life is not in pleasant circumstances but in capacity for life. Capacity for life comes only through doctrine resident in the soul. A)uatarkeia is also found in 2 Corinthians 9:8 and again it is a part of the concept of capacity for life. Hebrews 13:5,6.

The doctrine of capacity for life

1. Capacity for life is related to the circumstances of life — Philippians 4:11,12.

2. Capacity is related to status quo in life or lifestyle — Hebrews 13:5,6.

3. Capacity is related to the super-grace life — 2 Corinthians 9:8.

4. Capacity is related to prosperity and blessing — 1 Corinthians 6:6.

“is” is the present active indicative of e)imi. This is a static present tense for a principle of doctrine which always exists for the super-grace believer in time. The active voice: the super-grace status with capacity for life, love, happiness, blessing, produces the action of this verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the action from the viewpoint of reality. This should be translated “keeps on being.”

“great gain” — predicate adjective megaj followed by the predicate nominative of the substantive porismoj. It should be translated “a great means of prosperity.”

Translation: “But godliness associated with capacity for life keeps on being a great means of prosperity.”

Verse 7 — the promise of grace prosperity.

1. A conclusion is no stronger than its premise.

2. The premise stated in this verse is obvious. It is obvious that we brought nothing into the world and that we will take very little out.

3. We are born with nothing, we die with nothing [materialistic things].

So we might say both ingress and egress from the world are accompanied by nothing. Ingress is when you are born; egress is when you die. You are born with nothing, you die with the same. In between you have something. Whether you ever enjoy that something or make the most of that something depends on Bible doctrine. When you die you got out with nothing plus salvation, plus the fact that you had SG² when you die means to have dying grace, plus SG³ forever. The unbeliever came in with nothing and goes out with the same nothing, but nothing is ever the same once you become a believer. If you get to super-grace then nothing will be something forever.

4. Whatever we have in time we have for a short time. But we are going to take things with us. Anything we can pack in our souls we will take with us, and anything we can pack in our souls we can use now.

5. Therefore happiness is not what we possess but the state of our soul.

6. The believer takes his soul with him to heaven.

7. The premise for verse 7 says that capacity for life is more important than what we possess.

8. We can only enjoy what we possess when it is accompanied by capacity for life.

9. So, once again, the soul and its capacity is the real issue in life’s happiness. You carry your happiness wherever you go or you carry your misery.

10. The soul of the believer, therefore, must be saturated with Bible doctrine for that capacity for life.

“For” is the explanatory use of the conjunction gar. Now we are going to get an explanation of the previous verse.

“we brought” — aorist active indicative of e)isferw. E)ij means into; ferw means to carry. The aorist tense is an ingressive aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb at its beginning. The active voice: the human race is involved here but specifically the believer is producing the action of the verb in our context. The indicative mood is declarative for historical reality. It is true that all of us as believers carried nothing into this life.

“nothing” is the accusative neuter singular direct object of o)udeij which can mean “not one thing” or “nothing.”

“into this world” is a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun, translated “this.” Plus kosmoj in the accusative. It is translated correctly, “into this world.”

This means:

1. We entered the world without things and without capacity for things.

2. Capacity is the inner soul attitude while things are the possessions of life generally associated with happiness.

3. This verse will go on to show that we can take nothing out of this world except that capacity for life based on the inner residency of doctrine.

4. The material things of life with which we have been blessed do not accompany us to heaven.

5. However, our soul goes to heaven so we do take our capacity — we’ll need it up there.

6. But we did not have capacity when we entered this world. We entered without capacity, we can leave with capacity. (Reversionists do not)

7. This capacity for life developed totally under the grace of God which began at the point of salvation and continues through growth in grace — constant study, persistent intake of Bible doctrine.

8. The capacity for life which results from super-grace status goes with us to heaven because it is directly related to doctrine. It is doctrine.

9. When the believer gets his priorities right his perspective is right.

10. When you have your eyes on the Lord or occupation with Christ you have your eyes on the source of blessing. That is a part of perspective, a part of priorities. The Lord must have # 1 priority.

11. Therefore the blessing becomes meaningful because it is always related to the source.

12. God’s gifts of prosperity are merely a reminder of His presence, that He is the source.

13. The only way to enjoy blessing is to enjoy the blesser. We may leave the blessings behind at death but we go on to see the blesser face to face, and the blesser who provides blessings in time provides greater blessings in heaven.

14. Doctrine resident in the soul not only causes us to see the unseen but doctrine in the soul guarantees that we will not forget the blesser while we are enjoying His blessings. We enjoy what we have but we always relate it to who and what Jesus Christ is.

“and it is certain” — the conjunction o(ti which is generally preceded in the idiom by the word dhlon. But dhlon doesn’t occur here, yet it is implied, this is an idiom. And o(ti plus dhlon means “it is evident [obvious].”

“that we can carry nothing out” — the adverb o)ude which means “nothing,” the present passive indicative of dunamai. The present tense is a static present, we never will be able. The passive voice means we do not have the ability to die and take things with us. The indicative mood is the reality of this. Then it is followed by the aorist active indicative of e)kferw which means to carry out.

“nothing” — tij, the indefinite pronoun. This is a way of saying “nothing” but representing a specific category of things. “It is obvious that neither are we able to carry out anything.” In other words, when we transfer from time to eternity the only thing we carry with us is what is located in our souls.

Translation: “For nothing have we brought into this world, it is also obvious that neither are we able to carry everything out.”

Verse 8 —

1. This provides the minimum standard for contentment.

2. The minimum standard of necessities of life linked with capacity for life from doctrine resident in the soul produce maximum happiness. You can have just food and clothing and be very happy.

3. You do not have to have very much to be very happy.

4. Therefore the secret to happiness is not what you have but Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

5. With doctrine in the soul what you possess or do not possess is never an issue.

6. With doctrine in your soul you can be happy with the barest necessities of life. This doesn’t mean this is going to be your status, it means that you can be.

7. Therefore there is a principle which precedes prosperity which has been ignored by the reversionists of verse 5 who have assumed that being prosperous is being godly.

Verse 8 — “And” is a transitional particle de without any contrast intended. It is really translated here “Now.”

“having” — the present active participle of e)xw which means to have or to have and to hold. The present tense is a customary present for what may be reasonable expected to occur. If you have maximum doctrine in your soul you have capacity for happiness, for life, for love, for blessing. But the point is, even if all you have is clothing and food you still have the maximum happiness. In other words, anything you have above food and clothing doesn’t add anything to your maximum happiness. What you have in your soul is what counts. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb. The participle is a circumstantial participle.

“food and raiment” — diatrofh means something that is edible and nourishing plus skepasma which means something that covers the body. Both of these are in the plural. It should be “nourishing foods and clothes.” The plural tells us that you have to have more than one change of raiment. The plurals indicate the need for some variety in food and for some variety in clothes. Here are two of the three basic necessities of life. What is missing is shelter. You can be very happy with food and clothing. They are necessary to be alive; shelter is not. So food and clothing are the minimum standards of possession for happiness. If you are not happy it is not because of what you have it is because of lack of doctrine in the soul.

“let us be therewith content” — we have here the future passive indicative of a)rkew which means not only to be content but it is technical for capacity for life. It means here “we shall be content,” or emphasising the imperative connotation, “let us be content.” But the imperative does not come from the mood, it comes from the tense. This is the imperative future tense expressing a command to a believer with doctrine resident in his soul. All commands are generally given in the mood. The imperative mood in the Greek is the mood of command, and if it has a negative it is the mood of prohibition. There are other ways of expressing a command. A participle can express a command, but the most unusual way is to go to a tense to express a command. The future tense is sometimes used to express a command, a carry-over from the Hebrew where the imperfect tense often expresses the imperative mood, and the future tense is like the imperfect, it indicates that there is still something in the future that you must do. So the imperative future expresses a command to a believer who already has doctrine in his soul, and it anticipates the fact that he will obey the command or it will be fulfilled in his case. We do not need things or promotion or wealth or prosperity for happiness but we do need doctrine in the soul. This command can only be fulfilled, then, when the believer is in super-grace status, having maximum doctrine resident in his soul. This maximum doctrine gives him great capacity for life. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb. This is part of the imperative future, it is an idiom, and it should be indicated that only super-grace believers fulfil it. The indicative mood is the reality of the command from God, and we can translate it “let us have our capacity for life.”

We also have with this a dative neuter plural from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj. Demonstratives are very important in the Coin Greek, they emphasise objects near at hand or objects far away. This word o(utoj always picks up an object near at hand and emphasises it. If the object is far away in the context then you have e)keinoj. The two things that are very close in the context here are food and raiment. This is a dative of reference indicating minimum standards of possession for capacity for happiness, capacity for life.

Translation: “Now having nourishing foods and a change of clothes we shall be content with these things.”

Summary

1. Believers under the category of labour can have minimal things in life and maximum happiness. The possession of things does not determine the happiness of the believer.

2. Happiness and contentment originates from super-grace capacity for life. It is a part of paragraph SG².

3. Therefore you do not possess happiness symbols or status symbols in order to have happiness.

4. Happiness and capacity for life is Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

The doctrine of happiness

1. Definition. Happiness is defined as a state of well-being. Happiness is synonymous with welfare and prosperity. Happiness is the enjoyment of and the pleasure in one’s status in life, the enthusiasm about one’s circumstances, one’s possessions, and one’s relationships. Blessedness is another English word for happiness, it refers to happiness related to God and His plan of grace. For this reason “blessed” occurs frequently in the KJV. Happiness becomes the state of quality of being happy. Happiness in its full extent is the utmost pleasure we are capable of enjoying. Generally, then, happiness connotes welfare, enjoyment, comfort, security, stimulation, interest.

Happiness is the awareness that one’s status is highly satisfactory, being in a favourable or advantageous set of circumstances, and all of this is related to the soul.

2. The relationships of happiness.

a) In Psalm 128 happiness is related to prosperity. Occupation with Christ produces happiness.

b) Happiness is also related to adversity — 1 Peter 3:14; 4:14.

c) Happiness is related to the intake of doctrine — “happinesses” (pl), is related to paragraph SG². Proverbs 3:13 relates happiness to Bible doctrine in the soul. The Hebrew word in that passage for “wisdom” is chakamah and it means doctrine in the soul.

d) Happiness is related to grace function — Proverbs 14:21.

e) Happiness is related to grace status — Psalm 146:5.

f) Occupation with Christ characterises super-grace and happiness goes along with it — Proverbs 16:20; 28:14.

g) Happiness is related to a clear conscience — Romans 14:22.

h) Happiness is also related to the laws of divine establishment — Proverbs 29:18.

i) Happiness is also related to total military victory — Psalm 137:8,9.

j) Happiness is related to national prosperity — Psalm 144:15.

3. Happiness is related to the essence of God. There are three persons in the Godhead and they all have identical essence. When the Bible says God is one it is emphasising essence. When the persons of the Godhead are distinguished — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — then there is an emphasis on person. In essence the members of the Trinity all have sovereignty, absolute righteousness, justice, love, eternal life, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability, veracity. God in His essence, because He has these characteristics, also has absolute happiness. Psalm 43:4 — David’s dancing is related to the fact that God has perfect happiness and shares it through the race principle of the altar. Jesus Christ is God and He is said to be happy in 1 Timothy 6:15 (Greek).

4. Happiness must be related to the plan of God. God can’t have a plan without inserting happiness into it. A perfect God can only come up with a perfect plan. God has +H and it is inevitable that His plan will include provisions whereby the beneficiaries of His plan receive +H. That is the whole point of doctrine. Psalm 97:12. Christ satisfied the holiness of God on the cross. Therefore God is free to give us happiness under certain conditions of doctrine in the soul and still not compromise His character. Habakkuk 3:18; Psalm 9:4.

5. Happiness is accomplished through grace — Psalm 31:7. In grace God found a way to share His happiness with believers in time without compromising His essence, and now since happiness means benefit, welfare, grace happiness comes through the intake of Bible doctrine. Psalm 32:10 — “Many are the sorrows of the reversionist, but the one who trusts in the Lord grace will completely envelop him.” Psalm 32:11; John 17:13.

Verses 9 & 10, the occupational hazards of management.

Verse 9 — “But” is the adversative use of the conjunctive particle de which here sets up a contrast between labour in the previous paragraph and management in this section, verses 9-19.

“they that will” is the present middle participle of boulomai. Boulomai means a sovereign decision that an individual makes. It means a decision based upon what you have in your soul. It should be translated so far, “But those who desire.” The present tense is a customary present indicating that it is honourable for certain believers, led of the Lord, to desire to go into the business of making money. The middle voice is actually a deponent verb, middle in form but active in meaning. Certain young people produce the action of the verb as they become desirous of making a lot of money in life. It is a legitimate thing, it is not wrong to want to make money. It isn’t evil to be rich. The participle is circumstantial to express a principle that it is a good thing, a right thing, a smart thing, to get into some ambition or desire to become a capitalist, to become great in management.

“be rich” — the present active infinitive of the verb plutew. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs. The active voice: in this case the interpretation says that management produces the action of the verb. The infinitive is an infinitive of purpose. It is God’s purpose for certain believers to be rich and then they get doctrine that purpose of God is transferred to them. And they desire to be rich, not in a wrong way in the sense of covetousness or lust, but in the sense of a legitimate desire before the Lord.

Principles

1. This does not refer to an illegitimate desire. It is legitimate for certain believers to desire wealth.

2. However, there is an occupational hazard which we anticipate: If when you become rich you become reversionistic.

3. Under the influence of evil the reversionist seeks to become rich through cosmic systems of evil rather than the grace of God.

4. This means that the reversionist who has made money his master has mixed up priorities.

5. In other words, the principle of cheating, stealing, lying, misrepresenting, using extortion, flattery, hypocrisy, to become rich.

6. The believer who puts money first has the wrong perspective. He is the slave to money.

7. When money is first in one’s scale of values the believer can note the fact that he is now in reversionism.

8. There is nothing wrong with being rich, there is only something wrong with giving money top priority to the exclusion of doctrine or grace function.

9. Since wealth and money is in focus we will consider the issue that the super-grace believer is the master of money, and money is his good slave. The reversionist is the slave to money and money is a cruel taskmaster.

The doctrine of money

1. Definition:

a) Our English word “money” is derived from the Latin moneta which means a mint. It refers to a stamped coin of gold, silver, or other metals used in a medium of exchange.

b) Money is the medium in which prices are expressed, debts are discharged, goods and services are paid for, and bank reserves are held.

c) The term is synonymous with a circulating medium and may be regarded as comprising demand deposits, common money or currency.

d) Money is one of those concepts which is like a teaspoon or an umbrella but unlike an earthquake or a buttercup, definable primarily by the use or purpose which they serve. Money must be defined, then, in terms of its function and related to its value.

e) Money, then, is a medium of exchange whereby goods and services are paid for and debts are discharged. Money is the means of stating the prices of these goods and services as well as expressing debts, salaries, wages, rents, insurance, obligations, and innumerable contracts.

f) Money serves as a reserve for ready purchasing power. Therefore money is the only complete liquid asset.

g) In the ancient world money was used as a store of value.

h) The rise of commercial banking and central banking resulted in a corresponding increase in the importance of money used as reserves for a banking system.

i) Money is unique among economic goods. It is regarded not as wealth but as a device for exchanging and measuring wealth.

j) An increase in the quantity of money in a country does not necessarily constitute and increase in the country’s wealth.

2. The history of money. Different objects have been used for mediums of exchange in the past: slaves, gunpowder, in primitive areas the jawbones of a pig, in Homeric times the ox was used, the elephant in Ceylon, wool, barley, wheat, timber. The most widely used monetary system is gold and silver. Before coins money was used in terms of rings or ingots, bars or shekels, talents or other weight demarcations. Coin type money was first invented by Croesus, king of Lydia, who lived between 561-546 BC. Darius, king of Persia, picked up the concept from Cyrus the Great who had conquered Croesus. Three kinds of coinage actually existed in the New Testament at the time of writing. First of all, the imperial Roman coins. Secondly, the provincial coins, and then the Jews had their own money coined at Caesarea.

3. The Bible teaches the legitimate function of money.

a) For monetary transactions — Genesis 29:3; Jeremiah 32:44. In that span, from Genesis to Jeremiah, the principle is established many times over that money is a legitimate system for business transactions.

b) Money was used to pay taxes — Matthew 22:17-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26.

c) Money is necessary for the function of an economy, therefore it is not wrong or sinful for believers to possess money, even in large amounts.

d) Money, therefore, becomes a very wonderful slave or a cruel master, depending upon one’s spiritual condition — Jude 11.

e) The word for “deceit” in the Greek, planh, connotes three areas of deceit regarding money. First: Money is a means of happiness. But money is not the means of happiness, happiness comes from capacity for happiness and this comes from doctrine resident in the soul; second: Money is the means of security. But security is provided through living grace not through monetary principles — Matthew 6:24-33. Third: Money can buy anything. Anything money can buy that is corruptible is going to corrupt. Everyone has their price is not true of the super-grace believer. There is no price if you have maximum doctrine in your soul, but if you are in reversionism you have a price, and so it becomes a manifestation of reversionism.

f) There are many things, therefore, that money cannot buy. Salvation, for example, true love, security, peace of mind, happiness or stability.

f) While Balaam is an illustration of monetary reversionism the emphasis in doctrine is that money does not provide any of these things.

g) The giving of money is an expression of the royal priesthood is a legitimate function in the Church Age — 2 Corinthians chapters 8 & 9.

h) Consequently money is legitimate. It’s accumulation is legitimate, its spending is legitimate, its giving is legitimate.

i) Therefore it is not carnal, it is not sinful for the believer to possess money. The believer with wealth is not required, by the way, to give all of his money to the church to prove his spirituality. The illegitimate uses of money of bribery, to buy power, to buy love, to corrupt character, are all forbidden.

4. The dangers of money to the unbeliever. The unbeliever cannot purchase with all of the money in the world salvation. Salvation is paid for by Christ on the cross. Money causes the rich man to have the wrong priorities often — Mark 10:25, which deals with a matter of priorities. Money hinders the unbeliever from seeking salvation — Luke 16:19-31. Money has credit with people but no credit with God — Proverbs 11:4, 28. Money does not mean capacity for life — Proverbs 13:7.

5. The principle of monetary reversionism. Three cases: Solomon — Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:2; Balaam — Jude 11; Annanias and Sapphira — Acts 5:1-10. Cf. James 5:1-6.

6. Monetary prosperity is a part of super-grace blessing under paragraph SG². Men like Abraham, David, and Solomon were all blessed with monetary prosperity. Proverbs 13:8.

“fall into” — present active indicative from the compound verb e)mpiptw. It means to fall into something where it is not pleasant. The present tense is a perfective present for the continuation of existing results. It refers to a fact which has come to be in the past and emphasises its present reality now. The active voice: here we see the reversionistic believer producing the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that if you are in super-grace you are the master of money and you will make it a great slave. But if you are a reversionist then money is your master and you are going to be miserable.

“temptation” — the prepositional phrase e)ij plus the accusative of peirasmoj, and it means temptation in the sense of enticement to sin.

“and a snare” — the accusative singular of pagij means a trap. While temptation is an enticement to sin the trap here is self-induced misery of the believer in reversionism having money but no capacity for life. The trap emphasises again the importance of Bible doctrine in the soul and resultant capacity for life.

“and into many foolish and hurtful lusts” — the adjunctive use of kai which should be translated “also.” Then the accusative plural from the adjective poluj meaning numerous, plus the accusative plural of a)nohtoj which means here, “stupid.” The word “hurtful” is blaberaj which means “injurious.” The word “lusts” is e)piqumia. It should read, “also numerous stupid and injurious lusts [desires].”

Summary

1. The lusts include approbation lust, power lust, sex lust, materialism lust, plus the many desires for money, wealth, success, power, status symbols, etc.

2. These desires are related to reversionism. This means a believer having false standards, a believer with confused priorities.

3. These desires are described as injurious and harmful because they exist apart from capacity for life based on doctrine resident in the soul. In other words, putting the cart before the horse. You must have capacity for life before you have the great blessings of life.

4. When doctrine is first these things come in God’s perfect timing and you enjoy them to the maximum.

5. When doctrine is rejected these things become stupid lusts and you walk into the trap of self-induced misery.

6. The objective of the royal family of God in life is to glorify God. This is to be done in prosperity as well as in adversity, but without doctrine you will never do it in prosperity or adversity.

7. The only way that you can fulfil your objective as royal family of God in time is to reach super-grace status and resultant blessings from God. Then the blessings are based upon God’s gracious gift to you and you have the capacity of soul to have maximum happiness from them.

8. But when wealth, success, prosperity, promotion, are attained in reversionism (and they can be) then God is not glorified, the believer is never satisfied; he becomes simply a miserable person with wealth, a miserable person with success, a miserable person with status symbols, nothing ever makes him happy.

9. If your priorities are right then doctrine is first. This principle perpetuated on a daily basis results in reaching the high ground of super-grace and God’s blessings for your life.

10. Right priorities lead to right priorities. Doctrine is that right priority which leads to occupation with Christ, sharing the happiness of God, capacity for life. In this way God is glorified in your life.

“which drown men” — we have o(stij which is a qualitative relative pronoun used to indicate the result of any desire apart from Bible doctrine and doctrinal motivation. So the antecedent goes back to the world “lusts.” The word for “drown” is the present active indicative of buqizw which means to be in too deep, to be browned therefore. The present tense is a customary present for what may be expected to occur when a believer gets into reversionism and distorts doctrine. The active voice: lust or desire produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the viewpoint of the verb from the standpoint of its reality. We also have the accusative plural direct object of the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun to emphasise the category of believer involved in this verse. He is a reversionist, he has distorted doctrine. The category is reversionist under the influence of evil and it should be translated “those.” Then we finally have the accusative plural of a)nqrwpoj which is translated “men.” Drowning actually illustrates the end result and becomes analogous to the sin unto death. Just as there is a painful struggle in drowning, so there is a painful struggle at the end of one’s life. It is an intense struggle.

“in destruction” — e)ij plus the accusative of o)leqroj which means “ruin.” The life is ruined by reversionism. This is where the preposition e)ij takes over the function of e)n. Down toward the end of Coin Greek e)n disappears. It eventually disappeared and was replaced by e)ij, and in modern Greek e)ij does what e)n used to do. This actually started in the first century and this is a case of it.

“and perdition” — a)poleia which means destruction, useless or wasteful destruction. This refers to the sin unto death. It is a waste when God has for each believer a paragraph SG².

Translation: “But those believers who desire to be rich [apart from super-grace blessings] fall into temptation and a trap, also into many stupid and harmful desires, which drown those men in ruin [reversionism] and wasteful destruction.”

Verse 10 — “For” is the explanatory use of the conjunctive particle gar. It means “for you see.”

“the love of money” — this is two words in the Greek, the definite article h( and filarguria which is a compound word: filoj — love; a)rguroj — money or silver. This is, in effect, monetary reversionism. It is a root and the tree is full-blown reversionism. This is the occupational hazard of management especially. “For the love of money,” which mean avarice, cupidity, lust for wealth. It matches in the previous verse the desire to be rich.

“is” is the present active indicative of e)imi. E)imi in the present tense is a static present, it means a situation that always exists under the circumstances portrayed by the subject. Monetary reversionism here. It keeps on being and it never changes, says the static present. The active voice: avariciousness, the love of money, produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is for reality in life.

“the root” — the predicate nominative is singular and minus the definite article. The word for root is r(iza, and the love of money becomes a root. The tree of reversionism has a lot of roots. Love of money is only one of the roots that goes to make up the tree of reversionism. So it is “a root,” it is in the singular. The love of money is the status of the reversionist, and in this status money is the master, the believer is the slave. If money is your master and you are the slave you are in reversionism.

“of all evil” — it should be in the plural here. We have the genitive plural of paj, the adjective translated “all,” and the genitive plural of kakoj, and in the plural it should be “evils.” We have a definite article with kakoj which is used as a demonstrative pronoun to indicate various categories of evil. Evil has many categories. Therefore a better translation is, “For the love of money is a root of all those different kinds [categories] of evil.”

The doctrine of the categories of evil

1. Religion, the worst thing that ever happened to this world. Religion is the greatest expression of Satan’s genius, it is the policy of Satan using this policy as a pseudo grace system. Religion is of Satan. The greatest of all the categories of evil is religion. In religion we always have the Satanic principle of works, of legalism. In religion man seeks to gain the approbation of God by his own works. Christianity is not a religion because in Christianity God seeks man through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. There is a vast difference, then, between grace and legalism or grace and works. In religion we have, therefore, the quintessence of evil. The things that have been done in the name of religion are everything from murder to persecution, and one of them is to steal money from people: making them think that they are going to heaven because they have given money, or making them think that they’re spiritual, or making them think that if they contribute to some cause God is going to bless them. Bible Christianity never asks you for your money.

2. Legalism is a byproduct of religion which overflows into every facet of life, including taboos, social life, manner of dress, deportment, grooming, modus vivendi, etc.

3. Politics. Not all politics is evil, only that which pertains to socialism, social action, and the abuse or distortion of law to try to solve the problems of life. Politics related to the laws of establishment and the proper use of law is good, but politics which seeks to establish a welfare state, interfere with industry and free enterprise, cater to minorities, and establish a double standard for white and black, disarm law-abiding citizens, encourage loafing, and destroy the military, is evil.

4. Psychology is not all evil but it is evil in the sense that it is the human viewpoint of life. It represents two of Satan’s policies: a) that if you are sinful and evil and a nasty person in every way there has to be an explanation why you are the way you are, and if we go back far enough into your background we will discover there certain things that happened in your environment that explain you. b) the panacea is to take you and change your environment, give you better environment, improve your environment. This is evil because it isn’t the answer to life. Psychology and Christianity are antithetical in this area. Psychology also has related fields that express these ideas — sociology, counselling, and psychiatry. All these offer human viewpoint solutions that inevitably become evil. The evil is found in such conclusions as the problems of life are resolved by improved environment or abnormal behaviour that must be explained on the basis of past environment. There is some truth in these things up to a point but they are not panaceas for anything.

5. Revolution is evil as a system which seeks to overthrow the authority of establishment in nationalism. Nationalism is God’s order until the second advent, it is the protection of the human race from self-destruction. Revolution in the name of problem-solving transfers power from establishment to non-establishment types. Revolution is a power grab based on power lust.

6. Internationalism is also a category of evil. This is Satan’s system for the administration of this world in opposition to nationalism. Both political and religious systems of internationalism are in opposition to the Word of God.

“For the love of money is a root of all categories of evil”

1. All these categories of evil have many roots, but the specific root in context is avariciousness.

2. While religion is avaricious people are constantly being victimised by evil gimmicks and money raising systems.

3. Legalism falsely contends that the giving of money to the church is a means of divine blessing.

4. Policy in politics: Money is always a big issue, influence peddling, bribery, plundering the law-abiding citizen in order to take care of the political group.

5. Avariciousness manifests itself in fields of psychology, revolution, and internationalism.

6. In all of these categories of evil — such as religion, legalism, politics, internationalism, psychology, revolution — avariciousness has only one root. Love of money is only one root.

7. Notice the absence of the definite article in front of “root.” There are many other roots which support the tree of reversionism.

“which” — the ablative singular of the relative pronoun o(j. The antecedent is filarguria, “love of money.” The ablative is not the regular use for the expression of means, but it is here. That is why it should be translated “through which.” The reason that the ablative is used for means is when the expression of means is accompanied by an implication of origin or source.

“some” is the nominative masculine plural of the indefinite pronoun tij describing a category of believers, specifically certain believers in management, whose reversion is characterised by avariciousness. By application it applies to any believer in any period of history who under his reversionism has his priorities mixed up and puts money before anything else.

“coveted after” — present middle participle of o(regw which means to stretch out, to reach out for something. It also means to aspire to, to strive for, and it means to long for. It has a good and a bad connotation in the Greek language. Here it has an evil connotation to reach out for something with the idea of longing for it to the point of lust. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present denoting what has begun in the past and continues right up to the present moment. The middle voice is the indirect middle emphasising the fact that the reversionistic believer is the agent producing the action, he is not participating in it, to his own benefit. The participle is circumstantial.

“they have erred” — the aorist passive indicative from the compound verb a)poplanaw. A)po is a preposition meaning from or away from; planaw means to wander, but here it means to swerve from. to deviate from, to be perverted, to go astray. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety — the function of monetary reversionism. The passive voice: the reversionistic believer receives the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical reality of monetary reversionism, following the pattern of all other reversionists in the eight stages.

“from the faith” is incorrect. This is a)po plus the ablative of pistij which here refers to what is believed: doctrine — “who have swerved from the doctrine.” This is the basic problem and why people get their priorities mixed up.

“and pierced themselves” — peripeirw which means to skewer yourself, to impale. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the action of the verb in its entirety but emphasises it from the standpoint of results. Here is the eight stages of reversionism, and in this case monetary reversionism. The result of these stages of reversionism is divine discipline. The indicative mood is the reality of divine discipline accompanying reversionism. This is an accusative plural direct object from the reflexive pronoun e(autou. When the action of the verb is referred back to its own subject it calls for a reflexive pronoun or the occasional use of the reflexive in the middle voice.

“with many sorrows” — the instrumental plural from the noun o)dunh, and it means torments — of mind as well as body: “with many types of pain.” It refers to the intense stage of divine discipline.

Translation: “For the love of money [monetary reversionism] is a root of all those different kinds of evil: through which certain reversionists by intensely desiring it [money], have swerved from doctrine, and have impaled themselves on many types of pain.”

Principles

1. This verse not only amplifies the occupational hazard of certain believers but mechanically relates it to reversionism.

2. In the mechanics of reversionism the apostasy is broken down into two general classifications which coincide with the first four stages of reversionism and then the last four. In effect, this verse tells us when the intensive stage of divine discipline begins: somewhere in the middle of the fourth stage of reversionism.

Verse 11 — “But thou, O man of God” is not referring to Timothy. This is any believer in discipline and it is a sarcastic reminder that you are still saved. This is a vocative to remind each one of us that God never welched on an obligation, never will. We call that immutability. Immutability applied: faithfulness. And you cannot change God. This is a reference to any believer in reversionism, he is still “O man of God.” Believers in management are the ones involved directly here. Their occupational hazard has been used as an illustration to all of us in this area. So this is a sarcastic vocative to teach you what little doctrine you have left. The one doctrine that you should cling to in reversionism is the doctrine of eternal security.

“flee” is the present active of feugw which means to flee, to escape, to avoid, to guard against. Here it means to avoid or escape [reversionism]. This is a descriptive present, it describes what is now going on or will be going on in reversionism. It is a pictorial present which depicts events in the process of occurrence, the various stages of reversionism. The active voice: reversionistic believers are producing it. The imperative mood is a command.

“these things” — demonstrative pronoun o(utoj, it refers to all kinds of reversionism but in context a specific kind which is monetary.

“and” is the connective use of the conjunctive particle de and it should be translated here, “instead.”

“follow after” — present active imperative of diwkw which means to pursue vigorously. The customary present is for what is reasonably expected of every believer, to GAP it today, tomorrow, the next, the next, etc., to keep pursuing Bible doctrine. The believer is to produce the action of the verb and it is a positive command in contrast to the negative of the previous.

“righteousness” — dikaiosunh means super-grace, righteousness in the sense of the honour and integrity of the super-grace life. This is the righteousness of experiential sanctification, the righteousness that comes from maximum doctrine resident in the soul. It is another synonym for the super-grace life.

“godliness” — emphasis on the balance of residency between the filling of the Spirit and doctrine in the soul. We have e)usebeia.

“faith” emphasises maturity on the basis of doctrine. We have pistij and it refers to doctrine resident in the soul.

“love” takes us back to the relaxed mental attitude in the ECS. The accusative singular direct object of a)gaph which means the filling of the Spirit in passages like Romans 5 and Galatians 5, but here it refers to the relaxed mental attitude that comes to the believer who is constructing the ECS.

“patience” means the one characteristic of self-discipline which is absolutely necessary for spiritual growth — u(pomonh. It doesn’t really mean patience so much as self-discipline plus consistency — “perseverance.” It takes a lot of self-discipline, consistent decisions, to come to Bible class or to listen to a tape recorder night after night after night. That is what is meant here, that the road to super-grace is one where you have to keep driving.

“meekness” — you are not teachable unless you have praupaqeia which means a mental attitude of humility or grace orientation.

Translation: “But you. O man of God, keep avoiding these things; instead keep pursuing righteousness, godliness, doctrine, love, perseverance [self-discipline necessary to get to maturity], humility.”

Verse 12 — this does not refer to fighting, it is an athletic metaphor which summarises what we have had in the last few verses. It is a kind of crowning jewel on the solution to the problem of reversionism. We are told to be fighters in the KJV, but that is not correct. Beginning with the word “fight” we have the present middle imperative a)gonizomai. The word means to engage in competition, to compete in the Olympic Games, etc. It means to struggle, to labour, to strive, but its primary is an athletic connotation. It means to function athletically, to be a member of a team or to compete against someone else in some sport. The present tense is a customary present for what may be reasonably expected to occur for the believer who is positive toward doctrine. The middle voice is the indirect middle in which the believer is the agent producing the action of the verb. The imperative mood is an order. The command, then, is to be competing in.

“the good fight” is the accusative singular direct object of the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun. The demonstrative emphasises an object in the immediate context. The definite article is translated “that.” We also have the accusative singular direct object of adjective kaloj which here means “noble.” Then there is a cognate accusative a)gwn which means a contest, a sport — “that noble contest.”

“faith” — the descriptive genitive of pistij referring to doctrine. There is also a definite article used as an intensive pronoun, and it is translated “of the same doctrine.” “Be competing in that noble context of the same doctrine.”

Timothy must get back to studying and teaching as a pastor. Timothy has failed as a pastor because he didn’t have the self-discipline to maintain his studying, and he didn’t have the proper use of his authority. So he needs to learn some doctrine again, study, and then teach. He has to teach with authority. Timothy is not doing his job. He is not studying, he is not teaching, he is doing everything wrong.

The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. This is an athletic metaphor and therefore we need to understand its background at the time of writing.

1. To qualify for any of the various games of the ancient world, such as the Olympics, the athlete had to train in the gymnasium for ten months prior to the contest.

2. The registration of the athlete is comparable to salvation and is analogous, then, to the citizenship. He had to prove he was a citizen. Citizenship is simply a demonstration here by analogy that you have personally believed in Jesus Christ, you are born again.

3. Then the athlete entered the gym for ten months of agonizing self-discipline under very strict rules enforced by game marshals. No wine, no women, no rich foods. Wheat, cheese, figs lean meat.

4. The training was also very physical, but they didn’t train in their event — as a boxer, a wrestler, etc. They had to do all kinds of exercises. When this was completed they were allowed to work on their speciality only at the end of the day. If an athlete loafed he was dismissed from the gym by the judges and was not eligible to compete. This is the word we have in our passage, a)gwnizomai. It means to be working out for ten months in that gym, it means tremendous self-discipline. It becomes a matter of recognising the authority of the system.

All of the way through the system the men who won in games, who were able to compete, became famous in the ancient world. They were great lovers. Their self-discipline overflowed into their love life. They became great soldiers, and they also made great businessmen, successful statesmen. They were good in anything they did because they had all gone through this system and they had learned a principle that all capacity in life is based on self-discipline.

“lay hold” — the aorist middle imperative from a compound verb, e)pilambanw. it is talking to believers so it is not telling believers to get eternal life, they already have it. This word means to take hold of, to seize, to grasp, to obtain, to be concerned with, to take an interest in. Here it means to take hold of. Timothy is already a believer so it means to take hold of the blessings associated with eternal life — paragraph SG². If you get to this point and hold it over dying grace then you have the blessings associated with eternal life. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the acquiring of SG² in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The existing result: If you seize and hold the high ground then you are going to have dying grace and paragraph SG³ forever.

“on eternal life” — or literally, “associated with eternal life.” This is a descriptive as well as a possessive genitive describing phase three or eternity. This command, along with the first, indicates that Timothy has slipped into reversionism.

Philippians 3:12-16 — “Not that I have before now received permanent super-grace status, nor have I before now reached the objective; now then I keep on pressing, that also I might seize and hold the high ground on account of which high ground I was also seized and held by Jesus Christ.

“Brethren [royal family], I evaluate myself as not yet having seized and held [he has seized but he hasn’t held]; but one thing on which I concentrate, forgetting what lies behind, and pressing toward what lies before [he keeps plugging], I keep advancing to the objective [the high ground] for the purpose of reward of the upward station from God in Christ Jesus.

“Therefore, as many as are mature [super-grace believers], let us continue objective type thinking; of you think differently in anything at all [sometimes you do], this God will reveal to you.

“However, with reference to as far as we have progressed, keep moving [advancing] ...”

1 Tim. 6:12 — the blessings of time are related to the blessings of eternity.

“whereunto” is a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the relative pronoun o(j — “into which.” The antecedent is eternal life.

“you are also called” — there is no word for “also” here, we simply have the aorist passive indicative of kalew. This is a constative aorist, it gathers the action of the verb into one entirety. In eternity past every blessing that will come from God in time and eternity was already provided. The only thing that has to come then is eventually in the sequence of time you must come into the world, live in the world, believe in Christ as God knew you would, and you must follow the colours to the high ground, and these blessings are yours under the principle of grace. You already know that if God did all of this for you in eternity past He is going to keep you alive long enough to GAP it, and He is going to provide for you.

“and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses” should be “and you have declared the honourable declaration in the presence of [or before] many witnesses.”

“before many witnesses” is a prepositional phrase. The improper preposition e)nwpion is really an adverb used as a preposition, plus the genitive plural of an adjective poluj which means many, and refers to the fact that while you have privacy under the priesthood you also have contact with many people in life. The word “many” refers to all of the people that you will ever know or see or hear or be around in your life time. Then we have the genitive plural of the noun martuj which simply means here “those who observe you.” So we actually have “in the presence of many observers.” This is also applied to Timothy and in the past many believers observed Timothy’s progress. Many people would have something to say about Timothy. For example, Timothy has been intimidated in his ministry in Ephesus. The tragedy is that this bullying and baiting of Timothy has resulted in his neglect of Bible doctrine. He is looking for some gimmick to assuage the bullies. Timothy has also reacted and withdrawn, he has a very sensitive soul. His sensitive soul causes him to withdraw, this is his reaction. He is trying to be sweet and nice to all of the ladies in the congregation in the assembly. They are not ladies, they are horsy women who are ambitious, feisty; and they are trying to push Timothy around and are doing a good job of it. These are the many witnesses, there are his contacts. He has neglected the very source of his strength and nourishment which is doctrine, so Paul now commands him to get back with it.

Translation: “Be competing in that noble contest of the same doctrine, seize now the blessings and rewards of eternal life, into which you have been elected, and you have declared the honourable declaration in the presence of those who observe you.”

Timothy as a pastor cannot help management with their occupational hazards unless he is faithful in teaching the Word. He cannot help labour in their occupational hazards unless he is faithful in teaching the Word. But Timothy has been bullied into withdrawing. He has given up studying and teaching, he is in a state of shock, he is being pushed around by the bullies of the local church is Ephesus. Therefore, since he has neglected doctrine he cannot teach. If Timothy is to help those in the business world or labour he must return to the principle of study and teach, a principle which he used in the past in the presence of many witnesses.

In verses 13 & 14 we change over to the importance of Bible teaching in problem-solving, a new paragraph.

Verse 13 — “I give thee charge” is the present active indicative of paraggellw and it means to command. Paul is an apostle and he throws his rank — “I order you.” This is a direct order that the Church has ever had on earth, apostleship. The present tense is an aoristic present, punctiliar action in present time. He gives the order now before it is too late to both Timothy and the great church which is at Ephesus. The active voice: Paul uses his rank as an apostle. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of an order from the apostle.

“in the sight of God” — once again we have that improper preposition e)nwpion, and with it the object of qeoj. “I order you before the God.”

We also have a definite article use to denote the essence of God — “who” is used as a relative pronoun in the articular participle; “quickeneth” — the present active participle from a compound verb, zwogonew which means to preserve alive: “who preserves alive.” Once you have accepted Christ as saviour every day you live is by the grace of God. You and I are alive for one reason: because of who and what Jesus Christ is. The devil would have us out of here in two seconds were it not for the fact that greater is He that is in us than he which is in the world. We are here by courtesy of the Lord, we are kept alive by one thing: the Lord wants to bless us in time before we go to heaven. He wants to demonstrate to the fallen angels and to everyone that He can in the devil’s kingdom bless, promote, give happiness, everything that is truly great in life to His own royal family, totally apart from any Satanic system and totally apart from catering to a Satanic system. The active voice: God does the preserving. This is a circumstantial participle that says in effect, as long as you live after you are saved you live by courtesy of the Lord and any time He wants to take you home to heaven he can. But the Lord has a wonderful knack of preserving people on this earth in all kinds of historical adversity, all kinds of difficult situations. He preserves you with one thing in mind and that is to bless you; in effect, to demonstrate to you once and for all the phenomenon of grace, and not only to you but to all angelic creatures who observe. But this blessing depends upon the doctrinal content of your soul, not doctrine in the Word. The Bible must be transferred to your soul in doctrinal teaching.

“all things” is the accusative plural of paj plus the definite article. It is correctly translated “the all things.”

Notice that Timothy is alive because of God’s grace and for no other reason, the same reason we are alive. This principle is known to us as living grace by which God provides everything necessary to keep the believer alive in the devil’s world. “The all things,” then, refers to everything necessary to keep you alive in the devil’s world. God also provides the environment of life. That is, He provides the air that we breathe.

“and before Christ Jesus” — Jesus Christ is their mutual boss, and the Lord Jesus Christ has done something successfully.

“before Christ Jesus” is a continuation of the prepositional phrase without the repetition of the use of the preposition. This is known by the use of the genitive case for the phrase “Christ Jesus.”

“who witnessed” is an articular aorist active participle from the verb marturew. Marturew does not mean witnessing as it is used today for evangelism or personal evangelism. Witnessing here has an entirely different connotation. It means first of all to testify in a court room. This is its correct and original meaning and this is its connotation here. It should be translated “who has testified.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist which gathers into one entirety the complete testimony of Jesus Christ before Pilate which caused Pilate to declare His innocence. In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ in court was finally allowed to testify. In the several trials that He had He was permitted the opportunity of testifying. The active voice: Jesus Christ in the trials before Pilate produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. The testimony which our Lord gave is said to be …

“a good confession” — the accusative direct object of an adjective and a noun, kaloj which means “honourable,” and o(mologia which refers to a deposition here. So it should be translated, “who has testified and honourable deposition before Pontius Pilate.”

We have a problem here. Pontius Pilate is obviously the object of the preposition but the preposition is e)pi plus the genitive case. E)pi as a preposition has three different meanings depending upon the case of the object. For example, with the accusative case it emphasises motion or direction. It is translated “up to, to, or over.” With the locative case it emphasises position and means “on” or “over.” But, as here, with the genitive case it emphasises contact. Hence, e)pi means “on, at, or before.”

Translation: “I order you before the God, who preserves alive the all things, and Christ Jesus who has testified an honourable deposition before Pontius Pilate.”

This brings us into focus with the various trials of our Lord Jesus Christ. In some of them Jesus Christ was not permitted testimony at all, or His testimony was immediately distorted. furthermore, of the many trials which our Lord had some of them were illegal even by laws under which the trial was called. For example, our Lords first trial after His arrest is recorded in John 18:12-14. This was really not a legitimate trial at all because it was before Annas who was not at the time the high priest. Actually, Annas was a gangster dictator in Jerusalem. There was a time when he was the high priest but at the time his son-in-law Ciaphas was the actual high priest. So after the arrest of our Lord why did they take Him immediately to the palace of Annas? Contemporary Jewish history tells us that Annas was the political boss in Israel at this time. He had been the high priest personally for six years. During his time in office he had enriched himself to the point where he was a millionaire many times over as a leader of a gangster syndicate. After his tenure of office in six years he passed the office among his sons, so five of his sons in turn had been the high priest but in effect Annas was their boss. Now he had run out of sons so he came to his son-in-law, Caiaphas. So being wealthy and powerful and a gangster in his own right Annas had enjoyed the power lust principle of being the ruler of the Jews behind the scenes. Therefore any major decision being made at this time in Jerusalem had to be cleared with Annas. Inasmuch as our Lord had been arrested and this was going to cause a great deal of problems the first thing they had to do was to check it with Annas. Being a Sadducee Annas was not troubled by any religious fanaticism of any kind. Since he owned all of the concessions in the temple and made a great deal of profit every years from these concessions — like money changers — his objection to the Lord was that it broke in to his concessions to have our Lord driving the money changers out of the temple and demonstrating that they had no right to be there. It was his pocket book that was hurting and therefore as a political boss behind the scenes he was antagonistic toward the Lord, but not for the usual religious reasons. There is no biblical record of what happened before Annas. Apparently he gave his consent to go ahead and try to remove Jesus Christ from life.

From the palace of Annas Jesus was taken to the palace of Caiaphas who was the legitimate high priest at the time. We have, then, what might be called a second trial — Matthew 26:57-68; John 18:19-24. Some of the things Matthew said:

The court was assembled at night and under Jewish law this was illegal. The court indicated its own prejudice by attempting to find two witnesses who would purjure themselves. Under Jewish law there could be no indictment without two witnesses, and the two witnesses had to agree or there was no indictment at all. This court was really an attempt to railroad our Lord to death. There was also no defence attorney and this in itself was a violation of Jewish law. There was no indictment and there was no quorum. To try a capital case there had to be a quorum of 23 members of the Sanhedrin and there were not 23 members present. In capital cases the defenso always had the opportunity to speak first, and it was no so in this case. If the accused was acquitted he could be pronounced not guilty the same day, but if the accused was pronounced guilty he could not be sentenced until the next day. Therefore all of this procedure was set aside and the Jews violated their very excellent law.

The two greatest systems of law the world has ever known met in these trials. There was Jewish law which was excellent, and there was also Roman law. The laws of both Rome and Israel met and historically throughout all of human history these are two of the better systems of law.

The procedure against Jesus was illegal all the way. In casting the vote against a person for guilty they had to first start with the youngest members of the Sanhedrin, and each one cast his vote publicly. The youngest members were always supposed to go first because they had a tendency to be influenced by the older heads. But this was not the case in this trial. Furthermore, there was never to be violence in the courtroom and there was never to be violence toward the accused. This is the same as admission of prejudice. This trial concluded with great violence which, of course, had no place in their courts.

There are about 15 different illegalities involved in this first trial of the Sanhedrin. Because of this a third trial was held after dawn in order to correct this procedure. In fact it was so gross that even the judges themselves recognised it and they decided to try and improve it in the morning and be a bit more legal about killing Jesus. Immediately you see the prejudice of the court. In daylight, therefore, we have a trial before the fully-assembled Sanhedrin in order to make it legal. There is more than a quorum now, and this particular trial is found in Luke 22:66-71. The details are a mockery. The attempt to conform to the daylight clause is ludicrous. In the trial they had already made up their minds, no evidence was forthcoming. There was no basis for an indictment and therefore under the principle that you are innocent until your are proven guilty Jesus Christ should never have even been brought to trial. But they had already decided that they were going to get rid of him and they were going to use the law in that regard. The Sanhedrin began to search for someone who would fulfil the principle of the law and make an indictment, declare themselves a witness, and they had to get two witnesses to agree. Furthermore, there was a great deal of violence in the courtroom, they slapped Jesus Christ, they punched Him, they spat upon Him, they mocked Him, they did everything that is absolutely contrary not only to Jewish law but any bona fide system of law in history. The questioning was designed to formulate a charge and they actually tried to get Him to convict Himself, which is illegal under Jewish law.

They suddenly discovered, much to their amazement, that they were in the Passover season. They had a period of eight days, therefore, in which they could not even carry on a trial. First there is the Passover which is one day, and then there are seven days of the feats of unleavened bread. No courtroom procedure was legal during this time. They recognised that they had no means of killing Jesus Christ during the next eight days. Their desire to destroy Him immediately was obviously Satanic in its concept.

In John 18:28-38 we have the first of two trials recognised by God the Holy Spirit in 1 Timothy 6:13. The Holy Spirit recognises only the two Roman trials. There were two trials before this. There were three trials before the Jews and there was one Arab trial and two Romans trials. It was the custom of Roman, wherever Rome went, to follow its laws assiduously. That means that any Roman governor as in the case of Pontius Pilate, when he becomes a judge, he must adhere to Roman law. There were three kinds of people in the Roman empire who were under this law. There was the senator and the aristocrat. The procedures of law were the same as for anyone else but when it came time to sentence a senator or an aristocrat the punishment was slightly different. The second were the Roman citizens wherever they were found, and the third were non-citizens living under the Roman empire. The procedure for determining innocence of guilt was the same in all three categories.

Obviously the political crowd of the Sanhedrin and the religious crowd had combined to bring accusation. So first of all Pontius Pilate listened to these accusations, but it finally dawned on him that there was one thing that they kept mentioning: Jesus Christ was king of the Jews. He listened here because obviously this is a Roman province and a Roman province doesn’t have a king, it has a governor. Apparently out of all the things that these Jewish leaders were bringing into court this was the only thing that made sense. He began to interrogate our Lord as to whether He was the king of the Jews and Jesus said, “Yes.” So on what basis was He the king of the Jews? And before he was through Pontius Pilate himself was convinced that Jesus was the king of the Jews. He heard His genealogy, he heard the basis for the allegation, and his decision was that what Jesus Christ said in His testimony was correct and that he had in the court room the king of the Jews. Pontius Pilate never changed his mind about that. His weakness was that he was going to distort Roman law for political expediency. The Roman law was not weak, Pontius Pilate was weak. He was weak because for political reasons he accepted the testimony of Jesus Christ as correct, and not only so but he made public declaration that what Jesus said was true. He is the king of the Jews. Roman law had no prejudice in the matter.

Therefore it can be seen why God the Holy Spirit would mention this trial. It can be seen why this whole case was a case of judicial murder. Having examined Jesus Christ as an unprejudiced interrogator Pontius Pilate had decided that He was innocent, but because of the great political pressure put on him he decided to pass the buck. Therefore we have a fifth trial, and Arab trial. He was sent before Herod — Luke 23:8-12. Realising that he had a political hot potato, Pilate was looking for an out and he found it. When it was stated that Jesus was a Galilean he sent Him to Herod. Herod being Arab and the ruler in Galilee, when Jesus came into his court, it was just a ludicrous and ridiculous function. Herod didn’t want a trial. In fact the Arabs had no law that could be applied. Herod had nothing to say but he had heard about Jesus and he considered Him a rival because He said He was the king of the Jews and it was Herod’s ambition at this time to be the king of all the Jews. He wanted to take over the Roman province of Judea as a part of his kingdom. But he had a typical Arab curiosity, he wanted to know about these miracles that had been performed. He was looking for a performance and there was none. He never forgave Jesus for that. What kind of a courtroom procedure was that? The miracles of our Lord were designed to prove His Messiahship, that He was what He claimed to be. They were not designed to simply entertain people or even to merely alleviate suffering. They were designed to demonstrate the hypostatic union. Therefore to show a miracle to an Arab was totally incompatible with the first advent. When Jesus wouldn’t perform a miracle He was abused. They dressed Him up like a king and He was mocked and ridiculed.

The final trial was also a Roman trial — John 18:39-19:16. Convinced of the innocence of Jesus, Pilate now attempts to release Him. He made three attempts. Here is the judge who is hamstrung by political pressure but he is still trying his best to get Jesus off the hook. He sought to release Jesus through the custom at the Passover for a Roman governor to release to the Jews some notorious prisoner who had been already condemned to death. It backfired when the crowd demanded the release of Barabbas. His second attempt — Matthew 27:24,25. He had just declared the innocence of our Lord under Roman law and by a symbolic act he washed his hands publicly in front of the entire crowd, and in the custom of washing hands he indicated that this person was innocent and therefore if He is executed it is a judicial murder. Cf. Deuteronomy 21:6-9. Using this Jewish custom was most unusual for a Roman governor and must have shocked the Jewish hierarchy. Some thirty years later on the very spot on the pavement where he washed his hands the Romans crucified 36,000 Jews. In his third attempt Pontius Pilate steps out on the balcony of his Praetorium. He had once again discussed the whole thing with our Lord because He was innocent and he knew it. So he appealed to their sympathy. He sent Jesus Christ down into the basement of the Praetorium and this gave the Roman soldiers the chance for a little amusement. They stripped Him and they scourged Him. They then brought Him up on the balcony with the Roman governor and he put Him out before the crowd and said, “Here is your king.” He thought that the scourging would have brought the Jews to their senses, but it didn’t, and all he heard from that balcony was, “Crucify Him, crucify Him.”

A Roman at this point has the chance to go down in history as a great Roman or as a great coward. Pontius Pilate chose expediency and cowardice and he goes down in history just that way. The voice of the people doesn’t mean a thing, even the Romans understand that. Pilate’s weakness had to do with political pressure. The Jews had gone behind his back too many times to Caesar and as a result he thought he could win the Jews back to his side. Therefore he sent our Lord to the cross.

There are many passage son this subject: 1 Corinthians 1:22 — the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. The Jews had seen the sign. When Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he had seen the sign. The Gentiles observed the trials. The centurion said, “Truly, this was the Son of God” — Matthew 27:54. Then we have the testimony of the apostle Paul speaking through God the Holy Spirit — 1 Timothy 6:13.

Verse 14 — “That thou keep” is the aorist active infinitive of the verb threw. When you have threw with the accusative of the noun e)ntolh it is an order. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety the action of the verb, i.e. the preservation of this order. Threw can mean a number of things that are related, to guard, to keep, to hold, to preserve. Timothy must produce the action of the verb by guarding or keeping this command. This is an infinitive of purpose. The accusative singular direct object of the definite article is used as a demonstrative pronoun, plus the accusative singular of e)ntolh, and it is translated “I order you to keep this commandment.” It is a reference to the commandment which was given in the previous verse.

“without spot” — the accusative singular direct object of the noun a)spiloj which means spotless or unsullied. It is actually a reference to grieving the Holy Spirit which is carnality or the production of sins from the old sin nature. This is followed by another accusative translated “unrebukeable” — a)nepilhmptoj which means irreproachable and refers to the quenching of the Holy Spirit. So when the two are put together we actually have a dissertation on the sins against the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of sins against the Holy Spirit

1. Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit has a certain specific relationship with members of the human race obviously there are certain ways in which the third Person of the Trinity can be offended. Remember that the Holy Spirit is God and it is easy for anyone with an old sin nature to specifically offend the third Person of the Trinity. Since the human race is divided into two categories, according to John 3:36, the sins against the Holy Spirit are also divided into two categories. The two categories of John 3:36 are believers and unbelievers. The cross is a divider, an attitude towards the cross divides the human race. Therefore it is quite logical for the scriptures to develop sins against the Holy Spirit which are committed only by unbelievers, and then sins against the Holy Spirit which can only be committed by believers.

2. There are two basic sins which only the unbeliever can commit against the Holy Spirit. The first of these is called blasphemy against the Spirit and it is found in Matthew 12:14-32. The second is called resistance of the Holy Spirit — Acts 7:51 These cannot be committed by a believer, they can only be committed by an unbeliever. Then we have a second category: sins which only the believer can commit against the Holy Spirit. There are three of them: lying to the Spirit — Acts 5:3; quenching the Holy Spirit — 1 Thessalonians 5:19; grieving the Holy Spirit — Ephesians 4:30.

3. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — Matthew 12:14-32. This is also called the unpardonable sin. It is to ascribe to Jesus Christ the works of Satan during the time when Jesus Christ was on the earth. Actually, there was a span of only about three years when this sin could be committed. During three years when our Lord was presenting Himself as Messiah to Israel and having a specific ministry it was possible for anyone who was an unbeliever who came into contact with Jesus Christ, who saw His miracles, who heard His messages, and who said that He is doing all of this in the power of Beelzebub to commit this sin. When this is a system of rejection the Holy Spirit was involved. This type of rejection of Christ, again, could only be committed during the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, it can’t be committed today. It couldn’t be committed after the resurrection and it couldn’t be committed before Jesus Christ began His public ministry by turning water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. Actually, it is a sin of rejecting Jesus Christ as saviour and it was committed only by Jewish unbelievers who were reversionistic, who rejected the signs of Messiahship because of their unbelieving souls. It is called the unpardonable sin, and it is ascribing to Jesus Christ power from Satan to perform miracles, power from Satan to give great messages. It is tantamount, then, to rejecting Christ as personal saviour. It is no longer an issue today except that in Matthew 12 it demonstrates that when anyone refuses to believe in Jesus Christ in principle that person has committed a sin against the Holy Spirit.

4. The resistance of the Holy Spirit is any person during the course of human history, from the fall of Adam to the end of the Millennium, rejecting Jesus Christ as saviour. There are a number of passages dealing with it — Acts 7:51. The reason is found also in a number of passages, for example in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “the soulish man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.” One of the functions of God the Holy Spirit in human history is to act as a human spirit when the gospel is presented and to make the gospel clear. resistance of the Holy Spirit is the unbeliever who finally understands the gospel and says no. The unbeliever, again, does not have a human spirit nor any means of understanding spiritual truth and therefore God the Holy Spirit takes whatever gospel is given and makes it perspicuous to the unbeliever. This was first taught in Genesis 6:3 — “And Jehovah [God the Father] said, My Spirit [the Holy Spirit] shall not convince inside of man forever.” In this passage it says that the Holy Spirit would keep striving until the flood. Once the flood came all unbelievers were going to die and they wouldn’t have any more chance. The big thing about that verse is not the fact that they still have 120 years before the flood, it is that God the Holy Spirit as long as you are alive will keep working on the unbeliever. Once he has heard the gospel the Holy Spirit will bring that into focus as long as he lives. Therefore, as long as a person is alive he can be saved. The presentation of the gospel must be true and accurate, that is all. God the Holy Spirit does the rest. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit is so described in John 16:7-11 — no royal family, no special ministry of the Spirit. Verse 8 — “ … He will convince you concerning sin, concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.” These three are described so that we are not led astray.

Verse 9 — “Concerning sin because they do not believe in me.” The only sin that the Holy Spirit deals with is the sin of rejection of Christ, for that is the issue in the gospel. This is not the multitude of personal sins, that is not the issue. The issue is believing or not believing in Christ.

Verse 10 — “Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer see me.” In other words, once Jesus Christ is ascended He is accepted at the right hand of the Father. He has a perfect righteousness and when you believe in Christ you receive that righteousness and you are acceptable to God the Father. You can get into heaven in spite of what a mess you may be on the earth! So concerning righteousness deals with imputation and justification.

Verse 11 — “Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world [Satan] has been judged.” He was judged at the cross. And therefore because of these things God the Holy Spirit has the wonderful and glorious ministry of taking gospel information and making it a reality in your soul.

The sin of resisting the Holy Spirit, then, is found in certain passages where rejecting the gospel is resisting the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Notice that it isn’t resisting the one who is witnessing, it is resisting the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 1:18 — “For the preaching of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness; but to us who are saved it is the power of God.” Also 2 Corinthians 4:3,4. Note that this sin of resisting the Holy Spirit can only be committed by the unbeliever and it is tantamount to rejecting Christ as saviour. Therefore it is imperative to remember that whether it is called blasphemy against the Holy Spirit or resisting the Holy Spirit this is simply rejection of Christ as saviour.

5. Sins against the Holy Spirit committed only by believers. Lying to the Holy Spirit is committed by the believer in reversionism. Remember that Annanias and Sapphira were believers, jealous believers. They were jealous of Barnabas who had sold his property in Cyprus and had given all of the money to the church. He didn’t have to but he wanted to. In this case it was a bona fide gift from a believer with enough maturity to know what he was doing. Annanias and Sapphira up to this time were the biggest givers in the Jerusalem church and they were quite proud of it, they were arrogant. There had never been any pressure because they were the biggest givers. Now along comes Barnabas and drops a lot of money into the church and they suddenly have pressure on them which made them very jealous. Because they were jealous of Barnabas under this pressure they were not going to be outdone. They had a big piece of property and under the principle of reversionistic one-upmanship they sold this property and figured how much it would take to make it look a little bit better than Barnabas. So they put just a little bit more than Barnabas had in the coffers. The problem was they said they were giving all of the profits when they were not. It was a lie that they were telling, but it was more than a lie. A lie is a verbal sin. The problem here was that it was also a part of a mental attitude cluster — pride and jealousy. Pride is buried for the moment, jealousy emerges. Therefore they have committed this whole packet of sins which is called lying to the Holy Spirit. Peter asked: “Why hath Satan filled your right lobe?” The filling of the right lobe by Satan is the same as demon influence and it is the last three stages of reversionism. It wasn’t really the telling of the lie itself, it was the attempt to deceive everyone and to take credit to themselves under this system.

6. Grieving the Holy Spirit is a reference to the sins of the reversionistic believer. We must learn to distinguish between the believer out of fellowship while he is advancing to super-grace. He is still positive and he is said to be carnal. But he rebounds and gets back into fellowship very quickly, keeping short accounts, and he never neglects doctrine. That is carnality and is not the same as what we have in grieving the Spirit. When a negative believer gets out of fellowship he stays put of fellowship, it is a part of reversionism — rejection of rebound, along with other doctrines. This is the area of grieving the Holy Spirit. These two are not the same. Grieving the Holy Spirit must be distinguished from carnality, it is the persistent sinfulness of the reversionistic believer, as in Ephesians 4:30,31.

7. Quenching the Holy Spirit — 1 Thessalonians 5:19. This is a sin against the Holy Spirit emphasising the reversionistic believer under the influence of evil and producing human good. It must be remembered that the function of evil in reversionism produces both sinfulness as well as human good. Grieving the Spirit emphasises the sinfulness of the reversionist whereas quenching the Spirit emphasises the human good produced by the reversionist.

Verse 14 — “I order you to keep this commandment unsullied, irreproachable, until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Rapture of the church, not the second advent.

The doctrine of the Rapture of the Church

1. While rapture is defined as the act or fact of being transported, a state of emotional ecstasy, a state of being rapt or carried out of one’s self, it is used here in a technical theological sense of the resurrection of the royal family of God. There is a first resurrection. Jesus Christ is Alpha Company, He has already been raised from the dead and is the only one who has been raised. The Church Age is the age for the calling out of the royal family of God. The resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus Christ makes Him a third category of royalty. He is royalty by deity, He is royalty by physical birth [son of David], He is royalty by virtue of being seated at the right hand of the Father where He receives the new title, King of kings and Lord of lords. Now He needs a royal family, so the Church Age is the calling out of the royal family. When the royal family is completed we have Bravo Company going up — the Rapture, believers of this dispensation only, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Then we have the Tribulation, the end of the Jewish Age, which is divided into two parts. In this period we have the greatest evangelism in history and at the end of that time we have the second advent, at which time we have the resurrection of believers in the Old Testament. Then at the end of the Millennium we have the resurrection of those believers who died in the Tribulation. The Rapture is the removal of the Church, the royal family of God, from the earth so that we can be prepared by the judgment seat of Christ to return with Christ at the second advent.

2. The doctrine of the imminency of the Rapture. While the second advent cannot occur until certain prophetical events are fulfilled, the Tribulation and all that it contains, the Rapture or resurrection of the Church is imminent, it could occur at any time. 1 Corinthians 1:7 and Titus 2:13 tells us that it could have occurred during the lifetime of Paul. No scripture has to be fulfilled before the Rapture occurs — James 5:8. This means that the Rapture could occur at any time. No one knows the day, no one knows the hour.

3. The promise of the Rapture — John 14:1-3. The Rapture makes it possible for Jesus Christ to keep His promise to the Church.

4. The Rapture or the resurrection. The Rapture gives every member of the royal family of God [every Church Age believer] a resurrection body exactly like that of the Son of God, minus the scars in the hands and the feet — Philippians 3:20,21; 1 Corinthians 15:54-56; 1 John 3:1,2.

5. The principle of confidence in the Rapture. The daily function of GAP [intake of doctrine] produces confidence regarding the Rapture, according to Titus 2:13. To the believer with doctrine in the right lobe the Rapture is a source of comfort in time of bereavement — Philippians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 4:18. Our old English word “hope” is the Greek word e)lpij and it is used many times in connection with the Rapture. It means confidence rather than hope, and it is used in connection with the Rapture. The Rapture is said to be a living hope in 1 Peter 1:3; it is said to be a blessed hope in Titus 2:13; it is said to be a purifying hope in 1 John 3:3.

6. Characteristics of the Rapture are at least fourfold. a) The Rapture takes the sting out of death — 1 Corinthians 15:54-56; b) The application of the doctrine of the Rapture provides stability for the royal family in phase two — 1 Corinthians 15:58; c) The Rapture removes hysteria and hopelessness in time of bereavement — 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; d) The Rapture is the rendezvous for both the living and dead members of the royal family of God — 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17.

7. The Rapture is a part of ultimate sanctification — Ephesians 5:27. The resurrection or the Rapture is also the means of providing each member of the royal family of God with a body minus the old sin nature. After the Rapture comes the judgment seat of Christ at which all of our human good is burned because there is no place in heaven or in the plan of God for human good once you are in a resurrection body.

Verses 15 & 16 is a new paragraph dealing with the subject of occupation with the person of Christ. The Rapture becomes the basis of pausing to think about our Lord, to focus our attention on Him, and a reminder to Timothy that having once been more advanced than he was at this moment it is time for him to get back to that principle of getting his eyes on the Lord.

The doctrine of occupation with Christ

1. Occupation with Christ is the highest spiritual function of the believer in time. It is not something that you develop or acquire by practice, it is something you receive by persistence in the function of GAP. It is the normal function of a mature believer. It is the inhale-exhale principle of the mature believer; it is category #1 love in a super-grace believer. Since Christ is the manifest person of the Godhead it becomes maximum love toward the Godhead, but specifically toward Christ. Therefore occupation with Christ is maximum expression of worship in time. E.g. Deuteronomy 6:5. The power is the inner residency of doctrine. Hebrews 12:1,2.

2. Occupation with Christ begins at the moment the believer enters the super-grace life. Up until that time we go in spurts. Occupation with Christ belongs to the believer with maximum doctrine resident in the soul. Colossians 3:16,17.

3. Occupation with Christ glorifies God. It glorifies the Father because it is His plan, it glorifies the Son because He is the object, it glorifies the Holy Spirit because you have logged maximum time in the filling of the Spirit producing that self-discipline necessary to take in doctrine. Ephesians 3:19-21.

4. The means of occupation with Christ is the function of GAP — Jeremiah 9:23,24. The Lord takes pleasure in the super-grace believer. The concept of GAPing it to super-grace is found in Ephesians 4:20; 3:18,19.

5. Occupation with Christ eliminates the superficialities of human celebrityship. Philippians 3:7,8.

6. Occupation with Christ motivates the pastor-teacher to communicate doctrine so the royal priesthood reaches its objective. Hebrews 6:10.

7. The mechanics of GAP produce the dynamics of occupation with Christ — James 1:19-23.

8. We have an illustration of occupation with Christ in the doctrine of right man, right woman — Ephesians 5:25-33.

9. Occupation with Christ is related to the strategic victory of the angelic conflict — Colossians 3:1,2.

10. Characteristics of occupation with Christ.

a) Occupation with Christ is the basis for the super-grace believer contributing to national blessing. This is the salt principle. This is why we are still a nation today — Deuteronomy 30:15,16,20. There is a relationship between the number of super-grace believers in the land and national prosperity and nation blessing of that country.

b) Occupation with Christ produces combat courage and/or victory in battle — Joshua 23:10,11.

c) Occupation with Christ is the basis for preservation in time of adversity. How you handle adversity does not depend on how close your pastor is! Occupation with Christ is the secret to how you handle adversity of which all of us will have a certain amount — Psalm 31:23,24.

d) Occupation with Christ is the basis for stability and great happiness — Psalm 16:8,9.

e) Occupation with Christ results in the inevitable super-grace blessings — Psalm 37:4, a total concentration of love.

f) Occupation with Christ is the basis for strength under pressure — Hebrews 11:27.

g) Occupation with Christ avoids soul fatigue — Hebrews 12:3.

Verse 15 — “Which in his times he shall shew.” We have the accusative feminine singular from the relative pronoun o(j. O)j always has an antecedent and here it is the Rapture, the appearance in the previous verse — “Which appearance.” The words “he shall shew” in the KJV is wrong. It is the future active indicative of the verb deiknumi which means to point out, to make known, to prove, to explain, to demonstrate, to teach. Here it means to prove in the sense of execution or to bring about. “Which appearance he will bring to pass.” The Rapture is really going to occur. The future tense is a predictive future announcing the Rapture as being in future time. The Rapture or appearance of Christ for the Church is expected to occur in future time. The active voice: the Rapture produces the action as a future demonstration. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality.

“in his times” — the locative of time plural from the adjective i)dioj, meaning His very own. I)dioj as an adjective tells us once again that Jesus Christ controls history; He controls time. Then we have with the adjective the noun kairoj, often used for dispensations. Here it means proper time or convenient time. Kairoj is in the plural. The plural of the adjective plus the plural of the noun indicates that the Rapture divides two dispensations. It doesn’t make for smooth English but it makes for accurate doctrine. It divides the Church Age from the conclusion of the Age of Israel and/or the Tribulation.

Jesus is called here “the blessed and only Potentate.” The word “potentate” is not really found here at all. The word “blessed” is makarioj and means that He is always happy.

“and only” is kai monoj which means the only one of a kind here; dunasthj is the word translated “Potentate” and it means “sovereign.” It is a reference to the unique royalty of Jesus Christ. He has three kinds of unique royalty. He is royalty as God; He is royalty at the point of physical birth, He is the Son of David, He is Jewish royalty; and He is also victory royalty. The word “Potentate” which is really “sovereignty” refers to His deity royalty.

“the King of kings and Lord of lords” is the royalty that came through victory, the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. That is the royalty in which we are involved as royal family of God. There are two participles found here: the present active participle of the verb basileuw; and the second “king” — King of kings — is actually a present active participle. King of those who are going to be kings and who have been kings. We have a present active participle of kurieuw, and both of these verbs indicate literally, “the King of all who reign as kings, the Lord of all who exercise lordship.” This is the title for the aristocracy of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union seated at the right hand of the Father.

So we have Jesus Christ seated alone at the right hand of the Father and that is why the Jewish Age was interrupted and the Church Age began. He became ruler of all creatures in the universe, both angelic and human. He is the last Adam, He won back more than the first Adam lost. The title is the basis for our Church Age aristocracy. A specific victory beginning at the cross, resurrection, ascension and session is the basis of royalty and the basis for this concept here — King of kings and Lord of lords. Remember that there is an authorisation in every category of our Lord. He was authorised royalty from His deity; He was authorised royalty from His birth [Son of David]; He was authorised royalty from the strategic victory of the angelic conflict, which is the meaning of King of kings and Lord of lords. The royal family aristocracy of the Church Age is authorised, then, from the third category.

Translation: “Which appearance [Rapture] the happy and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, will bring to pass in his proper time.”

The doctrine of the royal family of God

1. The royal family is the family of the King. The family of God includes all persons in human history who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. At the moment of anyone’s salvation, from Adam and Eve right down to the present, God the Holy Spirit at the moment of believing in Christ is the agent of regeneration, and we are said to be born again, born into the family of God. So all believers since the beginning of time are members of the family of God. However, all members of the family of God do not have the same status, therefore it is imperative to recognise that there is a difference between the Old Testament believer and the Church Age believer. All of the believers from the time of Adam and Eve right up to the beginning of the Church Age are saved the same way, but due to a unique system of royalty which came to Jesus Christ as a result of the cross, resurrection, ascension and session, the Age of Israel was suddenly halted and the Church Age was begun to in order call out the royal family of God. This royal family comprises all Church Age believers from Pentecost to the Rapture. Once the royal family of God is completed at the Rapture we have the continuation and conclusion of the Jewish Age known as the Tribulation. By definition the royal family of God is every believer of the Church Age. It is a permanent appointment to royalty ad there is no cessation of it.

2. The setting for the royal family. The first advent of Christ occurred in the dispensation of Israel. This includes His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and session at the right hand of the Father. Ten days after Jesus Christ was seated in the third heaven at the Father’s right hand the dispensation of Israel was brought to a halt and a new dispensation was inserted for the purpose of forming the royal family of which we are a part. The spiritual of Christ occurred as a result of His great victory in ascension and session. As the King of kings and Lord of lords He must have a family to share His reign, and therefore the halting of the Age of Israel, the inserting of the Church Age.

3. The documentation for the royal family of God is found primarily in Ephesians and Hebrews.

4. The mechanics for the formation of the royal family of God is entirely different from any other mechanics that occurs in the salvation of Old Testament believers or Tribulational believers or Millennial believers. The mechanics for the formation of the royal family of God are bound up in the baptism of the Holy Spirit which never occurred before the day of Pentecost and will never occur after the Rapture of the Church. It is this one mechanic that makes it possible for every one of us to be royal family.

5. The royal family relationship. The spiritual royalty of Jesus Christ is unique. As God He is sovereign, as Man He is Jewish royalty, but as the God-Man seated at the right hand of the Father He is a new type of royalty. The best description of His title is King of kings and Lord of lords. At the point of session He has no royal family but He will have a completed royal family at the time of the Rapture. Just as the first Adam in the garden was alone when he was first created and God provided a help, so Jesus Christ as unique royalty was alone, seated at the right hand of the Father, and the Father has provided for Him a family. There are technical terms to describe this, one of which is the body of Christ. Body refers to the royal family on earth in the Church Age. The bride refers to the royal family in resurrection body after the Rapture. So the word “church” is encompassed by two words, body and bride.

6. The escutcheon or coats of arms of the royal family. Inasmuch as the royal family lives in the holy of holies, and inasmuch as we are in the palace forever, we do have an escutcheon. This is described in 1 Corinthians 6:19,20, it is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Never before in history has God the Holy Spirit indwelt the body of every believer, but He makes His residence in our bodies because we are different from believers before us in the Old Testament, we are different from believers after us in the Tribulation and Millennium. The difference comes from the fact that we are royalty, we are aristocracy forever, and this difference means in effect that God the Holy Spirit will indwell us forever. This is our coat of arms, this is God’s stamp of royalty, the escutcheon of the royal family forever. 7. The security of the royal family. Never before in history and never after the Church Age will each believer at the point of salvation receive 36 things. This is also unique to the dispensation in which we live. The Old Testament believer received six things, as will the Tribulational believer. These 36 things accomplished at the point of salvation provide perfect security for every member of the royal family of God. God is perfect and therefore His plan is perfect. The perfection of God’s plan is seen in the fact that there is nothing man can do to gain his salvation, and furthermore there is nothing that man can do to lose his salvation. Reversionism, apostasy, evil all combined cannot cancel salvation. Positional sanctification and the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit are the testimony to this principle. Specifically, then, our security lies in the 36 things we receive at salvation. The one which receives the most emphasis is that ministry of God the Holy Spirit called sealing.

8. The royal family of God in time/phase two. The objective of the royal family in time is to follow the colours to the high ground of the super-grace life. It is God’s objective to provide something unusual in history for the royal family of God while on earth. In phase two God has an objective, specifically to make sure that we get in the devil’s world certain blessings. In eternity past He designed for each member of the royal family paragraph SG². That is the primary objective of keeping the royal family of God in time, keeping us on the earth in the devil’s world. We live in the devil’s world as a demonstration that God can do more than just save us, that God can provide for us in spite of Satan’s system all of the blessings that belong to our personal paragraph SG² — spiritual blessings, temporal blessings, dying grace. Divine blessing in time falls into three categories but it is based upon capacity. It is based upon the fact that when we reach the high ground we at last have the capacity. The royal family has another object, and that is to effectively represent Jesus Christ while on the earth. We are said to be ambassadors representing Christ.

9. The royal family in eternity/phase three. After the Rapture every member of the royal family of God will possess a resurrection body exactly like that of Christ. The resurrection body will be minus the old sin nature, minus all human good, minus the lake of fire or any eternal condemnation. The royal family will return with Christ to the earth as the bride to share in His coronation, His Millennial reign, as well as His eternal rule. Those members of the royal family who reach maturity or super-grace in time through the consistent function of GAP will have great rewards, great decorations throughout all eternity. Those decorated will glorify God in eternity just as the super-grace believer glorifies God in time.

The title for our Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, the title of His unique aristocracy, is also used in connection with the second advent — Revelation 17:14; 19:16. In both cases the title is used as an indication of His victory in the angelic conflict.

The principle of occupation with Christ moves into verse 16.

“Who only hath immortality” — o( monoj e)xwn. O( is the definite article, a nominative singular referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. It might be said to be a part of the participle and therefore an articular participial article. The adjective monoj modifies the definite article which refers to Christ and the two words when put together in the Greek means “the only [unique] one.” Jesus Christ is unique because He is the God-Man. He is also unique in the sense of royalty. Then we have e)xwn which is the present active participle. E)xw in the present tense is a static present, it represents a condition which perpetually exists. The active voice: Christ as the subject produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. The word “immortality” is the accusative singular direct object of a)qanasia. The a) is negative, meaning “not.” The noun qanatoj means death. Immortality means not subject to death. After resurrection Christ will never again be subject to death, cannot be subject to death. Since Christ is in hypostatic union forever this characterises both His deity and His humanity and His third category of aristocracy. There is no way this aristocracy could ever be removed. Our aristocracy will last forever because it is based upon the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The immortality of the deity of Christ is found in John 1:1-3; 8:58; 1 John 5:11,12. But it was His humanity which was in question, His humanity died twice on the cross. His spiritual death provided for us salvation. He also died physically on the cross. But in resurrection body His humanity is never again subject to death, He now has immortality in His resurrection body — Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27; 13:35-37; 1 Corinthians 15:53. Jesus Christ is immortal humanity, He can never lose the life of His humanity and therefore as the God-Man He will remain unique forever and ever. Therefore in heaven forever will be one person who is unique: different from the Father though He is deity, different from humanity in that He is deity and humanity in one person forever, the founder of a new dynasty, the founder of a new royalty, the founder of a permanent aristocracy.

“dwelling in light which no man can approach” — not a good translation. We have fwj o)ikwn a)prositon. Notice that there is no word for man. The first word fwj is the noun “light.” We also have o)ikwn which is a present active participle of o)ikew which means to live or to dwell. A)prositon is the accusative singular adjective from a)prositoj, and it should together be translated “the only one having immortality dwelling in unapproachable light.” A)prositij is an adjective means “unapproachable.” The word “man” does not occur there at all.

The doctrine of light

1. Sometimes the Bible uses light in a literal sense. It uses literal light for the purpose of reminding us that man’s existence on the earth depends on light — Genesis 1:3; Ecclesiastes 11:7; Jeremiah 31:35.

2. Light also illustrates the essence of God — 1 John 1:5; 1 Timothy 6:16.

3. Jesus Christ as the manifest person of the Godhead is called light — John 8:12; 1 Timothy 6:16.

4. The gospel is called light because it deals with Christ — 2 Corinthians 4:3,4; 2 Timothy 1:10.

5. Being saved brings the believer out of darkness into light — Luke 1:79; 1 Peter 2:9.

6. Light is used to portray Bible doctrine in the soul resulting from the function of GAP — Psalm 119:105,130.

7. The ECS is said to be constructed of Bible doctrine and/or light — Psalm 43:3; Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:8; 1 John 2:8.

8. Light depicts the believer’s entrance into the super-grace life — 2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 5:14.

“Dwelling in unapproachable light” indicates once again the unique aristocracy of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, this type of light is of such a nature that it makes the Lord Jesus Christ invisible to the human eye.

“whom no man hath seen” — this is literally, “whom not one of all mankind has seen.” We have the accusative singular relative pronoun o(j, referring to Jesus Christ. Then we have a negative adjective o)udeij referring to the human race in general, plus the genitive of a)nqrwpoj, plus the aorist active indicative of o(raw. The key here is the aorist active indicative to the verb o(raw. This word is in the constative aorist tense, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: no man can produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is the reality of the invisibility of the deity of Christ. Dwelling in light is a reference to His deity. We will be able to see Him but we will only see the resurrection body.

“nor can see” — o)udh i)dein dunatai is literally, “nor is able to see.” There is no way that anyone can see the deity of Christ. The most real things, by the way, are often the most invisible.

This brings us to the invisibility of God which is stated in John 1:18 — “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.” You can’t see Him but Christ has explained Him. John 6:46 — “Not that that any man has seen the Father, except the one who is from God, he has seen the Father.” This is an advance. Jesus Christ in His human form in the hypostatic union explains that you cannot see the Father, you can see Him because He is in human form, true humanity. He is also deity which you can’t see. Then in 1 John 4:12 — “No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love has been perfected in us.” You cannot see God, you can only see the results of having a relationship with God. The invisible God, therefore, has an advantage over us, one of many. Invisibility is mentioned to us to indicate a principle: the principle of uniqueness, the principle of royalty; a principle which we know belongs to the Father, also belongs to the Spirit, and here in this royalty passage is related to the Son.

“to whom” — dative masculine singular of the relative pronoun o(j. This is a dative of reference and it is used for VIPs.

“be honour”— timh means honour or reverence, and this is a permanent honour or reverence. It means the highest possible honour that could ever be given to anyone. Jesus Christ forever and ever will have the highest possible honour as the God-Man in hypostatic union with His third category of aristocracy.

“power” — indicates that aristocracy has a job forever, kratoj means ruling power. Jesus Christ will supersede Satan at the second advent, rule for the Millennium, and rule for all eternity. So we have honour and ruling power.

“everlasting” is the adjective a)iwnoj and it goes with kratoj, it actually means “eternal rule/everlasting rule.” There never will be a time when He doesn’t rule. That is His royalty, and we are a part of that eternal rule aristocracy.

“Amen” is amhn. It is taken from the Hebrew which means to believe, but it is a particle of liturgy. In other words, the congregational response to who and what Christ is. “Amen” is the response, then, of the super-grace believer with maximum doctrine resident in his soul. Paul is the one who is saying Amen, not Timothy.

The doctrine of category #1 love

1. Love comes in three categories for the royal family of God: category #1, toward God; category #2, right man, right woman; category #3, friendship. As a super-grace believer or as a growing believer you have the capabilities for all three. In addition, there is an obligatory relaxed mental attitude toward all members of the royal family called “loving the brethren” — a separate category. Category #1 is the believer’ capacity to love God and to respond to God’s love based on doctrine resident in the soul. When the believer reaches maturity he then has maximum category #1 love/ occupation with Christ. The command to category #1 love is found in Deuteronomy 6:5.

2. The means of category #1 love. Since God is invisible and since God is the object of category #1 love we must see and love Him through Bible doctrine. You cannot love God without Bible doctrine. You cannot love what you do not know, you cannot love what you cannot see. The only exception is when you have enough doctrine in your soul to see Christ as Paul saw Him. So the means is doctrine in the soul through GAP. 1 Peter 1:8; Ephesians 3:18,19; 2 Timothy 1:13,14.

3. Category #1 love sets up a standard for grace — Psalm 119:132; 31:23.

4. Category #1 love is the basis for super-grace blessing — 1 Corinthians 2:9. Your eye can never begin to see the wonderful things that God has for you in SG². The only way you will ever discover it is to have capacity, and that capacity is super-grace and therefore maximum category #1 love. Psalm 37:4,5.

5. Category #1 love is the basis for personal and national blessing — Deuteronomy 30:15,16,20. All believers with category #1 love are the basis for preserving the national entity and for providing for blessings overflowing in the national entity.

6. Category #1 love motivates combat courage and military victory — Joshua 23:10,11.

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

8. There is a special curse on believers who fail to get category #1 love — 1 Corinthians 16:22.

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.

Translation: “The only one having immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom not one person of all mankind has seen, nor is able to see: to whom belongs honour and eternal rule. Amen.”

Now we have a final charge which the apostle Paul must make to those in management in Ephesus since Timothy is too weak, too reversionistic, too much under the influence of evil to actually make the challenge.

Verse 17 — “Charge” is the present active imperative of the verb paraggellw which means to command or to instruct. He it means to be commanding, for the present tense is a customary present denoting that which may be reasonably expected to occur from the pastor. The pastor should be constantly commanding, exhorting, showing people how to apply as he actually teaches Bible doctrine. The active voice: the pastor produces the action of the verb, and Timothy is remiss in doing so. The imperative mood is a command to Timothy who has failed to function as a pastor. He has been bullied into a little corner, pushed around by all kinds of people, and the whole Ephesian church is about to fall apart. “Be commanding.” Paraggellw not only means to command but it means to instruct. No pastor can teach with authority apart from diligent study. Preparation is the real secret to fulfilling this command. The secret to being a pastor-teacher is plodding or plugging.

“them that are rich” — dative masculine plural of the definite article plus the dative plural from the noun plousioj. This the dative of indirect object, it indicates the ones in whose interest the instruction or the command is about to be given. This phrase occurs first in the sentence placing great emphasis on management. The instruction which is about to be given is a reminder to those in the congregation who have wealth. Literally we have, “To the rich ones be commanding.”

“in this world” is not found in the original. What we do have is “in this present dispensation” — the preposition e)n plus the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun, plus the adverb nun, plus the locative singular of a)iwn. This prepositional phrase says, “in this present dispensation.” Why? Because God has designed that there is more wealth distributed to the royal family of God than to any other dispensation we have had in the past. In other words, it is the objective of God the Father from eternity past in the divine decrees, in conjunction with the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, to give more wealth to more believers in super-grace than any in any other dispensation.

There are two dangers here:

“that they be not high-minded” — the negative mh plus the present active infinitive of u(yhlofronew. U(yhloj means pride; fronew means to think. Money doesn’t mean superiority. It can indicate great ability, great character, great integrity, but the possession of money suddenly as you get it under SG² can also mean the danger of arrogance. We have the present active infinitive. This is a descriptive present for what is now going on in Ephesus because of Timothy’s vacillation. Then active voice: wealthy believers produce the action through the daily function of GAP. They have GAPed it daily, they have suddenly become wealthy, and they are now in danger of becoming arrogant as if wealth means superiority. Wealth is a convenience but it isn’t necessarily a superiority. The means by which wealth was acquired is often a superiority.

The doctrine of pride

1. Pride is the basic mental attitude sin — because it always has a counterpart. Pride is the worst of the mental attitude sins — because it always has a counterpart. Long before Satan’s pride showed his approbation lust showed. As he went around heaven everyone was impressed with his beauty. Satan was listening to this impressiveness long before his pride ever showed up. Pride was the original sin of Satan, pride is a part of a counterpart. Pride is lofty self-respect, high esteem for one’s self, making an issue out of yourself. Vanity is empty pride in respect to one’s person. vanity merely means pride without even having an excuse for being proud. When pride is show in the field of contempt it is called superciliousness.

2. Pride was both the original sin of Satan and the motivator for his fall — Isaiah 14:12-14. Ezekiel 28:14-17 tells us how he came to say this. Pride is an angelic sin and the greatest of all creatures, Satan himself, fell in this way. 3. Pride is also a human sin. Categorically pride is the basic mental attitude sin, yet it never stands alone, it is never an island, it becomes a part of a counterpart. It is always joined or connected with some other sin. The pride in sin manifests itself when there is no pressure, but as soon as there is pressure up comes the counterpart, whatever it may be — jealousy, cowardice, maligning, judging, vindictiveness, implacability, etc. All arrogant people are totally different under pressure.

3. Pride is also said to be a human sin — 1 Timothy 3:6; 6:3,4.

4. Pride is related to personal reversionism. Pride is not only a sin but it is also a spiritual condition — Psalm 10:2-4. Believers rejecting Bible doctrine are also in a state of arrogance. It is arrogance to think that you can get along without something that God has provided — your daily spiritual food. Describing the unbeliever type reversionism in Romans 1:30, he is said to be a slanderer. This is a verbal sin which is a counterpart to pride.

5. Pride is related to national reversionism. There are five cycles of discipline in national reversionism. The second discipline is divine judgment against the economy. At this stage of discipline pride is mentioned as the biggest characteristic. In the second cycle of discipline when you have depression or recession and the economy falling apart the chief sin related to it is always the sin of pride — Leviticus 26:19. Often the reason why you have depression or a recession is because government officials interfere with the economy. The juggle the economy and interfere with business. There is a divine law that says that in the economy free enterprise must prevail, and wherever you have a recession under free enterprise it is to eliminate the unfit and to improve the quality of services rendered. 2 Chronicles 32:26 — there is an answer to this. It comes from the field of humility in government. Cf Isaiah 9:9. National pride is also associated with the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline — Isaiah 28:1-3. Hosea 7:10-14.

6. Pride in relationship to God — 1 Samuel 2:3. The Hebrew says, “Arrogance shall come out of your mouth, therefore do not boast [or multiply] conversations.” In other words, if you have pride and you put pressure on it out comes conversation — verbal sins. Pride also rejects the principle that Jesus Christ controls history — Daniel 4:37, Nebuchadnezzar recognised that when he was in pride he had rejected this principle, and because of it he was humbled. The principle of pride related to Jesus Christ is given in the dissertation on blind arrogance — Matthew 19:27-20:34.

7. Positive volition toward doctrine insulates the soul from pride. In his famous speech Elihu is Job 33:16,17 — the function of GAP and Bible doctrine in the right lobe is the way in which God stops His discipline and protects from the pride complex. Proverbs 8:13; 11:2 — the answer is wisdom, it removes pride.

“nor trust in” — the perfect active infinitive of the verb e)lpizw means to have confidence; plus the negative disjunctive particle mhdh, used with a preceding negative to continue the prohibition. It is translated, “not have confidence in.” E)lpizw in the perfect tense is a consummative perfect, it is different from the usual type of perfect tense. Rather than emphasising the existing results, which is the usual purpose of the perfect [completed action and results], it is to explain the process by which the action was completed. That is what is in view here. To avoid having confidence in money or wealth the believer must have maximum doctrine in the soul. This not only gives him the capacity to enjoy his wealth but at the same time he keeps his eyes on the source, Jesus Christ, and he keeps his priorities straight. The daily function of GAP is the process by which the action is completed and the confidence is therefore based upon the daily function of GAP which give capacity for life, capacity for wealth, as well as the wealth of SG². The active voice: the wealthy believer produces the action of the verb by his daily function of GAP. The infinitive plus the negative mhdh is used for an intended result. This blends purpose and result. The intended result denotes the policy with regard to wealthy believers in the Church Age, and the purpose of this passage by way of being prophetical is that during the Church Age it is God’s intention to make many believers in every generation wealthy. But receiving that wealth we should not ever have confidence in that wealth. We should always keep our priorities straight, we must have confidence in the Source of wealth who is the Lord Himself.

“uncertain riches” — we have a prepositional phrase here and there isn’t even a preposition translated. We have e)pi plus the genitive. With it is the genitive singular of ploutoj. There is also an adjective here in the locative singular — a)dhlothj which means “uncertainty.” Literally, “nor to place their confidence on the uncertainty of wealth.” Here is a case of having the wrong priorities.

The principle of capacity for life

1. Without capacity for life from doctrine in the soul no blessing is worth having.

2. This means self-discipline under the daily function of GAP.

3. Capacity for life, love, blessing happiness, means that the road blocks of the soul have been removed. They have been removed by reaching super-grace, and often by adversity. Sometimes one of the basic reasons for suffering is that you have almost reached the high ground but as you approach you have road blocks in the soul. This means you have the inability to enjoy the blessings you are going to have under SG². That means that sometimes, just before you reach super-grace, you are going to have the greatest sufferings of your life.

4. When the super-grace believer has capacity for life he keeps his priorities straight.

5. When the super-grace believer has capacity for life he is occupied with the source of all his blessings, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore he enjoys his blessings because prior to receiving them he was occupied with the source, and he continues to be occupied with the source.

6. The believer who becomes wealthy through super-grace blessings of his paragraph SG² must maintain his perspective to enjoy those blessings. His perspective is in the soul, his priorities are in the soul, his capacity for life is in the soul. He can’t afford to lose that capacity. If you lose the capacity you lose the enjoyment of the things that God provides for you in SG².

7. Maintenance of perspective and keeping one’s priorities straight is as simple as the continuation in the daily function of GAP.

8. Super-grace and its capacity is perpetuated by persistence in the function of GAP.

9. When the wealthy super-grace believer begins to neglect doctrine he becomes occupied with his wealth and his riches. Instead of being occupied with Christ he gets so occupied with himself that he has the arrogance against which he is warned in 1 Timothy 6:17.

10. Love of the blessor causes the blessee to continually enjoy his blessings.

11. Therefore our confidence must be in the source of blessings to really enjoy the content of blessings.

12. The pattern of discipline becomes obvious when the super-grace believer blessed with wealth and riches begins to neglect. He may retain his wealth as a means of discipline. God can take the very blessing that he gave in wealth and turn it around and make it a cursing.

13. For such a believer to begin to depend upon riches rather than God, the greater his priorities go out of whack the greater becomes the use of blessings as cursings.

14. Therefore the more he depends upon riches or wealth the more miserable he becomes. The possession of wealth does not mean happiness, happiness is vested in capacity of the soul. To lose capacity for life through reversionism and maintain the wealth means that the wealth becomes a source of discipline.

Verse 17 — “but in the living God.” We have e)pi plus the locative of qeoj — “but on God.” It connotes occupation with the person of Christ, He is the manifest person of the Godhead.

“who giveth us” — the articular present active participle of the verb parexw means to hold beside, to hold out, to offer, to present, to furnish, to provide. The definite article is used as a relative pronoun. The present tense of this participle is pictorial, it is used to denote God’s provision for paragraph SG² category two — the temporal blessings which a believer has in super-grace. The active voice: God is the source of all super-grace blessings. The participle is circumstantial. The dative plural of advantage refers to the members of the royal family of God during the dispensation of the Church. It should be translated, “who furnishes us.” “Us” is dative of advantage of the personal pronoun e)gw. “Us refers to super-grace believers only.

“richly all things” — the accusative neuter plural of the direct object paj, plus plousioj, an adverb meaning abundantly.

“to enjoy” — prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of a)polausij which means pleasure or enjoyment. Everything you receive under category #2 of paragraph SG² is for your pleasure and your enjoyment. God intends for every believer to have pleasure. But God intends for you to have the capacity for the pleasure before you have the pleasure.

Translation: “Regarding those rich ones [in your congregation] in this present dispensation, be commanding them not to be arrogant, nor to set their confidence upon the uncertainty of riches, but on God who provides for us [super-grace believers] all things abundantly for our pleasure and enjoyment.”

Conclusion

1. It must be emphasised again and again that capacity for life must precede blessings of life.

2. Furthermore this capacity for life originates not only from maximum doctrine resident in the soul but the removal of those roadblocks of the soul which hinder application of doctrine. Capacity for life is related to application of doctrine. If you cannot apply doctrine it is because of roadblocks in the soul.

3. Capacity for life is not only the possession of doctrine in the soul but the application of that doctrine from the soul.

4. Capacity for life is one of the blessings of paragraph SG², category #1.

Verses 18 — we actually have a passage which is in contrast to the phrase “not to be arrogant but.” This verse describes the overflow of super-grace blessings in the life of one believer to those in his periphery. Even if you do not reach super-grace as a believer you are going to be blessed by association with super-grace believers around you. If there are super-grace believers around you you will be blessed.

“They that do good” — the present active infinitive of a)gaqoergew. A)gaqoj is intrinsic good; e)rgew is the production, it means to produce. So we actually have a contrast with the verb “not to be arrogant” in the previous verse — not to be arrogant but to keep on being a producer of divine good. Divine good comes from a)gaqoj in the compound; being a producer of divine good comes from e)rgew. When it is put together it means a super-grace believer is a producer. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present denoting what begins at super-grace and continues throughout the status quo — spiritual maturity. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action of the verb by performing divine good. You don’t have to be “doing something” to perform divine good. It is true that you can be in action and performing divine good. It is your mental attitude, it is the divine blessing that comes upon you and reaches out to others. As you prosper from the Lord others prosper too. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action of the verb in the production of divine good. And there is another principle here. You cannot expect the fruit of the Spirit apart from the roots of doctrine. The infinitive is an actual result of super-grace status. The road blocks in the soul have been removed, Bible doctrine in the soul is applied, divine blessing is upon the individual life, and those around are blessed in a fantastic way.

Wealth is measured in terms of spiritual blessing for the believer.

The doctrine of divine good

1. Divine good is the production of the believer who is grace oriented. There are two kinds of grace-oriented believers: those who are positive and growing, and those who are positive and have reached the high ground of super-grace. The growing believer and the mature believer are both in view under this definition. It is their production. Notice that the filling of the Spirit by itself does not produce, it produces through doctrine resident in the soul. When a new believer is filled with the Spirit he is not a producer. The filling of the Spirit is designed for him to take in doctrine, and it is always an inhale and never an output or an exhale with the new believer. Again, you cannot have the fruit of the Spirit apart from the roots of doctrine — an application of the balance of residency.

2. The source of divine good. Divine good originates from balance of residency. That is, the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the soul related to Bible doctrine. The filling of the Holy Spirit is easy to attain, it is received at any point that the believer rebounds. But when you are minus doctrine the filling of the Spirit can only change the picture from minus to plus through the function of GAP. When you have maximum doctrine and the filling of the Spirit then you have balance of residency, and balance of residency is the source of the production of divine good, whatever it is.

3. The believer in time is the recipient of grace. Consequently he is designed for the function of divine good. In other words, we have saving grace. That is where our life with God starts, that is where royal family begins. Then you continue to live on this earth, that is living grace. God provides food, shelter, clothing, all of the necessities of life, including doctrine, a right pastor, a local church, etc. The next step is super-grace, and then to dying grace and finally to surpassing grace. This is the life of every believer who is progressing. The believer in time, therefore, is the recipient of grace. All of these graces produce in some way. Saving grace means that you are a member of the royal family of God, and that is where angels start to watch you. Living grace with the function of GAP means that you are advancing. Super-grace is maximum production of divine good, and because of the production of divine good and because of holding on to super-grace you are eventually going to have great rewards, great decorations under surpassing grace — Ephesians 2:10.

4. The grace principle of divine good is given in 2 Corinthians 9:8 — “for every good deed,” i.e. intrinsic good, production of divine good.

5. In the grace perspective GAP and the resultant doctrine resident in the soul is the means of production of divine good. Everything that counts for God must be related to grace, must be related to doctrine, must be related to divine dynamics, not human gimmicks. Colossians 1:9,10; 2 Timothy 2:21; 3:16; Titus 2:7. Your example of divine good is your soundness in doctrine.

6. Divine good produced by grace is both mental and verbal — 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17.

7. Divine good resolves the angelic conflict — Romans 12:21.

8. Divine good will be rewarded under the principle of surpassing grace — 2 Corinthians 5:10.

“that they may be rich” — present active infinitive of ploutew which means to be rich. The present tense is a customary present for what is expected of any super-grace believer. It is customary for any super-grace believer to be rich in divine good production.

“in good works” — e)n plus the locative of kaloj plus e)rgon is “in honourable deeds.” Your works are not honourable until you have enough doctrine to make them honourable. If they are not related to grace they are nothing. Honourable production is the result of the filling of the Spirit plus a certain amount of doctrine.

“ready to distribute” — present active infinitive of e)imi which means to be; plus an object, the accusative masculine plural. The reason we have the accusative case of the verb to be is because the subject which is e)rgon, honourable deeds, is also in the accusative, but it is still a predicate nominative. So the accusative can be used as a predicate nominative when the subject is in the accusative. We have the accusative of general reference in which a category of persons produces the action of the verb — generous ones. So it should be translated, ‘honourable deeds to be generous.” It means more than being generous with money, it means generous with love, generous with manners, generous in thoughtfulness. The whole concept of capacity for life in the super-grace believer is generosity.

“willing to communicate” — this is another accusative plural adjective, koinwnikoj, which means liberal in giving.

Translation: “But to keep on producing divine good, to be rich in honourable deeds, to be generous, liberal in the giving of money.”

Verse 19 — the eternal future of super-grace believers. “Laying up in store” is one verb. It is a present active participle, a a(pac legomena. Them participle is from the verb a)poqhsaurizw which means to store away treasure. Liberality in giving, generosity of s super-grace believer, is like treasuring a large account for eternity. It means to store up treasure or to accumulate treasure. The present tense is a perfective present, it denotes the continuation of existing results. It refers to a fact which has come to be in the past — super-grace status — but is emphasised as a present reality. In other words, production from super-grace. The present reality is generosity of the super-grace believer depicted in the previous verse, generosity which has eternal reward. The active voice: the super-grace believer produces the action of the verb through super-grace function. The participle is circumstantial pertaining to the production of the mature believer.

“for themselves” — this passage is talking to super-grace believers, “accumulating treasures for themselves” in the eternal future.

“a good foundation” — kaloj plus qemelioj which means foundation or basis. Kaloj means honourable — “an honourable foundation.”

“against the time to come” — there is no word “against” here. We have the preposition e)ij plus the present active participle mellw which is an idiom meaning “for the future.” Notice that the super-grace believer in generosity, whatever that generosity may be — generosity of love, of money, whatever form it may take in super-grace status — is accumulating an honourable foundation for the future, for phase three.

“that they may lay hold on eternal life” — bad translation. The word i(na is a conjunction which introduces a final clause denoting a purpose, and objective. The conjunction is translated correctly “that” or “in order that.” The words “they may lay hold” is the aorist middle subjunctive of the verb e)pilambanw which means to take hold of, to seize, to grasp, to obtain, to be concerned with, to take an interest in. Here, as in verse 12, it means to lay hold of blessings, to seize blessings. This time it is the blessings of paragraph SG³. This is a culminative aorist tense, it views the acquiring of paragraph SG² in its entirety. But remember that a culminative aorist always emphasises the results, and that is what we have here. The aorist tense is the culminative aorist referring to SG³. The middle voice is the indirect middle in which the super-grace believer is the agent holding the high ground until death. Therefore the agent participates in the action of the verb — super-grace blessings in time and surpassing grace blessings in eternity. The subjunctive mood goes with the conjunction i(na indicating the objective. Our objective in being alive is to reach the high ground, to hold the high ground, to enjoy blessings in time from God, and then to spend all eternity with the decorations and the blessings that God has under SG³.

“on eternal life” — the articular present active participle of e)imi, the verb to be, and with it the genitive singular of zwh. Put together in idiom it doesn’t mean eternal life, it means “of what is really life.” “Really life” is blessing in time from God and blessing in eternity from God. All believers have eternal life, no believer can lose his salvation. But decorations and blessing glorify God, it is done through grace.

translation: “Accumulating treasures for themselves, an honourable foundation for the future, in order that they may take hold of the blessings of what is really life.”

Summary

1. The reality of life is bound up in the soul’s capacity for life.

2. There is no capacity for life apart from maximum doctrine resident in the soul.

3. With maximum doctrine as the basis for capacity for what is really life the mature believer can enjoy the benefits of grace in time and enjoy the benefits of grace in eternity.

4. There is no status symbol, no blessing associated with happiness, which can produce happiness apart from capacity for life resident in the soul.

5. You will never enjoy what you have without capacity for life through doctrine resident in the soul.

6. You will always be looking around the corner for something more or something better unless you have capacities of super-grace.

7. These capacities are a part of category #1, paragraph SG².

8. The capacity must come before the blessing.

9. The capacity for love must come before category #2 love.

10. The capacity for wealth and success must come before money, prominence, promotion, wealth.

11. The capacity for happiness must come before the accouterments of happiness.

12. The capacity for life must come before divine blessings in life.

Verses 20-21 — the charge to the ministry.

Verse 20 — a warning to the super-grace pastors, Timothy in view. “O Timothy” is addressed to Timothy at the lowest ebb of his life, a total failure as a result of reversionism.

“keep” is the aorist active imperative of the verb fulassw which means to guard, to watch, to protect, to defend, and in military terms to stand guard. The constative aorist tense gathers into one entirety the action of the verb. Timothy must be alert for the rest of his life. The active voice: Timothy as the pastor-teacher is producing the action of the verb, constant alertness. The imperative mood is a command.

“that which is committed” — the accusative singular direct object from the definite article is used as a personal pronoun. We also have the accusative singular direct object from the noun paraqhkh, a word used in the Roman empire for bank deposits. “O Timothy, guard your deposit” is a reference to doctrine deposited in Timothy’s soul. It is a reference to doctrine in the soul of any believer. In a chapter dealing with money and wealth it is fitting that the chapter should end with the greatest wealth and treasure of all which is doctrine resident in the soul. The deposit of doctrine in the soul is guarded by the daily function of GAP and the communication of that doctrine to the congregation in the case of the pastor-teacher. A better translation would read: “O Timothy, guard and defend your deposit.” This particular word occurs quite a few times in the pastoral epistles and actually forms a categorical doctrine.

The doctrine of deposits

1. Definition. The noun paraqhkh is a compound of two words: para, the preposition, and the verb tiqhmi which means to put or to place. Put together we have to place something beside something or by the side of something. In the ancient world their banking system meant that each person had a certain urn or some kind of large box or chest, and it was placed beside his other chests in the particular bank vault. This was called paraqhkh or a deposit. So we have the concept of deposit in the ancient world very similar to ours except that we have a different system of administration in the paper work.

2. In our passage and in others the Greek word paraqhkh is used for spiritual truths. The believer makes a deposit with the Lord at the point of salvation — 2 Timothy 1:12. When a person believes in Jesus Christ, in effect faith in Christ is making a deposit. One little cc of faith in Christ and you have deposited your life in God’s hands forever. Your life is deposited in the plan of God, called grace, forever and it is a deposit that is totally secure. So we have the principle of eternal security.

3. God makes a deposit of doctrine in the believer. This deposit is Bible doctrine resident in the soul. It is preserved in the Word to be transferred to your soul — 2 Timothy 1:14.

4. This deposit is made through the doctrinal teaching of the pastor. In the mechanics of GAP every positive believer in Jesus Christ has right pastor. That right pastor is his only pastor. He is not to be compared with anyone else. Acts 17:2,3 — “… he deposited doctrine in them.”

5. The super-grace believer makes a deposit in phase two — 1 Peter 4:19. In times of adversity the utilisation of Bible doctrine makes it possible for you to produce divine good in adversity.

Principles:

a) The devil’s world is unfair and prejudiced. No believer should ever be blessed by the devil.

b) Some believers in reversionism are rewarded by Satan.

c) The battleground in this stage of the angelic conflict is the soul.

d) Consequently some super-grace believers staying away from reversionism endure maximum pressure in the devil’s world. They suffer because the devil is unfair, because the devil is prejudiced. And God permits a certain amount of adversity in the life of the super-grace believer because it is one way of producing divine good.

e) In the maximum use of the faith-rest technique, which is maximum application of resident doctrine, road blocks are removed by suffering. Certain believers under pressure must deposit their souls with Jesus Christ who, as the faithful creator, has provided both dying grace and surpassing grace as the basis for eternal reward.

f) By depositing their soul with the Lord in time of maximum pressure — persecution, suffering — the super-grace believer glorifies God to the maximum and produces in a short time enough divine good to receive fantastic decorations for all eternity.

g) The application of doctrine under pressure, the maximum use of faith-rest — road blocks are removed — that provides both dying grace and fantastic extra blessings forever and ever. This a specific application to the principle which is found in both Psalm 55:22 and 1 Peter 5:7.

6. The pastor or the seminary professor makes a deposit with his ministerial students. All ministerial students are male believers who have the gift of pastor-teacher. They get their first training in their local church. They may get their additional training in a formal academic pipe like a theological seminary. 2 Timothy 2:1,2. In Matthew 13:24, speaking of Jesus, He deposited another parable with them, saying… In other words, what Jesus taught in the parable they were to go out an teach in Israel.

“avoiding” — the present middle participle from e)ktrepw. It means to run away from or to avoid. The present tense is linear aktionsart. It is a present tense of duration having very strong linear aktionsart: Keep avoiding, always avoid. The middle voice is the indirect middle emphasising the agent producing the action of the verb. The participle is the imperative use of the participle.

“profane and vain babblings” — incorrect. We have here the accusative plural from the definite article, plus the accusative plural of the adjective bebhloj which means polluted, plus the accusative, plus the accusative plural of the adjective kenofwnia which means empty sound. It should be translated, “polluted and empty discourses [messages].” A polluted message is a message that is infiltrated with false teaching. An empty message is a message given in the name of the Lord but does not follow any scripture, is not expository, does not teach any doctrine from the Word. So this phrase refers to the pastor’s failure to teach in an expository manner. There is no substitute for verse by verse teaching whereby the content of scripture with its doctrines, its principles, its promises, its blessings, its applications, are taught to the royal family of God in the local assembly of the church. Apparently Timothy had neglected such teaching and was following what is now called “Christian education,” philosophical speculation, and he was totally unprepared.

“oppositions” — the accusative plural from the compound noun a)ntiqesij. It means oppositions.

“of science” — there is no word for science here at all. The word is gnwsij and it means knowledge — “and oppositions from philosophical knowledge.” Speculative gnosticism is in view here.

“falsely so-called” is a compound adjective, yeudoneumoj. The word means to falsely categorise — “from falsely categorised knowledge” is the correct translation.

Translation: “O Timothy, guard and defend your deposit of doctrine [resident in your soul], keep avoiding polluted and empty discourses, and oppositions from falsely categorised knowledge.”

Verse 21 — the failure of pastors as an expression of the failure of any given generation. Pastors in reversionism. This is an occupational hazard for all believers and pastors are no exception.

“Which some” — the accusative feminine singular from the relative pronoun o(j, refers back to falsely categorised knowledge; “some” refers to reversionistic pastors, it is the nominative masculine plural from the indefinite pronoun tij and it is used to represent a general category called reversionistic pastors. So in context the reversionistic pastors had defected into gnosticism and heresies which vary in each age and generation.

“professing” — the present middle participle from e)paggellw which means to announce, to proclaim. It means here to preach or to proclaim. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present in which heresy, evil, reversionism of the past continues into the present time. The middle voice is an indirect middle in which the reversionistic pastor acts as the agent producing the action of the verb, teaching Gnostic heresies. The participle is instrumental and circumstantial, and it should be translated, “Which falsely categorised knowledge certain ones through proclaiming...” In other words, today we have the same type of things that were taught in gnosticism nearly 2000 years ago at the time of writing.

“have erred” — the aorist active indicative of a)stoxew which means to miss the mark, to deviate, to go astray, to depart from, to swerve from. it is a verb which obviously connotes reversionism. The constative aorist gathers into one entirety the pastor who becomes reversionistic. The active voice: the reversionistic pastor produces the action of the verb in swerving from doctrine. The indicative mood is the historical reality of apostasy or reversionism among pastors.

“concerning the faith” — the preposition peri plus the accusative of pistij, used here for what is believed or doctrine — “concerning the doctrine.”

“Grace be with thee” — H( xarij meq u(mwn. “The grace with you.”

Translation: “Which certain ones [reversionistic pastors] by proclaiming have gone astray concerning the doctrine. The grace be with you.”