Christian Suffering

Chapter 1

SUFFERING AND SOLUTIONS

CATEGORIES OF CHRISTIAN SUFFERING AND STAGES OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH

THE BIBLE EXPLAINS SUFFERING and reveals powerful divine assets for coping with adversity. No believer in Jesus Christ should remain ignorant of the causes and solutions to any difficulty in his life. Suffering is not inexplicable. Every instance of suffering has a reason, an explanation, and a solution.

Christian suffering can be most clearly understood in relation to the individual believer’s spiritual growth. From this perspective, adversities may be classified into five categories. Two categories are typical of spiritual childhood; three characterize spiritual adulthood. The two categories of suffering in spiritual childhood are punitive. The three in spiritual adulthood are designed by God for blessing.

This study will examine the problems and divine solutions connected with self-induced misery, divine discipline, providential preventive suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing. These five categories, which will be defined in due course, account for all suffering in the Christian life.

The correlation of punitive suffering with spiritual childhood and of suffering for blessing with spiritual adulthood is not a rigid distinction. Some suffering for blessing occurs in spiritual childhood, and punitive suffering can hit the spiritually adult believer when he sins or makes bad decisions. The general pattern, however, gives us a basis for understanding the pressures in our lives.

CATEGORIES OF CHRISTIAN SUFFERING	STAGES OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH
PUNITIVE 1. SELF-INDUCED MISERY 2. DIVINE DISCIPLINE FOR BLESSING 3. PROVIDENTIAL PREVENTIVE SUFFERING 4. MOMENTUM TESTING 5. EVIDENCE TESTING	CHILDHOOD ADULTHOOD SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM SPIRITUAL AUTONOMY SPIRITUAL MATURITY

FIVE CATEGORIES OF CHRISTIAN SUFFERING

Adversity plays a dominant role in the lives of adult human beings. Suffering is like a parent. What responsible parents do for their children, suffering does for adults. The discipline and restraints of childhood imposed by parents are replaced by the discipline and restraints of adult life enforced by suffering.

As a parent, a guardian, a referee ready to blow the whistle, an authority provided by God, suffering challenges us as believers to utilize the assets God has given us. Suffering depletes our human resources and confronts us with our total dependence on the grace of God. Suffering impresses upon us our need to conform to His plan.

Parents do more than discipline their children. Likewise, suffering is not merely a warning and a restraint but a teacher and motivator as well. Misfortune does not always come to injure, says a Latin maxim. Pain not only discourages us from going in the wrong direction, but it can also help to propel us in the right direction. The proper application of Bible doctrine under pressure produces spiritual growth. We see doctrine working. We experience the reality that God is “a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). As a result of using His provisions, our love for Him grows stronger, and we accelerate our spiritual advance.

Whether as a guardian or as a stimulus of spiritual growth, all suffering in the Christian life must be understood in relation to the plan of God. Suffering is designed for our good and for His glorification: He is glorified by sustaining and blessing us in any situation, whether prosperity or adversity. It is for His own glory, therefore, that amid the hardships and disasters of life God promises, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Josh. 1:5; Heb. 13:5). He will “never let the righteous [any believer] be shaken [or totter or fall]” (Ps. 55:22). Rather than eliminating suffering from our lives, He gives us far greater benefits by walking with us “through the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4).

TWO FUNCTIONS OF SUFFERING IN GOD’S PLAN

Many principles in our study of suffering will apply to unbelievers as well as to believers, but we will concentrate on Christian suffering. We are studying the assets that God has graciously given to anyone who has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are also identifying difficulties that arise when believers fail to utilize what God has given them.

DIVINE ASSETS: SPIRITUAL ROYALTY AND THE DIVINE DYNASPHERE

Union with the King of Kings

Spiritual childhood begins at salvation. At the moment anyone first believes in Christ, God the Holy Spirit simultaneously accomplishes seven ministries in behalf of the new believer. One of these ministries is the baptism of the Spirit, in which the Holy Spirit instantaneously places the believer into permanent union with Jesus Christ.[1]

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ [the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation] have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek [no racial distinctions], there is neither slave nor free man [no social classes], there is neither male nor female [no sexual bias]; for you are all one in Christ Jesus [in union with Christ]. (Gal. 3:26—28, NASB)[2]

The Lord Jesus Christ is the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev. 19:16). He holds the most exalted of all royal titles. He is head of a new royal dynasty, the Church, to which we belong.[3] The present era of history is the Church Age, in which every individual who believes in Christ as his Savior is adopted as an adult son and heir into the royal family of God (Ram. 8:15 Gal. 4:1—5; Eph. 1:4—5). Our adoption occurs at the first moment of faith in Christ, when we are placed in union with Christ (Gal. 3:26). We are royalty now and will be royalty forever. This is our eternal position; in our current experience, however, we must learn to think as royalty. We must learn to conduct ourselves as royalty.

In order to think and live as spiritual royalty, we need royal assets. Simultaneously with the baptism of the Spirit, therefore, God the Holy Spirit also places each new member of the royal family into a magnificent, invisible environment, a system of living that can be compared to a royal palace. Because the believer’s very own invisible palace is a sphere of spiritual power, I have named it the divine dynasphere. In the function of the divine dynasphere, God uj has made available to each believer the exercise of divine omnipotence. The believer’s utilization of divine omnipotence will be explained as our study proceeds.

The palace, or the divine dynasphere, is a teaching aid that clearly explains the tremendous assets and privileges that God has given to each Church Age believer. Living as royalty in the palace is a synonym for living the Christian way of life. Only in the palace can we use our spiritual assets, develop capacity for life, and live with wisdom, happiness, and graciousness as the spiritual aristocrats we are. Furthermore, the palace is the only sphere in which Christian growth can occur.

The Protocol Plan of God

Royalty lives by protocol. The Christian way of life can be called the protocol plan of God because the system—the divine dynasphere—for utilizing God’s power is a system of protocol. God designed the Christian life; we must do things His way. Protocol is a rigid, long-established code prescribing complete deference to superior rank and strict adherence to due order of precedence and precisely correct procedure.[4] Each element in Webster’s definition describes the plan of God for the believer’s life.

4. LONG-ESTABLISHED CODE: In eternity past God created for each Church Age

believer a rich portfolio of blessings, which glorifies God, who it also designed the divine dynasphere as our means of taking distribution of those blessings (Eph. 1:3—4).

2. DEFERENCE TO SUPERIOR RANK: Sovereign and omnipotent God
holds infinitely superior rank to which we must give complete obedience.

3. DUE ORDER OF PRECEDENCE: The highest priority in our scale of e values must be learning the Word of God, Bible doctrine, which teaches us d what assets we possess and explains how to utilize them.

4. PRECISELY CORRECT PROCEDURE: Only by adhering to God’s precise policies for

the royal family do we fulfill the conditions for receiving our blessings created in eternity past that glorify God.

Divine grace has created a royal way of life which divine authority commands the royal

believer to execute. We are responsible for fulfilling the protocol plan of God, but God never issues an order for which He has not already provided the means of execution. To obey God’s commands is to tap His resources.

The Gates of the Palace

The commands of God are like gates that open upon divine assets. The believer passes

through these gates and uses his God-given assets by consistently learning and obeying God’s mandates, by following divine protocol. Obedience to divine authority puts the power of God into effect in the believer’s life.

Although hundreds of divine mandates for the royal family are found in the New Testament, all of these commands can be classified into eight categories. I call these categories the gates of the believer’s magnificent, invisible palace. The divine dynasphere consolidates God’s mandates for the Christian life into one consistent, comprehensive system.

In Christian Integrity the divine dynasphere is developed in detail, but here a brief description of the eight gates will suffice, along with examples of divine mandates pertinent to each gate. This section of the book outlines the divine dynasphere; the next will fill in the outline, revealing the dynamics of the believer’s palace when he faces suffering.

GATE 1, THE POWER GATE, is the silent, invisible, enabling ministry of the Holy Spirit. Omnipotent God the Holy Spirit sustains the believer, supplying the supernatural means of executing the supernatural Christian way of life.

Be filled with the Spirit. (Eph. 5:18b)

Keep walking by means of the Spirit. (Gal. 5:16)

GATE 2, THE GATE OF BASIC CHRISTIAN MODUS OPERANDI, is the source of the believer’s objectivity. In Gate 2, the most elementary systems of problem solving are available to the immature believer, which include the following:

The Rebound Technique is the grace means of restoring the believer to temporal fellowship with God after sin has broken that fellowship.[5] The believer initially enters Gate 1 at salvation, but he exits the divine dynasphere when he sins. He can reenter only through Gate 1. When the Christian follows the simple, grace mechanics of reentry, the Holy Spirit automatically resumes control of the believer’s soul, restoring him to fellowship with God.

If we acknowledge our sins [to God the Father], He is faithful and just so that He forgives us our sins and also cleanses us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Through the Faith-Rest Drill the believer mixes the promises of God with faith and thinks rationally to reach doctrinal conclusions (cf., Heb. 4: 1-2).[6]

In fact, we know that to those who love God, He works all things together for the good . . . To what conclusion are we forced, face to face with these things? If God [is] for us, who [can be] against us? (Rom. 8:28—31)

Hope is the believer’s anticipation of promised blessings and his initial basis for motivation.[7]

With reference to the hope, keep on rejoicing. (Rom. 12:12a)

GATE 3, THE GATE OF ENFORCED AND GENUINE HUMILITY,

makes the believer teachable.

Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time. (1 Pet. 5:5b—6, NASB)

GATE 4, THE MOMENTUM GATE, is designed for intake, metabolism, and application of Bible doctrine, which cause spiritual growth and personal love for God.

Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. (Matt. 4:4b, NASB)

GATE 5. THE GATE OF SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM, is the entrance into spiritual adulthood. Spiritual self-esteem is the strength of soul that comes from personal love for God. Love for God is the spiritually adult Christian’s motivation in life. Spiritual self-esteem is also the beginning of sharing the happiness of God.

For me, living is Christ, and dying is advantage. (Phil. 1:21)

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30, NASB)

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and even though you do not see Him now but believe in Him [Bible doctrine in the soul] you rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious happiness. (1 Pet. 1:8)

GATE 6, THE GATE OF SPIRITUAL AUTONOMY, is the stability of spiritual adulthood, characterized by impersonal love for other people. Impersonal love is the functional virtue of the spiritually adult Christian toward all mankind. Deriving its strength from the virtue of the believer himself rather than being limited by questions of attractiveness or compatibility with others, impersonal love is the foundation for every correct mental attitude toward people.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31b, NASB)

Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. (Matt. 5:44b, NASB)

GATE 7, THE GATE OF MOMENTUM TESTING, involves suffering which accelerates the believer’s advance from spiritual autonomy to spiritual maturity. Gate 7 is one of the categories of suffering for blessing.

I press on toward the goal for the prize of that upward call from God in Christ Jesus, therefore, as many as are spiritual adults, let us keep on thinking this [the aggressive mental attitude to continue advancing spiritually under pressure]. (Phil. 3:14—15a)

GATE 8, THE WINNER’S GATE, is the gate of spiritual maturity. This is the most advanced level of spiritual adulthood, in which God is glorified and the believer is blessed to the maximum under all circumstances, whether prosperity or adversity. The adult believer’s inner happiness is stabilized and completely established in spiritual maturity.

If you keep My mandates, you will reside in the sphere of My love [the divine dynasphere1, just as I [the humanity of Christ] have fulfilled the mandates of My Father [who created the divine dynasphere] and I reside in the sphere of His love [during His first advent Christ lived in the prototype of the divine dynasphere]. I have taught you these things that My happiness might be in you and that your happiness might be completed [spiritual maturity]. (John 15:10—11)

When the Holy Spirit placed us in the palace of the divine dynasphere, God the Father intended us to live there, not to get out of fellowship with Him through sin and move into the dungeon of Satan’s counterfeit systems.[8]

We are spiritual royalty, however, regardless of where we live: Our salvation is eternally secure. But we must reside in our palace to solve the problems of suffering and to grow spiritually. God’s plan calls for us to handle suffering from inside the palace. Only in the palace is His omnipotence at our disposal for handling the problems of life.

CATALOG OF THE BELIEVER’S

PROBLEM-SOLVING DEVICES

Problem Solving in Spiritual Childhood

Each gate of the palace contains divine assets that may be used to solve particular problems that cause or accompany suffering. What difficulties do these eight gates solve? To help the believer recall and utilize the grace of God in the midst of overwhelming pain, the divine provisions for problem solving are best described in highly objective language. The power and grace of God, therefore, will be presented in terms of “problem-solving devices.” This terminology may sound harsh and mechanical, but there is a reason for it.

Under pressure the believer needs truth. If he is coddled, he may be in danger of intensifying his problem by slipping into self-pity. No one with integrity wants to feel sorry for himself. Furthermore, under stress the believer needs straight answers. He does not need a lot of beautiful language. His emotions are already highly charged, and emotionalism offers no hope of stabilizing him. Certainly the grace of God can be described in beautiful, poetic terms, but emotional stimulation will not solve the problem and might only complicate the Christian’s suffering which already is difficult enough.

The purpose for the terminology I have chosen is to make absolutely clear to the suffering believer that God has provided real assets that both transcend his current misery and offer him effective help in time of need. The purpose is not to commiserate or to comfort him. This human dimension of the problem is not to be ignored, but that is not the focus of this book. This book is intended to teach and to present a system of orthodox doctrine with tremendous practical application.

Simple problem-solving devices are available for spiritual childhood in the first four gates of the divine dynasphere. More powerful problem-solving devices become effective in spiritual adulthood in the final four gates.

The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life that demands a supernatural means of execution. The only power equivalent to the demand is the omnipotence of God. Therefore, Gate 1 is the invisible, behind-the-scenes ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life. The Holy Spirit ad-ministers Gate 1 entirely by Himself from His divine omnipotence. We contribute nothing. We merely ensure that we give Him control of our lives by

using the rebound technique. Rebound is the believer’s first responsibility in I Gate 2.

Rebound, faith-rest, and hope are basic problem-solving devices found in Gate 2. Rebound allows the believer to reside consistently in his palace. It switches on the power of Gate 1. Because the spiritual child (indeed, every believer) is prone to leaving his palace (1 John 1:8, 10), he must quickly learn how to reenter. He exits the divine dynasphere by committing sin; he reenters by naming that sin to God (1 John 1:9). I call this divine provision the rebound technique because it causes the believer to bounce back after failure, ~1 restoring his fellowship with God, avoiding the trap of a guilt complex.[9]

The next problem-solving device in the Christian way of life is faith-rest, which enables the believer to control his own mental attitude. Emotion is a blessing, but it can also be a terrible cursing when it sweeps away reason and truth. If emotion dominates thought in a crisis, the result can be disastrous.

The spiritual child needs to know how to remain lucid when his emotions rise, how to think clearly under pressure. The accurate application of doctrine appropriate to a crisis demands a stabilized mentality. How does the distraught believer regain and maintain his self-control? The solution is the faith-rest drill. A confusing, complicated situation must first be reduced to utter simplicity by claiming stated promises of God (Heb. 4:1—3). Stabilized by divine promises, he can recall principles he has learned and eventually reach doctrinal conclusions. From the divine viewpoint he can then deal with the complexities of the situation.[10]

Another basic problem-solving device in Gate 2 is called “hope” in the Bible. Hope answers the question “Where am I going in life?” The believer learns pertinent doctrine about his own future blessings; his eager anticipation, or hope, of receiving those blessings motivates him to keep advancing in the protocol plan of God. Hope begins as a basic problem-solving device in Gate 2 but increases in strength as the believer grows spiritually. As a result, hope also becomes one of the key problem-solving devices of spiritual adulthood.

Arrogance is the believer’s worst enemy. What is the immediate and long-term solution to the insidious, multifaceted problem of arrogance? In Gate 3, enforced humility is an immediate problem-solving device as the believer submits to the authority of God’s system. Obedience to divine protocol means using perfect divine assets rather than trusting inferior human ability. As the believer learns more doctrine, he understands the reasons behind God’s commands and sees how His commands reveal His matchless character. With a growing knowledge of Bible doctrine, enforced humility becomes genuine humility, the foundation for personal love for God.

The most critical issue in the believer’s life is how does he solve the problem of ignorance? At salvation he knows nothing of God and His protocol plan. The solution in Gate 4 includes tremendous divine assets for learning, metabolizing, and applying the Mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).[11]

The Bible draws an analogy between eating food and learning doctrine, which is the believer’s spiritual food (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4). Just as food must be metabolized to sustain the body, so doctrine must be metabolized before it is usable in spiritual growth, application, or problem solving. Someone may order a meal at a restaurant, and the food, if well presented, may be attractive to the eye. But the food nourishes him only when he eats it. Likewise, the believer learns doctrine academically, but doctrine benefits him only when he believes what he has learned. He must integrate the new doctrine he hears with the rest of the doctrine he knows for that new truth to contribute to his spiritual growth. To dispel his ignorance, the believer must establish a firm policy of learning Bible doctrine every day. He must always organize his day to accomplish his first priority, the assimilation of God’s Word.

Problem Solving in Spiritual Adulthood

Spiritual childhood continues from salvation until the believer reaches Gate 5, which is personal love for God. Spiritual adulthood extends from Gate 5 all the way to Gate 8, the winner’s gate.
As the Christian moves into spiritual adulthood he finds solutions to many problems. How can he love God whom he cannot see? How can he have an objective yet positive attitude toward self, even though he knows his own flaws and weaknesses? How can he tolerate obnoxious, antagonistic people? How can he avoid being distracted by the people he loves?
These are problems in relationships, and the solutions lie in virtue-love. Virtue-love is the combination of Gates 5 and 6 of the divine dynasphere, which include personal love for God, spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and impersonal love for all mankind.
I express these biblical concepts in contemporary terminology to communicate the progression and the mechanics of spiritual adulthood. Gates 5 and 6 solve problems in relationships with God and with other people. Toward God, virtue-love derives its strength from God Himself, the object of the believer’s personal love. Personal love for God naturally generates spiritual self-esteem and spiritual autonomy within the believer’s own soul. The believer gains confidence concerning his eternal spiritual royalty, and that inner composure becomes the self-assured basis for kindness, thoughtfulness, and graciousness toward other people. Toward others, therefore, virtue-love is impersonal love for the entire human race. Impersonal love draws its strength not from the object of love but from the virtue of the believer himself, even when the object of love is totally incompatible or antagonistic toward him.

When the believer begins to acquire virtue-love, how does he coordinate his newly developed spiritual muscles? How do the first awkward expressions of virtue-love become the genuine poise of spiritual strength? The answer is suffering for blessing. Between Gates 5 and 6, and again after virtue-love is consolidated in Gate 6, God applies pressure to test the believer and to accelerate his advance. Gate 7 is a series of tests designed to propel him into spiritual maturity.
The mature believer is a winner in life. He has developed the capacity to receive the conveyance of “every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), all of which were tailor-made for him “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). These fabulous blessings, now on deposit for but a] each believer, are called “greater grace” (James 4:6). Conveyance of the believer’s greater blessings glorifies God to the maximum.

Now that the believer has reached maturity, he becomes aware of yet another problem. Having learned the doctrine of the angelic conflict, which explains the existence of the human race and the objective of human history, he knows that God’s purpose is always to demonstrate His glory.’⁵ How is God glorified to the maximum? How does He express His glory in the life of a believer who already receives the magnificent blessings of maturity?

The answer is evidence testing. Evidence testing is Satan’s cross-examination of a mature believer whom God has called to the stand as a witness for God’s character, a demonstration of God’s glory. Satan attempts to discredit each witness, but spiritual maturity gives the believer the strength to face the worst Satan can throw at him. When the believer uses divine assets under extreme duress, not only is God’s perfection demonstrated to Satan, but the marvel of God’s grace is also made dramatically clear to the mature believer himself. His occupation with the person of Christ sustains an inner happiness that is the greatest of all problem-solving devices (1 Pet. 1:6—8).

Whether enjoying prosperity or coping with adversity, the mature believer has access to all the problem-solving devices of the entire divine dynasphere. As he grows, he still uses all the problem-solving devices of spiritual childhood, but now they are reinforced with the strength of adulthood. Using the tremendous assets of his palace, he sustains his spiritual momentum throughout his life and handles suffering with such confidence that he becomes a maximum demonstration of God’s perfect grace and integrity.

MENTAL ATTITUDE IN SUFFERING: THE PRINCIPLE OF THE OFFENSIVE

Besides the doctrines of the royal family and the palace, yet another concept must be understood in connection with suffering. The protocol plan of God is an aggressive plan. Its objective sharply focuses the believer’s attention. The Christian’s purpose in life is to know God, as He has revealed Himself in His Word. This goal is achieved by learning, metabolizing, and applying Bible doctrine, which not only cause the believer to personally love God but also create true motivation in all realms of spiritual and temporal life.

Positive volition is more than a passive interest in God and His plan. The believer must take the offensive and employ divine assets to attain the goal that God has set for every believer.

No one stands still in the Christian life: If a believer does not advance, he retrogresses. This truth is intensified under pressure. Suffering never leaves the Christian the same as he was before; suffering makes him either better or any worse. The believer who reacts to pain and pressure with arrogance— has manifested in bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, guilt, or self-pity—sets

himself back in the Christian life. To advance, he must follow the example of Paul who repeatedly expresses the attitude of the offense: “I press on .reaching forward . . . I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12—14).

The offensive has always been an important principle in life. It is a military axiom that offensive action is the only means by which a victory is gained. Offensive action brings victory, while defensive action can only avoid defeat.

Just as the offensive increases the effectiveness of the military force adopting it, likewise taking the offensive in the spiritual life increases the believer’s ability to handle any suffering he encounters. The offensive in the military also raises morale, permits concentration of effort, and allows freedom of action. Defensive action can be used to assist offensive action elsewhere, to gain time, to utilize terrain, or to compensate for weakness, but offensive action must be used where there is any reasonable chance for success.

In the Christian life there is always a “reasonable chance of success.” Taking our cue from the many biblical analogies drawn from military life (for example, Eph. 6:10—17 or Heb. 4:12), let us use the parallels between the Christian life and a military operation as a means of anticipating where our study of suffering will carry us.

The believer has an objective in life, which is to know and love God. This personal objective implies that the believer must attain spiritual maturity, in which status his life glorifies God to the maximum. How does he reach his assigned objective? He goes on the offensive by metabolizing Bible doctrine while consistently living in the divine dynasphere. Doctrine gives him spiritual momentum. From doctrine he develops capacity to love God; he attains spiritual self-esteem. Spiritual self-esteem is a remarkable achievement, which we will study in detail. It is the giant step into spiritual adulthood, the first major intermediate objective along the route of advance to maturity.

Because spiritual self-esteem can easily become arrogance, God strengthens the believer’s spiritual self-esteem with providential preventive suffering. This is the first category of Christian suffering designed for blessing. When strengthened, spiritual self-esteem becomes spiritual autonomy, which is a base of further operations. The believer continues his advance to spiritual maturity through the valley of momentum testing, which is yet another category of Christian suffering for blessing. Upon reaching spiritual maturity, the believer is in a position to face the challenge of evidence testing and to glorify God to the maximum.

Suffering plays a major role in the believer’s advance. His personal determination to achieve maturity by obeying God’s mandates makes him equal to any suffering in life. Mental alertness and a readiness to use the assets God has provided are the attitudes of the spiritual winner.

Chapter 2

THE LAW OF VOLITIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

SELF-INDUCED MISERY

BY FAR THE MOST PREVALENT CATEGORY of human suffering is self-induced misery. People in general and believers in particular cause themselves tremendous anguish, both within their own souls and in the overt circumstances they create. The law of volitional responsibility recognizes that a believer’s decisions have natural and logical consequences. When he makes bad decisions, suffering will naturally result. In nearly every instance of Christian suffering, therefore, part or all of the problem can be traced back logically to the choices of the one who suffers.

Before God created the human race, He decreed that man would have free will. By divine decree, our decisions (or indecisions) have real repercussions for which we are responsible. Just as there are scientific laws in which science observes the faithfulness of Jesus Christ who “uphold[s] all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3; cf., Col. 1:16), so also there are laws of human consequence in which each individual’s thoughts, decisions, and actions establish the trends in his life.

Every human being has free will. We make decisions constantly. Some of those decisions are good, others bad. You probably discovered in early youth that when you chose to take certain actions you were punished, but when you chose to take other actions you avoided punishment and perhaps enjoyed some measure of blessing. This principle also holds true in the spiritual life. When we follow divine protocol we are blessed; when we violate protocol we suffer. The obvious conclusion is that we must learn God’s system and abide by it.

The implication of the law of volitional responsibility is that every human being must take the responsibility for his own decisions and actions. If properly reared, a person understands that he never blames others for his unhappiness. He acknowledges any mistakes or wrong decisions he has made regarding relationships, activities, motives, and functions in life and fulfills the obligations he has incurred. If he suffers from causes beyond his control, he does not allow the pain to tyrannize his soul. Rather than poison himself with bitterness and self-pity, he makes the most of his present options and opportunities through good decisions compatible with the protocol plan of God.

The law of volitional responsibility is clearly taught in Scripture.

Be not deceived; God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. (Gal. 6:7)

Sowing and reaping can be beneficial or detrimental. In Galatians 6:7 they illustrate the law of volitional responsibility, warning the believer not to ignore or violate the protocol plan of God. The seeds a farmer plants will invariably produce their own species of plant and fruit. Likewise, the sins a person commits sprout and follow a natural pattern of growth.

Tracing the results of a particular sin is not the point of this verse. Just as no two seeds are exactly alike and just as they are affected by nearly infinite combinations of soil and weather, a believer’s sins produce suffering in keeping with all the variables of his life. The harvest of suffering will differ from one person to another even if they seem to commit the same sins. But anyone who thinks he will escape the consequences of his own decisions deceives himself. He assumes that God has not sovereignly decreed man to have free will. If man’s decisions had no effect, he would not have free will. However, man does have free will and his bad decisions have bad effects.

Arrogance is self-deception. An inflated opinion of self is the believer’s great enemy, an illusion which will relentlessly undermine his life and happiness. Most suffering in life is caused by arrogance. In contrast to Bible doctrine, which orients the believer to reality, arrogance is divorcement from reality. The divine decrees guarantee that the consequences of man’s decisions occur in reality, and because the arrogant believer’s perception and thought are divorced from reality, his suffering will seem to come out of nowhere. The natural results of his decisions often will take him by surprise. Situations for which he himself is responsible will shock and disappoint him, will confound his expectations, will dash his misplaced hopes.

In arrogance and ignorance the believer will falsely blame his misfortunes on other people, environment, childhood trauma, bad luck, the devil, or even God. Because he is out of touch with reality, he is ultimately illogical in his thinking. Blaming others is rationalization; everyone is responsible for his own decisions.


VOLITION AS THE SOURCE OF SIN, HUMAN GOOD, AND EVIL

Volition, which is a component of the human soul, is the source of personal sins and human good and is also a source of evil,
PERSONAL SIN is an act of volition contrary to the will and standards of God. Personal sin is distinguished from Adam’s original sin, which caused the fall of the entire human race, and distinct also from the old sin nature, which is the genetic legacy of Adam’s sin in the body of each of his descendants.[12] Personal sin is one manifestation of man’s fallen state.
The old sin nature is a source of temptation, but volition is the source of every personal sin. Personal sin results from volition saying yes to temptation, whether or not the individual knows he is transgressing God’s will. The presence of the old sin nature is no excuse for committing personal sins, nor is ignorance. God has given us assets with the power to overcome these handicaps. Personal sins are classified as (1) mental attitude sins, like arrogance and jealousy, (2) verbal sins, such as gossip, maligning, and lying, and (3) overt sins, like murder, theft, and fornication.

HUMAN GOOD is man's relative righteousness, which can never meet the human standards of God’s absolute righteousness. Certain categories of human good are legitimate between people, but when offered to God, man’s “righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6). Religion vainly seeks to earn the approbation of God through the “dead works” of human good (Heb. 6:1; 9:14), areas whereas Christianity, which is not a religion, is a personal relationship with God based not on human good but on the possession of perfect divine righteousness. At the moment of salvation, God imputes His own righteousness to every believer (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 3:22; 4:3) and declares each believer justified, vindicated, acceptable to the absolute standards of God (Rom. 3:19—30).

EVIL is a self-destructive way of thinking that is hostile to the will of God. As ruler of the world

Satan implements his multifaceted policy of evil, a policy of guaranteed misery which many Christians execute.[13]

SINS OF IGNORANCE AND ERRORS IN JUDGMENT

Sin, human good, and evil are absolutely excluded from the plan of God for the believer’s life. But since believers still have their old sin natures after salvation (1 John 1:8, 10), and since many believers fail to learn what constitutes sin, human good, and evil or how to deal with them, Christians will inevitably commit these violations of divine protocol.

Suffering under the law of volitional responsibility will afflict the believer who does not know he is involved in sin, human good, or evil. Because volition operates in ignorance as well as in cognizance, whether or not a believer knew a particular thought or act was wrong, he nonetheless chose to commit it. He did it because he wanted to do it. Consequently, he must take responsibility for that decision and for any resultant suffering. He is foolish if he remains oblivious to the correlation between his decisions and his misery.

No one has an excuse for practicing sin, human good, or evil. Free will is always the cause. Even in psychosis people use their volition. Indeed, psychosis is primarily volitional. In fact, many psychotic individuals have exceedingly strong wills. Very few people are born psychotic; most mental illness is acquired through arrogance, self-centeredness, selfishness, self-righteousness, and the practice of making thousands of subjective wrong decisions over an extended period of time. In deliberate rebelliousness, in ignorance, or in psychosis, suffering piles on top of suffering—for which the individual bears responsibility.

Not all suffering under the law of volitional responsibility arises from sin, human good, or evil. Occasionally, our suffering originates from nothing more than poor judgment. The very fact that we are imperfect means that our judgment will be flawed from time to time. No matter how smart we are, someone can always deceive us. Despite wisdom and objectivity, we all have areas of subjectivity and sentimentality that can distort our thinking. Intelligence is no protection. Experience affords little help. Advice from friends or warnings from experts will never keep us from doing the foolish things we set our minds on doing. A great deal of suffering arises from errors in human judgment.

Violations of the laws of divine establishment guarantee suffering to both believer and unbeliever under the principle of volitional responsibility.[14] The Scriptures describe in detail operational laws for the entire human race within the framework of national entities. The sanctity of life and property, of privacy and freedom, must be respected or suffering will result. If a believer commits murder, for example, he has not only committed a sin against God but he has violated the laws of establishment concerning the sanctity a human life. He should, therefore, suffer capital punishment because he mad the criminal decision to commit murder (Rom. 13:1-4).

The Christian way of life is more demanding than the establishment life o the unbeliever. The believer’s life has a divine purpose; the unbeliever’s life does not—except to become a believer. Hence, the Christian suffers fro violations of establishment principles, as would any unbeliever, but he also suffers when he ignores the mandates of God’s protocol plan. He is commanded to reside and function in the palace, the divine dynasphere, under th enabling power of God the Holy Spirit, but if he “quenches” or “grieves” Holy Spirit through sin (Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 5:19), he cuts himself off fro God’s purpose for his life and enters the dungeon of Satan’s system. All suffering from the cosmic system is classified under the law of volitional responsibility, but the believer in the cosmic system suffers more severely than do the unbeliever in the cosmic system.

COLLECTIVE SUFFERING

The law of volitional responsibility not only explains individual suffering but also accounts for the collective suffering that man brings upon himself. A corporation may go bankrupt through the bad decisions of a few company officers and government officials. Suffering from their decisions touched many other people.

With so many individuals operating in the world, each with free will, a certain amount of suffering inevitably overflows into one’s life from the decisions of others. Volition is still the cause. If not created by one’s own volition, suffering results from someone else’s volition. The innocent suffer wi the guilty, but innocent or guilty, each believer must apply the solutions available in the divine dynasphere through his own good decisions. If he personally fails to use divine assets and problem-solving devices, the blame for misery can fall only upon the believer himself.

Ultimately there are no innocent parties; man by nature is a flawed imperfect creature. Since the fall of Adam, no one is naturally great; nobility of soul is a rare achievement. Evidence of this biblical principle is found~ the tremendous amount of suffering in the world today, suffering that h been rampant through thousands of years of human history. In every generation, there is always a plethora of suffering. Each individual (excluding humanity of Christ) is identified with Adam in his fall; each is genetically related to fallen Adam. Because of Adam’s deliberate decision to sin in Garden, we are born with genetic and environmental handicaps to which add our own volitional flaws from personal sin and poor judgment, creating our own suffering under the law of volitional responsibility.

Human weakness, ignorance, and arrogance weave a tapestry of inevitable suffering for many

people. However, we are not doomed by our handicaps to lives of misery and despair. A principle of

grace is far more powerful than is the unavoidable law of volitional responsibility: While man

manufactures his own problems and resultant suffering, God manufactures solutions and blessings in

the midst of suffering.

FORGIVENESS AND RESPONSIBILITY

All personal sins were judged at the cross (1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Cor. 5:21).[15] The Gospel of salvation is

the supreme illustration that divine sovereignty and human free will coexist by divine decree.

In grace God the Father, who is the author of the divine plan, took direct, unilateral action and solved the sin problem. He imputed all the sins of mankind to Christ on the cross and judged Him as our substitute (I Pet. 2:24). Jesus Christ died for the sins of every member of the human race, paying in full, once and for all, the penalty demanded by the absolute righteousness of God (1 Pet. 3:18). That is why the Scripture says “whoever believes may in Him have eternal life” (John 3:15).

One nonmeritorious act of positive volition to believe in Christ appropriates the work of eternal,

omnipotent, sovereign God. This is grace (Eph. 2:8—9). Through Christ’s perfectly meritorious work and man’s nonmeritorious faith, God totally removes the barrier between fallen man and Himself, reconciling the believer to Himself forever.

Even though sins were judged on the cross, and we have eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, our daily living on earth involves the natural repercussions of our sins. Sin has temporal consequences toward God, toward self, and toward other people. In relation to God, the sin caused by negative volition removes the believer from temporal fellowship with Him in the palace of the divine dynasphere. When we rebound, the sin is always forgiven and we are restored to fellowship with God. Admitting, naming, citing our sins privately to the Father is our responsibility toward God (1 John 1:9), which is our first obligation after committing a sin.

What is our responsibility toward self? In relation to self, the danger lies in allowing the sin that God has already forgiven to kindle a mental attitude reaction. Like a chain smoker who lights his next cigarette on the butt of the last one, the chain sinner ignites a mental attitude sin on a sin that rebound has taken away.

For example, when a believer guilty of hatred confesses his sin t~ God forgives him and forgets the sin. If the believer then fails to forge God Himself has forgotten, the old hatred can lead to further sins of bitterness and revenge. Likewise, fornication is a sin that, even though totally forgiven by God, may cause the devastating sin of guilt. Or, in erroneous zeal to up for a sin for which Christ was already judged on the cross, a believe enter into self-righteous, crusader arrogance which once again ejects hire the divine dynasphere.

An essential part of rebound, therefore, is the isolation of sin.[16] We never allow one sin to become the cause of another and another in a subjective chain reaction. After perfect God has forgiven us, a guilt complex or pity or a “root of bitterness springing up” must be classified as nothing devastating mental attitude sin, a prime cause of self-induced misery 12:15). By understanding and applying the powerful doctrines that underlie the simplicity of the rebound technique, we are able to prevent the forgiven sin from igniting another sin.[17]

We are responsible to rebound and move on in our Christian lives r~ than be enslaved to past sins by bitterness or a guilt complex. Any suffering that our sinning brings about is converted by rebound from cursing to blessing. Although we may be the cause of our own pain, our situation has now come an opportunity to utilize divine assets, to see God’s provisions in act to grow in grace.

Since we are responsible for all of our decisions, what is our obligation to people who have been hurt by our sinning? What is our responsibility to those harmed by our bad judgment? Although our sins are forgiven and we are stored to fellowship with God, although we have avoided chain sinning. have proceeded to apply doctrine in our own lives, our sins may continue have injurious effects on other people. Rebound and the isolation of sin marvelous problem-solving devices supplied by the grace of God, but they give us no excuse for irresponsibility toward others. Rebound is a license spiritual growth, never a license for sin. Nor does God’s grace in rebound ever justify a believer’s flip attitude toward the freedom, privacy, property, feelings of others.

Here we sail into dangerous waters where we must “rightly divide Word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). To be right with man does not mean that we a right with God. Unbelievers can have honorable relationships with other people, proving that human relationships are not at the heart of the Christian way of life. What the unbeliever can do is not the Christian life.

In the protocol plan of God, relationship with God comes first and has a positive impact on relationships with people. A right relationship with God leads to a right relationship with man. The believer’s most important function after committing a sin is to restore his fellowship with God inside the divine dynasphere, where he is filled with the Spirit and thereby perpetuates his spiritual growth.

Much less important, but still part of the believer’s volitional responsibility, is the fulfillment of his obligations in relation to other people. Every situation is different; each believer must apply doctrine for himself. There is no pat solution by which the Christian resolves his human relationships, but certain biblical principles must guide his thinking and application.

Responsibility to people we have harmed lies between two extremes that we must avoid. We must not be insensitive, nor should we allow ourselves to be enslaved by anyone’s implacability. In other words, we are not to ignore the just cause of anyone who suffers because of our decisions, but neither should we be motivated by fear or a guilt complex. Between these two erroneous extremes lies our responsibility.

If the suffering we cause can be alleviated, we should go to the extent that justice, sensitivity, and common sense dictate in easing the situation. Often the problem is complex. Usually both parties in any dispute are guilty to some degree. Some “solutions” would only aggravate the problem. We should be thoughtful and generous and should walk the extra mile (Matt. 5:41), but when nothing more can be done, we must leave the situation in the Lord’s bands for solution as we press on in our Christian lives (2 Sam. 12:13). No matter whose volition originally causes the suffering, each person is ultimately responsible for applying Bible doctrine in his own life.

Above all else, the believer must live his life as unto the Lord, not as unto people. This is not to be construed as ignoring the human dimension of the problem, but application of the law of volitional responsibility does not mortgage the believer’s future to pay for his past failures. Instead, the protocol plan of God demands the virtues of humility, personal love for God, and impersonal love toward other people. Bad decisions make suffering inevitable, and when a believer commits a sin, he must take responsibility for its consequences toward God, self, and others.

THE LIMITED EXAMPLE OF ESTABLISHMENT COURAGE

In the devil’s world a certain amount of suffering is unavoidable, but self-induced misery can always be avoided. The key is found in the application of truth resident in the soul. All truth is ultimately based on the absolute person of God, and all human integrity is loyalty to some category of truth. Truth exists in three categories:

1. LAWS OF DIVINE ESTABLISHMENT for believers and unbelievers alike,

2. THE GOSPEL OF SALVATION for unbelievers,

3. BIBLE DOCTRINE for believers only.

When inculcated with truth, the human soul can triumph over terrible adversity. This point is dramatically illustrated by the establishment-oriented unbeliever. Although he has limited resources of truth, he displays admirable stability and courage under stress. If the unbeliever can handle suffering with the restricted power of establishment truth, then far greater are the believer’s dynamics as he utilizes Bible doctrine and the divine omnipotence available in the divine dynasphere to meet the challenges of life.

The effectiveness of divine establishment as a limited source of strength dramatically reveals the superior power of doctrine. American prisoners of war in North Vietnam provide a notable example of unbelievers and believers whose inner strength was derived from establishment principles. These men were sustained by a code of establishment concepts through years of bestial, crippling torture. Rear Admiral James B. Stockdale, (Ret.), the senior American prisoner of war, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his “valiant leadership and extraordinary courage” as the leader of prisoner resistance.[18] He confirms that even under extreme suffering, the law of volitional responsibility remains operational, and he describes the prisoners’ ability to avoid self-destructive mental attitude sins.

There are a lot of things [a torturer] can’t do with torture. Aristotle said that compulsion and free will can coexist, and he was right.... A man about to undergo torture must have burned into his mind the fact that he can be hemmed in only within a very narrow window and that he need not volunteer information ....

To keep your integrity, your dignity, your soul, you have to retain responsibility for your actions, to deal with guilt. (“Yes, I lost the bubble, I might have done better, but I didn’t.”) You need to look squarely at what you did and measure its limited gravity in the light of the overall truth of the total situation, then use the guilt, such as it is, as a cleansing fire to purge the fault, as a goad for future resolve, and above all not be consumed by it. But you have to do all this yourself. To say that guilt doesn’t exist or that it was the work of “evil spirits” or “brainwashers” is self-delusion. . . . What is indispensable to avoiding the web of fear and guilt is the ability to stand isolated, without friends and surrounded by entreaters, and quite uncharitably say “no,” without the crutch of anger, without embarrassment, with finality and with commitment to the consequences...

Young Americans in Hanoi learned fast. They made no deals. They learned that “meeting them half way” was the road to degradation. My hypothetical young prison mate soon learned that impulses, working against the grain, are very important in political prisons, that one learns to enjoy fighting city hall, to enjoy giving the enemy upside-down logic problems, that one soon finds himself taking his lumps with pride and not merely liking but loving that tapping guy next door, the man he never sees, the man he bares his soul to after each torture session, until he realizes he is thereby expiating all residual guilt. Then he realizes he can’t be hurt and can’t be had as long as he tells the truth and clings to that forgiving band of brothers who are becoming his country, his family.[19]

American prisoners of war applied establishment truths concerning personal freedom and responsibility as well as humility, honesty, and mutual respect. They avoided torturing themselves with mental attitude sins. Moreover, free from self-induced misery, they learned to actually enjoy the challenges of their unspeakable situation. Their success did not stem from mere stubbornness, which can be a counterfeit of integrity. Anger, fear, guilt, vengeance, implacability, or insecurity may motivate unyielding tenacity. This pseudo-strength may appear admirable and may even achieve a degree of success, but the inner result of such false motivation is only wear and tear on the soul. In particular, fear is a tremendous drain of mental and physical energy.

God is the source of establishment truth, but the protocol plan of God both includes and exceeds divine establishment. If the application of establishment truth creates genuine strength of soul, the application of Bible doctrine has far greater dynamics. The whole is greater than the part. The advancing believer understands that “the overall truth of the total situation” includes the magnificent grace of God, His divine omnipotence, and the problem-solving devices of His protocol plan.

Free volition causes suffering under the law of volitional responsibility, but the existence of free will also strips away every excuse for self-induced misery. The believer’s own negative volition is his only hindrance to advancement in the protocol plan of God. There is no excuse for failing to perceive, metabolize, and apply Bible doctrine in the power of the divine dynasphere. Far surpassing establishment truth, fabulous equal privileges and equal opportunities are granted by God to every believer for the fulfillment of His plan, purpose, and design.

MAKING GOOD DECISIONS, FOLLOWING DIVINE PROTOCOL

The believer is responsible for most of his own suffering, but what is the solution? He must reverse the trend. Rather than make bad decisions, the believer must begin to make good decisions, which also have logical repercussions—good results. The believer who obeys the mandates of God frees the omnipotence of God to advance and bless him. This means that he must learn Bible doctrine. Only the believer who understands and properly uses the problem-solving devices available to him in the palace of the divine dynasphere fulfills his destiny in the plan of God.

Divine protocol is precise. “God is not a God of confusion” or disorganization (1 Cor. 14:33). The believer is free to express his individual volition within the boundaries established by the plan of God. God’s plan must be accurately understood and applied. The believer who distorts God’s plan by overemphasizing isolated elements rather than living by the entire system of protocol is not solving his problems; he is compounding them.

The rebound prayer, for example, is the means of reentering the divine dynasphere and of restoring the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life. But even a precisely accurate rebound prayer generally does not cause pain to instantly, magically cease. In reaction to pain, prayer is often taken out of its protocol context and falsely applied to suffering. Prayer is a weapon for the strong, not a crutch for the weak.[20] Prayer has many wonderful applications within the rules God has laid down, but no amount of prayer will reverse the natural results of bad decisions.

When a believer prays for himself or asks others to pray for him because he is hurting from bad decisions, he may be hoping prayer will achieve what it was never designed to accomplish. If he merely wishes his suffering to end, he wants God to suspend the law of volitional responsibility, change His entire plan for the human race, and somehow miraculously make the pain go away. The source of the suffering is the wrong decisions the believer himself has made —regarding business, or personal relationships, or when facing temptation or sin. There are divine solutions to suffering, which we are studying, but imploring God for relief is not one of them. In fact, the removal of suffering might deny the believer a special blessing available to him only through the suffering.

The protocol plan of God establishes the correct procedure to use; the believer must learn and obey the system God has established. The ignorance and confusion of believers who have never learned the protocol of the Christian life can only intensify their suffering.

Chapter 3

DIVINE DISCIPLINE

AN EXPRESSION OF GOD’S GRACE

WE HAVE SEEN THAT MOST CHRISTIAN SUFFERING arises from the believer’s own thoughts, decisions, and actions. One bad decision follows an-other until his life is unbearable. He makes a shamble of his present experience and destroys his future options. No one can devastate a person’s life as~ he can himself.

At some point in this self-destructive process, God intervenes with divine discipline. God will not stand by while members of the royal family sink into degeneracy; He takes stern measures to alert them to their dire situation and to encourage them to rebound and reenter the palace. In His perfect wisdom God knows when and how to warn each believer. Our heavenly Father knows the most effective way to confront us with the fact that we are totally dependent on His grace.

All divine discipline is administered in grace. The Christian under discipline may doubt that God is treating him in grace, but he could not imagine how much more he would hurt if God were not acting in grace. God severely punishes believers but not because He likes to see us squirm. He is perfect. He is just. We are His children, the royal family of God, and He punishes us for our benefit.

By definition, divine discipline is the sum total of punitive action taken by the justice of God in grace to correct, to punish, to encourage, to train, to motivate the believer’s free will toward the protocol plan of God. Divine discipline is for believers only (Heb. 12:8) and occurs only in this life, not in eternity (Rev. 21:4).

Divine discipline is a warning that the believer is outside the boundaries of God’s plan. Just as a football game is played inside the boundaries of the playing field, so the plan of God must be executed within the bounds of divine protocol (2 John 9). Just as the referee blows a whistle when the ball carrier steps out of bounds, so God blows a whistle on us and administers divine discipline when we live outside the divine dynasphere.

DISCIPLINE AS PARENTAL TRAINING IN HEBREWS 12

When a believer cuts off his fellowship with God through sin and remains in the cosmic system, God in His grace must deal with him as a child. Bible doctrine has been ignored; God must get the believer’s attention through pain.

And so you yourselves have forgotten a principle of doctrine which teaches you as sons: My son [God addresses believers as His children], do not make light of corrective discipline from the Lord nor be fainting when you are reprimanded by Him. (Heb. 12:5)

Hebrews 12:5 encourages us by explaining that divine discipline is tailored to each believer. God treats us as individuals. Discipline is neither too lenient (“do not make light”) nor too severe (“nor be fainting”) but is administered for maximum effectiveness in every believer’s life.

For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He punishes every son whom He welcomes home. (Heb. 12:6)

Divine discipline from the Lord is part of parental training in the royal family of God. The premise in comparing divine discipline with child rearing in the home is that, except for the humanity of Jesus Christ, there is no such thing as a perfect child. Some children are unquestionably better behaved and more responsive to instruction than others, but every child needs training so that eventually he will be able to function in adult society. Parents try to instill authority orientation in their children. Anyone who leaves home without authority orientation makes himself a monster who will manufacture misery for himself and others under the law of volitional responsibility.

On the spiritual side of the analogy, there is no such thing as sinless perfection in this life, again with the exception of Christ’s impeccable humanity. As long as any believer lives in his mortal body, in which the old

sin nature resides, he will continue to sin. As he matures spiritually, he will sin less frequently and perhaps will commit different categories of sin, but periodically he will succumb to temptation and enter the cosmic system.

If we [believers] say we have no sin [no sin nature], we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. . . . If we say that we have not sinned [do not commit personal sins], we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. (1 John 1:8, 10)

If the believer remains in the cosmic system, his thinking loses touch with the reality of God’s protocol plan. Under prolonged cosmic influence, his arrogance becomes antagonism toward God; he multiplies his own unhappiness and incurs divine discipline. Like parental training, divine discipline is designed to inculcate humility, which is orientation to reality and authority. Only the humble believer is teachable (Ps. 25:8—9); he desires to understand how he fits in the overall scheme of God’s grace. Only with humility can anyone be objective and responsive to the authority of Bible doctrine.

Although self-evaluation when accompanied by arrogance rapidly slips into subjectivity, we have the responsibility to analyze our lives objectively in the light of the Word of God. We should be first to recognize our own weaknesses. If we do not, divine discipline enforces humility on us, teaching us to see ourselves as we really are in relation to God and His marvelous plan. The very fact that we receive discipline from God tells us we are divorced from reality and that God is bringing us back to grace-oriented objectivity. From that solid footing we can rebound and resume our spiritual growth.

Because of corrective discipline, endure. (Heb. 12:7a)

This is a command to endure suffering inside the divine dynasphere. In other words, rebound! And after rebound, keep applying doctrine!

Hebrews 12 continues with an explanation of divine discipline in terms of parents and children. The entire passage should be cited (with exposition) as documentation of God’s magnificent purpose in disciplining His own.

As a result, God will deal with you as sons, for what one is a son [royal family] whom the Father has not disciplined? But if you are without discipline, of which all [believers] have become participants, then you are bastards [unbelievers] and not sons.

Another point: We had our human parents for corrective discipline, and we respected them. Therefore, to a greater degree you will become subordinate to the Father of our spirits and continue living [in the divine dynasphere]. For they [human parents] on the one hand, disciplined us for a short time [during our childhood] according to what seemed best to them, but He [God] on the other hand disciplines us for our profit in order that we might receive a share of His holiness [blessing from the justice of God].

So, on the one hand, all discipline while in progress appears to be an occasion not for happiness but sorrow; afterwards [after recovery by rebound], on the other hand, sorrow pays back with interest a prosperous gain from virtue [resumption of momentum inside the divine dynasphere] to those who are taught by it [discipline teaching the humble believer].

Therefore, restore to power [rebound, or restore to the divine dynasphere] the listless hands and the disabled knees [illustrations of how the believer can suffer]. Be making straight tracks by means of your feet [momentum in the divine dynasphere] in order that the cripple [the believer in the cosmic system] may not be put out of joint [permanently] but rather be healed [restored through rebound]. (Heb. 12:7b—13)

CATEGORIES OF DIVINE DISCIPLINE

God is never arbitrary in administering discipline: His punishment is always appropriate to the individual in question. From His perfect divine justice, all discipline not only fits the violation but also matches the believer’s receptivity. Hence, there are three categories of divine discipline:

1. WARNING DISCIPLINE,

2. INTENSIVE DISCIPLINE,

3. DYING DISCIPLINE.

When the believer does not use rebound, these three categories of discipline are progressive. Mild discipline gives way to more and more severe discipline if the believer fails to respond.

The believer who refuses to live in the divine dynasphere receives warning discipline, added to the misery he has already created for himself under the law of volitional responsibility. He has isolated himself from fellowship with God; he has shut Christ out of his thoughts.

Behold, I [Christ] stand at the door and I keep knocking. (Rev. 3:20a)

That knock at the door is warning discipline. As a general rule, warning discipline is in itself less severe than the believer’s self-induced misery. However, the combination of warning discipline and self-induced misery adds up to a significant shock. Because he has not yet declined into the later stages of negative volition, this believer is still sensitive to the truth. He can still profit from this degree of discipline so that God does not have to proceed to the next stage of punitive suffering. He can still hear the knocking on the door. God can catch his attention with relatively mild suffering.

If the believer ignores or rejects divine warnings, he eventually requires intensive discipline. By habitual obstinance he has dulled his sensitivity to truth; warning discipline is no longer sufficient. God still has a marvelous plan for blessing this cosmic believer, but God’s plan can be executed only in the power of the divine dynasphere. God continues to support him with logistical grace, keeping him alive so that he might return to his palace. Where there is life there is hope, and God fans the feeble flame of hope by continuing to discipline the believer even after he has insulted and blasphemed God by choosing to remain in Satan’s cosmic system.

Stiffer divine discipline is required to jolt the habitually rebellious believer into objectivity. Intensive discipline alone is worse than self-induced misery:

When these two categories of suffering are combined, the total pain from God and from self is extremely severe. This adds up to unbearable suffering for the believer who persists in the cosmic system.

God is exceedingly patient with His children. He extends to the believer every possible opportunity to fulfill His protocol plan. But with each rejection of God’s gracious appeal to return to the divine dynasphere, the Christian renders himself less capable of making a positive decision. “Hardness of heart,” or scar tissue of the soul, eventually locks his volition in negative (Heb. 4:7; 6:6). Unless he rebounds, he will arrive at the third and final stage of divine discipline, the sin unto death (1 John 5:16).

Dying discipline, or the sin unto death, is a horrible departure from time into eternity. The Christian involved has no inner resources for meeting death. In ignorance of doctrine, death becomes a terrifying plunge into the unknown.

God’s work of salvation can never be canceled; even the most hardened, self-righteous Christian is immediately “absent from the body and. . . at home face to face with the Lord” when removed from life on earth (2 Cor. 5:8). Such a recalcitrant believer will enjoy complete happiness in heaven (Rev. 21:4), but he receives no eternal rewards with which to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ forever (1 Cor. 3:15). This cosmic believer is a loser in life; his tailor-made blessings for time and eternity are never delivered to him but remain permanently on deposit in heaven as a memorial to his lost opportunity and to God’s magnificent, irrevocable bounty (Eph. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:4).

BELIEVERS WHO SERVE SATAN

Not every Christian who fails to rebound and continues in locked-in negative volition is removed

immediately from this life. God may keep a believer alive for a long time in the intensive stage of divine discipline. With great finesse God may employ these eternally saved “enemies of the cross” (Phil. 3:18) as agents of momentum testing in the lives of growing believers. Specifically, Christians suffering intensive divine discipline may administer the people test, the thought test, the system test, or the disaster test to spiritually adult believers. Representing many different personalities, attitudes, and styles of living, and taking many different human approaches to life, cosmic Christians who periodically receive intensive discipline serve Satan as cosmic evangelists. Satan uses these negative believers to distract positive believers from the protocol plan of God. Cosmic Christians draw other believers into the pseudo-strength and superficial attractions of the cosmic system (Rev. 2:2). Besides “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18), other biblical terms for cosmic believers include “enemies of God” (James 4:4), “haters of God” (John 15:23), “anti-Christs” (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7), “hostile toward God” (Rom. 8:7), “men of the flesh” (1 Cor. 3:1—3), “double-minded” (James 4:8), “agents of the devil” (1 John 3:8), and “disciples of the devil” (1 John 3:10). All these phrases refer to eternally saved believers, not to unbelievers. Cosmic believers are like aggressors in army field exercises. Often troops who have only a few weeks remaining in the service will be issued weapons and blank ammunition in order to play the role of the enemy against soldiers who are being trained. The aggressors and the men in training are members of the same army, but the only troops benefiting from the simulated combat are those being tested, not the aggressors. Likewise, the only reason God sustains the lives of some negative believers is to use them to train others. These “enemies of God” (James 4:4) are still members of the royal family; their eternal life is secure. But the only role they can play in the glorification of Christ is to be a test for positive believers. Because of their own failures to execute the protocol plan of God, they become merely a means of building strength in someone else. Obviously, this is not a Christian’s highest calling.

These cosmic Christians on the verge of maximum discipline may be sincere, sweet, and highly legalistic individuals who have distorted Christianity into a religion of human good works. They may be moral degenerates rather than immoral degenerates. The growing believer who can see through their facade, discerning the evil of self-righteousness, yet avoiding condescension himself, accelerates his growth in the divine dynasphere. God’s genius is wonderfully displayed as He permits a negative Christian in Satan’s system to ambush a positive Christian in the divine dynasphere. The believer who is going in the wrong direction inadvertently contributes to the maturity of the believer advancing in the right direction (Ps. 76:10a).

LEARNING THE HARD WAY

Divine discipline may incidentally help someone besides the one being punished, but primarily discipline is a teacher, a private tutor of the one in pain. Through suffering, God confronts the believer with his ignorance of Bible doctrine.

Believers who fail to learn doctrine will suffer all their lives until they are removed by the sin unto death. They may be negative at different points in the learning process, which involves reception, retention, and recall of doctrine. Those who refuse to listen to Bible teaching (no reception) will live out their days in a welter of ignorance, self-induced misery, and divine discipline. They will be unhappy and will never understand why.

Other believers who do listen to doctrine, even those who listen consistently, may reject true information they do not like to hear (reception, but no retention). The points of doctrine they resist must be learned another way, the hard way, through divine discipline. Divine discipline is suffering, but not for its own sake; divine discipline is teaching. Where the believer has reception and retention but no recall of doctrine for application, divine discipline solves the problem by forcing the believer to concentrate on doctrine in a humanly hopeless situation. God must teach—and all of us must learn—a certain number of lessons through suffering.

We have a choice: Learn the easy way through Bible teaching, or learn the hard way through suffering. These are the two systems of learning in the Church Age. Instruction from one’s pastor is God’s unlimited means of communication (depending on how diligently the pastor studies). In contrast, discipline from God is a limited means of communication. The academically prepared, orthodox pastor who teaches the Word of God line by line, verse by verse can cover the whole realm of divine truth, resulting in spiritual momentum and maturity in his listeners. Discipline, however, can only motivate the believer to return to the plan of God and resume learning doctrine under his pastor. Divine discipline has a limited objective, to alert the believer that he is out of bounds and to motivate his recovery through rebound. Concentrating in Bible class may be difficult from time to time, but it is not nearly as painful nor as limited as receiving discipline directly from God.

Discipline reminds us that we never get away with anything. God never overlooks any member of His royal family. No believer is ever ignored by the grace of God. Sooner or later God will provide sufficient punishment to remind the believer of what is really important in life.

FURTHER BIBLICAL DOCUMENTATION OF DIVINE DISCIPLINE

God takes punitive action in order to teach and train us. Divine discipline motivates us to learn so that the renewing of our minds with Bible doctrine becomes a way of life. We may learn the hard way from time to time, but we learn nonetheless.

Those whom I love [believers, who possess God’s imputed righteousness] I reprimand [warning discipline to the cosmic believer] and I punish [intensive discipline]; therefore, be zealous [motivation from divine discipline] and change your mind [rebound]. (Rev. 3:19)

In context, the well-known challenge of Revelation 3:20 deals with warning discipline, not with salvation.

Behold [Now hear this!] I stand at the door [opportunity for rebound] and I keep knocking. If anyone [believer living in the cosmic system, addressed as “beloved” in verse 19] hears My voice and opens the door [rebound], I will enter face to face with him [recovery of residence in the divine dynasphere], and I will dine with him and he with Me [fellowship with God, the grace provision of Bible doctrine as spiritual food necessary for growth]. (Rev. 3:20)

The Church Age believer always belongs to Christ’s royal priesthood, even when he lives in the cosmic system. He always has the right to approach the throne of grace with rebound and be restored to his palace (Heb. 4:16). Discipline alerts the cosmic believer to the fact that something is wrong with his life. The Lord graciously keeps knocking, giving the believer continuing opportunities to rebound. Failure to respond after hearing God’s warnings results in intensive discipline.

Behold, he [cosmic believer] shall have labor pains of vanity [warning discipline] because he has become pregnant with frustration [wrong decisions causing self-induced misery], therefore he has given birth to a life of deceit. (Ps. 7:14)

Arrogance in any of its myriad forms is a “life of deceit.” The arrogant believer denies the results of his own bad decisions and ignores the warning discipline that God adds to his self-induced misery. If he is a moral degenerate, he practices sin and evil behind a facade of respectability. Preoccupied with his own righteousness and zealous to convert others to his brand of human good, he refuses to believe that he causes most of his own trouble or that God is trying to get his attention through suffering. If he is an immoral degenerate, his sins will be more blatant. He may blame circumstances or environment for his behavior. He may claim to be no worse than others by fallaciously comparing his few strengths against their weaknesses. He may look upon his sins as isolated exceptions rather than as the consistent trend of his life.

Both moral and immoral degeneracy attempt to justify self, but both are equally abhorrent to God. The only way God can break through the “life of deceit” is with pain that strikes the degenerate believer in his particular area of sensitivity. God “makes war against the arrogant” (Prov. 3:34; James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5), attacking arrogance where the discipline will hurt most and be most effective. The believer who remains adamant in his arrogance loses all sensitivity to God’s appeals and eventually incurs maximum discipline which removes him from this life.

Therefore, because you are lukewarm [a cosmic believer], in fact neither hot [an advancing believer] nor cold [an unbeliever], I am about to vomit you out of My mouth [the sin unto death]. (Rev. 3:16)

Addressed to the local church in Laodicea, Revelation 3:16 uses the notorious Laodicean water supply to illustrate the malaise of cosmic involvement. While neighboring Hierapolis was renowned for its hot springs and nearby Colossae enjoyed cold springs, Laodicea had neither. Its piped water was lukewarm by the time it arrived and had an offensive mineral smell. The Laodicean believers perfectly understood the startling, anthropomorphic image of God vomiting.

Lukewarm water illustrates the cosmic believer’s lack of capacity for life. As a result of the law of volitional responsibility, life begins to turn sour, growing noxious under progressive stages of divine discipline. If bad decisions are not remedied by good decisions—to rebound and execute the protocol plan of God—the believer will sink into the cosmic system until God unceremoniously expels him from this life.

He [a negative believer] dug a grave [bad decisions resulting in cosmic involvement] and explored it [perpetuating his misery], therefore he has fallen into a ditch which he himself has constructed [self-induced misery]. His frustration shall return on his own head; his violent oppression of others shall descend on the crown of his head. (Ps. 7:15—16)

All three stages of divine discipline are illustrated in Paul’s description of certain Corinthian believers who came to the communion service drunk.

For this reason [believers partaking of the Eucharist while outside the divine dynasphere] many are weak [warning discipline] and sick [intensive discipline] and a number of believers sleep [dying discipline], but if we would judge ourselves [rebound] we should not be judged. (1 Cor. 11:30—31)

When the believer rebounds, his discipline may cease, diminish, or continue at the same intensity. Whatever suffering remains after rebound is designed for blessing rather than for cursing. Restored to his palace, the believer is now in a position to apply the divine assets he has attained and to benefit from using God’s resources under pressure.

Behold, happy is the man whom God reproves. Therefore, do not despise the discipline of El-Shaddai [the “many-breasted God,” a divine title emphasizing God’s logistical grace], for He inflicts pain [warning discipline] and He bandages the wound. He wounds [intensive discipline] and His hands heal. (Job 5:17—18)

In contrast with most Christian suffering, which is self-inflicted, the purpose of discipline is healing. God is like a physician who must cause pain to set a fracture or to perform life-saving surgery. We hurt ourselves when we ignore the law of volitional responsibility and continue to live in the dungeon of the cosmic system; God must hurt us more to bring us back to health and strength. He gives only what contributes most to our blessing and happiness: In discipline God gives us exactly what our cosmic status requires.

DISCIPLINE AND ETERNAL SECURITY

The God of logistical grace disciplines His children, but never does He abandon us. Even in the pressure of intensive discipline, the “many-breasted God” faithfully supplies all the logistical grace we need to sustain our lives, Discipline never implies that God forsakes us.

Divine discipline never means loss of salvation. Once anyone believes in Christ, that believer’s salvation cannot be canceled by anything he thinks, says, or does. Salvation is the irreversible work of God. Only human arrogance could presume that a failure by man could undo the permanent work of God. Christ on the cross paid for all man’s sins, including the sin of arrogance, so that no human sin, no human decision, no human absurdity can destroy the believer’s eternal relationship with God.

Even renunciation of faith does not affect the believer’s eternal status as a member of the royal family of God.

Faithful is the Word:

For if we died with Him [at the moment of faith in Christ, the baptism of the Holy Spirit identifies us with Christ in His death],

We shall also live with Him [eternal salvation is now an unconditional fact].

If we persevere [in the palace during our Christian lives on earth],

We will rule with Him [as an eternal reward].

If we deny Him [refuse to use divine assets],

He will deny us [eternal rewards].

If we are faithless [spend our lives in the cosmic system],

He remains faithful [we are eternally saved],

He cannot deny Himself. (2 Tim. 2:11—13)

At the moment of salvation God imputes His absolute righteousness to every believer and declares him righteous or justified (Rom. 3:21—28). If God excluded from eternal salvation anyone who possesses God’s own righteous. ness, He would have to deny Himself and contradict His own pronouncement of justification. Our salvation is as strong as the essence of God.

When God provided salvation, He knew in His omniscience that believers would be easily distracted. He is not shocked when a Christian ignores his own royal birthright. We may be appalled by the unfaithfulness of members of the royal family, but the sins that shock us have already been judged on the cross. God is not forced to change His plan because man periodically demonstrates the foolishness which God always knew he would exhibit. God’s plan is greater than human sin and failure. His grace is immutable. He is nol thrown off balance by every shadow of turning in a believer’s life (James 1:17). Divine discipline, no matter how severe, never cancels salvation. Instead, God is training His children to obey His protocol plan.

THE PROTECTIVE ROLE OF DISCIPLINE

Triple Compound Divine Discipline

Two specific categories of divine discipline will serve to illustrate how God administers punishment. First, His treatment of individuals is demonstrated in triple compound divine discipline; second, His punishment of families, groups, and nations is illustrated by the fourth-generation curse. These two examples will show how divine discipline not only punishes the guilty but also protects mankind from self-destruction. If negative volition were unrestrained, the human race could not survive. The freedom which the believer exercises under the law of volitional responsibility is guarded by the authority of divine discipline.

Verbal sins such as gossip, judging, and maligning warrant harsh divine discipline because they destroy the privacy of their victims. Privacy is an essential component of freedom. Living his own life before the Lord would become difficult for a believer if he were vilified and his personal business were constantly criticized. Sins of the tongue violate the sanctity of human freedom, and if a believer actually were living in the cosmic system, maligning him would only interfere with his recovery (Rom. 14:10—14).

God has protected individual privacy through the laws of divine establishment and has doubled the guarantee to each Church Age believer by adding the privacy of the priesthood. At salvation, God appoints each Christian to the royal priesthood of Christ (Heb. 5:6, 10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6).[21] Every member of the royal family is his own priest, representing himself before God; each royal priest is answerable to God alone for his spiritual life.

Because God has so thoroughly guarded the believer’s privacy, He obviously will not permit the unrestrained practice of sins that directly attack privacy. In fact, He administers triple compound divine discipline to believers habitually guilty of sins of the tongue.

Triple compound divine discipline deals first with the believer’s decision to commit mental attitude sins. There is always a motive behind verbal sins, and that motivation may be arrogance, jealousy, bitterness, hatred, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, or a guilt complex, any of which is liable for divine discipline. Mental attitude sins motivate the believer to exalt self and put down someone else. In other words, after deciding to indulge in mental attitude sins, the believer makes the additional bad decision to convert his mental sins into verbal sins, which incur a second liability to divine discipline. One of the most foolish actions a believer can take is to become involved in verbal sinning.

Judge not that you be not judged [divine discipline]. (Matt. 7:1)

Judging is a general term for verbal sins directed against another person. In judging, someone states or implies something derogatory about someone else. Whether or not the accusation is true is of no consequence. Even if the information were accurate, and accuracy is difficult to establish, there is no excuse for repeating gossip. And to merely hint at someone’s sins or failures is just as wrong as actually declaring them.

Judging violates the principle of grace. God has granted each believer-priest the right to conduct his own life before the Lord. In particular, all believers, in every stage of spiritual growth, have an equal right to assemble in the local church to hear the teaching of Bible doctrine. When other members of the congregation assume God’s prerogative by judging a believer, they interfere with his spiritual momentum. He cannot concentrate on Bible doctrine and apply it to his own life if he is thrown on the defensive by the wagging tongues of other Christians. Therefore, according to the principle of grace, and in light of God’s desire for each believer’s spiritual advance, gossip incurs a triple liability, which we will classify as triple compound divine discipline. The slanderer is liable for:

1. MENTAL ATTITUDE SINS that motivate him,

2. VERBAL SIN itself, and

3. SINS HE MENTIONS in the slander.

Different Christians will enjoy different activities, will represent a wide variety of tastes in dress and deportment, will hold diverse opinions on numerous topics. Certain characteristics in any believer will be offensive to other Christians. These qualities are expressions of personality and background rather than targets for malignant criticism. Each believer-priest’s responsibility is to grow in grace and live his own life as unto the Lord, not to supervise the lives of his fellow Christians and coerce them into his own mold of spirituality.

For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward
appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. (1 Sam. 16:7b, NASB)

Obviously exceptions to the principle of privacy exist. Parents have the right and responsibility to regulate the lives of their minor children who live at home. Because a pastor is responsible to protect members of his congregation from invasions of privacy, he must be alert to discourage gossip. Likewise, a supervisor who evaluates his subordinates is not committing a sin when, as part of his professional responsibilities, he truthfully reports an employee’s weaknesses and failings. If that supervisor, however, spreads his reports to people who have no professional need to know, he too is guilty of judging.

Anyone who engages in judging is actually guilty of two sins: the verbal sin itself and the mental sin that motivated him to gossip or malign his victim. Each of these sins calls for divine discipline; suffering is already compounded. But that is not the end of discipline for sins of the tongue. Yet another administration of punishment is added, based on the sins that are mentioned in gossip.

For in the way you judge, you will be judged, and by what measure you measure to others, it will be measured back to you. (Matt. 7:2)

The maligner is liable for the discipline that would have gone to the one he maligns. If the victim is actually guilty of sins, God has already been dealing with him, either through the law of volitional responsibility or through divine discipline. But as soon as his sins are made a subject of gossip, all the discipline is transferred over to the one who has maligned him. If the victim of gossip is not guilty of sin, he is blessed while his antagonist receives discipline appropriate to the sins he mentioned in gossip.

This adds up to triple liability and triple compound discipline. The maligner is punished for mental attitude sins, for verbal sins, and for the sins he mentions in judging his victim. Triple compound divine discipline is extremely harsh. It is a kind of poetic justice that gives believers a marvelous incentive to avoid the sin of gossip. Every believer should develop a conscious habit of keeping his mouth shut when tempted to run someone down or make innuendos against someone he cannot stand.

The ability to control one’s tongue always accompanies spiritual growth.

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect [mature] man, able to bridle the whole body as well. (James 3:2b)

Discipline in Historical Perspective

SATAN, MAN, AND GOD

Up to this point we have concentrated on suffering caused by individual believers. A staggering amount of human misery, however, seems to originate beyond any believer’s personal responsibility, afflicting thousands of people throughout wide geographical areas. How do mass historical disasters such as wars, famines, epidemics, and economic depressions fit into the biblical doctrine of suffering? The answer to this critical question will provide the frame of reference for understanding the fourth-generation curse, which will be our second example of how God administers discipline.

Widespread historical suffering always involves three sources: Satan, man, and God. Satan rules the world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Eph. 2:1—8; 1 John 2:13—14). Even in his fallen state, Satan is still the most powerful creature (apart from the resurrected humanity of Christ) ever to come from the hand of God. The devil is an extraordinary genius of unparalleled executive ability. The cosmic system is his brilliant strategy and policy for ruling his kingdom.

Satan’s ambition is to prove himself equal with God (Isa. 14:14), but no creature stands independent of the Creator. Satan will never be God’s equal in any sense of the term. Arrogance always causes a person to overestimate his abilities—indeed, Satan’s lust for success and power has produced only misery. In the phrase of L. S. Chafer, much of the world’s suffering is caused by the devil’s “inability to execute all that he has designed.”[22] Satan’s arrogance, his cosmic system, his frustration, violence, and ultimate incompetence create an environment of misery on earth. Suffering is a fact of life in the devil’s world, and man makes himself the willing victim of Satan through freewill decisions that place him in the cosmic system.

If Satan cannot succeed independently of God, obviously man cannot. In fact, when man lives outside the plan of God, he is far from independent; instead, he becomes a slave in the devil’s self-destructive cosmic system. Angelic and human rejection of God’s plan causes only self-induced misery and would destroy the human race if Jesus Christ did not retain control over human history.

But Jesus Christ does control human history despite Satan’s reign over the world (Ps. 2; John 5:22; Rev. 1:5, 18). Our Lord exercises control through direct and indirect action. He directly intervenes by providentially controlling the variables of history that lie beyond the scope of human volition, variables like climate, weather, and natural disasters. He indirectly controls world affairs through the agency of human volition, when man freely complies with truth and utilizes available divine omnipotence. Truth is revealed in the laws of divine establishment, the Gospel, and Bible doctrine. Divine omnipotence is available in the divine dynasphere.

With perfect justice Jesus Christ administers either blessing or cursing. He blesses believers and unbelievers who adhere to the laws of divine establishment. He delivers far greater blessings to believers who execute the protocol plan of God and achieve spiritual maturity. Blessings to the mature believer overflow to the friends, relatives, and associates who live and work in his periphery. These people are blessed either directly by God or indirectly through the mature believer. The mature believer, therefore, has tremendous, invisible impact because individuals and organizations receive blessing by their association with him.

God is glorified by blessing mature believers. Consistent with God’s eternal purpose, Jesus Christ lovingly watches over mature believers (Ps. 1:6; 33:18—22; 34:15—19; 66:7), directing the course of history for their advantage (Rom. 8:28). They may not know one another, but God knows each of them. They are the hub, the pivot on which turns the prosperity of the organizations to which they belong—families, social and service groups, professional associations, corporations, local churches, geographical areas, towns, cities, or nations. Our Lord blesses the human race through the royal family, specifically through spiritually mature members of the royal family.

Conversely, Jesus Christ disciplines believers and judges unbelievers who reject truth and violate His plan.[23] Just as there is a principle of blessing by association, there is also cursing by association. Self-induced misery by itself makes the cosmic Christian a pariah, obnoxious to everyone he meets. Added to the law of volitional responsibility, divine discipline to this cosmic believer also affects people in his periphery and organizations to which he belongs (Jonah 1:4—16). Cursing by association expands to become collective divine discipline against the cosmic believer’s nation. In addition to satanic rebellion and human disobedience, therefore, the third source of suffering on a historical scale is divine retribution.

COLLECTIVE DISCIPLINE AND THE CLIENT NATION TO GOD

Although church and state must always remain separate, all categories of truth—establishment, the Gospel, and Bible doctrine—are consistent with one another as well as coherent within themselves. Through the laws of divine establishment, God has divided mankind into nations (Gen. 11:9; Acts 17:26), and along these national lines flow certain spiritual blessings (Gen. 22:18). Among the nations of the earth, client nations are used by Jesus Christ as a conduit of blessing to mankind.

A client nation is one whose government protects the freedom, privacy, and property of its citizens and, while maintaining the separation of church and state, does not hinder the presentation of the Gospel and Bible doctrine within its borders. From within the client nation, nongovernmental organizations such as local churches or mission boards initiate and support biblically orthodox missionary work in foreign countries. Evangelism, Bible teaching, and foreign missions indicate the spiritual vigor of the client nation.

Adherence to the laws of divine establishment also makes the client nation a haven for Jews, a refuge from anti-Semitic persecution in other parts of the world (Gen. 12:3). The Jews suffer horribly as a prime satanic target in the angelic conflict because God created them as His special instrument for blessing mankind (Gen. 12:1—3; 22:18) and because His unconditional covenants to Israel hinge on the historical survival of the Jews (Ps. 89:28—37). Israel was God’s original and unique client nation; the Jews are His eternal chosen people (2 Sam. 7:10—16). If all Jews could be destroyed, reasons Satan, then God could not keep His word to them. Divine integrity would thus be compromised, and Satan would win his case in the angelic conflict. However, Christ the Messiah will fulfill all unconditional covenants to the Jews when He restores Israel to client nation status at His second advent and rules forever as King of the Jews (Isa. 5:26; 11:11—13; Zech. 10:6—12).

Because Israel is under divine discipline during the Church Age, God currently blesses mankind through a succession of gentile client nations during “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24).[24] The Roman Empire under the Antonine Caesars (AD. 96—192) was the first gentile client nation. Since that time, many other client nations have risen and fallen, including the Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne in the eighth century and Great Britain of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The United States of America is a client nation today.

In the client nations of the Church Age, blessing by association within the believer’s personal periphery expands to become the royal family’s invisible historical impact. Never before the Church Age has God granted to each individual believer the privilege of utilizing divine omnipotence and of having a powerful, invisible impact on history. In Israel a few mature believers used only a fraction of the divine assets we possess and had a significant influence on national and world history. Certain principles of historical impact did exist in the Age of Israel. Even in Israel the believers were the “salt of the earth,” the preservative and seasoning of the land (Matt. 5:13), also called the remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom. 9:27; 11:5). That principle still applies: As go the believers, so goes the client nation (Ps. 33:10—19). But now, each member of the royal family is also a “new [spiritual] species” (2 Cor. 5:17) with a new system of protocol and power that gives him far greater potential for making an impact on history than had any believer of the Jewish Age.

The mature Church Age believer has invisible influence in at least three realms:

1. BLESSING BY ASSOCIATION in his personal periphery,

2. HISTORICAL IMPACT in his nation, and

3. INTERNATIONAL IMPACT as he supports missionary activity to nonclient nations.

Unheralded in the annals of human history, Christians in relatively small numbers anonymously determine the uptrends and downtrends of civilization. Jesus Christ prospers His client nation when its believers advance in the divine dynasphere; He disciplines the nation when believers live habitually in the cosmic system. Usually a nation will begin to decline under the weight of its own degeneracy. If enough believers ignore the increasingly severe stages of individual discipline and remain in the cosmic system, the nation’s spiritual pivot shrinks and the nation itself must receive collective divine discipline. As an application of this doctrine, your primary duty to your country is to advance to spiritual maturity in the divine dynasphere.

Divine retribution against the client nation intensifies through five cycles of discipline, which include social disintegration, economic collapse, and political chaos (Lev. 26:14, 18, 21). The fifth cycle destroys the nation’s sovereignty through the horrors of military conquest, reducing the vanquished populace to poverty, barbarism, and slavery (Deut. 28:49—67).

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge [of Bible doctrine]. Because you [believers] have rejected knowledge, I [God] also will reject you [the Northern Kingdom of Israel] from being My priest [client nation]. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children [loss of client nation privileges and blessings]. (Hosea 4:6, NASB)

COLLECTIVE DISCIPLINE AND INDIVIDUAL BELIEVERS

How do the five cycles of national discipline, which devastate wide areas and whole populations, affect individual Christians?

Blessing and cursing by association differ in one key respect. Blessing by association frequently benefits people who personally reject Christ and the protocol plan of God. This often explains why “the wicked prosper” (Jer. 12:1—2); they receive blessing by association despite their own indifference to God as the source of their prosperity.

Cursing by association, however, does not destroy the spiritual advance of maturing believers who may live or work in the periphery of cosmic believers. The law of culpability states that no one suffers divine discipline apart from his own negative volition. The positive impact of growing believers offsets the negative influence of cosmic believers. When the pivot is too small to balance the spin-off of negative Christians, however, God must administer divine discipline.

In a magnificent display of perfect timing and omnipotence in the control of history, the disasters that God sends upon cosmic believers are coterminous with suffering for blessing for growing believers. The sweep of collective suffering across the face of contemporary history administers to some believers the various categories of suffering for blessing and to other Christians all three categories of divine discipline. The same historical event may bring blessing on one hand but warning discipline, intensive discipline, or dying discipline on the other hand. No one is ever lost in the shuffle; God never forsakes any believer (Ps. 37:25). God always has you personally an mind.

The mature or growing believer is never deprived of blessings by downtrends in history (Ps. 23:4—5; Jer. 39:l0—18).[25] Since Jesus Christ controls history in this Church Age, all the negative forces of international economics and politics cannot obstruct the timely delivery of blessings to even one mature Christian (Rom. 8:38—39). War, economic depression, and religious persecution never hinder divine omnipotence (Job 5:19—27). While the world seems to be collapsing around the protocol believer, he enjoys a stimulating life of blessing and total confidence in God. Just as God built a wall of fire around Jerusalem when she stood vulnerable in the midst of her enemies (Zech. 2:5), the divine dynasphere protects the growing believer frost the destructiveness of mass suffering.

The cosmic believer is caught up in the same historical disasters that besiege the advancing believer. This negative believer, however, is a cause of collective divine discipline and lacks the inner resources of Bible doctrine needed to meet the crisis. He has no inner dynamics because he has failed to utilize God’s power system. Instead of suffering for blessing, his pain is divine discipline, whether warning or intensive.

Some believers, shocked into objectivity by historical trauma, recover from the cosmic system. Others persist in their personal degeneration. For them the collective suffering of the nation serves as the instrument of the sin unto death. Christians will be among the victims of nearly any historical catastrophe.
Suffering in itself does not conclusively indicate whether God is blessing a believer, or disciplining him, or permitting him to create self-induced misery. Therefore, each Christian must apply doctrine for himself and determine his own status before the Lord. No believer has a right to judge, malign, or gossip about another believer in personal suffering and historical disasters.

THE FOURTH-GENERATION CURSE AS COLLECTIVE DISCIPLINE

In contrast to triple compound discipline for gossip, which deals with individuals, the fourth-generation curse is an illustration of divine discipline related to historical trends. We usually think of collective discipline as punitive action in a particular geographical area, but the fourth-generation curse deals with a group of people defined not only as they extend over a geographical area but also as they extend over a period of time. God is never arbitrary. In the administration of perfect divine justice, God considers every facet of every situation, including the factor of time and the manner in which one person is influenced by others.

God first declared the fourth-generation curse in the Ten Commandments.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what as in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of

those who hate Me.” (Ex. 20:4—5, NASB)

How can a God of grace, justice, and love visit “the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate [Him]” (Deut. 5:9; Num. 14:18)? God is never unfair to anyone. A villainous ancestry does not prejudice God against any individual. Instead, as we shall see, the divine policy of a fourth-generation curse punishes the guilty while protecting the innocent and guaranteeing the freedom of each individual to express his positive or negative volition.

God treats every individual as a person, yet He does not fail to deal with destructive collective trends that intensify from one generation to the next. As an essential part of giving mankind free will, God allows human volition enough free rein to be genuinely free. Patterns of sin which are habitually repeated become ingrained characteristics of a family, group, or nation. Children learn sins and evils from their parents and perpetuate family trends. Rather than instantly disciplining man, God permits negative volition to run its course.

Many possible categories and combinations of wickedness, rebellion, and sin are allowed to form and harden for three or four generations as expressions of human freedom (Ex. 34:6). But when negative volition runs so rampant as to threaten His plan, God “does not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex. 34:7). After a period of grace before judgment, extending over these three or four generations, He administers collective discipline to the family, group, or nation.

To protect the human race from self-destruction, God administers collective discipline that grows progressively severe from one generation to the next. In the third or fourth generation, He sends a catastrophe to dissipate or eliminate the trend. This form of discipline allows evil patterns to develop in the course of human history but destroys them before they can jeopardize the plan of God. God permits no trend of present history to hinder the positive volition of subsequent generations.

Under this system of collective discipline, each generation is disciplined for the same sins because those sins are committed by each generation. The sons commit the sins of the father. “Those who hate [God]” (Ex. 20:5; Deut. 5:9) are disciplined because they themselves reside perpetually in the cosmic system and establish patterns of evil in their lives. But no one suffers under the fourth-generation curse except by his own volition. At any point the curse may be broken by believers who execute the protocol plan of God, refusing to follow the evil pattern of their progenitors.

Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children be put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin. (Deut.

24:16)

The sins of the father have to be repeated in the next generation for culpability to be established and for punitive action to be administered from God. Otherwise, a different law applies: the law of grace.

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God. lie is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of grace to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His mandates. (Deut. 7:9)

After first announcing the fourth-generation curse, God immediately promised that obedience to His plan will always break the curse.

But showing love to thousands who love Me and keep My commandments. (Ex. 20:6)

No one suffers under the fourth-generation curse apart from his own culpability. Despite historical trends, God’s grace is always operative on the earth. Indeed, the curse upon a family or nation can be broken in any generation when individuals believe in Christ and form a pivot of mature believers by fulfilling the plan of God.

The Lord is good [divine essence is perfect] and His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. (Ps. 100:5)

God’s motivation in delaying historical discipline is illustrated by His patience toward mankind prior to the Last Judgment at the end of human history.

The Lord is not slow about His promise [to judge mankind], as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to a change of mind [about Christ as Savior, for unbelievers, or about the protocol plan of God, for believers]. (2 Pet. 3:9)

The fourth-generation curse furnishes a principle that helps us interpret human history from the divine viewpoint: Historical disasters are often divine discipline sent to break up destructive trends and to give the next generation opportunity to fulfill the plan of God. Proverbs 30:11—14 documents four generations of increasing degeneracy, beginning with disrespect for parental authority and culminating in “a generation whose teeth are [like] swords to devour the afflicted.” God protects the human race from the self-destructiveness of such rampant arrogance.

The principle of the fourth-generation curse, which the Bible presents in the context of the ancient world, sheds light on upheavals in modern history. The French Revolution, for example, was a conflagration of evil trends that had crystallized in the long reign of Louis XIV. The Sun King, as he was called, destroyed the pivot of mature believers in France by revoking the Edict of Nantes and, furthermore, reduced the French aristocracy to sycophantic courtiers. The disappearance of a spiritual pivot and the absence of a vigorous aristocracy destabilized every level of society. As a result, unrestrained middle-class jealousy incited lower-class violence. Ultimately, French society was destroyed in the Reign of Terror, and a new order was established under Napoleon. The Russian Revolution also vented evils that had built up for many years before overt violence broke out.

What does the fourth-generation curse teach us? First, it warns us that rejection of God’s plan can become the accepted, ingrained tradition of a family or nation. A little neglect, a little compromise, a little arrogance soon becomes a way of life. Second, this system of divine discipline advises us that opposition to God leads to terrible suffering personally and to disaster for the nation. Third, the fourth-generation curse reveals God’s marvelous grace. He patiently applies discipline to each rebellious generation but will never permit evil trends to destroy the options of future generations. Because of God’s grace, exhibited in collective divine discipline, the human race cannot destroy itself.

The doctrine of the fourth-generation curse encourages the believer to utilize divine assets in his own life because this category of discipline emphasizes his invisible impact on history. Believers can either perpetuate the fourth-generation curse or break the pattern of discipline. The privileges and opportunities of the royal family imply tremendous responsibility. If a Christian fails to live and grow in his palace, he contributes to divine discipline against his entire nation.

THE SOLUTION TO THE FOURTH-GENERATION CURSE

The fourth-generation curse never implies that guilt passes from parents to children but that parents who oppose God’s plan will influence their children to follow the same pattern of opposition. Children are influenced by their parents and tend to repeat their parents’ sins.

The fuse on historical disaster burns for three or four generations as children perpetuate the sins of their parents. Toward the end of this period, God initiates the cycles of discipline against the nation to warn believers to return to the protocol plan of God and break the curse.

At any time, a generation can respond with positive volition to the Gospel and Bible doctrine, heading off national catastrophe. A biblical example of an eleventh hour recovery is the Assyrian Empire’s response to Jonah’s message (Jonah 3:10). Another example is the spiritual recovery of the second generation of Jews in the Exodus. Had they continued in the rebellion of the first generation, collective divine discipline would have intensified. In reality, their positive volition broke the curse that already had prevented their fathers from entering the promised land.

In modern history the United States is rapidly approaching historical disaster—economically, militarily, socially, spiritually. The one factor that stands between our nation and maximum divine discipline is the positive volition of believers. Only divine grace can avert the horrible suffering of the fourth-generation curse, but God will bless this nation only if there is a strong pivot of mature believers to be the recipients of His grace benefits.

The solution to the fourth-generation curse requires severe punishment of criminal youths (Deut. 21:18—21) but emphasizes instructing children in the laws of establishment and Bible doctrine.

You will inculcate these doctrines of Mine in your hearts and minds, tie them as notes on your hands, and as training aids tie them around your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit down at home, when you travel, before you go to bed, and when you wake up. Write these on the door frames of your houses and on your gates so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord has promised to give to your ancestors (promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], as long as the heavens remain above the earth. (Deut. 11:18—21)

The perpetuation of the client nation to God always involves training the next generation. Rather than be a negative influence, parents must be a positive influence by teaching divine establishment, the Gospel, and Bible doctrine to their children. Parents should bring blessing by association to their children rather than lead them to disaster under the fourth-generation curse.

SUMMARY OF PUNITIVE SUFFERING AND PREVIEW OF SUFFERING FOR BLESSING

In concluding our study of punitive suffering and in approaching the subject of suffering for blessing, we can draw a series of contrasts.

In disciplinary suffering, which is deserved, the issue is sin and wrong decisions from a position of weakness. In the adult believer’s undeserved suffering, the issue is blessing and momentum because of right decisions from a position of strength. Spiritual momentum from metabolized Bible doctrine results in still greater blessing.

The believer’s status under divine discipline is cosmic involvement, which is described by a variety of terms: worldliness, carnality, apostasy, reversionism. Under suffering for blessing, the believer’s status is always residence in the palace of the divine dynasphere. There is a tremendous difference between living in a palace and wasting away in a dungeon.

Under discipline the suffering is unbearable. The promise that “no temptation has overtaken you. . . beyond what you are able” to bear (1 Cor. 10:13a), describes testing, not divine discipline. Testing is designed to exercise and strengthen the believer’s spiritual muscles, but discipline must be severe enough to shock the believer, to get his attention. He must learn from the suffering that human resources are inadequate; he must hurt unbearably so that he is forced to consider the divine solution. Under testing, suffering for blessing is always bearable. The believer under testing is using the assets of the divine dynasphere which constitute “the way of escape . . . that [he] may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13b).

	DIVINE DISCIPLINE	SUFFERING FOR BLESSING
ISSUE	Sin	Blessing
STATUS	Cosmic System	Divine Dynasphere
INTENSITY	Unbearable	Bearable
VIEWPOINT	Arrogance	Humility
SOLUTION	Rebound	Advanced Problem-Solving Devices
INTENDED RESULT	Cursing Turned to Blessing	Accelerated Growth Growth

DIVINE DISCIPLINE IN CONTRAST TO SUFFERING FOR BLESSING

The believer’s viewpoint when he incurs divine discipline is arrogance and subjectivity. In suffering for blessing, his viewpoint is humility and objectivity.

The solution to divine discipline is the rebound technique, which is the Christian’s most basic problem-solving device. The solution to suffering for blessing involves more advanced systems of problem solving.

The result of divine discipline, when the believer uses rebound, is that cursing is turned to blessing. The suffering ends, is diminished, or continues at the same intensity, but in any case the purpose now is blessing instead of punishment. God’s solutions are always designed for blessing. The result of suffering for blessing is that the Christian gains multiple benefits from the acceleration of spiritual growth: enlarged capacities and the greater blessings of spiritual maturity.

There are five categories of Christian suffering, but all five categories are designed for the believer’s personal benefit. We have just covered the first two; the last three are the subject of the remainder of this book.

FOR PUNISHMENT:

1. Self-Induced Misery

2. Divine Discipline

FOR BLESSING:

3. Providential Preventive Suffering

4. Momentum Testing

5. Evidence Testing

When the believer remains outside the divine dynasphere, which is tantamount to being out of fellowship with God, he reaps punitive suffering from his own bad decisions or as a result of divine discipline. This suffering is still beneficial to him because it can make him face the reality of his dependence on God’s grace, bringing him to the point of rebound and recovery. Punitive suffering can show him that his scale of values is wrong and that he must correct his priorities.

But when the believer resides inside the divine dynasphere and suffers through no fault of his own, the benefit is even greater. The purpose now is not to take a negative believer and motivate recovery but to take a growing believer and accelerate his growth. In contrast to punitive suffering, which is beneficial on a limited scale, suffering for blessing is designed by God to accelerate the believer’s growth through the stages of spiritual adulthood that lead to spiritual maturity.

Chapter 4

SUFFERING FOR BLESSING

SUFFERING AND GROWTH IN

SPIRITUAL ADULTHOOD

THE PROTOCOL PLAN OF GOD includes two systems of spiritual growth Gradual growth comes through the perception, metabolism, and application of₁ Bible doctrine. God commands every believer to operate consistently under this system throughout his life on earth (Matt. 4:4; Eph. 4:11—13; 2 John 4 6) The second system, accelerated growth, occurs when metabolized doctrine is tested under pressure. After attaining spiritual adulthood, further growth requires periodic suffering. This suffering for the purpose of blessing draws~ upon the believer’s reservoir of doctrine, exercising and increasing his inner strength. Bible doctrine is spiritual nourishment; suffering for blessing is~ spiritual exercise.

In spiritual childhood, most suffering is self-induced misery or divine discipline. The only pain that can be construed as suffering for blessing in the life of the spiritual child is the suffering that continues after rebound. In spiritual childhood suffering for blessing is like a teacher, but in spiritual adulthood suffering for blessing is more like a demanding college professor.

By definition, suffering for blessing is the undeserved pain, hardship, difficulty that God periodically sends into the life of the spiritually adult believer for the purpose of accelerating spiritual growth and demonstrating the total sufficiency of His grace.

Suffering for blessing by its very connotation is not intended to hurt the believer or to make him miserable but to advance him. For the adult believer undeserved suffering is strictly a matter of blessing. Indeed, only God can bless with suffering; suffering caused by self is harmful.

God does not administer suffering for blessing until the believer is qualified to handle it. That is why suffering for blessing is reserved for spiritual adulthood. Nor does God send suffering for blessing until the believer has capacity to appreciate God as its source and to be grateful for the problem-solving devices that He has provided in the palace of the divine dynasphere. Again, this explains why God can periodically give suffering for blessing only to spiritually adult believers. But God never gives the believer more suffering than he can bear.

No testing has overtaken you but such as is common to mankind; but God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tested beyond what you are able [to bean, but with the testing will also provide a solution [a way out], that you may be able to endure it. (1 Cor. 10:13)

In God’s protocol plan, strength precedes suffering for blessing. God provides the means of dealing with a situation before He applies the pressure so that suffering for blessing never overloads any believer. Only by his own bad decisions can the believer create more suffering for himself than he can bear. Only the believer himself can decide to live outside his palace. Only he can refuse to learn Bible doctrine so that he has no spiritual resources to draw upon.

When pressure crushes a believer, the cause of defeat is always his own volition, never the sovereignty of God. Suffering for blessing is always bearable. Unbearable suffering under the law of volitional responsibility, with divine discipline added on, is designed to awaken the believer to his dependence on God’s protocol system.

Obedience to divine protocol prepares believers for suffering. All problems of suffering are resolved in the mechanics of the protocol plan of God, and all solutions stem from Bible doctrine. Consistent residence and function in the divine dynasphere arm the believer for the pressures of life.

THE PATTERN OF MOMENTUM IN SPIRITUAL ADULTHOOD

The final three categories of suffering in the Christian way of life are reserved for spiritual adults. We will devote an entire chapter to each category.

1. PROVIDENTIAL PREVENTIVE SUFFERING keeps the believer front distorting his newfound spiritual self-esteem into arrogance. At the same time providential preventive suffering converts spiritual self-esteem into spiritual autonomy.

2. MOMENTUM TESTING accelerates the believer’s spiritual advance, carrying him from spiritual autonomy into spiritual maturity.

3. EVIDENCE TESTING demonstrates the efficacy of God’s grace in the life of the spiritually mature believer and culminates in maximum glorification of God.

These three categories of undeserved suffering are specialized provisions of God’s grace. Their purpose is the continued spiritual growth of a believer who has faithfully adhered to divine protocol. Sadly, in any generation relatively few Christians obey divine mandates and utilize His marvelous grace assets. Few ever reach spiritual adulthood. Easily distracted from their true destiny as members of the royal family of God, most believers lack the positive volition, the humility, the consistency to stick with the protocol plan.

Not many believers will ever face suffering for blessing. Hardly any will enjoy the benefits of experiencing God’s grace in action under extreme duress. Personal and historical disasters rarely find believers prepared to enjoy God’s provisions. Instead, self-induced misery and divine discipline are by far the most common forms of Christian suffering. If you have not learned a great deal of Bible doctrine, you have no right to assume that the pressures in your life are suffering for blessing. If, however, you have inculcated your soul with God’s thinking, you can anticipate a challenging, stimulating life of special grace from God—in adversity and in prosperity.

In spiritual adulthood, the believer’s spiritual momentum follows a definite pattern:

1. Consistent perception and metabolism of Bible doctrine inside the divine dynasphere result in the believer’s giant step into personal love for God and SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM.

2. When tested under providential preventive suffering, spiritual self. esteem becomes SPIRITUAL AUTONOMY.

3. By successfully passing the momentum tests, spiritual autonomy becomes SPIRITUAL MATURITY.

4. When spiritual maturity stands up under evidence testing, GOD IS GLORIFIED TO THE MAXIMUM in the historic angelic conflict.

Paul describes this pattern of momentum in his second epistle to the Corinthians.

Then He [God] assured me: My grace [has been and still] is sufficient for you; for the power is achieved with weakness. . . . for when I am weak, then I am powerful. (2 Con. 12:9—10)

We will examine this passage more thoroughly when we focus on providential preventive suffering. Here we need to note only the pattern of the adult believer’s continued progress.

“The power is achieved with weakness” states that suffering is necessary for spiritual advance. The Greek noun dunamij (dunamis), “power,” refers to God’s omnipotence as utilized by the believer in the advance through spiritual adulthood: spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. The adult believer has power because he consistently lives inside the divine dynasphere. The verb telew (teleo), which is ambiguously translated “made perfect” in the King James Version, means “to finish, to accomplish, to fulfill, to achieve,” the latter best agreeing with the context in verse 9.

How is power achieved? How does the believer advance through the final sates of his palace? The Greek preposition e)n (en) plus a)sqeneia (astheneia)—in the instrumental case of manner—indicates the manner in which the ac of the verb is carried out: “with weakness.”

“Weakness” refers to the progressive phases of suffering for blessing. Weakness here is not failure or sin but helplessness. Suffering for blessing puts the spiritually adult believer in a situation he cannot resolve with human resources. He is helpless and must totally depend on divine assets that he has acquired by metabolizing Bible doctrine in his soul. The suffering itself does not advance the believer; his utilization of God’s power in suffering is what advances him.

Power and weakness exist together at the same time: The adult believe uses the strength of spiritual self-esteem to move through his weakness in providential preventive suffering. He uses the strength of spiritual autonomy go through his weakness in momentum testing. And he uses the strength o spiritual maturity to move through his weakness in evidence testing. He no only exercises the power inherent in each stage of spiritual adulthood to meet the test, but when he succeeds in passing each test, he “achieves the power’ of the next stage of spiritual adulthood. With each test he passes, he moves up

What degree of strength is required to endure providential preventive suffering? Spiritual self-esteem. What power is required to pass momentum testing? Spiritual autonomy. And what is needed to pass evidence testing Spiritual maturity.

As a result of dealing with the undeserved suffering that God sends, the believer’s strength increases so that he is able to cope with the next increment suffering when it comes. In His perfect wisdom God gives each believer the unique sequence of blessing and suffering, of prosperity and adversity, necessary to bring him to maximum glorification of God.

Chapter 5

SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM

THE FLAW IN HUMAN SELF-ESTEEM

BEFORE GOD ADMINISTERS SUFFERING FOR BLESSING, the believer must have the inner strength necessary to endure and profit from the test. In other words, the believer must have spiritual self-esteem. God will not send suffering for blessing until first the believer is confident in his relationship with God and in his own ability to use the assets that God has given him. His nil must be inculcated with Bible doctrine so that he loves God and lives by his own doctrinal thinking (Rom. 14:22).

For believer and unbeliever alike, a person’s attitude toward self affects his attire outlook on life. An important branch of psychology emphasizes the key rule of self-esteem.

Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is as important as the one we pass on ourselves; for that judgment touches the very center of our existence.

We stand in the midst of an almost infinite network of relationships: to other people, to things, to the universe. And yet, at three o’clock in the morning, when we are alone with ourselves, we are aware that the most intimate and powerful of all relationships and the one we can never escape is the relationship to ourselves. No significant aspect of our thinking, motivation, feelings, or behavior is unaffected by our self-evaluation.[26]

This psychologist has made an accurate observation. He recognizes man’s genuine need to regard himself in a positive light. Although self-esteem solves many problems in life, human self-esteem ultimately has a fatal flaw.

The heart [of man] is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9, NASB).

The problem is that man is rarely worthy of his own esteem. Since the fall of Adam, the human race has been inherently depraved. Man is born spiritual. ly dead, utterly isolated from his Creator, totally incapable of a relationship with God (Eph. 2:1). Man proves his depravity by the personal sins he commits and by the human good and evil he practices. Man is commonly arrogant, greedy, self-centered, superficial, cowardly, petty, devious, self-righteous, cruel, violent. Only by a concerted effort of the will can he even partly control his old sin nature (1 John 1:8). Human nobility of soul is a rare and transitory achievement.

Unbelievers who follow the laws of divine establishment have a legitimate basis for human self-esteem. They live by true principle. Their integrity gives them cause for self-respect. From strength of character, they may also achieve a degree of success in a profession, in marriage, in family life, in relationships with others. Such men and women of genuine self-esteem are exceptional, however, and even these few are far from perfect. Part of their virtue is their humility; they know that their self-esteem is measured by a temporal, relative standard. They honestly face the reality of their own weaknesses and failings.

In contrast to the exceptional individuals with establishment virtue, the great majority of the human race lacks self-esteem. Regard for self is nearly always some form of arrogance. Most people deceive themselves with intellectual rationalizations or psychological delusions concerning their own importance.

Man feels the need for a positive self-image, yet he falls short of his own relative standards, to say nothing of totally failing by God’s absolute standards. The very self which man desires to esteem is weak and prone to evil Man’s best intentions and greatest achievements are undercut by ignorance, handicaps, distractions, and temptations. Human self-esteem is an elusive and flimsy substitute for what man really needs and what God in His grace has provided: spiritual self-esteem. Spiritual self-esteem is based on who and what God is, not on who and what man is. It stands on God’s absolute integrity, not on man’s unstable character.

THE SUPERIORITY OF SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM

Spiritual self-esteem belongs to the protocol plan of God. The Christian achieves spiritual self-esteem by faithfully learning and applying Bible doctrine, by advancing step by step within God’s protocol system until he reaches Gate 5, personal love for God. Spiritual self-esteem is an inevitable result of personal love for God. The believer’s self-confidence is not derived from self but from the confidence that he has a unique relationship with the God of

the universe.

Believers of the royal family of God have greater cause for spiritual self-esteem than do believers of any other dispensation. God displays His glory in the Church as never before and as never again in human history. His objective is to show “the riches of His grace which He has lavished upon us” (Eph. 1:7—8) and to demonstrate “what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph. 1:19). Even a partial list of the advantages granted to every Church Age believer will demonstrate the superiority of spiritual self-esteem over human self-esteem.

As Church Age believers we are a “new [spiritual] species” in union with Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). By the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation, we are “created in Christ Jesus” for the purpose of utilizing divine power, not human power (Eph. 2:10). God has made available to us the exercise of divine omnipotence for the execution of His plan (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 2:4; 2 Cor. 4:7; Eph. 1:19—20; Cot. 1:10—12; 2 Tim. 1:7). Never before the Church Age did God extend this privilege to every believer. Only partial utilization of God’s omnipotence was made available to a few believers of previous dispensations.

We are instructed to “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4; Eph. 2:10; 4:24) because the new spiritual species is designed to utilize total availability of the omnipotence of all three members of the Trinity. The omnipotence of God the Father created for every Church Age believer a portfolio of invisible assets which includes the divine dynasphere (Eph. 1:3). The omnipotence of God the Son sustains the universe and perpetuates human history (Heb. 1:3). The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit provides the function of the divine dynasphere (Acts 1:8).

Furthermore, our bodies are indwelt by all three members of the Trinity. God the Father indwells us for the glorification of His protocol plan which He designed in eternity past for each Church Age believer (John 14:23; Eph. 1:3, 6, 12; 4:6; 2 John 9). God the Holy Spirit indwells us to create a temple for the indwelling of Christ as the Shekinah Glory,[27] to be a down-payment of our royal inheritance, and to empower us in the execution of the Father’s plan (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19—20; 2 Cur. 6:16, Eph. 1:14). God the Son in-dwells us for a number of reasons:

1. As a sign or badge of the royal family (John 14:20),

2. As a guarantee of the availability of divine power in time (2 Cor. 13:4—6; Rom. 8:10),

3. As a guarantee of life after death in the presence of God forever (Col. 1:27),

4. As the depositary of special blessings for time and eternity (Eph. 1:3) and as the escrow officer who will deliver these blessings to the believer when he reaches spiritual adulthood and when he appears before the Judgment Seat of Christ (1 Cur. 3:13—14; 2 Cor. 5:10).

5. As motivation for continued momentum when facing the three categories of suffering for blessing: providential preventive suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing (Gal. 2:20),

6. As the basis for assigning highest priority to relationship with God over relationships with people, and to the use of divine power over the exercise of human power (1 John 2:24),

7. As the basis for the glorification of Christ, the Shekinah Glory, in the unique life of the Church Age believer (John 17:22—23, 26).

Never before the Church Age did any member of the Trinity indwell any believer. But every Church Age believer is permanently indwelt by the entire Trinity. As a consequence, many other advantages also belong to us. For worship and privacy in our unique relationship with God, we have been inducted into the highest of all priestly orders. Every Church Age believer belongs to the royal priesthood of our great high priest, Jesus Christ (Heb. 4:14; Rev. 1:6). In addition, each of us has been granted a royal warrant from God to be Christ’s ambassador in Satan’s kingdom (2 Cor. 5:20). We represent Christ on earth and have an invisible impact on history. Furthermore, each Church Age believer possesses his own royal palace, the divine dynasphere, the prototype of which was tested and proven by the humanity of Christ (John 15:10). We are heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:17). We will accompany our Lord and glorify Him forever (Eph. 2:6—7).

Even this partial delineation of our royal assets shows that our status is unique. There are no ordinary Christians. Each ‘ordinary’ Christian has a position and a function far superior to anything available to the greatest believers of previous dispensations.

Our extraordinary status is revealed to us through our consistent, faithful, lifelong intake of Bible doctrine. Doctrine teaches us who we are in the plan of God. Doctrine orients us to God’s will, plan, and purpose for our lives and emphasizes the attainment of spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. Advance in the protocol plan of God manifests the spiritual royalty to which God has elevated us. God has given us a basis for spiritual self-esteem totally related to grace, unspoiled by human weaknesses of any kind.

THE SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM

Personal love for God precedes spiritual self-esteem and becomes the source of this initial stage of spiritual adulthood. Who is this infinite and eternal Person who has granted us so exalted a position in Christ? What is the character of our majestic God?[28]

God reveals Himself to us in His Word. He has “exalted [His] word above tHis] name” (Ps. 138:2). His essence is reflected on every page of Scripture: in every doctrinal dissertation, in every biblical illustration and application, in every passage of historical narrative, in every line of biblical poetry.

To be “transformed by the renewing of [his] mind” (Rum. 12:2), the believer must learn every biblical doctrine his pastor teaches. Even if its relevance is not obvious at the moment, every doctrine contributes a vital facet to the Christian’s understanding of God’s essence and personality. The Bible was not designed merely to provide solutions for a believer’s current problems; the Bible’s purpose is to reveal the magnificent and multifaceted character of God.

How precious. . are Thy thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! (Ps. 139:17, NASB)

To learn God’s essence is a marvelous, lifelong endeavor for which we have been given powerful assets related to the divine dynasphere. This greatest of all enterprises demands right priorities and the self-discipline for faithful intake, metabolism, and application of Bible doctrine. To understand God’s attributes is to love Him. This constitutes the very purpose of our lives.

In spiritual childhood the believer does not have the capacity or capability to love God. Much sincerity, emotionalism, and sentimentality is misconstrued as love for God. In reality, to love God the believer must know God. This requires cognition of Bible doctrine.

God is invisible. The incarnate Lord Jesus Christ is the visible “exact representation of His [invisible] essence” (Heb. 1:3), but the resurrected humanity of Christ is now absent from the earth. How does the believer love someone whom he has never seen (1 Pet. 1:8)?

Love is based on perception. We come to know and love God through His Word. In fact, Bible doctrine is the Mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Doctrine reveals to us God’s attributes, His wisdom, His love for us, His brilliant system of protocol. We love God when our souls are inculcated with doctrine so that we think His thoughts, share His viewpoint, and appreciate His perfect integrity and matchless grace. Learning doctrine takes time; love for God does not come overnight. But after years of faithfully learning the Word of God, the day will come when the believer will wake up and realize that Jesus Christ is his best friend. That will be the giant step from spiritual childhood into spiritual adulthood. That will also be the beginning of spiritual self-esteem.

THE PATTERN FOR SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM

The believer’s spiritual self-esteem is patterned after two precedents:

1. DIVINE SELF-ESTEEM and,

2. the SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM OF THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST residing in the prototype divine dynasphere.

God can personally love only that which is perfect. Because He is absolute righteousness, God loves Himself. He is totally worthy of his own demanding, uncompromising love. Within the essence of God, therefore, we discover the. ultimate pattern for spiritual self-esteem: His perfect love is directed toward. His own perfect righteousness. God has total self-esteem and has found a way to make spiritual self-esteem available to the Church Age believer.

The humanity of Christ is the pattern for spiritual self-esteem for the royal family of God. The divine dynasphere was originally designed for our Lord’s humanity, a gift from God the Father given on the first Christmas.[29] Through-nut His first advent the humanity of Jesus Christ resided and functioned constantly inside the prototype divine dynasphere. Though tempted far beyond anything we have ever known, He never departed from the Father’s plan; He never stepped out of the divine dynasphere.

From early childhood, the humanity of Jesus Christ learned Bible doctrine and lived by the doctrine in His soul. From His youth He “kept increasing in wisdom [Bible doctrine] and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52, NASB). This pattern continued throughout our Lord’s first advent. Doctrine was first priority in His life (Matt. 4:4; Luke 11:28; John 7:15—16; 1:25—27). His final words on the cross were not only a quotation of Scripture, but the Scripture He quoted was a tribute to the Father as “God of doctrine” (Luke 23:46, cf., Ps. 31:5).[30] In the humanity of Christ, doctrine produced personal love for God, which inevitably resulted in spiritual self-esteem.

When we study evidence testing, we will examine our Lord’s spiritual self-esteem as it developed through spiritual autonomy into spiritual maturity. We will see that He set the precedent for our spiritual self-esteem.

KNOWING HOW TO LIVE AND HOW TO DIE

The believer with spiritual self-esteem is dependent on God but not inordinately dependent on other people. The independence in his soul contributes to his capacity for meaningful and enduring personal relationships. Every Christian lives in a world of people. A few people will love him, others will tolerate him, some will despise him. For the vast majority, he will always remain a total stranger. Although surrounded by people, each believer must do many things for himself. He must think his own thoughts, establish his own priorities, make his own decisions, suffer his own pain, and eventually do his own dying.

The critical importance of spiritual self-esteem is dramatically seen in the fact that no one can die another person’s death. Friends may stand by and perhaps lend comfort, but when the time for death comes, each one goes it alone. Nor can anyone bear another’s pain, feel another’s emotions, or think another’s thoughts. Always there is a place for sensitivity, compassion, and encouragement from one person to another, but ultimately the most basic activities of life require spiritual self-esteem of each individual believer.

One of the greatest achievements in life is the ability to equate living and dying. Life on earth includes the period in which an individual knows that he is dying; dying is part of living. Only by facing the reality of death with doctrinal objectivity can any believer face life from the divine viewpoint (Phil. 1:20—2 1). And only through suffering for blessing and attaining the stages of spiritual adulthood can the believer equate living and dying and thereby benefit from suffering.

Every believer must not only learn how to live but also learn how to die. Being alive does not imply that a person has the slightest idea of how to live, of how to fulfill the potential that human life affords. Nor does being a member of the royal family of God mean that a believer knows how to conduct himself as a spiritual aristocrat. A Christian does not necessarily know the first thing about the Christian way of life and the mechanics of executing God’s will, purpose, and plan for the Church Age. Certainly possessing eternal life does not guarantee that he knows how to pass from time into eternity with confidence and poise.

After salvation we must learn Bible doctrine to know how to live and die in prosperity or adversity, in pleasure or pain, in the company of others or alone. Even learning Bible doctrine is something each believer must do for himself—under the teaching ministry of his pastor-teacher. Every Christian must make his own decisions to give doctrine first priority in his life, to assemble where the Word of God is taught, to be filled with the Holy Spirit while he listens, to concentrate on the pastor’s message, to believe the truth to properly apply the doctrine he understands. This is what the Bible means when admonishing us to “cherish [guard, or keep] understanding.”

He who gets wisdom loves his own soul;

He who cherishes understanding will prosper. (Prov. 19:8)

To “get wisdom” and to “cherish understanding” describe the believer’s faith fulness in consistently learning and applying doctrine over a long period of time At all stages of spiritual growth, he requires daily nourishment from doctrine.

To love “his own soul” is a description of spiritual self-esteem. This legiti mate love for self, combined with “prosper[ity],” reveals the pattern of growth in spiritual adulthood. The believer grows spiritually by “get[tingl wisdom and enters spiritual adulthood when he attains spiritual self-esteem. As spiritual self-esteem is stabilized, strengthened, and tested under the pressure q suffering for blessing, he advances stage by stage to spiritual maturity. H “prosper[s]” all along the way.

This is how the Christian learns to live and die for himself. When the Mini of Christ has been inculcated and metabolized into the soul of the believer that individual acquires spiritual self-esteem. Inside the divine dynasphere the virtues of the humanity of Jesus Christ are formed in him (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 4:19; 1 Pet. 2:9b), including our Lord’s great personal love for the Father (John 15:10). From his own love for God and divine viewpoint thinking, the

believer then has the contentment, stability, composure, and all the other characteristics of spiritual self-esteem with which to face the challenges of f living and dying.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. (Ps. 23:4a, KJV)

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM

Spiritual self-esteem can be explained categorically as having~ fourteen characteristics.

1. THE BEGINNING OF CONTENTMENT. Contentment, or capacity for happiness in one’s present circumstances, begins in spiritual self-esteem, grows stronger in spiritual autonomy, and reaches a peak in spiritual maturity (2 Cur. 12:10; 1 Tim. 6:6—8; Heb. 13:5). In spiritual adulthood, sharing the happiness of God is the Christian’s greatest and most effective problem-solving device (Phil. 4:11).

2. MENTAL STABILITY. A stabilized mentality comes from the consistent and accurate application of Bible doctrine in adversity and in prosperity (Phil. 4:12—1 3).

3. COMPOSURE MARKED BY SELF-ASSURANCE. Self-assurance is characteristic of the believer who can consistently and accurately apply doctrine to life and who has experienced the efficacy of doctrine in his own life (James 1:22—25).

4. GRACE ORIENTATION TO LIFE. The believer with spiritual self-esteem appreciates the extension of God’s grace toward him without distorting that grace policy into antinomian license (Rum. 6:1). Furthermore, he demonstrates a gracious attitude toward other people without distorting toleration into compromise of integrity (Rum. 12:10).

5. DOCTRINAL ORIENTATION TO REALITY. Spiritual self-esteem on-eats the believer to reality by maintaining his humility, by avoiding inordinate ambition and competition, by developing spiritual common sense, spiritual independence, and a sense of humor (Rum. 12:3; Eph. 4:23).

6. GOOD DECISIONS FROM A POSITION OF STRENGTH. The divine dynasphere is the position of strength in which good decisions are possible, based on divine viewpoint thinking—in Gate 4—and motivation from personal love for God—in Gate 5 (Eph. 6:10; Phil. 2:2; Col. 1:11).

7. THE BEGINNING OF PERSONAL CONTROL OF ONE’S LIFE. Spiritual independence is based on maximum use of one’s royal priesthood, by which the believer represents himself before God. His perspective in life is focused on God rather than on people (Col. 2:7; Heb. 12:2—3).

8. THE USE OF SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM AS A PROBLEM-SOLVING DEVICE. Spiritual self-esteem solves the problems of inadequacy, fear, emotional disturbance, lack of personality identity, and uncertainty concerning one’s niche in life (2 Tim. 1:7). Furthermore, the believer with spiritual self-esteem solves his own problems from the doctrine he knows rather than running here and there for counseling and spiritual advice. He views difficulties as opportunities to utilize the doctrine in his soul (2 Tim. 2:3—4).

9. THE BEGINNING OF A PERSONAL SENSE OF DESTINY. The believer’s personal sense of destiny becomes stronger as he progresses through the three stages of spiritual adulthood. The meaning, purpose, and definition of his life become clear as he resolves his relationships with God, self, and people.

10. POSTSALVATION EPISTEMOLOGJCAL REHABILITATION. Epistemology is the study of knowledge itself, addressing the question of how man knows what he knows. After salvation the believer must concentrate on a new source of truth, Bible doctrine, under the teaching ministry of an academically prepared, theologically orthodox pastor filled with the Spirit. The believer must acquire a new doctrinal frame of reference through learning and metabolizing the Word of God by faith, for “the righteous [believer with imputed divine righteousness] shall live by faith” (Rum. 1:17). Post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation is a term that encompasses all the Bible doctrine the believer has learned between salvation and spiritual adulthood. This renovation of thought includes everything from understanding spirituality and how to execute the protocol plan of God, to appreciating one’s portfolio of invisible assets, to mastering the subject of this book, Christian suffering. Metabolized doctrine has “transformed [the spiritually adult believer] by the renewing of [his] mind” (Rom. 12:2).

11. COMMAND OF SELF. Fulfilling the responsibilities that accompany independence, the believer exercises self-control, self-restraint, poise, and self-regulation (Prov. 19:11; 1 Cur. 14:33; 2 Tim. 2:10). Command of self facilitates good communication with other people, which is mandatory in all successful relationships.

12. A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD LIFE. Personal love for God gives the believer a dynamic attitude, viewpoint, and perspective on life. His thoughts and priorities change as his focus on Christ motivates him in everything he does (John 15:10—17).

13. QUALIFICATION FOR PROVIDENTIAL PREVENTIVE SUFFERING. Spiritual self-esteem gives the believer the ability to handle suffering for blessing. The characteristics of spiritual self-esteem qualify him to pass the test of providential preventive suffering and advance him into the next stage of spiritual adulthood, which is spiritual autonomy (1 Pet. 4:12—16).

14. A’VFAINMENT OF THE FIRST PHASE OF THE UNIQUE LIFE. God has designed a unique life for the Church Age believer, part of which is experienced and part of which is not (Rum. 8:10). The nonexperiential aspect of the unique life includes the indwelling of all three members of the Trinity. This is the Church Age believer’s permanent status, not his progressive experience. The experiential aspect of the unique life is the glorification of Christ in the body of the believer (Eph. 5:1; 1 Cor. 6:20).

A distinction must be made between the permanent, unchanging, unfelt indwelling of Christ as the Shekinah Glory and the Christian experience of Christ being glorified in our bodies (Phil. 1:20—21). A distinction also must be made between the permanent, unchanging, unfelt indwelling of the Holy Spirit and His invisible, behind-the-scenes function in the divine dynasphere through which He glorifies Christ in our bodies (John 16:13—14).

Each stage of spiritual adulthood brings a new experiential glorification of Christ. This progressive experience begins with spiritual self-esteem, which is described by the phrase “Christ ... formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). In spiritual autonomy, which is the next stage of Christian growth, the glorification of Christ in the unique life of the royal family will be described as “Christ [being] at home in your heart” (Eph. 3:16—17). In spiritual maturity, the final stage of spiritual adulthood, the unique life will be expressed as “Christ [being] glorified in [your] body” (Phil. 1:20—21).

DESCRIPTION OF SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM

Spiritual self-esteem is the assertion of Bible doctrine resident in the soul; it is living by one’s own thinking from that doctrine; it is making application of metabolized doctrine under all circumstances, including suffering for blessing.

The Christian who gains spiritual self-esteem has crossed the dividing line between spiritual childhood and spiritual adulthood, between spiritual dependence and spiritual independence, between punitive suffering and suffering for blessing. Spiritual self-esteem is the giant step in the believer’s life, the first stage of spiritual adulthood.

The believer with spiritual self-esteem thinks and applies Bible doctrine to life, motivated by his personal love for God. He understands enough doctrine to think independently, having the courage of his own perceptions and doctrinal applications rather than being erroneously influenced by others. Furthermore, instead of arrogantly exaggerating his strengths or his weaknesses, he orients to the biblical reality of who and what he is as a member of the royal family of God and at the same time never loses sight of who and what God is. He accepts his human limitations while emphasizing the unlimited privileges and opportunities that God gives to every Church Age believer. He utilizes divine assets; he exploits his options.

When a believer has attained spiritual self-esteem, he does not feel threatened by others. He refuses to be manipulated through guilt or fear by those who would impose erroneous, legalistic standards on him. If he is guilty of sin, human good, or evil, he assumes the responsibility for his own decisions, good or bad, and resolves his problems according to divine protocol. He understands his right as a member of the royal family of God to live his life as unto the Lord in the privacy of his own priesthood. His life does not belong to other people but to God. God’s logistical grace sustains him, not so he can live up to the expectations of others, but so he can adhere to divine mandates in the protocol plan of God. Spiritual self-esteem enables the believer to exploit all the problem-solving devices in the divine dynasphere. With spiritual self-esteem he can begin to enjoy happiness and tranquillity of mind in every category of suffering for blessing.

The Christian with spiritual self-esteem knows he belongs to a winning plan. He understands what God accomplished for him in eternity past. He knows at the present time how to thrive in God’s protocol system. He has learned that a fabulous eternal future awaits him after death. God’s protocol plan gives his life meaning, purpose, and definition. He advances in the certainty that logistical grace will support his life and empower his indomitable will to triumph over any handicaps or weaknesses he may possess. Spiritual adulthood and continuing spiritual growth are the believer’s triumph over his handicaps, genetic and acquired.

With spiritual self-esteem the believer persists in learning and applying Bible doctrine because he loves God and His promised blessings in time and eternity (Heb. 6:18). Personal love for God is the highest motivation in life. The believer with spiritual self-esteem confidently persists in the plan of God without needing flattery or fanfare, without relying on recognition, encouragement, counsel, inspiration, or bullying from other believers. He leans on no one but God. Rather than borrow motivation and fortitude from the soul of someone else, he uses the doctrine in his own soul. He has nothing to prove to anyone. He fears no one. He does not crave the approval of people or overreact to their indifference, disapproval, or rejection. Nor does he slavishly imitate the personality or demeanor of others. He is content with his own personality; he has identified his own niche in life.

Spiritual self-esteem makes the believer intellectually independent, but it does not make him a boor. Many positive Christians go through the awkward, sophomoric stage of being overconfident religious zealots, bursting with answers, eagerly imposing their ideas on other people. Such arrogance is not spiritual self-esteem. Spiritual self-esteem makes the believer a good listener; his genuine humility in Gate 3 of the divine dynasphere makes him teachable. He appreciates the graciousness of other people and recognizes legitimate authorities, including the authority of the pastor who teaches Bible doctrine. Spiritual independence means the believer flourishes within God’s structures of human and spiritual authority, not outside His protocol system as a rebel, a crusader, or a self-styled free spirit.

Although modern psychology cannot provide spiritual self-esteem, it can accurately describe the lack of spiritual and human self-esteem.

... The two most striking characteristics of men and women who seek psychotherapy are a deficiency of self-esteem and a condition of self-alienation. In some crucial ways they do not feel appropriate to life and its requirements, and they lack adequate contact with the world within, with their needs, wants, feelings, thoughts, values and potentialities. Thus diminished in consciousness, they are estranged from their proper human estate. Large areas of the self lie undiscovered, unexpressed, unlived. They are sleepwalkers through their own existence.[31]

The believer wakes up to reality by learning Bible doctrine in the power of the divine dynasphere. In studying the two punitive categories of Christian suffering, we noted that if a member of the royal family of God fails to wake up through perception and application of Bible doctrine, he will be shaken by self-induced misery and divine discipline.

Chapter 6

PROVIDENTIAL PREVENTIVE SUFFERING

PAUL’S THORN IN THE FLESH

As THE FIRST CATEGORY of suffering for blessing, providential preventive suffering performs a dual function. Its offensive role is to accelerate the believer’s spiritual momentum beyond spiritual self-esteem into spiritual autonomy; its defensive role is to prevent him from falling victim to arrogance.

Spiritual self-esteem is probably the most vulnerable stage of the Christian life. As the believer begins to think for himself and live by the doctrine in his own soul, he may distort his newfound independence. He may assume that his strength comes from self rather than from God’s Word and the divine dynasphere. As he flexes his new spiritual muscles and enjoys the results of spiritual growth, he may forget that God is the source of his growth.

God in His grace does not wait for the believer to fail. Rather than picking up the pieces, God provides the means of keeping the believer from falling apart. In grace God takes preventive action by sending suffering for blessing. Providential preventive suffering reminds the believer of his dependence on the protocol plan of God and forces him to use divine assets under circumstances that human ability cannot resolve.

As an unbeliever, Paul was aware of his own genius. With concentration and self-discipline he exploited his tremendous human assets. As a young man he excelled academically in a rigorous education. He then channeled his unusual nervous energy and extraordinary intellectual powers to rise within the religious and political establishment in Judea. Human dynamics enabled him to advance rapidly within an evil system.

Paul was a man of action who was also at home in the realm of ideas. He was a master of both Jewish theology and Greek philosophy. The application of his human genius was the zealous persecution of Christians. He had relished the success that his human abilities had achieved; he was ambitious for further promotion. After believing in Christ, Paul had to learn dependence on divine rather than human power, but he never lost his strong personality or his brilliant intellect. Hence, when he reached spiritual self-esteem, he was in danger of corrupting his own spiritual advance. He might have assumed that his own mental prowess enabled him to comprehend the deep things of Bible doctrine, when in fact metabolized doctrine resided in his soul only because of God’s grace system of perception. To protect Paul from his natural vulnerability to arrogance, God sent providential preventive suffering, which Paul called his “thorn in the flesh.”

And for this reason, lest I should become arrogant because of the extraordinary quality of revelations, I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel from Satan that he might torment me, lest I should become arrogant. (2 Cor. 12:7)

Paul was chosen by God to serve as the apostle to the Gentiles, the principal spokesman for the doctrines of the royal family of God. These “mystery” doctrines had never been revealed prior to the Church Age.[32] Because of God’s sovereign decision to use him in this special way, Paul had a unique ministry, and the divine revelations given to him exceeded those of any other apostle. Peter acknowledged Paul’s superior comprehension of doctrine, recognizing that Paul’s “epistles contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort” (2 Pet. 3:15—16).

God gave Paul the unparalleled blessing of teaching and recording Church Age doctrine, but Paul was also given another blessing called a ‘Thorn in the flesh.” Doctrine orients the believer to reality; arrogance divorces him from reality. Arrogance must be prevented because it neutralizes the effectiveness of doctrine in the believer’s life. Doctrine provides spiritual self-esteem; arrogance is self-alienation. Arrogance is the insidious enemy of the spiritual life, the very attitude that corrupted Lucifer, who was originally the greatest of all the angels. Paul’s ministry might have been destroyed by arrogance, but the thorn in the flesh was given to him to preserve him in a period of grave danger.

Bible scholars have speculated on the nature of Paul’s thorn in the flesh, but Paul deliberately omits the details to emphasize the principle of providential preventive suffering. Paul says only that God permitted Satan to dispatch a demon to constantly torment him. The work of this “thorn demon” provided Paul with an illustration of God’s total ability to care for His own. God’s provisions are far superior to any possible challenge. He is able to make even our enemies benefit us (Ps. 76:10).

If God [is] for us, who [can be] against us? (Rom. 8:3 lb)

There is a fine irony in Paul’s suffering. The thorn demon wanted to destroy Paul but could only force him to rely on God’s superior provisions. God used Satan’s attack to keep Paul from falling into the same pattern of arrogance that originally caused the fall of Satan. God has a wonderful sense of humor; with marvelous finesse, He lets the devil defeat himself. Only omnipotent God has the power to turn suffering into blessing, and this power has been made available to us through residence and function in the divine dynasphere. God can use adversity to our advantage, even pressures our foes have designed to harm us.

While Paul was suffering intensely and wondering why God did not relieve the pain, God was masterfully demonstrating His preeminence to Paul. The apostle was hurting and sought relief, but “underneath [were] the everlasting arms” (Dent. 33:27). Through this experience Paul’s personal love for God increased. But before he reaped the benefits of providential preventive suffering, Paul applied a false solution and made a wrong application of doctrine.

A FALSE SOLUTION AND WRONG APPLICATION

As the first stage of spiritual adulthood, spiritual self-esteem is still an awkward phase in which the believer has not yet developed the true instincts of spiritual maturity. That is why Paul reacted emotionally to the pain of providential preventive suffering. In an understandable human reaction, he was momentarily affected by the discomfort before regaining his composure and passing the test.

Concerning this [thorn in the flesh] I appealed to the Lord three times that it might depart from me. (2 Cor. 12:8)

Paul’s use of prayer was a false solution to suffering for blessing; his request that the suffering be removed was a wrong application of doctrine.

Providential preventive suffering is essential to the adult believer’s spiritual advance. He should never ask God to remove the means of his growth. He should never pray for the removal of suffering for blessing by which the protocol plan of God is fulfilled.

We think we know when we have had enough suffering, but God knows us better than we know ourselves. He never sends more pressure than we can bear (1 Cor. 10:13), but on the other hand He sends enough pressure to accelerate our growth. Only when He sees that we have passed the test or that we have flunked so badly that we need time to regroup does He remove or reduce the suffering. What God does not remove He intends for us to bear.

God has a unique plan for each believer. His timing is perfect for every individual. He makes the sovereign decision to nurture the positive Christian’s growth with the right kind, the right intensity, and the right duration of suffering or prosperity. Too much or too little adversity, too much or too little prosperity, the wrong combination, or the wrong timing would retard the believer’s spiritual progress. A believer who tells God how and when to administer suffering for blessing claims to have greater wisdom and a better plan than God. This is blasphemy. We do not dictate to God. We are told to “come boldly before the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16), but we have no right to question the sovereignty of God, much less to ask for the cancellation of divine wisdom.

Paul made a false application of doctrine by entreating God to remove providential preventive suffering. Worse yet, he made an even more basic error by employing prayer to accomplish what it was never designed to do.

Prayer is a powerful tool that has many effective applications, but the spiritually adult believer should not pray for strength or for relief under suffering for blessing. Why not? Such a prayer would violate divine protocol.

Billions of years ago God established the system for giving strength to the royal family. That system is the divine dynasphere. The believer does not need to ask for what has already been provided. Therefore, any Church Age believer who prays for strength when pressure assails him is insulting God. He implies that divine omnipotence, made available in the divine dynasphere, is insufficient to enable spiritual royalty to live the Christian life under all circumstances.

The utilization of divine assets is a matter of learning and applying Bible doctrine, not a matter of prayer. Too often the believer does not understand his suffering because he has neglected or resisted doctrine. He remains ignorant of the powerful problem-solving devices that belong to the royal family.

Frequently, believers under pressure entreat God for a miracle, but miracles are no solution to suffering for blessing. By performing a miracle involving the sudden removal of pressure, God would be canceling his own system for accelerating the believer’s spiritual advance. For sovereign, omnipotent God, nothing is easier than a miracle. Miracles express only His sovereign decision; they do not require man’s positive volition or any function of human free will. Blessing is far more difficult for God to bestow when the Christian’s volition is involved, yet that is precisely what God has achieved by creating the protocol plan.

The believer must freely choose to reside in the palace of the divine dynasphere. There he must learn and metabolize (ingest and digest) Bible doctrine. He also must consistently apply this metabolized doctrine throughout suffering for blessing. God will terminate the test in His own perfect time (1 Cor. 10:13). That is a divine promise, so that the believer’s natural desire for relief from pressure becomes a matter of confidence in God, not an occasion for pleading for miracles. The believer with positive volition gains strength by using doctrine, by exercising his own mind which is inculcated with the thinking of God, not by observing supernatural events.

False solutions to one’s own suffering include miracles and the misuse of prayer; all true solutions are integral parts of the divine dynasphere. We have already discussed these problem-solving devices for spiritual childhood and spiritual adulthood in chapter 1. They include rebound, the faith-rest drill, hope, virtue-love, and sharing the happiness of God.

DIVINE COUNSELING FOR PAUL

Obviously God did not answer Paul’s prayers. He did not remove the thorn in the flesh, nor did He respond in any way except to perpetuate Paul’s suffering. Finally, after Paul had repeated his urgent request on three occasions, God reminded the great apostle of a doctrine he already knew.

Then He assured me: My grace [has been and still] is sufficient for you, for the power is achieved with weakness. (2 Cor. l2:9a)

We have already noted the pattern of achievement in this verse. What is the “power” in this context, and what is the “weakness”? The power is divine omnipotence as it becomes available to the believer with each stage of spiritual adulthood through residence, function, and momentum in the divine dynasphere. Omnipotence operates in the adult believer in the form of spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, or spiritual maturity.

The weakness is the suffering for blessing which God applies to the believer in each of these stages of spiritual achievement. God sends the weakness of providential preventive suffering, momentum testing, or evidence testing so man experiences the weakness in suffering that is beyond human solution. God provides the power in the divine dynasphere which is employed by man in his helplessness and produces accelerated spiritual growth.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses in order that the power of Christ may reside in me. (2 Cor. 12:9b)

This is boasting not in the sense of glorifying self but as a manifestation of esprit de corps. Paul’s boasting expresses his delight in belonging to God’s protocol plan. Such boasting indicates submission to God’s system and is the antithesis of arrogance. Thus Paul demonstrates that providential preventive suffering has been effective in his life. Divine protection against arrogance succeeded because of his positive volition in the application of metabolized doctrine in his soul. He stopped feeling sorry for himself, as when he had begged God to remove the pain. Rather than being preoccupied with himself and his problems, Paul now focuses his attention on the person of Christ.

Paul’s suffering had not changed. His human weakness had not changed. His old sin nature had not changed. The divine dynasphere had not changed. What had changed was Paul’s attitude. He had begun to apply the doctrine he knew to the circumstances in which he found himself. He remembered doctrine, began to think objectively, utilized his problem-solving devices, and regained control of his life.

Suffering in itself has no virtue. The meaning and blessing in suffering lie in the demonstration of divine grace and power in the believer’s life. Omnipotence operates through God’s Word resident in the believer’s soul. From doctrine comes personal love for God resulting in spiritual self-esteem, and that inner strength furnishes yet greater capacity to love God.

Suffering for blessing illuminates God’s grace. Suffering converts self-glorification into glorifying God which is worship, love, and appreciation of God. Paul’s boasting was not the loud, overt bravado we normally associate with braggarts. Instead, he was confident and sure, not of himself, but of the efficacy of the divine dynasphere. He celebrated the essence of God, His protocol plan, and the fabulous assets available to every Church Age believer. Boasting, here, is an attitude of the soul that is the epitome of spiritual self-esteem.

Having been reminded of God’s grace provisions, Paul expressed his total confidence in God’s policy of suffering for blessing. Now that he was thinking Bible doctrine, he recalled a further point of doctrine that motivated him to endure his thorn in the flesh. He remembered that the prototype of the divine dynasphere sustained the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ during His first advent. Paul refers to the prototype divine dynasphere as “the power of Christ.”

In the prototype divine dynasphere Christ attained spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. He perfectly fulfilled the Father’s plan, which included suffering for blessing, for “although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). The same policy of suffering for blessing that Paul was enduring in the operational divine dynasphere, and that we endure today, had been the means of accelerating the spiritual growth of the humanity of Christ.

For this reason I find contentment in weaknesses, in slanders, in pressures, in persecutions, in stresses in behalf of Christ, for when I am weak, then I am powerful. (2 Cor. 12:10)

“Contentment” is capacity for happiness; it is the believer’s satisfaction with the blessings God gives him. The spiritually adult believer in the operational divine dynasphere can share the happiness of God in all circumstances, just as the humanity of Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere possessed inner happiness on the cross while being judged for the sins of mankind (Heb. 12:2). If God the Holy Spirit could sustain Jesus through the excruciating pain of being judged for our sins, certainly the ministry of the Spirit and the operational divine dynasphere can sustain us in any hopeless situation in which we may find ourselves.

Some divine blessings involve prosperity; others come in the guise of adversity. The believer can be grateful for whatever he has in whatever state he finds himself (Phil. 4:11—12). This tranquillity of soul is derived from his personal love for God, for when a Christian loves the One who gives, he appreciates His gifts. “Contentment,” or sharing the happiness of God, is the problem-solving device directed toward self. This inner happiness characterizes all three stages of spiritual adulthood, increasing in strength with the attainment of each successive stage.

WARM-UP EXERCISES FOR MOMENTUM TESTING

Several types of providential preventive suffering are listed in 2 Corinthians 12:10, setting up a distinct pattern. As Paul has already stated, each category of suffering for blessing creates a situation of helplessness. The believer cannot use his human intelligence, experience, ingenuity, talent, or influence to resolve the problem. He must rely on divine assets. The word “weaknesses,” therefore, expresses this helplessness and represents the overall concept of providential preventive suffering. The believer with spiritual self-esteem has the capacity to “find contentment” whenever suffering enters his life.

The next four categories of testing in 2 Corinthians 12:10 are precursors of the four momentum tests which we will study in connection with spiritual autonomy. Providential preventive suffering familiarizes the growing believer with these momentum tests—in advance and at reduced intensity. God carefully prepares the believer for the future, when more intense suffering will be needed to perpetuate his spiritual growth. Here we discover again the truth that God will not test the positive believer “beyond what [he is] able [to bear]” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Providential preventive suffering not only suppresses arrogance and moves the believer into spiritual autonomy, but it also serves as a warm-up for the testings that will accelerate him beyond spiritual autonomy into spiritual maturity. “In slanders” corresponds to people testing. “In pressures” anticipates thought testing. “In persecutions” corresponds to system testing. And “in stresses” prepares the believer for disaster testing.

This entire system of spiritual advancement is said to be “in behalf of Christ.” The principle that suffering is a key element in the glorification of Christ is also stated in Paul’s epistle to the Philippians.

For to you it has been given in behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake. (Phil. 1:29)

How does our suffering benefit Christ? By fulfilling the protocol plan of God we glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. He is exalted in our lives as we attain spiritual adulthood and proceed toward maturity so that we are qualified to receive maximum blessing. Christ is glorified by delivering special, tailor-made blessings to the mature believer. We “suffer for His sake” in the sense that periodic suffering is essential to our advance. The emphasis is on spiritual growth and on Christ’s glorification, not on suffering itself.

Personal love for the Lord Jesus Christ motivates us to desire His glorification. Our application of doctrine during providential preventive suffering accelerates spiritual growth, which contributes to the demonstration of His glory. Therefore, as Paul states in 2 Corinthians 12:9, we suffer for His sake “all the more gladly.”

Our purpose in life is to utilize the assets of the divine dynasphere so that we advance to spiritual maturity. Much of this advance is spurred by suffering for blessing. Concluding his discussion of providential preventive suffering, Paul reiterates that when we pursue our destiny, moving step by step toward the goal, “then [we are] powerful” (2 Car. 12:10). The omnipotence of God sustains and empowers us at each stage as we move forward in His protocol plan.

Because 2 Corinthians 12:7—10 describes providential preventive suffering, lhe final word “powerful” in this passage refers to the next stage of advance after spiritual self-esteem. Paul has passed the test of providential preventive suffering and has attained new power. ‘Powerful” in this context becomes a synonym for spiritual autonomy.

WEAKNESSES as warm-ups for MOMENTUM TESTING
SLANDERS	People Testing
PRESSURES	Thought Testing
PERSECUTIONS	System Testing
STRESSES	Disaster Testing

PROVIDENTIAL PREVENTIVE SUFFERING IN 2 CORINTHIANS 12:10

Chapter 7

SPIRITUAL AUTONOMY

THE DYNAMIC STATE OF SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM

PHYSICAL EXERCISE DEVELOPS STRENGTH, coordination, and stamina and is essential for good health. In the same way, adversity gives the believer the vital spiritual exercise that builds spiritual autonomy. According to this athletic analogy, spiritual autonomy is spiritual self-esteem with muscle.

The experience of using divine assets under providential preventive suffering strengthens all the characteristics of spiritual self-esteem. Success in handling pressure dramatically increases the believer’s confidence in God. As a result, legitimate self-confidence also grows. The believer becomes keenly aware of belonging to God’s protocol plan and of possessing tremendous divine assets that work in time of crisis or tranquillity. Occupation with Christ and sharing the happiness of God cause the believer with spiritual autonomy to conduct himself with confidence, graciousness, and unshakable poise.

Derived from the classical Greek noun au)tonomia (autonomia), the word “autonomy” originally meant to live under one’s own laws, to live in a state of being independent. In modern usage autonomy expresses independence, self-determination, self-direction. In the Christian way of life, spiritual autonomy is the freedom of exercising royal prerogatives within one’s own palace, the divine dynasphere. Spiritual autonomy is the dynamic state of spiritual self-esteem.

The spiritually autonomous Christian knows that God has equipped him to meet the demands of life. Through his pastor’s faithful teaching and his own experience of doctrinal application, he has learned to utilize invisible divine assets in his daily life. Furthermore, suffering for blessing has given him a new attitude toward other people. Spiritual autonomy gives the believer strength to love others consistently with impersonal love.

IMPERSONAL LOVE MANDATED BY GOD

Impersonal love is defined in contrast to personal love. Personal love comes in two categories:

1. ROMANCE is personal love for a member of the opposite sex,

2. FRIENDSHIP is personal admiration for a member of either sex.

Personal love is attraction or admiration for someone else based on one’s own standards. By falling in love or making a friend, however, a person creates a problem. The object of his love is imperfect, and sooner or later, for one reason or another, that person will become a source of suffering and testing. Because no one is perfect, the object of personal love will cause disappointment, frustration, and hurt. The problem is that no one is perfect, neither the subject nor the object. Both contribute their flaws to the relationship.

When God commands us to love all believers (John 15:12, 17), our neighbors (Matt. 19:19; Rom. 13:9), and all mankind (Luke 6:27—28, 35), obviously He cannot mean personal love. God is commanding us to resolve problems, not to create problems. In fact, the only personal love with inherent virtue is personal love for God. God is the only perfect object of love.

What category of love fulfills the divine mandate? Impersonal love directed toward all mankind has inherent virtue and problem-solving characteristics. Impersonal love is unconditional with regard to its object. This means that no merit is assigned to the object of love; the motivation for impersonal love is not attractiveness, rapport, or worthiness. Motivated by the believer’s own virtue, impersonal love is, therefore, tolerant, unprejudiced, courteous, and objective in the face of hostility and antagonism. Impersonal love is the attitude of the spiritually adult Christian resulting from the filling of the Holy Spirit and the perception, metabolism, and application of Bible doctrine inside the palace of the divine dynasphere.

DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION OF IMPERSONAL LOVE

To understand the love that God commands every believer to have for all people, a distinction must be made between the subject and object of love. The subject is the one who loves; the object is the one who is loved. When love emphasizes the object, personal love is in view. When love emphasizes the subject, impersonal love is in view. Impersonal love is unconditional, emphasizing the virtue and spiritual status of the subject rather than rapport with or worthiness of the object. The greater the virtue of the subject, the greater the scope or range of its objects. The object of impersonal love can be known or unknown, friend or enemy, attractive or repulsive, honorable or dishonorable, good or evil, believer or unbeliever.

Impersonal love, therefore, is defined as the virtue of the subject resulting from residence, function, and momentum in the divine dynasphere. Impersonal love develops in stages, specifically the three stages of spiritual adulthood: spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. Impersonal love is a sign of spiritual adulthood, since all three stages possess impersonal love in some degree. The Christian’s impersonal love is not fully developed in Gate 5 of the divine dynasphere but becomes stabilized in Gate 6 and maximized in Gate 8.

Personal love for God, which is the source of spiritual self-esteem, is also the source of impersonal love for all mankind. In other words, Gate 5 of the divine dynasphere precedes Gate 6.

If someone should allege, “I love God,” and yet he hates his fellow believer, he is a liar. For he who does not love his fellow believer, whom he has seen, is not able to be loving God, whom he has not seen. Furthermore, we have this mandate from Him, that

he who loves God [personal love for God, Gate 5 of the divine dynasphere] should also love his fellow believer [impersonal love,

Gate 61. (1 John 4:20—21)

Spiritual self-esteem is prerequisite to the function of impersonal love. The mandates to “love your neighbor as yourself” imply that spiritual self-esteem is the

essential foundation for impersonal love (Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31; Gal. 5:14). Then, as the believer advances to spiritual autonomy, he builds the spiritual muscle to

comply with every divine mandate regarding impersonal love for all mankind. Capacity for impersonal love is acquired through providential preventive suffering, which

carries the believer into spiritual autonomy. Impersonal love is then tested through the people test as part of momentum testing on the way to spiritual maturity.

Impersonal love is not indifference or a lack of compassion. It is the virtue al the core of all successful personal relationships in friendship or romance. Impersonal love is a virtue from God attained in the fulfillment of the protocol plan, whereas personal love is an expression of man’s ego that may not involve virtue. Impersonal love emphasizes the virtue, integrity, and spiritual adulthood of the subject; personal love emphasizes the attractiveness and desirability of the object. Impersonal love encompasses the entire human race; personal love is reserved for a few. Impersonal love is sustained by Bible doctrine; personal love is sustained by rapport and mutual admiration. Impersonal love is imperative, mandated by God of all believers toward all mankind; personal love is optional and exclusive. Impersonal love requires fulfillment of the protocol plan of God; personal love requires no qualifications—Anyone can fall in love. Impersonal love is a problem-solving device; personal love is a problem-manufacturing device.

While personal love for members of the human race can be a distraction to the believer’s relationship with God, impersonal love for all mankind is a manifestation of personal love for God as the highest motivation in life. Impersonal love brings virtue to all problems of love and hate, friendship and enmity, attraction and animosity. Impersonal love perpetuates its own honor, virtue, and integrity without retaliation, reaction, prejudice, discrimination, or revenge. Impersonal love cannot be destroyed by hatred, persecution, unjust treatment, vindictiveness, or any other category of antagonism.

Impersonal love is the effective basis for dealing with all mankind. It is the quality of not allowing one’s personal feelings or emotions to motivate discourtesy and thoughtlessness. Impersonal love is the mental attitude that does not react in a personality conflict but treats others on the basis of one’s own honor, integrity, and objectivity.

Spiritual autonomy is that honor, integrity, and objectivity in the believer. Although impersonal love begins to emerge in earlier stages of Christian growth, it is erratic prior to reaching spiritual autonomy. In fact, the distinguishing quality of spiritual autonomy is impersonal love for all mankind. An overview of the characteristics of spiritual autonomy will describe the inner strength which animates impersonal love.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL AUTONOMY

As the Christian advances in the divine dynasphere, he utilizes available divine omnipotence on a consistent basis in more areas of his life. When compared with the qualities previously listed under spiritual self-esteem, the more powerful characteristics of spiritual autonomy reflect this greater utilization of divine omnipotence.

1. CONTINUATION OF CONTENTMENT. The believer possesses increased capacity for happiness and tranquillity of soul. He can appreciate the grace of God at work in every circumstance of his life. The believer’s happiness increases in strength and becomes more constant in each stage of spiritual adulthood.

2. PERPETUATED MENTAL STABILITY. Mental attitude improves with each stage of spiritual advance.

He who gets wisdom [Bible doctrine] loves his own soul [spiritual self-esteem from metabolized doctrine]; he who cherishes understanding prospers [advances beyond spiritual self-esteem to spiritual autonomy]. (Prov. 19:8)

Keep on having this thinking in you which also resided in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 2:5)

The believer with spiritual autonomy is no longer as vulnerable to pressure as he was upon first entering spiritual adulthood. He now has greater ability to concentrate so that he can apply Bible doctrine more consistently in adversity as well as in prosperity.

3. IMPERSONAL LOVE FOR ALL MANKIND. The consolidation of impersonal love is the most dramatic difference between spiritual self-esteem and spiritual autonomy. Christian integrity enables the believer to treat all people on the basis of his own virtue rather than borrow their strength or depend on their merits or attractiveness.

4. COGNITIVE SELF-CONFIDENCE. In spiritual self-esteem the knowledge factor was called epistemological rehabilitation, the process of renewing the mind with the hundreds of doctrines the believer had metabolized over the years in spiritual childhood. In spiritual autonomy the knowledge factor is cognitive self-confidence, which involves a more complete understanding of doctrine from having utilized divine problem-solving devices under providential preventive suffering. The spiritually autonomous believer knows that doctrine works. He has greater confidence in God and in his own ability to recall and accurately apply doctrine without distorting either the doctrine or the application.

5. GRACE ORIENTATION TO LIFE. While spiritual self-esteem also includes grace orientation, spiritual autonomy involves a deeper appreciation for the grace policy which God administers to all believers. Grace totally excludes human effort, human strength, human merit, human ability. Human advantages do not contribute to the execution of the protocol plan of God. The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life demanding a supernatural means of execution. The spiritually autonomous believer understands his total dependence on divine omnipotence. Orientation to God’s grace frees him from the last vestiges of legalism. With spiritual autonomy he does not abuse the freedom that grace gives him. Instead, he uses that freedom to comply with God’s will, purpose, and plan for the Church Age. He utilizes available divine omnipotence to perpetuate his spiritual growth.

6. DOCTRINAL ORIENTATION TO REALITY. The utilization of divine omnipotence keeps the believer on the path of reality and avoids any arrogant drive toward unreality. Because arrogance and subjectivity have been reduced to a minimum by providential preventive suffering, the spiritually autonomous believer is able to habitually utilize available divine power. In dramatic contrast to the neurotic or psychotic Christian, he enjoys the full effectiveness of all divine problem-solving devices. Spiritual autonomy is the epitome of sanity and mental stability.

7. GREATER DECISIONS FROM A POSITION OF STRENGTH. Right

Ihilking (Bible doctrine) and right motivation (personal love for God) lead to right decisions. In each successive stage of spiritual adulthood, the believer makes a higher percentage of good decisions. More good decisions mean more right actions, fulfilling the principle that a right thing must be done in a right way in order to be right. In contrast, a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong, and a wrong thing done in a right way is also wrong. A wrong thing done in a wrong way obviously is wrong. Specifically, all spiritual momentum and advance is a right thing done in a right way. This is the essence of divine protocol. The basis for good decisions is the perception and metabolism of Bible doctrine; the good decision itself is the application of doctrine.

8. PERSONAL CONTROL OF ONE’S LIFE. The spiritually autonomous Christian understands and accepts his own limitations. He also recognizes that Ihe grace provision of invisible assets has removed all limitations to his advance to spiritual maturity, which is the ultimate objective. The advancing believer understands that he cannot manipulate others and at the same time maintain control over his own life. No one can tamper with the decisions of others and be objective in his own decisions. The spiritually autonomous Christian, therefore, refrains from interfering in the lives of other people. Spiritual autonomy restrains jealousy, possessiveness, defensiveness, and the inordinate desire to dominate others. Spiritual autonomy remains righteous without becoming self-righteous, and moral without entering into moralistic orgies of crusader arrogance.

9. A PERSONAL SENSE OF DESTINY. In spiritual autonomy the Christian becomes increasingly aware of his own destiny within the protocol plan of God. God is his destiny. God has designed a powerful plan for blessing him to the maximum, a plan that enables his life to glorify Jesus Christ both now and forever. Once a believer is free from possessiveness and from seeking to control others, he can concentrate on exercising his God-given prerogatives within the framework of his own royal priesthood. He has learned to respect the privacy of others. He has become tolerant of the flaws and foibles of those whom he would ordinarily resent. His impersonal love means that he can interact with others from the high ground of Christian integrity while concentrating on the fulfillment of God’s purpose for his own life.

10. COMMAND OF SELF. As the powerful extension of spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy stabilizes the believer’s self-control, self-restraint, poise, and self-regulation. His soul is so inculcated with Bible doctrine that, under the filling of the Holy Spirit, divine viewpoint is sovereign over his life. He is not controlled by emotion or by the subjective aberrations of others. Consequently, in command of himself, the believer has a quality of communication with others that avoids inordinate ambition and competition.

11. QUALIFICATION FOR MOMENTUM TESTING. Because God never places more pressure on a believer than he can bear, spiritual autonomy is a prerequisite for momentum testing. By achieving spiritual autonomy, the believer is ready to proceed into the next phase of his advance to spiritual maturity.

12. ATTAINMENT OF A NEW PHASE OF THE UNIQUE LIFE. The modus vivendi of the believer with spiritual autonomy is described by the phrase “Christ [is] at home in your hearts,” that is, in the thinking portion of the mentality of the soul (Eph. 3:16—17).

SPIRITUAL AUTONOMY AND THE COMPLETION OF VIRTUE-LOVE

Spiritual autonomy is not an isolated virtue. It is an integral part of a greater, compound virtue, called virtue-love, all parts of which have now been introduced so that the overall concept may be presented.

Spiritual autonomy marks the attainment of Gate 6 of the divine dynasphere and the consolidation of virtue-love. As the combination of Gates 5 and 6, virtue-love creates marvelous capacity for life. Furthermore, energized by divine omnipotence through the believer’s residence in the divine dynasphere, virtue-love also becomes the most versatile problem-solving device in the protocol plan of God.

Now remain faith [the faith-rest drill], hope [confidence in promised blessings], and love [virtue-love], these three, and the greatest of these [is] love. (1 Cor. 13:13)

Faith-rest and hope are useful methods of problem solving that become operational in spiritual childhood. These two systems of applying Bible doctrine to experience continue to be effective in spiritual adulthood.

Virtue-love, however, is greater than faith-rest or hope because it expresses strength that belongs exclusively to spiritual adulthood. Virtue-love solves problems in the believer’s relationships with God and with others. In Gate 5, personal love for God is virtue-love directed toward God. This is the highest motivation in life. Personal love for God automatically gives the believer spiritual self-esteem. Providential preventive suffering then strengthens spin -tual self-esteem, developing spiritual autonomy in Gate 6. This becomes the inner strength that manifests itself in impersonal love for all mankind, or virtue-love directed toward others.

The significance of virtue-love can hardly be overemphasized. Although believers of previous dispensations were commanded to love God and man (Matt. 22:35—40), virtue-love is unique to the Church Age. Sustained by the power of the filling of the Holy Spirit, fueled by a depth of doctrinal resources never available before the canon of Scripture was completed, designed to follow the precedent of the glorified Christ, virtue-love is an integral part of the operational divine dynasphere. It is a problem-solving device far more effective than even the considerable divine assets available to the heroes of the Old Testament.

More than a problem-solving device toward God and man, virtue-love is also the believer’s capacity for life, love, and happiness. Virtue-love equips him to enjoy life while facing all categories of momentum testing. Without this tremendous system of virtue, no member of the royal family could advance the final distance into spiritual maturity and the maximum glorification of Jesus Christ.

This multifaceted, composite virtue is discussed in detail in Christian Integrity.[33] Here we will summarize and note how impersonal love completes the construction of virtue-love.

VIRTUE-LOVE DEFINED

Gates 5 and 6 of the divine dynasphere represent a single virtue, divided according to its objects and presented to indicate the sequence in which this overall virtue is acquired. Personal love for God comes first. As personal love for God increases, the believer’s attitude toward self improves: Spiritual self-esteem becomes spiritual autonomy. Finally, as this inner strength becomes established in his soul, he is able to deal more consistently with others from impersonal love.

As previously noted, impersonal love is defined by contrast to personal love. Both of these categories of love can be illustrated in the sentence “I love you.” In personal love, the emphasis is on the “you,” on the attractiveness, character, intelligence, and personality of the object of love. Personal love depends on rapport with the object. Obviously, personal love is exclusive. Only a few people receive any particular believer’s personal love, which requires a degree of intimacy, knowledge, trust, and reciprocation. For compatibility to exist, the “I” and the you must perceive one another as fulfilling each other’s norms and standards.

Impersonal love, on the other hand, is entirely a function of the “I,” the subject of the sentence, the one who loves. What is his character? Does he possess virtue? The term impersonal love acknowledges that no compatibility, familiarity, reciprocation, or intimacy of any kind is required between the subject and object. Impersonal love is the spiritually autonomous believer’s unconditional attitude toward everyone he meets. It is the expression of his integrity, which is manifested by tolerance, patience, compassion, courtesy, and generosity. Impersonal love excludes prejudice, hypocrisy, insensitivity, and rudeness.

The believer’s impersonal love is inherently virtuous because it can exist only when he has virtue. By contrast, personal love for another human being has no virtue in itself and does not necessarily involve virtue of any kind. Any irresponsible fool can fall in love. Falling in love requires no intelligence, talent, ability, or integrity. Personal love depends on the object rather than the subject of love; the one who loves may be deceived in his judgment of the object or may fantasize qualities in the object which do not exist. Personal love is often a problem-manufacturing device with no inherent problem-solving capability.

There are two sources of virtue in personal love. For believers and un-believers, adherence to the laws of divine establishment can support personal love. For believers, attainment of spiritual autonomy creates the impersonal love that sustains personal love. The only category of personal love that is inherently virtuous and does not need to be sustained by impersonal love is the believer’s personal love for God. By the very perfection of His essence, God is eternally worthy of the Christian’s love. The very idea of tolerance toward perfect God is ludicrous and blasphemous.

Therefore, the believer’s personal love for God, which is inherently virtuous, and his impersonal love for all mankind, which is also virtuous in itself, constitute the composite strength of character which I call virtue-love.

GENERAL CATEGORIES OF LOVE

The value of virtue-love becomes dramatically clear when we understand that there are three general categories of human love:

1. PSEUDOLOVE,

2. VIRTUE-DEPENDENT LOVE (personal love for man),

3. VIRTUE-LOVE (personal love for God; impersonal love for man).

Pseudolove is arrogance hidden behind a facade of emotion or hypocrisy of words. Pseudolove uses others for self-gratification, for personal advancement, or as props to hold up one’s weaknesses. Much that is passed off as genuine love is not love at all. A notorious cause of human suffering, pseudo-love is removed by spiritual growth in the divine dynasphere, which results in virtue-love and capacity for virtue-dependent love.

Virtue-dependent love includes romance and friendship. In romance especially, but also in friendship, a person tends to idealize the object of love. But no one is perfect. An image of perfection imposed on anyone is certain to cause disappointment and frustration. Reality inevitably emerges. Even if the object of love is treated as a person and is not expected to meet unattainable standards, still his or her independence, vacillations, foibles, and flaws of the old sin nature will periodically strain the relationship. But this is only half the problem.

Actually, the difficulties in personal love arise from far greater complications than those caused by the volatility of one who is loved. The person who loves is also changeable and imperfect. His or her own quirks, instabilities, and sin nature collide with the imperfections and fluctuations in the object of love. The intimacy and honesty of personal love, by their very nature, multiply the odds against a successful relationship. In personal love, each party’s problems are compounded by the other person’s problems. If a person cannot handle his own problems, he will never be able to deal with the problems of someone with whom he is intimate. Apart from spiritual autonomy, personal love is an uncontrollable, unsustainable problem maker.

Personal love between imperfect human beings is perpetually in a state of flux. Alterations in emotions, moods, physical health, intellectual preoccupations, perceptions, misperceptions, reactions to external influences and demands—all these conspire to disrupt the relationship. Petty irritations continually intrude. In the eyes of the one who loves, the object of love may change from being attractive to unattractive to attractive again, from responsive to reactive, from charming to annoying. Beneath the emotional turbulence inherent in personal love, however, impersonal love remains as constant as the spiritually autonomous Christian’s own character.

The complex difficulties inherent in romance and friendship can be overcome. Wonderful relationships can be sustained, but the prerequisite is virtue. Romance and friendship are virtue-dependent. Each individual must bring his or her own virtue into the relationship.

For the believer, God has provided the system by which to acquire and maintain this individual virtue. The system is the divine dynasphere, the believer’s royal palace, the protocol plan of God. The virtue is found in Gates 5 and 6, called virtue-love.

By the time a believer reaches spiritual autonomy, he has the full exercise of virtue-love as the key problem-solving device of the entire divine dynasphere. Virtue-love—toward God and others—is the strength of character that enables him to continue his spiritual advance. With virtue-love he can pass through the valley of momentum testing, which is the next category of suffering for blessing, and advance to the high ground of spiritual maturity.

Chapter 8

MOMENTUM TESTING

No ASCETICISM IN SUFFERING FOR BLESSING

ALTHOUGH THIS STUDY FOCUSES ON ADVERSITY in the life of the believer in Jesus Christ, suffering is not the basic characteristic of Christianity. Instead, spiritual autonomy gives the believer capacity to enjoy life in spite of any adversity that comes his way. His happiness does not depend on environment, possessions, or people. He can appreciate the pleasant details of life and cope with the disasters because he is not enslaved to circumstances. The problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God enable the believer to equate prosperity and adversity, living and dying.

Metabolized doctrine in the believer’s soul causes him to personally love God. That ever-increasing love produces contentment and happiness, which he brings with him into every situation. Indeed, sharing the happiness of God in spiritual adulthood is the most effective problem-solving device in the protocol plan of God. The believer advances by applying Bible doctrine under pressure, but it is the doctrine he applies, not the suffering he endures, that causes his growth.

Christianity is not a religion of suffering. Bible doctrine explains suffering, and metabolized, applied doctrine alleviates suffering in the soul. There is no asceticism in the protocol plan of God. Despite false teaching to the contrary, suffering for its own sake is not a legitimate Christian objective.

Tragically, many Christians never learn the doctrine of suffering. To their way of thinking, adversity creates an aura of spirituality. Presumptuously claiming to follow Christ in His sufferings, they attach importance to their own pain as if it brought them closer to God. They distort their lives to fit a crippling false doctrine: They assume God honors self-sacrifice and commands them to suffer. This malignant idea breeds arrogance, destroys capacity for life, and blasphemes the character of God.

Legalism, asceticism, and a martyr complex impose unnecessary suffering on believers, but such self-induced misery has no place in divine protocol. The saving work of Christ eliminates all human works for salvation (Eph. 2:8—9); rebound by grace excludes all penance (1 John 1:9); the marvelous doctrines of royal privilege and opportunity expose the arrogance of self-abnegation, self-flagellation, self-mutilation (Gal. 5:12).

God retains sovereign control over suffering in the protocol plan, which He will administer only to the right believer at the right time and to the right degree. God, not self, administers suffering for blessing. In other words, the believer must not look for trouble. On the contrary, he is to utilize divine provisions for problem solving. Even divine discipline exists for the purpose of blessing, but ascetic Christians ignore God’s purpose and cling to suffering as an end in itself. Their misguided, false attempts to earn God’s approbation incur only divine wrath. These legalistic believers reject God’s grace, refuse to utilize the invisible assets of divine omnipotence, and instead function in Satan’s cosmic system under religious evil.[34]

Under unusual circumstances a Christian may suffer for his beliefs. Truth arouses animosity in those with hardened negative volition (Matt. 10:34—36), but the believer should not provoke animosity just to prove his loyalty to the truth. Such suffering merely feeds a perverse form of arrogance. The antagonism a believer endures is neither an indication of spiritual growth nor a proof of his effectiveness as a witness for Christ. Every Church Age believer is an ambassador of Jesus Christ in the devil’s world (2 Cor. 5:20). He is in the world but not of the world, and he is commanded “not [to] love the world, nor the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). However, neither is he to cause unnecessary suffering by making himself persona non grata.

The Christian’s commission as royal ambassador does not call upon him to be obnoxious and to cause resentment in order to claim that he “suffers for Jesus.” The spiritually autonomous believer is motivated by love for God, not by a desire to prove himself to God or man. Furthermore, the Bible doctrine in his soul is far too great a treasure to be flaunted before the enemies of the truth (Matt. 7:6). He finds opportunities to present the Gospel in order to pass on the good news. His purpose is neither to gain God’s approbation nor to expose himself to the world’s hatred (John 15:18—21).

Second Corinthians 6 teaches that we are to give “no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited” (2 Cor. 6:3). The function of the divine dynasphere (2 Cor. 6:6—7) and the attainment of spiritual autonomy give the believer excellence, quality, and class as a royal ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. With spiritual autonomy the royal ambassador can surmount “endurance, afflictions, hardships, distresses, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, sleeplessness, and hunger” if and when such testings occur (2 Cor. 6:4—5). Whether in prosperous or adverse circumstances (2 Cor. 6:8), his love, loyalty, and happiness are related to the Lord whom he represents.

SUFFERING IN FOUR CATEGORIES OF MOMENTUM TESTING

Spiritual autonomy not only gives the believer capacity for life as Christ’s representative on earth but also prepares him for the final approach to spiritual maturity. In order to accelerate the believer’s momentum to the final objective of maturity, God periodically inserts momentum testing among the advancing believer’s blessings. Four categories of momentum testing characterize Christian suffering in the advance from spiritual autonomy to spiritual maturity:

1. PEOPLE TESTING,

2. THOUGHT TESTING,

3. SYSTEM TESTING,

4. DISASTER TESTING.

The believer with spiritual autonomy does not fear this formidable catalog of suffering. He has previously passed a warm-up exam for each of these tests. Now that his spiritual self-esteem has become spiritual autonomy, providential preventive suffering has prepared him for the four categories of momentum testing he is about to encounter.

At this stage in his spiritual life, the believer should not be caught off guard by suffering. The pain will not be less than before. In fact, the suffering may be more intense, but he has the problem-solving devices necessary to take suffering in stride.

PEOPLE TESTING

Approbation as a Test of Momentum

People testing challenges the believer from two antithetical directions: approbation and antagonism. In either case, the danger lies in relinquishing spiritual autonomy and turning over control of one’s life to someone else. A person the believer loves or admires may inordinately influence his life and happiness. Anyone he hates definitely usurps control.

Personal love in the human race is virtue-dependent. Lacking inherent virtue, it relies on the integrity of impersonal love as a problem-solving device. This very dependence on virtue-love makes every personal love relationship a test of the believer’s faithfulness to divine priorities. Will he overemphasize the object of love to the point of compromising his personal sense of destiny in the protocol plan of God? Or will he integrate his human relationships into a consistent, balanced Christian life?

Personal love emphasizes the object of love, but if a believer elevates the human object of his love above God, he fails the people test. In his desire to please the woman he loves, a man may turn over control of his life to her. He makes himself a slave, living by her whim rather than by the strength of his own soul. Ironically, as a slave he renounces all possibility of pleasing her. He ceases to be the man to whom she originally was attracted. The same may be true of a woman. Although a wife lives under her husband’s authority, she should not renounce her responsibility for her own life out of her desire to please him.

Personal love does not require either party to surrender his or her autonomy to the other. God has a unique plan for each believer. Each is a royal priest before God and remains an individual. In a personal love relationship both the subject and the object must maintain integrity and contribute virtue-love if the relationship is to have hope of success.

The key to passing the people test is that people emphasis must not take precedence over God emphasis. In other words, among the many legitimate activities and involvements in the believer’s life, Bible doctrine must receive first priority. Human relationships are important in any normal life, but the Christian’s relationship with God in the divine dynasphere enables human personal love to succeed. Therefore, the believer must learn to say no when even legitimate activities challenge the top priority of doctrine.

A believer may make his own choices in the selection of his friends and loved ones, but thereafter they will make many decisions for him unless he maintains his spiritual autonomy.

Be not deceived; evil friends corrupt good morals. (1 Cor. 15:33)

He who walks with wise men will be wise,

But the friends of fools will suffer evil. (Prov. 13:20)

Personal love may not sound like a particularly unpleasant momentum test. Everyone wants to be in love. Personal love, however, is a problem-manufacturing device with no inherent problem-solving capability. When a person reveals his soul to someone he loves, the intimacy between one imperfect person and another creates vulnerability to suffering. Some of the greatest anguish in life comes from personal love. Personal love can avoid becoming misery and slavery only when accompanied by the virtue of impersonal love. Spiritual autonomy, therefore, is the inner strength that makes personal love a marvelous blessing.

Antagonism as a Test of Momentum

Like personal love, antagonism can also cause the believer to surrender the control of his life to someone else. He may be driving down the freeway when another motorist cuts in front of him. The immediate reaction may be anger at that discourteous so-and-so, but anger is ridiculous in this situation. Suddenly the believer is upset and irritated; his whole attitude is distorted by this petty incident. He has turned over the custody of his happiness to a total stranger. If he refuses to recover from the mental attitude sin of anger through rebound, he may escalate his initial reaction into a foolish and potentially violent feud with the other driver.

Any time a believer reacts to people with jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, or implacability, he immediately grants them control over his life. In an irrational attempt to regain control, he may vent his antagonism in gossip, maligning, false accusation, or even physical violence. But by attacking the person to whom he has surrendered his happiness, the believer attacks his own happiness. Each antagonistic reaction carries him deeper into self-induced misery.

When other people control a believer’s life, whether or not they want control or even realize they have such influence, he blames them for his discontentment. But blaming others for self-induced misery cuts off the possibility of solution and, under the law of volitional responsibility, intensifies the suffering. With spiritual growth, the believer becomes aware of this pattern of unhappiness. He uses rebound for forgiveness of the sins involved, but the specific solution to people testing is impersonal love, in which the believer’s own inner strength is the basis for toleration of others. Impersonal love is crystallized as an active component of virtue-love only after the believer has attained spiritual autonomy.

Ultimately, the solution to all momentum testing is the believer’s happiness. Happiness as a problem-solving device is the monopoly of God and His plan. The believer cannot depend on people for happiness; he must depend on God. The believer must follow divine protocol to avoid undue influence from those he loves and to keep from falling into hatred toward those who irritate him. Spiritual momentum in the protocol plan of God will bring the believer to spiritual autonomy where his contentment is stabilized and where he can utilize impersonal love as a solution to his problems with people.

THOUGHT TESTING

The Importance of Doctrinal Thinking

Thought determines the believer’s life. Thought has such a powerful effect on the believer’s success or failure in the Christian life that thinking must be considered a major momentum test. In all stages of Christian growth the believer will face the pressure of thought conflicts in his soul.

Human viewpoint will conflict with divine viewpoint. False concepts will challenge Bible doctrine. Arrogance will intrude upon humility. Expedients of all kinds will compete with the protocol plan of God. Fear will paralyze reason. These are essentially private conflicts which the believer must resolve in his own soul. Quandaries, confusions, and unanswered questions motivate the positive believer to apply the resources of Bible doctrine he has learned. Concentration on doctrine accelerates his spiritual growth.

Thought testing may exist when circumstances are overtly prosperous and tranquil. A person is not always what he appears to be on the surface; the real person is the thought content of his soul.

For as he [a person] thinks within himself, so is he. He says to you, “Eat and drink!” but his heart [the place of thought] is not with you. (Prov. 23:7, NASB)

Because a believer is what he thinks, a thought can make or break him, depending on the nature of the thought. If his thought is consistent with Bible doctrine, he advances in the protocol plan of God. If his thought is contrary to doctrine, he is distracted from his true destiny in life. His mental attitude toward life is the function of his thinking, the composite of all he knows and believes.

Prayer illustrates the importance of thought in fulfilling the believer’s private responsibilities before the Lord.[35] Each member of the royal family is a priest with the tremendous privilege of representing himself before God.

With privilege comes responsibility. God has established the protocol which the believer must follow in using prayer. The believer’s prayers must be consistent with God’s essence, objectives, and modus operandi. Hence, accurate and careful doctrinal thinking is the basis for effective prayer. When his prayers reflect God’s own thoughts and desires, the believer can be confident of receiving affirmative answers (John 15:7).

Jesus explained that wrong and sloppy thinking guarantees failure in prayer.

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. (Matt. 6:7)

Thinking Evil and Thinking Good

Rational thinking is the essential human activity that distinguishes man from animals. Like the angels, man was created with a soul capable of rational thought. Therefore, the mentality of the soul is the battlefield of the angelic conflict. When the believer thinks evil, he is evil. He resides in Satan’s cosmic system. From evil thinking comes evil motivation; from evil motivation, evil actions.

And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?” (Matt. 9:4)

In contrast, thinking that is consistent with the truth has enormous repercussions for good. Salvation itself is appropriated by a right thought, by non-meritorious positive volition toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What do you think about the Christ? (Matt. 22:42a)

Mankind’s great enemy is a thought called arrogance. Arrogance can inflate or deflate man’s opinion of himself. He thinks he is better or worse than he actually is. Both self-aggrandizement and self-denigration distort and deny reality, which is the realm in which God’s plan is effective. God’s grace deals with us as we are, but an egocentric believer who does not live in objective reality will never use God’s grace provisions to advance in the protocol plan.

For if anyone thinks he is something [arrogance] when he is nothing, he deceives himself. (Gal. 6:3, NASB)

There is a grim irony in arrogance. A person who thinks more of himself than he has a right to think is actually depriving himself of his greatest advantages, the benefits that come with the fulfillment of God’s plan for his life.

For I say through the grace of God which has been given to me, to everyone who is among you, stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion, as God has assigned to each one a standard [of thinking] from doctrine. (Rom. 12:3)

Arrogance is illusion, unreality, and when perpetuated, arrogance becomes insanity. The preventive is the truth of Bible doctrine.

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed [of Bible doctrine] lest he fall. (1 Cor. 10:12, NASB)

The divine mandates that the believer must obey in order to consistently pass thought testing are summed up in Romans 12:2.

Stop being conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renovation of your thought, that you may prove what the will of God is, [namely] the good, the well-pleasing, and the complete. (Rom. 12:2)

“The renovation of [one’s] thought” is accomplished over a period of time by giving Bible doctrine number one priority, by organizing one’s life around the daily perception of the Word of God. “The good, the well-pleasing, and the complete” is the protocol plan of God, executed in the palace of the divine dynasphere. Only in the divine dynasphere can the believer receive all the blessings God has prepared for him—in prosperity or adversity.

Humility in Contrast to False Solutions

The paragon of right thinking is the humanity of Jesus Christ, who constantly lived and functioned inside the prototype of the divine dynasphere.

Keep on having this mental attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 2:5)

Our Lord’s mental attitude of humility was manifested by His total conformity to the plan of the Father. Humility, which is obedience to divine authority and orientation to God’s grace, should be the attitude of every member of the royal family of God.[36]

Humility excludes false solutions to thought testing. What are some of the pseudosolutions which genuine humility avoids?

RATIONALIZATION is self-justification while blaming others for one’s own failures and sufferings.

ANGER attacks a problem with temper and tantrums, which manifest total irresponsibility. Unjustified anger ignores the problem, diverting attention instead to self, and attempting to cower people and control them with threats or violence. Power lust and approbation lust are often expressed through anger, which arises from feelings of inferiority that are temporarily assuaged by revenge or by injuring those who challenge one’s inflated opinion of self.

DEFENSE MECHANISMS attempt to insulate the believer’s mind from overpowering pressures. But such sociopathic functions as drug abuse, lasciviousness, and drunkenness merely compound the original problem by divorcing the believer from reality.

DENIAL ignores the problem in the blind hope that it will go away. Believers who plead with God for miracles often fall into this false system of problem solving.

SUBLIMATION reacts to frustration by finding a new outlet for pent-up emotions. A bored believer may seek happiness in social life, sex, or a pursuit of money when he actually needs to develop love for God through Bible doctrine. Most sublimation is directed into activities that are moral and normal but which have been given a false priority above Bible doctrine and the plan of God.

Worship and Mental Combat

Paul depicts thought testing as a battle in the soul. But this is a battle for which God has devised brilliant strategy and tactics. He has powerfully armed and amply supplied the believer to win this inner warfare against erroneous thinking.

For the equipment and weapons of our warfare [are] not human attributes but attributes of power by means of God [the utilization of divine omnipotence in the divine dynasphere] against the destruction of fortifications [Satan’s multifaceted systems of false

thinking], assaulting and demolishing speculations and every obstacle of arrogance against the knowledge of God, even making a prisoner of every thought to the obedience of Christ, holding in readiness [doctrine in the soul] to punish all deviation when your obedience has been fulfilled [obedience to the mandates of God’s protocol plan resulting in spiritual adulthood]. (2 Cor. 10:4—6)

Although divine viewpoint thinking searches out and destroys false human viewpoint, the destruction of incorrect ideas and attitudes is not the ultimate victory in thought testing. Victory lies in possessing the true perspective, thinking with true ideas, understanding and applying true doctrines.

Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word [Bible doctrine], then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31—32, NASB)

In other words, worship of God is a mental attitude.

God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit [the filling of the Holy Spirit, Gate 1 of the divine dynaspherel and in truth [knowing and thinking Bible doctrine, Gate 4]. (John 4:24)

All aspects of worship are based upon accurate, doctrinal thinking. In the Eucharist the believer concentrates on Christ, remembering the doctrines that reveal His person and saving work.[37] Music praises God in doctrinal lyrics. Giving is a mental attitude, and the privilege of contributing to the Lord’s service is extended to believers who understand God’s grace (2 Cor. 9:7—8).[38] But by far the most important form of worship is concentrating on the teaching of God’s Word.

As a result of victories on the battlefield of thought testing, the believer deepens his personal love for God, shares the happiness of God, and acquires inner beauty. This inner beauty, which Paul describes as “sanity of mind” or “stability of mind,” characterizes the believer in spiritual adulthood (1 Tim. 2:9—10, 15b; 1 Pet. 3:3—4).

SYSTEM TESTING

Systems Defined, the Problem Stated

A system, as the term is used here, is an organization composed of people under the authority of other people, which functions according to a policy designed to fulfill a specific objective. Human society is a web of systems. Every individual belongs to many of these organizations, formal and informal. There are business corporations, military services, ecclesiastical organizations, athletic teams, professional associations, universities, governmental departments, marriages, families, and many other systems. All of these are characterized by:

1. PERSONNEL UNDER AUTHORITY,

2. THE OBJECTIVES OF THE ORGANIZATION,

3. POLICY OF THE MANAGEMENT.

There are good and bad systems, which may be successful or unsuccessful. The personnel—in authority and under authority—may be accomplished or incompetent. Objectives may be legitimate or dubious, lucid or ill-defined. Policy may encourage people to excel or may oppress them. Problems inevitably exist in the complex of interlocking and overlapping systems that constitute human society. All these organizations involve people, no two of whom are alike and not one of whom is perfect. With so many old sin natures jostling against one another and expressing themselves day after day, no wonder system testing is an inescapable form of suffering that poses a major challenge to the Christian’s spiritual advance.

What is a believer to do when he is treated unfairly by someone in authority over him? How should he respond to bias and favoritism that promote people who do inferior work? What if he has a personality conflict with his boss? Or how does he maintain his motivation and integrity when policies serve someone’s personal interests rather than strengthen the organization, when they conflict with normal living, or when they seem arbitrary and stupid? How does he cope with conflicting, vague, or impossible objectives?

The dynamics and problems of organizations have been studied and written about by many distinguished authorities. Most problems boil down to arrogance, expressed in incapacity, laziness, distraction by wrong priorities, and ignorance. The purpose of this study of Christian suffering is not to diagnose the weaknesses of particular systems and prescribe organizational remedies. Instead, the objective is to describe the believer’s mental attitude and modus operandi as a result of utilizing divine problem-solving devices. Spiritual autonomy enables him to survive and benefit from system testing.

Quit or Cope

Two courses of action usually are open to the believer when confronted with system testing. He can quit or he can cope with the pressure, using the dynamics of available divine omnipotence. Certainly there are times to separate oneself from an organization. If a system’s objectives or policies are clearly evil, the believer should disassociate himself from it. This would apply to groups like the Communist Party, the Nazi Party, certain apostate churches and cults, criminal organizations, and paramilitary groups that undermine the authority of government through civil disobedience or terrorism.

Separation is required in extreme cases, but quitting because of pressure is often a poor decision from a position of weakness. If the believer succumbs to the pressure, if he quits on relatively mild provocation, he has flunked the system test.

If you falter in times of trouble,

How small is your strength. (Prov. 24:10)

If the believer perseveres in a situation even when circumstances are less than perfect, and continues to do a good job, he will be vindicated and promoted spiritually by the Lord. The vindication comes from residence in the power of the divine dynasphere. The believer’s royal palace is strong enough to weather any storm, if he will remain inside and use his divine assets.

Spiritual autonomy gives the Christian the power to put the problem in the Lord’s hands and continue to function without an arrogant reaction. Bitterness, implacability, self-pity, hatred, jealousy, and revenge do not need to control the believer’s life simply because problems exist in a system to which he belongs.

Spiritual Autonomy in System Testing

By remembering the component parts of spiritual autonomy, the believer discovers the assets he needs in facing system testing. Spiritual autonomy is:

1. IMPERSONAL LOVE FOR ALL MANKIND and

2. Strengthened SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM derived from

3. PERSONAL LOVE FOR GOD, which is the result of

4. BIBLE DOCTRINE in the soul.

The believer will need all these qualities when confronted with system testing.

In spiritual autonomy the believer is motivated by his love for God. In any system to which he belongs, he does his job “not as pleasing men but unto God” (1 Thess. 2:4). He does not rely on the organization to furnish his motivation because he is self-motivated. The organization cannot destroy motivation that it did not create in the first place. Only the believer himself can destroy his own motivation through negative volition to the protocol plan of God. With personal love for God as his motivational virtue, the spiritually autonomous Christian can contribute to the organization even when it may treat him unfairly. Needless to say, he does the best possible job regardless of injustice, unfair criticism, or job discrimination. He does not complain or join in organizational conspiracies.

Man is frequently unfair, but God is always fair. Man’s systems are flawed, but God’s protocol plan is perfect. Human beings in authority may be despicable, but God is always worthy of respect. The spiritually autonomous believer’s personal love for God motivates impersonal love for mankind, which enables him to be tolerant of the weaknesses and failures of others. When he is a victim of unfair leadership, unjust management, or an inefficient system, he deals with personality conflicts on the basis of impersonal love. In other words, he takes the attitude that the people who inflict system testing on him are simply contributing to his spiritual advance. Since he loves God, God is working “all things together for good” in his behalf (Rom. 8:28).[39]

The inventory of Bible doctrine in the believer’s soul enables him to submit to authority and be an asset to any organization. That same doctrine strengthens him to endure system testing and through his professionalism to be a stabilizing influence for others who also may suffer from the organization’s pettiness, shortsightedness, or ineptitude.

In the epistle to the Colossians, Paul states the principle, then illustrates from a variety of systems, and finally presents the correct application of doctrine to system testing.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to Him through God the Father. Wives, submit to the authority of your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and stop being bitter against them.

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Parents, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. [Children, lacking inner resources, are adversely affected by too much system testing from unfair, inconsistent parents]. Labor, obey management in everything, not with eye-service as men-pleasers but with virtue of heart [doctrine in the thinking of the soul], respecting the Lord.

Whatever you do, keep functioning from [your own] soul as to the Lord [spiritual autonomy] and not to man, since you know that you will receive the reward of your inheritance [your focus extends beyond the objectives of any human organization]. You serve the Lord Christ. Anyone who does wrong will receive the consequences of his wrong, and there is no partiality [under the law of volitional responsibility]. (Col. 3:17—25)

The doctrine of God’s impartiality applies to system testing.[40] After the believer has used the appropriate problem-solving devices, he places his case before the supreme court of heaven. God is the perfect judge. There is no reason to complain and whine about unfairness.

The believer is highly immature if he entertains the illusion that fallen, totally depraved human beings will always be enlightened and fair. This is the devil’s world. Injustice and discrimination are the norm under Satan’s arrogant administration. Rather than focus his attention on the stupidity, cowardice, and evil of mankind, the spiritually autonomous Christian will regard human weaknesses in the context of God’s plan.

God is always fair to the believer. God has furnished powerful and effective divine assets, and He intends for the believer to bear the testing that He does not remove. When separation from a flawed system is not justified, spiritual autonomy gives the believer the strength to put the case before God, leave it there for divine solution, and cope with the situation as unto the Lord.

DISASTER TESTING

The Most Obvious Test

People testing, thought testing, and system testing may exert an insidious pressure on the believer. He must be alert to recognize these challenges to his spiritual advance. When he has identified the nature of the test, he then can apply the appropriate problem-solving devices and pass the test.

Disaster testing, however, is anything but subtle. The problem is not to identify the threat but to endure the shock and to maintain poise for decision-making under extreme duress.

There are two categories of disaster testing:

1. PERSONAL DISASTER,

2. HISTORICAL OR NATIONAL DISASTER.

A personal disaster may be physical pain caused by injury, disease, handicap, or genetic weakness. It may be mental anguish, caused by loss of loved ones, reputation, success, employment, money, or property. The privations of hunger, thirst, or exposure to heat or cold may be classified as personal disasters. Arrogance spawns personal disasters: Disdain for authority breeds criminals who trample the rights, privacy, and property of their victims. Those who break the law must suffer from the administration of justice (Matt. 26:52; Rom. 13:4).

An historical disaster is a situation that brings grief to many people. A large number of people may suffer from the weather in heat and drought or in extreme and prolonged cold. Blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods cause widespread damage as do powerful earthquakes, tidal waves, or volcanic eruptions. Insects or plant diseases may kill crops. Epidemics can decimate a population.

The cycles of a free economy or adjustments in governmental policy may cause immediate hardships for large portions of society. Injustice victimizes many people where self-aggrandizement corrupts the integrity of leadership. When a nation declines, the evils of crime, terrorism, and drug abuse inflict terrible suffering upon the entire society. Arrogance, revenge, greed, inordinate ambition, and power lust pit group against group, nation against nation, ultimately unleashing the violence of war with all its attendant suffering.

The Disaster of Economic Depression

How does the spiritually autonomous believer deal with a disaster that affects his entire nation? For example, how can he pass the test of economic depression?

Throughout the centuries during which the Bible was written, the Jewish economy was agricultural. Famine was tantamount to depression. Hence, I will use the term “economic depression” in translating “famine” in certain passages of Scripture.

The economic health of a client nation to God is a rough index of the nation’s spiritual condition. Economic prosperity is promised for nations that follow the laws of divine establishment concerning economic freedom.

‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land.’ (Lev. 26:3—5, NASB)

Economic recovery accompanies spiritual recovery in the client nation. But when the economy is chronically depressed, the nation is usually in spiritual decline. A client nation declines spiritually when the “remnant,” the pivot of growing and mature believers in that nation, shrinks while the number of believers who reject the plan of God increases. Furthermore, when the remnant becomes too small to counterbalance the human viewpoint influence of negative believers, God punishes the client nation with collective divine discipline.

Five cycles of discipline are administered to the client nation whose believers refuse to recover their spiritual momentum. The second cycle of discipline is economic recession (Lev. 26:18—20); the fourth cycle is economic depression (Lev. 26:23—26; Deut. 28:15, cf., 28:23—24). The malaise of economic depression often is the weakness that brings on the fifth cycle, military conquest by a foreign power (Lev. 26:27—35; Deut. 28:25—26).[41]

The Advancing Believer in Disaster

Even while the nation suffers under divine discipline, God never disregards the faithfulness of individual believers. Under the disaster test of economic depression, the spiritually autonomous believer uses all the problem-solving devices of spiritual adulthood. He directs his hope toward doctrine, his personal love toward God, his impersonal love toward mankind, and his acquired divine happiness toward himself. With these powerful divine assets he can not only survive the storm but even enjoy it—with total confidence in God’s plan for his life.

Abram failed to use any problem-solving devices in economic depression, but the Lord still supplied his every need (Gen. 12:10—13:1). By neglecting to use the doctrine he knew, Abram manufactured unnecessary pressure for himself and was unable to enjoy God’s provision as he could have.

The proper attitude in economic disaster is described by Peter.

These [momentum tests of all kinds] have come so that your faith [the application of Bible doctrine in utilizing God’s problem-solving devices]—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed [the Rapture or resurrection of the Church as a preliminary to the Judgment Seat of Christ, where eternal rewards will be based on spiritual growth]. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him [use the assets of the divine dynasphere] and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. (1 Pet. 1:7—8, NIV)

In disaster testing, the spiritually adult believer uses the greatest of all problem-solving devices, the happiness of God, which is described here as “inexpressible and glorious joy.” God shares His happiness with the believer first in spiritual self-esteem, then more powerfully in spiritual autonomy, and most effectively in spiritual maturity. The believer inculcated with the thinking of God is happy or content in whatever circumstances he finds himself and can therefore cope with any pressure in life.

Knowledge of Bible doctrine gives the believer a sense for historical trends so that he is alert to pending economic disasters. Common sense in preparation for economic depression is illustrated by Joseph, the prime minister of Egypt. Joseph understood the importance of liquidity, or its ancient equivalent in grain, and stored up reserves for use in lean years (Gen. 41:46—57). Inflation as a cause of depression is described as a factor in the fourth cycle of discipline (Lev. 26:26). When depression is divine discipline, only the spiritual recovery of the believer can deliver the client nation. As go believers, so goes the nation.

If disaster comes, whether the sword of judgment [war] or disease or economic depression, we will stand in Your presence before the temple that bears Your name [where doctrine was taught to the Jews by means of ritual] and will cry out [pray] to You in our distress. Then You will both hear us and deliver us. (2 Chron. 20:9)

God protects the growing believer in disaster testing. The spiritually autonomous believer has the privilege of understanding these doctrines and of appreciating the One who protects and delivers him.

In economic depression He [God] will ransom you from death, and in battle from the power of the sword. (Job 5:20)

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall disaster or anguish or persecution or economic depression or privation or danger or sword? . . . But in all these things we win the supreme victory through Him who loves us. (Rom. 8:35—37)

PAUL’S MENTAL ATTITUDE: CURSING TURNED TO BLESSING

When a believer suffers momentum testing, he is closing in on the objective of the Christian way of life. Spiritual maturity is the next step. In people testing, thought testing, system testing, or disaster testing, the Christian’s mental attitude can be characterized by eager anticipation and stimulation despite the pain he suffers. Metabolized Bible doctrine enables him to see how close he is to achieving maturity.

Paul himself is an example of the believer’s attitude when beset by momentum testing after a major personal failure. He had reached spiritual self-esteem, which is vulnerable to arrogance, and had successfully faced providential preventive suffering so that he gained spiritual autonomy. Then, in a resurgence of arrogance, he assumed that his own plan for his life was better than God’s plan. In defiance of the doctrine he knew (Rom. 11:2—5, 13; Gal. 2:7), the warnings of other people (Acts 21:10—14), and his own common sense, Paul abandoned his thriving ministry to the Gentiles in the Aegean Quadrangle and returned to Jerusalem.

Paul blended arrogance with sentimentality, producing a disastrous result. He remembered his celebrity as a brilliant young Pharisee and wished to go back and have an impact for Christ among his old associates. He failed miserably. His unbelieving countrymen were adamantly negative to the Gospel, as they had previously opposed Christ, and the legalistic Jewish Christians were negative to doctrine. To gain an audience with the Jews, Paul went so far as to compromise his integrity, taking a blasphemous religious vow in the Temple (Acts 2 1:23—26).

Beginning with a riot in the Temple and an assassination plot against him, a two-year imprisonment ensued, which carried Paul to Rome. Paul quickly recognized his failure and rebounded so that the purpose of this long period of suffering changed from cursing to blessing. In the midst of suffering, he regained his spiritual momentum. In fact, providential preventive suffering rapidly strengthened his spiritual self-esteem into spiritual autonomy. In Philippians 3, Paul describes himself retrospectively: He expresses the viewpoint of spiritual self-esteem in verse 10 and the perspective of spiritual autonomy in verse 11. The beginning of his imprisonment was momentum testing. From a position of spiritual maturity, he recalls what his attitude was when he had not yet arrived at maturity but was well on his way. As a mature believer Paul was remembering the grace of God that had delivered him from his own self-induced misery and had accelerated his advance to maturity.

Paul had initiated a sequence of suffering with his own arrogant decisions, but God converted cursing into blessing as soon as Paul used rebound and reentered his palace of the divine dynasphere. The apostle did not languish in his failure. He evaluated his situation long enough to learn his lesson, then gratefully pressed forward in the plan of God.

MOMENTUM TESTING IN PHILIPPIANS 3

Leaving False Confidence Behind

Paul opens Philippians 3 by repeating a warning that he himself had disregarded in his Jerusalem fiasco. Believers must beware of religion with all its emotional appeal, self-righteousness, coercion, and potential violence. In particular, Paul cites his own aristocratic background, zeal, and fame in Judaism. Religion had channeled his intellect and energy, had flattered and promoted him, had given him tremendous “confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:4). Through his personal faith in Christ and inculcation with Bible doctrine, Paul had renounced his old, misplaced confidence in man. His power lust and his self-righteous zeal to impose his own legalism on others had been replaced by spiritual autonomy. Instead of self, Christ was now the focus of his attention. Personal love for God had superseded arrogance as the foundation of his attitude toward himself.

But whatever things were gain [profit] to me, those things [his status symbols in Israel] I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I conclude all things to be loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for the sake of whom I have suffered the loss of all things [his Jewish celebrity] and conclude them [to be] excrement that I may gain Christ. (Phil. 3:7—8)

“Gain[ing] Christ” is a synonym for fulfilling the protocol plan of God. Paul expresses his desire to advance in the operational divine dynasphere all the way to Gate 8, spiritual maturity, just as the humanity of Christ set the precedent for the royal family by attaining maturity in the prototype divine dynasphere.

Parenthesis. How to Attain Spiritual Maturity

In verses 9—11, Paul inserts a parenthesis, explaining how to “gain Christ.”

That I may be found in Him [as a member of the royal family, in union with Christ] not having a righteousness of my own from the Law [no salvation by keeping the Mosaic Law] but that [divine righteousness] acquired through faith in Christ, that righteousness from God on the basis of faith. (Phil 3:9)

To “gain Christ” a person must first believe in Christ. At the moment of faith alone in Christ alone, God permanently imputes His own absolute righteousness to every believer, eliminating any need to earn God’s approbation with the human righteousness of religion or of good deeds. Man appropriates salvation only according to divine protocol: “by grace are you saved through faith [in Christ];. . . not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8—9).

After salvation the believer must continue to follow divine protocol. Human works cannot earn salvation, nor can human good works earn God’s love or blessings after salvation. God’s grace policy is consistent. The believer lives the Christian way of life by following God’s mandates, not by striving to fulfill his own legalistic idea of what ought to please God. As a teaching aid, the divine dynasphere consolidates God’s mandates, making His grace policy understandable, systematically presenting the means by which we “grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, having become like [Him] with reference to His death. (Phil. 3:10)

In Philippians 3:10 Paul emphasizes suffering, but he begins by stating the importance of postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation related to spiritual self-esteem. Although Paul is in spiritual maturity as he writes, he is giving us the benefit of his experience in spiritual self-esteem. Therefore, he begins verse 10 with the infinitive of purpose of the verb ytvdGlcw (ginosko), “to know.” The infinitive of purpose indicates the objective or purpose of the action of the main verb, which is found in verse 8, “I conclude all things to be loss.., that I may know Him.”

Paul reached this conclusion through postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation and cognition of the doctrine of spiritual adulthood. Knowing Christ, or occupation with Christ, is one of the characteristics of spiritual self-esteem. From the viewpoint of spiritual self-esteem, Paul now turns his attention to the power of God in resurrection.

The Great Power Experiment

Jesus Christ experienced two unique deaths on the cross. The substitutionary spiritual death of Christ provides eternal salvation for the human race. The physical death of Christ involved a unique trichotomous separation of body, soul, and spirit which set the stage for a demonstration of divine power in resurrection.

Our Lord’s body went into the grave (Luke 23:50—53). His human spirit went into the presence of the Father in heaven (Luke 23:46; John 19:30). And His soul was taken by the Holy Spirit into Paradise, which is a compartment of Hades in the heart of the earth (Luke 23:43; Acts 2:27, 31).[42]

In the resurrection of Christ from His unique physical death, two categories of divine power were displayed. The omnipotence of God the Father restored our Lord’s human spirit from heaven to His body in the grave. The Father thereby became an agent of the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:24; Rom. 6:4; Eph. 1:20; Col. 2:12; 1 Thess. 1:10; 1 Pet. 1:21). The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit restored Christ’s soul from Hades to His body in the grave. Hence, the Holy Spirit also became an agent of Christ’s resurrection (Rom. 1:4; 8:11; 1 Pet. 3:18).

So vital is the issue of power in the life of Christ, and so magnificent is the doctrine of divine omnipotence, that our Lord’s first advent can be characterized as a great power experiment. In this use of the word, an experiment is a demonstration of a known truth. Here the known truth is Bible doctrine related to the total availability of divine power to the humanity of Christ in hypostatic union.[43] The great power experiment of the hypostatic union demonstrates the infinite power of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in sustaining the humanity of Christ throughout His first advent.

The great power experiment of the hypostatic union is extended as the great power experiment of the Church Age. The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is now available to every member of the royal family for the execution of the protocol plan of God. For the Church Age believer, an experiment is not only a demonstration of known truth, but also an operation undertaken to discover some unknown principle or effect. While the delegation and distribution of divine power is well known to God, this magnificent grace provision is unknown to the believer until discovered in the New Testament and communicated by the pastor under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. When the believer’s soul is inculcated with Bible doctrine, yet another definition of “experiment” applies. The great power experiment of the Church Age is the tangible result of a policy, the unique divine policy of making divine omnipotence totally and equally available to every member of the royal family.

One of the results of the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation is the creation of a new spiritual species, the royal family of God (2 Cor. 5:17). The purpose of creating this new spiritual species is to enable the Church Age believer to utilize divine power, which is made available in three categories:

1. The OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD THE FATHER related to providing our portfolio of invisible assets,

2. The OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD THE SON related to sustaining the universe and perpetuating human history,

3. The OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT related to empowering the spiritual life in the divine dynasphere.

Never before in human history has so much divine power been made available to so many believers as in the great power experiment of the Church Age. The utilization of this divine omnipotence is the basis for the believer having invisible impact during the Church Age. There are three categories of impact:

1. PERSONAL IMPACT from blessing by association with the mature believer,

2. HISTORICAL IMPACT from blessing by association with the pivot of mature believers in a client nation to God,

3. INTERNATIONAL IMPACT from blessing by association for nonclient nations through spiritually mature missionaries sent out from a client nation.

This briefly explains what Paul means when he declares that his purpose is to “know Him and the power of His resurrection.” Paul now addresses the subject of suffering as he continues to describe his purpose in life: “and [that I may know] the fellowship of His sufferings,” (Phil. 3:10) referring to our Lord’s suffering for blessing during His first advent.

The Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings

As an extension of the great power experiment of the hypostatic union into the Church Age, three categories of suffering for blessing are available to every believer who reaches spiritual adulthood.

1. PROVIDENTIAL PREVENTIVE SUFFERING challenges the believer’s spiritual self-esteem, forestalls arrogance, and serves as a warm-up for momentum testing.

2. MOMENTUM TESTING exercises the believer’s spiritual autonomy through people testing, thought testing, system testing, and disaster testing.

3. EVIDENCE TESTING demonstrates the divine dynamics of spiritual maturity and glorifies God to the maximum.

These unique systems of suffering for blessing were first experienced by the humanity of Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere. These same systems of suffering for blessing are now available to accelerate the momentum of every spiritually adult believer as he advances inside the operational divine dynasphere. “The fellowship of His sufferings” describes the Church Age believer’s utilization of spiritually adult problem-solving devices. The consistent application of these problem-solving devices equates adversity and prosperity, living and dying.

Paul cites the supreme example of our Lord’s suffering when he speaks of “having become like [Christ] with reference to His death.” The Greek compound verb summorfizw (summorphizo), in the passive voice, means “to take on the same form as, to be conformed with, to become like.” The spiritually adult believer takes on the same form as Christ during His substitutionary spiritual death on the cross. The spiritually adult believer produces the action of the verb through the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit in the divine dynasphere and through sharing the happiness of God as a problem-solving device.

While Jesus Christ was being judged for the sins of the world, He utilized these same two factors to remain on the cross in a state of impeccability.

Christ... through the eternal Spirit [the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit in the prototype divine dynasphere] offered Himself without blemish to God. (Heb. 9:14b)

Who [the humanity of Christ] because of the present exhibited happiness [utilization of divine happiness as a problem-solving device], endured the cross [substitutionary spiritual death], despising the shame [of coming into contact with sin and judgment in a state of impeccability]. (Heb. l2:2b)

The final three hours in which Jesus hung on the cross were the most agonizing for any man in the history of the human race. Even the anticipation of such pain caused our Lord horrible anguish in Gethsemane (Malt. 26:38—39). Arrested, unjustly tried, tortured to the point of extreme debilitation, nailed to a cross, He suffered all without complaint (Mark 15:2—5; Acts 8:32—35). Then, when imputed with the awful burden of human sin and judged by the justice and omnipotence of God, Jesus broke the dignity of His silence and screamed with pain (Matt. 27:46). How did the humanity of Christ endure the Father’s judgment? At any moment Jesus could have shouted “Enough!” and stepped down from the cross. What kept Him there until the last sin of the last member of the human race was judged and salvation was provided for all?

In the midst of His unspeakable anguish, the humanity of Christ persevered on the cross in the power of the Holy Spirit inside the prototype divine dynasphere and in the exercise of divine happiness as a problem-solving device.

The same power that sustained Jesus on the cross is now available to every member of the royal family. As a result of Christ’s strategic victory on the cross, four dynamic problem-solving devices were made available to every Church Age believer who achieves spiritual adulthood through residence, function, and momentum inside the divine dynasphere.

1. TOWARD GOD: personal love for God as the motivational virtue of spiritual self-esteem.

2. TOWARD PEOPLE: impersonal love for all mankind as the functional virtue of spiritual autonomy.

3. TOWARD DOCTRINE: hope as the goal orientation of spiritual adulthood.

4. TOWARD SELF: sharing the happiness of God.

While all four of these problem-solving devices were used by the humanity of Christ on the cross, sharing the happiness of God is emphasized in Hebrews 12:2. When we utilize these divine problem-solving devices, we are using the resources that sustained our Lord’s humanity in purchasing our so great salvation.

God was glorified by Christ’s strategic victory in the angelic conflict. God is also glorified when members of the royal family win tactical victories as they utilize divine assets under pressure en route to spiritual maturity.[44] At maturity the believer acquires capacity to receive special blessings and to pass evidence testing, both of which glorify God to the maximum.

Confidence from the Doctrine of Resurrection

The pattern of maximum glorification of God continues in every generation of the Church Age until the royal family is completely formed. When complete, the entire royal family is resurrected at the Rapture of the Church. This terminates the great power experiment of the Church Age. Having discussed the resurrection of Christ in Philippians 3:10, Paul turns his attention in verse 11 to the resurrection of the Church, the concluding event of the Church Age. The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the same power that will resurrect the royal family of God (1 Cor. 6:14).

If by any means I will arrive with reference to the exit-resurrection [the Rapture of the Church], that one from the dead. (Phil. 3:11)

Two enclitic particles in the Greek, translated “if by any means,” indicate that Paul did not doubt the fact of the Rapture but was wondering about the manner in which he will participate. Two possibilities existed: Paul would be either physically dead or physically alive at the moment of resurrection. He would be either among “the dead in Christ” who “shall rise first” or among those “who are living, who remain” on earth at the time of the Rapture, who “shall be caught up [Latin, rapto] together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16—17).

God the Father will be the agent of resurrection for “the dead in Christ,” those Church Age believers who die before the Rapture occurs. God the Holy Spirit will be the agent of resurrection for “those who are alive” at the time of the Rapture.

Paul’s speculation is rhetorical, for the benefit of the readers, because he seemed to understand that he would receive resurrection out from the dead. By the time he wrote “I have finished the course” in 2 Timothy 4:6—8, he was certain that the resurrection would occur after his death. In writing to the Philippians, therefore, Paul was acknowledging the two possibilities regarding the Rapture as a means of teaching the doctrine of the imminency of the Rapture.

“Rapture” derives from the Latin rapto. “to seize and carry away,” the Vulgate translation of “caught up” in I Thessalonians 4:17. The technical theological term “Rapture” describes the resurrection of the royal family of God at the end of the Church Age. During the Church Age, God is forming a royal family to complement the new royal title awarded to Jesus Christ as a result of the cross. When the royal family is complete, the Rapture will occur. At the Rapture every Church Age believer, whether dead or still living, whether winner or loser, will receive his resurrection body (1 Cor. 15:50—53; Phil. 3:20—21). At that moment, the Church as a spiritual building is transformed into a spiritual temple (Eph. 2:20—22). The Rapture achieves ultimate sanctification for every member of the royal family (Eph. 5:26-27).[45]

“Imminency” means to be impending, and is also used as a technical theological term. The imminency of the Rapture recognizes that no prophecy must be fulfilled before the resurrection of the Church occurs. The next eschatological event will be the Rapture itself. In the biblical statements that Christ is coming soon, the word “soon” connotes imminency (Rev. 22:7, 12, 20).

The Church Age is unique in many respects, among them the fact that this is the only dispensation devoid of prophecy. The Church Age began with the Day of Pentecost, AD. 30, which was prophesied (John 14:17; Acts 1:5, 8), and will conclude with the Rapture, which was also prophesied. There is no intervening prophecy between these termini of the Church Age.

Although members of the royal family can look beyond the Rapture to events of the Tribulation and Millennium, no event of prophecy occurs during the Church Age. Consequently, we must evaluate history in terms of historical trends, such as those illustrated in the local churches of Revelation 2—3. The emphasis in the great power experiment of the Church Age is not the visible impact of prophetic events but the invisible impact of individual believers who utilize divine omnipotence.

The doctrine of the imminency of the Rapture is illustrated by the principle that “no one knows the day or the hour” (Malt. 24:36). There will be no advance warning of the Rapture, which might have occurred in Paul’s day, may take place today, or may not happen for another thousand years. Therefore, the believer should not search for eschatological significance in historical events. Instead, he should concentrate on the execution of the protocol plan of God (1 Cor. 1:4—8; 1 John 3:2—3). Distortion of the imminency of the Rapture causes instability from foolish speculation concerning the time of the Rapture (James 5:7—8).

The verb katantaw (katantao) in Philippians 3:11 means to arrive at something, as one would reach the destination of a journey. This entire journey will occur in a moment of time, the moment of resurrection for the completed royal family of God. Katantao appears in the subjunctive mood, which implies a future reference qualified by an element of contingency. The future event is the Rapture; the element of contingency will exist in every generation as believers do not know whether they will be resurrected with the dead or with the living. Paul speaks for the entire royal family as he dramatizes the imminency of the Rapture.

One of the primary results of applying the doctrine of the Rapture is increased confidence. The believer can face his own death in the certainty that one day he will receive his resurrection body in “conformity with the body of [Christ’s] glory according to the exertion of His power that enables Him to bring everything under His control” (Phil. 3:21). Furthermore, the believer gains confidence regarding Christian loved ones and friends who have died, “that [he] may not grieve as do the rest [of the world] who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). The doctrine of the Rapture removes fear and, therefore, constitutes one application of hope as a problem-solving device.

Therefore, comfort each other with these doctrines [of the Rapture]. (1 Thess. 4:18)

Paul was a mature believer when he wrote Philippians, but for our benefit he wrote parts of chapter 3 from the viewpoint of his experience in the early stages of spiritual adulthood. Philippians 3:9—11 views the Christian way of life from the perspective of spiritual self-esteem. Verses 12—14 represent the attitude of spiritual autonomy. Paul’s retrospection ends with verse 15, where he describes the thinking of a mature believer.

In spiritual adulthood, suffering for blessing accelerates growth. This does not exclude prosperity from the believer’s life. Overt prosperity poses difficulties of its own and is actually a form of momentum testing. The spiritual adult will face distractions in prosperity and in adversity, just as he will share the happiness of God through the utilization of divine assets—in prosperity or in adversity. The principle is that periodic suffering for blessing is a means of spiritual momentum whereas inner prosperity, regardless of circumstances, is a result of momentum.

End Parenthesis: Paul’s Spiritual Autonomy

With Philippians 3:11 Paul closes the parenthesis begun in verse 9. He has finished describing how to “gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8). We gain Christ, or advance to spiritual maturity, through the three stages of sanctification: positional, experiential, and ultimate sanctification.

Sanctification is the work of God in making each member of the royal family like Jesus Christ. Positional sanctification is union with Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation. Paul expressed this initial stage of sanctification in verse 9, “that I may be found in Him.” Experiential sanctification is the execution of the protocol plan of God on earth, as we follow our Lord’s precedent in the prototype divine dynasphere through our residence in the operational divine dynasphere. This second stage of sanctification is described in verse 10, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” Ultimate sanctification is the possession of a resurrection body like the resurrection body of Jesus Christ. This final stage of sanctification is anticipated in verse 11, “I will arrive with reference to the exit-resurrection [the Rapture].”

Having closed the parenthesis, Paul resumes in verse 12 from where he left off: “I have suffered the loss of all things and conclude them excrement that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8).

Not that I have already received [spiritual maturity, or have gained Christ] or have already accomplished [maturity], but I keep on pursuing [the objective] that I may overtake it [spiritual maturity], for which I also was [pursued and] overtaken by Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:12)

According to Paul’s autobiographical retrospection, when he attained spiritual autonomy his mental attitude was genuine humility. The great apostle did not rest on his laurels or become arrogant about his spiritual stature. Instead, he recognized that he had not reached the final objective. He had not yet fulfilled the protocol plan of God by advancing to spiritual maturity. No believer attains spiritual maturity until in the status of spiritual autonomy he passes the four parts of momentum testing: people testing, system testing, thought testing, and disaster testing.

Losing and Regaining Spiritual Momentum

Many years earlier, Paul had passed the first category of suffering for blessing: Providential preventive suffering, which is a warm-up for momentum testing. With arrogance effectively checked, spiritual autonomy gave him the ability to accurately evaluate his own spiritual status. Objective self-evaluation is necessary to avoid the hazard of living in the past and bogging down before achieving the goal.

The danger of losing spiritual momentum was familiar to Paul. In fact, he is describing his second attainment of spiritual autonomy. The first time he reached spiritual autonomy, he lost his spiritual impetus and retrogressed in the plan of God. By learning the hard way, Paul came to understand the wisdom of the Roman maxim: Qui non proficit deficit. “He who does not go forward goes backward.”

Paul’s failure began when he ignored the will of God and assuaged his own sentimentality by returning to Jerusalem. He compromised his integrity, incited the fanatical hatred of the religious Jews, and endured two years of incarceration in Caesarea before being transported as a prisoner to Rome. Paul suffered intensely. Initially, divine discipline motivated rebound, followed by momentum testing which accelerated Paul’s renewed spiritual advance. As a result of suffering for blessing, Paul arrived in Rome as a mature believer.

During the two years in Caesarea and in the shipwreck on the coast of Malta, Paul passed all four parts of momentum testing. We can trace his momentum testing. People testing included the vicious attitude of Ananias, the high priest (Acts 23—24) and the rejection of the Gospel by King Herod Agrippa II, his sister Bernice, and the court that attended them (Acts 25—26). System testing frustrated Paul through the malfunction of Roman justice under Felix and Festus, the two successive procurators of the Roman province of Judea (Acts 24:22—25:12; 26:32). Thought testing challenged Paul’s mental attitude when he had to face the unthinking panic of passengers and crew during the storm at sea (Acts 27:31—44), when he was bitten by the poisonous snake after saving everyone’s life in the shipwreck (Acts 28:3—6), and when he was rejected by the Jews upon finally reaching Rome (Acts 28:23—31). Disaster testing threatened Paul’s life in the assassination plot against him in Jerusalem (Acts 23:12—14) and in the storm and shipwreck (Acts 27).

While still a prisoner in Rome, Paul wrote Philippians in the status of spiritual maturity. This fact is implied in the increments of momentum testing that he passed prior to reaching Rome. His spiritual status is confirmed by comparing the Greek verb teleiow (teleioo), translated “or have already accomplished [maturity]” in verse 12, with its cognate noun teleioj (teleios), translated “as many as are mature” in verse 15. Paul had completely recovered from his failure. As a mature believer living entirely within the will of God, he embarked on his fourth missionary journey after his acquittal by Caesar. Paul’s evidence testing began during his first Roman imprisonment and probably continued during part of the fourth missionary journey through the Roman provinces of Asia, Gaul, and Spain (Phil. 2:23—24; Philemon 22; Rom. 15:24, 28).

In looking back over his recent recovery, Paul remembered that when he was still in spiritual autonomy he knew he had not “already achieved” maturity. He also recalled being keenly aware that he was closing in on the goal. Consequently, he took the offensive in his advance to the high ground of spiritual maturity. “I keep on pursuing [the objective],” he wrote. Refusing to be discouraged, Paul would not be hindered by past failure. He had learned to rebound and keep moving. His aggressive action in spiritual autonomy took the form of persistence in positive volition, the accumulation of metabolized doctrine, the utilization of divine omnipotence, and the use of problem-solving devices in momentum testing. He thus followed the example that the humanity of Christ had established during the Incarnation for every Church Age believer.

Steadiness of Purpose

Paul interjects a classical Greek grammatical construction as an expression of purpose and expectation. His purpose is “to overtake, to seize, to attain” the objective of spiritual maturity, and he confidently expects to fulfill that purpose. He anticipates his advance to spiritual maturity through the valley of momentum testing. In other words, Paul in spiritual autonomy knows that suffering is coming. He knows the pattern. Just as spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventive suffering equals spiritual autonomy, so also spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing equals spiritual maturity. Rather than be caught off guard and victimized by suffering, he takes an aggressive approach to adversity.

When Paul writes “I keep pursuing [the objective] in order that I may overtake [it],” (Phil. 3:12) he uses military terminology. He steadily advances by his continual reception, retention, and recall of Bible doctrine. He moves forward by using the problem-solving devices of hope in doctrine, personal love for God, impersonal love for all mankind, and sharing the happiness of God within himself. He presses on, knowing that God will accelerate his advance through the suffering of momentum testing.

No arrogant illusions remain in Paul’s thinking. He may be pursuing the goal, but he always remembers whose goal it is and in whose power he is able to attain this goal. He returns to square one, the first step into the Christian way of life, the perspective of salvation by grace. The objective that he concentrates on overtaking is the same goal “for which [Paul] also was [pursued and] overtaken by Christ Jesus.” Jesus Christ’s objective has become Paul’s objective. That goal is the maximum glorification of God.

For Paul’s advantage Jesus Christ pursued and overtook Saul of Tarsus, as Paul was then known, on the road to Damascus. Our Lord’s purpose in inflicting the pain of blindness on that young, overzealous Pharisee was that Saul might believe in Christ. Likewise, God’s purpose in imposing momentum testing on the great apostle was that Paul might fulfill the protocol plan of God by attaining maturity. The intended (and accomplished) result of administering suffering to Paul was glorification of God to the maximum.

Philippians 3:12 documents the fact that spiritual maturity is the objective of the Christian life. Paul is not practicing false humility by declaring that he has not reached the goal. In this retrospective verse, he recalls that when he was in spiritual autonomy he knew that he had not yet arrived at spiritual maturity. He possessed the strong self-esteem that belongs to the believer in spiritual autonomy, but he entertained no illusions about himself. He accurately evaluated his spiritual life and recognized his need to keep pursuing the objective. A believer who overestimates himself hinders his own advance; a believer who evaluates himself objectively perpetuates his momentum and eventually reaches maturity.

The Basis for Objective Self-Evaluation

Brethren [fellow members of the royal family], I do not evaluate myself as having overtaken [obtained the objective], but one thing [I do]: forgetting what [is] behind and straining forward toward what [is] ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize [blessings in time and eternity for the mature believer] of that upward call [the saving ministry of the Holy Spirit, designated “efficacious grace,” which converts the believer’s faith into salvation] from God [the Father as author of the protocol plan] in Christ Jesus [union with Christ as the basis for spiritual royalty]. (Phil.

3:13—14)

The Greek verb Paul uses to describe his self-evaluation is logizomai (logizomai) which has a prominent place in Greek philosophical discourse. This verb connotes nonemotional thinking according to strict logical rules, apprehension of something actually present, the representation of facts as they are.

There are two objective standards for self-analysis available to every member of the royal family of God:

1. Perception, metabolism, and application of BIBLE DOCTRINE,

2. The doctrine of SUFFERING.

The believer’s attitude toward Bible doctrine changes as a result of postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation. Doctrine in the soul creates a desire for more doctrine. Initially the immature Christian listens to Bible teaching for a variety of motives that carry over from his life as an unbeliever, but gradually human viewpoint is replaced by divine viewpoint. The believer’s academic discipline and concentration on the Word of God become stronger as he develops personal love for God, the highest motivation in life.

The spiritually adult believer approaches the perception of doctrine with a new mental attitude. He concentrates on the Mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) because he is occupied with the person of Christ (Phil. 1:21) and has begun to share the happiness of God (John 15:11). The believer knows that he has attained spiritual adulthood because his perception, metabolism, and application of doctrine cease to be a means to an end and instead become ends in themselves. He takes genuine pleasure in the Word of God. The perception of Bible doctrine is the highest form of worship.

The Christian’s second standard for objective self-evaluation is the doctrine of suffering. This spiritual yardstick must be used with caution because many variables are involved. The overt circumstances of life have a wide variety of causes. Comparing the experience of one believer to that of another is never precise. Two believers may experience similar disasters, but in one case the pressure is suffering for blessing while in the other it is divine discipline. The difference lies in the spiritual advance or retrogression of the believer, not in the overt circumstances of life. Therefore, no suffering in itself conclusively indicates a Christian’s spiritual status. Furthermore, the blend of adversity and prosperity is unique in every life by divine design. Yet even prosperity can have at least three legitimate sources: blessing by association, logistical grace, or escrow blessing. Of these three sources, only escrow blessings are connected with a specific spiritual status. Blessing by association can prosper anyone in the periphery of a mature believer, and logistical grace 15 guaranteed to every believer, whether winner or loser.

Neither adversity itself nor prosperity itself is necessarily a sign of spiritual progress. In fact, Paul’s self-evaluation emphasizes the stage of growth he has not attained rather than the stage he has attained.

A believer can use suffering as a barometer of spiritual growth only in the sense that pressure forces him to apply the Bible doctrine in his soul. His ability to utilize the doctrinal inventory in his soul under stress indicates his level of advance. If he falls apart in every crisis, he has a long way to go before reaching spiritual maturity. If his occupation with Christ, reliance on doctrine, and utilization of divine omnipotence enable him to take suffering in stride, he is making progress in spiritual adulthood.

From Paul’s experience of the reality of doctrine under momentum testing, he knew that he had reached spiritual autonomy and was closing in on spiritual maturity. The purpose of this self-knowledge is not to compare oneself with other Christians but to motivate continued momentum in the protocol plan of God. There is no substitute for Bible doctrine as the only measure and standard for self-analysis in the plan of God. The successful application of doctrine under pressure demonstrates the efficacy of divine provisions, and as a result, increases the advancing believer’s personal love for God and spiritual self-esteem.

An Athlete’s Determination

Following Paul’s self-evaluation, he uses ellipsis in an idiom of concentration—an abbreviated interjectional clause—to eliminate the negative and emphasize the positive. “But [I concentrate on] one thing” indicates that he has blotted out, forgotten, or disregarded past failures and is pressing on to maturity as the final objective. Paul used rebound and rapidly recovered from his Jerusalem fiasco. By “forgetting the things ~which are] behind,” Paul demonstrates a principle that applies to every believer.

Recalling past failures causes bitterness, self-pity, and a guilt complex, and hence further involvement in Satan’s cosmic system. When remembered and pored over, failures compound current problems and hinder advance in the protocol plan of God. God has a purpose for every believer, and that purpose is to rebound and keep moving. Paul’s retrospective exposition is designed to encourage believers to confess their sins to God, to keep short accounts with Him, to forget past failures, to concentrate on present momentum in the divine dynasphere. The Christian must not handicap himself. Past punitive suffering, whether self-induced misery or divine discipline, must not hinder his execution of divine protocol in present suffering for blessing. All believers periodically fail; only losers allow past failures to hinder their current progress in the protocol plan of God.

On the one hand, Paul forgets past failures, and on the other hand, he ~‘stretches out or strains forward toward the goal or finish line.” In Philippians 3:13—14 Paul uses an athletic analogy. Just as an Olympic class runner maintains his form in spite of physical agony, so also the believer continues to follow divine protocol in the midst of suffering. Paul has rounded the final turn of spiritual autonomy and is sprinting down the home stretch toward spiritual maturity. Just as the athlete drives for the finish line, so also the believer concentrates on the objective, unhindered by distractions, as he undergoes momentum testing. “Straining forward” and “pressing on” portray the aggressive mental attitude of the believer who has nearly reached spiritual maturity. His goal is the maximum glorification of God which will become a reality in his life in spiritual maturity.

God glorifies Himself by distributing the special blessings He created for each believer in eternity past, but only the mature believer has the capacity to receive these fabulous blessings. Blessings for time and eternity are the “prize,” the goal, the purpose for which the believer was saved.

The “upward call from God” refers to the ministry of God the Holy Spirit at the instant an individual first believes in Christ. Every member of the human race is born spiritually dead, unable to comprehend spiritual things and totally incapable of a relationship with God. We have a spiritually dead understanding and a spiritually dead faith. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is necessary, first, to make the Gospel clear and, second, to make our faith in Christ effective for salvation. In itself our faith has no power to save us; the Holy Spirit must take our faith and make it effectual or effective in establishing an eternal relationship with God (John 16:8—11; Rom. 10:14).

We receive no credit even for believing in Christ; all glory belongs to God. We are saved exclusively by the power of God. The “upward call” is the work of the Holy Spirit in the lucid presentation of the Gospel. This call is designated common grace because it is extended to every individual. The Holy Spirit’s ministry in converting the believer’s faith into eternal salvation is called efficacious grace. In every case where common grace is not followed by faith in Christ, efficacious grace does not occur. The work of God the Holy Spirit in common and efficacious grace is emphasized as a gift from God (Eph. 2:8). The divine purpose in saving us is that we might reach the goal and attain the prize of spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity, divine blessings, and the glorification of God form the complete package awarded to the spiritual winner.[46]

Therefore, as many as [are] mature, let us keep on thinking this [aggressive mental attitude under pressure], and if you think differently on some point, even this God will reveal to you. (Phil. 3:15)

Paul has completed his retrospective exposition and now writes from his current status of spiritual maturity. He infers from the preceding verses, which describe spiritual self-esteem and spiritual autonomy, that in every generation a certain number of positive believers will continue their momentum until they attain spiritual maturity. These magnificent Christians represent a special group. Once they understand the objective of the Christian way of life, they do not waver. Instead, they organize their lives and priorities for the purpose of glorifying God to the maximum. As a result of passing that portion of momentum testing classified as thought testing, the mature believer has fulfilled the biblical mandates related to divine viewpoint mental attitude (Rom. 12:2—3; Phil. 2:2).

‘Let us keep on thinking” refers to an action that began in the past and continues into the present. The same process of utilizing metabolized Bible doctrine in the power of the divine dynasphere, which enables the believer to attain maturity, is the means of facing maximum suffering for blessing after reaching maturity. Paul is urging readers, at every stage of spiritual growth, to join him in the system of thinking that leads to spiritual maturity. A dynamic and powerful mental attitude is required for the mature believer who is facing evidence testing.

Failing a Test

Philippians 3:15 warns the believer that even after he fulfills the protocol plan of God by reaching spiritual maturity, he must not let up. He must continue to utilize available divine omnipotence and cognition of doctrine. By acknowledging that the mature believer might ‘~think differently on some point,” Paul assumes that spiritual maturity has its vulnerabilities which could result in failure to pass evidence testing. The believer cannot approach evidence testing with a cocky attitude or with a propensity toward self-pity and bitterness. Indulgence in some form of arrogance causes even the mature believer to fail under pressure.

The ability to think under pressure perpetuates the believer’s momentum through each stage of spiritual adulthood. The spiritual winner thinks; the spiritual loser emotes without thought. Courage is thinking under pressure; cowardice is failing to think under pressure—and falling apart emotionally. Under suffering for blessing, the believer’s content of thought is the Bible doctrine he has metabolized over many years. Right thinking from metabolized doctrine and the right motivation from personal love for God create the positive determination and esprit de corps needed to fulfill the protocol plan of God.

No matter how far a believer advances in God’s plan, he is still human. No believer on earth is perfect; we are all prone to failure, especially under the pressure of suffering for blessing. Failure can come from a lack of doctrine or from a particularly difficult thought test. The believer may have resisted or rejected the specific principle of doctrine that he now needs under pressure. More likely, however, he has learned the doctrine but has become disoriented by fear or emotionalism under momentum testing.

When a believer “thinks differently,” that is, when his endurance flags and he is unable to think clearly, he may flunk any test connected with suffering for blessing. The solution after failure is to rebound and keep moving, as Philippians 3:13 commands. Immediate rebound keeps the believer from losing ground. Although he fails to advance, he retains his current level of spiritual growth, ready for another administration of testing at the proper time.

The spiritually adult believer learns quickly from failure. When his attitude has wavered or when he has made a wrong application of doctrine, he uses rebound to reenter the divine dynasphere. Inside his invisible palace he either draws upon the doctrine he already knows to make a correct application or he is receptive to learning the doctrine he previously may have resisted. “God will reveal” the truth through the perception and application of Bible doctrine accurately and faithfully taught by the orthodox pastor. God reveals the truth through intermediary means. There is no direct communication from God during the postcanon period of the Church Age.[47] After the canon of Scripture was completed, direct divine revelation ceased, placing emphasis instead on the power of Bible doctrine resident in the royal believer’s soul.

A Soldier’s Steady Advance

Although provision is made for failure, the purpose of momentum testing is not failure but success.

However, as a result of what we have attained, keep advancing in ranks by means of the same [system of spiritual momentum inside the divine dynasphere].[48] (Phil. 3:16)

Paul has shifted from an athletic to a military analogy. The verb stoixew (stoicheo) connotes marching in ranks. Members of the royal family are executing a powerful plan when they obey the mandates of the divine dynasphere. The objective of this plan is no less than to demonstrate the eternal glory of God. This verse establishes that there are stages of spiritual adulthood, stages in the fulfillment of God’s protocol plan.

“What we have attained” is spiritual self-esteem when the believer is undergoing providential preventive suffering. “What we have attained” is spiritual autonomy when undergoing momentum testing, as is Paul in this context. “What we have attained” is spiritual maturity when the believer receives evidence testing.

The same system that the believer uses to pass providential preventive suffering and momentum testing must also be used to pass evidence testing. “Advancing in ranks” is a most significant translation. Far too many Christians fall out of ranks and become casualties in the angelic conflict. They are losers who fail to execute the protocol plan of God and fail to glorify Him in the great power experiment of the Church Age. We must remain in ranks, which is tantamount to the following:

1. Residence, function, and momentum inside the DIVINE DYNASPHERE,

2. Consistent and prompt use of REBOUND to avoid prolonged residence in Satan’s cosmic system,

3. AVOIDANCE OF DISCOURAGEMENT by any failure or setback in any category of suffering for blessing,

4. Consistent use of the PROBLEM-SOLVING DEVICES of spiritual adulthood, and

5. Unrelenting perception, metabolism, and application of BIBLE DOCTRINE.

The believer advances in ranks from one stage of spiritual adulthood to the next. As he progresses, he scores tactical victories in the angelic conflict. This spiritual warfare will come into dramatic focus in the final category of suffering for blessing. Spiritual maturity puts the believer in position for the most significant and beneficial of all suffering for blessing: evidence testing that glorifies God to the maximum.

Chapter 9

SPIRITUAL MATURITY

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY

A CATEGORICAL DESCRIPTION OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY indicates the happiness and inner strength related to this final stage of spiritual growth. These characteristics mark the highest attainment of the Christian way of life. The purpose of this summary is not to establish a model of behavior for the immature believer to legalistically imitate. Instead, these characteristics, when compared to the previously described characteristics of spiritual self-esteem and spiritual autonomy,[49] enable the advancing believer to accurately anticipate the marvelous benefits of faithful persistence in the protocol plan of God.

1. MAXIMUM CONTENTMENT. Sharing the happiness of God is the highest of all problem-solving devices in the protocol plan of God (Phil. 4:11—13). The advancing believer began to share the happiness of God upon entering spiritual adulthood in Gate 5 of the divine dynasphere. Now in spiritual maturity at Gate 8, his “happiness [is] fulfilled” or complete (John 15:11). Suffering, which would normally be difficult, becomes relatively easy through residual happiness in the soul.

Happiness is a mental attitude which equates adversity and prosperity, living and dying. Maximum capacity for happiness enables the mature Christian to face every challenge in his experience. God strengthens the believer through metabolized Bible doctrine and suffering for blessing so that His own shared happiness may be tested, developed, and completed in the believer’s soul in adversity as well as in prosperity. God shares His happiness with the believer for the believer’s own benefit; therefore, happiness is the problem-solving device directed toward self.

2. MENTAL STABILITY. Bible doctrine saturates the mature believer’s thinking. He has maximum application of doctrine to every experience. Cognizance of doctrine enables him to give divine viewpoint precedence over empirical experience. Consequently, his mental attitude is stabilized by the doctrine he knows rather than destabilized by the circumstances of his life. The mature believer views his life in the light of God’s plan, which gives him tremendous confidence regarding time and eternity. This confidence in God’s ability to provide for him and to bless him in any future contingency is the biblical definition of “hope” (Rom. 8:24—25). Hope is the mature believer’s problem-solving device directed toward Bible doctrine and related to his mental stability.

3. MAXIMUM USE OF VIRTUE-LOVE AS A PROBLEM-SOLVING

DEVICE. Virtue-love includes personal love for God as motivational virtue (Gate 5 of the divine dynasphere) and impersonal love for all mankind as functional virtue (Gate 6). The mature believer has maximum use of both categories of virtue-love. Therefore, he is occupied with the person of Christ (Phil. 1:21). Furthermore, because virtue-love for God motivates virtue-love toward others, personal love for God in spiritual maturity becomes the dynamic basis for resolving all kinds of problems. Virtue-love is the problem-solving device directed toward God, toward self, and toward other people.

4. COGNITIVE INDEPENDENCE. The mature believer can think and apply doctrine for himself from the truth stored within his own soul. As a result of postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation and persistence in the perception of doctrine, the mature believer has a superior understanding of the mechanics of the protocol plan by which he attained maturity. The mature believer understands God’s plan for his life and can face his problems with clarity of thought.

5. MAXIMUM GRACE ORIENTATION TO LIFE. Orientation to the grace of God characterizes the mature believer’s thinking, motivation, decisions, and actions. He understands that the principle of grace in salvation is parlayed into the policy of grace after salvation. The believer is saved under the principle of grace; he lives under the policy of grace. Rather than superimpose his own opinions on God’s wisdom and generosity, he is delighted to do things God’s way. He is free from the fanaticism, legalism, emotionalism, self-effacement, and asceticism which result from ignorance, arrogance, and habitual cosmic involvement.

6. MAXIMUM DOCTRINAL ORIENTATION TO REALITY. Capacity for prosperity and the ability to apply doctrine to experience give the mature believer spiritual common sense. Spiritual common sense is an astute outlook on life that can penetrate confusing, complicated situations and discern the key issues. The mature believer is realistic. He is not easily deceived. He has the wisdom to synthesize the situation and identify the best course of action and the courage to do a right thing in a right way.

7. THE GREATEST DECISIONS IN LIFE FROM A POSITION OF MAXIMUM STRENGTH. Every decision by a mature believer can be a great decision. He has a full, practical understanding of the mechanics of God’s protocol plan so that he can relate his decisions to the invisible but real assets that God has provided. Because he has established the right scale of values, the mature believer consistently makes right decisions. For him, doctrine takes number one priority.

8. MAXIMUM CONTROL OF ONE’S LIFE. No one who tampers with the lives of others can at the same time control his own. Therefore, the mature believer does not seek to coerce or manipulate others. He is not possessive with those whom he loves and thus avoids the pitfall of jealousy. He does not give expression to power lust. Instead, he fully utilizes the privacy of his priesthood; God is the focus of his life. Personal love for God motivates impersonal love for others.

He eliminates false applications from his life: no competitiveness from arrogance, no comparativeness from subjectivity, no conspiracy from inordinate ambition. In other words, he neither demands superiority over everyone else, nor derives his self-esteem from comparisons with others, nor demeans others in order to elevate himself. He controls his own life by faithfulness in the execution of God’s protocol plan. God has control over his life. Because his thoughts, motives, decisions, and actions are consistent with God’s plan, the believer lives in a state of sharing the happiness of God. He makes decisions with the full understanding that he bears the responsibility for their consequences.

9. MAXIMUM DYNAMICS IN LIVING. The mature believer has an unwavering personal sense of destiny. He knows that God has a purpose for his life; he understands God’s purpose; he applies his understanding of God’s plan to the particular circumstances of his life, whether good or bad. Self-command, poise, self-restraint, and self-control are established traits of his character. He recognizes that he continues to fulfill his destiny by executing the protocol plan of God. This results in a life of maximum spiritual production. The mature believer will have far greater production in a short period of time than will a legalistic believer over a long Christian life.

10. ESCROW BLESSINGS. The first stage of the maximum glorification of God in spiritual maturity is the distribution of escrow blessings. In eternity past God created an inheritance of special blessings for each believer (Eph. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:4). These blessings are the “prize of that upward call from God” described in Philippians 3:14. The distribution of these unique blessings demonstrates the matchless grace of God and glorifies Him in the angelic conflict. He placed this unique treasury on deposit, as if in escrow, to be distributed to the believer when he acquires the capacity to enjoy God’s “greater grace” (James 4:6).

The believer gains capacity to receive, utilize, and enjoy his escrow blessings through the execution of the protocol plan of God resulting in spiritual momentum and the attainment of spiritual maturity. Capacity for blessing is a characteristic of spiritual maturity; therefore, the distribution of escrow blessings is also a characteristic of maturity.

11. QUALIFICATION FOR EVIDENCE TESTING. The second stage of the maximum glorification of God in spiritual maturity is evidence testing. Never before in history has God made so much of His omnipotence available to the believer as in the Church Age, and never before in the believer’s lifetime does he have greater exercise of God’s power as in spiritual maturity. These tremendous divine dynamics are necessary for the final increment of suffering for blessing. As a result of reaching maturity and achieving maximum utilization of his problem-solving devices, the dynamics of the believer’s life are manifest in both living and dying, in both prosperity and evidence testing—under the consistent utilization of divine omnipotence.

12. ATTAINMENT OF THE FINAL PHASE OF THE UNIQUE LIFE. Spiritual maturity is characterized by that phase of the unique life described as “Christ [being] glorified in [the] body” (Phil. 1:20—21). This glorification of Christ occurs through escrow blessings and evidence testing.

THE GLORIFICATION OF GOD IN SPIRITUAL MATURITY

Conveyance of Escrow Blessings

There are two stages in the maximum glorification of God by the believer on earth. Both are exclusive privileges of spiritual maturity.

1. God is glorified when the believer attains SPIRITUAL MATURITY, Gate 8 of the divine dynasphere. At this point the believer begins to receive distribution of the ESCROW BLESSINGS that God created in eternity past.

2. God is glorified when the mature believer passes EVIDENCE TESTING.

Every Church Age believer belongs to a unique plan designed by God in eternity past. The objective of this plan includes blessing for the believer ‘~beyond all that [he can] ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20). God is glorified by distributing these blessings to the believer in time.

The first thing God ever did for us is the means of glorifying Him: He created the believer’s blessings before He created the believer. “Before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), God the Father tailored fabulous blessings specifically for each individual Christian and, as it were, deposited those blessings in escrow.

Worthy of praise and glorification is God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who [the Father] has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. (Eph. 1:3)

God’s plan for blessing the believer may be compared to an escrow contract. An escrow is a deed, bond, or other agreement by which one person conveys some form of property to another person. Rather than being conveyed directly, however, the property is deposited with a third party, to be delivered when the intended recipient fulfills certain conditions set forth in the terms of the escrow agreement.

Just as an escrow agreement has three parties, so also Ephesians 1:3 mentions three parties: God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the believer. God the Father is the grantor. In eternity past He created each believer’s blessings for time and for eternity and deposited them with Jesus Christ, who acts as a depositary or escrow officer. Each believer is the grantee of an escrow contract from God.

If you have believed in Christ, you are the grantee of blessings that stagger the imagination. However, part of divine wisdom is the principle that capacity for blessings must precede the conveyance of blessings. God, therefore, designed the protocol plan to produce that capacity which makes the distribution of blessings meaningful, enjoyable, and glorifying to God.

Blessing does not begin at spiritual maturity. As part of His logistical grace policy, God has designed a system of lesser blessings which He distributes during the entire earthly experience of the believer.[50] This means that logistical grace is not simply a vehicle for sustaining the believer’s life on earth but is a system of providing undeserved blessing whose enjoyment can be surpassed only by the ultimate distribution of escrow blessings for time. Furthermore, whatever capacity we have for blessings in time is far exceeded by our escrow blessings for eternity. Between the logistical blessings of spiritual childhood and early spiritual adulthood and the escrow blessings of the eternal state is this fantastic grace provision of God for the believer who executes His plan, purpose, and will by the attainment of spiritual maturity. Obviously, God is glorified when any believer executes this plan, and as a sign of His pleasure He conveys escrow blessings for time.

The path to these magnificent blessings involves undeserved suffering. These blessings come through suffering as well as through prosperity.

The believer who attains spiritual maturity is classified as a winner. The question arises as to what happens to the escrow blessings of the Christian who is classified as a loser, the believer who fails to attain spiritual maturity. To illustrate the biblical answer to this question, we again return to the analogy of the escrow agreement. In the state of Texas, escrow contracts are irrevocable. From the date the contract is signed, the property in escrow cannot be retrieved by the grantor, and the contract cannot be canceled. Likewise, the believer’s escrow contract with God is irrevocable (1 Pet. 1:4). The only reason a believer’s escrow blessings are not delivered to him is his failure to fulfill the conditions of the escrow agreement. The only condition the believer must fulfill is to advance to spiritual maturity. When he fails, he becomes a spiritual loser. The loser’s escrow blessings still belong to him irrevocably, but they will remain undistributed, on deposit in heaven forever as a memorial to lost opportunity and as a monument to the eternal bounty of God’s grace. While the believer cannot lose his salvation, he can lose the conveyance of escrow blessings for time and eternity.

Escrow blessings are called “spiritual” in Ephesians 1:3, not because they are ethereal and intangible, but because God is emphasized as their source (John 4:24a). Escrow blessings may include material prosperity and temporal success as well as invisible impact and the spiritual strength of maturity itself. The characteristics of spiritual self-esteem, which are strengthened in spiritual autonomy, become stronger in spiritual maturity and constitute fabulous blessings in the inner life. In addition to this marvelous stability and capacity of soul, Jesus Christ as the depositary commences with the conveyance of escrow blessings for the mature believer’s life on earth.

A treasury of blessings for time and eternity has your name on it. Your personal blessings are irrevocable, “imperishable, and undefiled and will not fade away”; neither you nor anyone else can cancel them (1 Pet. 1:4). The location of the deposit is “in the heavenlies”; no repository could be more secure (Eph. 1:3). The date of the deposit is “before the foundation [creation] of the world”; no other fortune has an older heritage. The depositary is Christ; no one could be more personally interested in delivering your blessings to you. The creator and grantor of your blessings is God the Father; there is no greater giver.

He [God the Father] who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He [the Father] not also with Him [Christ, the escrow officer] freely give us all things [our escrow blessingsl? (Rom. 8:32, NASB)

Because God is glorified by blessing the believer, the purpose of the believer’s life is to receive escrow blessings. What must he do to receive them?

Grace excludes all human works. Therefore, the Christian’s responsibility under the conditions of the escrow contract is to utilize the assets of the divine dynasphere and advance to spiritual maturity. Only in maturity does he have the capacity to receive the marvelous blessings that God has placed on deposit for him.

Evidence Testing and the Maximum Glorification of God

Suffering plays an essential role in advancing the believer to maturity. After he reaches maturity, and after he has received many escrow blessings, suffering then makes a unique and specialized contribution to the maximum glorification of God. Undeserved suffering in the life of the mature believer furnishes evidence in a courtroom drama that has been unfolding since long before human history began. In the appeal trial of Satan, a summary of which follows, God calls mature believers to the witness stand to testify concerning His matchless grace. Evidence testing is Satan’s attempt to discredit their testimony.

Like escrow blessings, evidence testing is the privilege of the mature believer and the final category of suffering for blessing. Evidence testing follows the pattern of all suffering for blessing in that “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able” to bear (1 Cor. 10:13). Only spiritual maturity has the strength and divine viewpoint to endure, benefit from, and even enjoy evidence testing. In short, God can glorify Himself to the maximum through escrow blessings and through evidence testing only in the lives of mature believers. This is another reason spiritual maturity is the objective of the Christian way of life.

Epilogue

SUFFERING, HAPPINESS, AND THE ESSENCE OF GOD

SUFFERING POSES NO THREAT to the plan of God. The pain of adversity is real, but even the most horrible suffering loses its dread in the light of the grace of God. In fact, the protocol plan of God incorporates suffering and uses adversity for the purpose of blessing the advancing believer. Suffering tests his understanding and application of doctrine. As he passes each test, he confirms and deepens his love for the Lord Jesus Christ and hones his use of the problem-solving devices for spiritual adulthood.

God loves every believer with His infinite, personal love. Nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39). God never desires any harm to come to any member of the royal family. Yet suffering exists; believers face severe pain of body and anguish of soul.

This study of suffering has explained from Scripture how and why Christian suffering coexists with God’s love for the believer. Most Christian suffering is self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility. Believers defy God’s desires and bring harm on themselves. They ignore the precise protocol of God’s plan, and such ignorance and arrogance merely complicate the problems of living in the devil’s world.

Apart from persistent self-induced misery, all suffering in the Christian way of life is designed by God for the believer’s benefit. Even unbearable divine discipline is a gracious attempt to restore the believer to the divine dynasphere. Indeed, the fact that ignoring and violating the protocol plan of God cause self-induced misery demonstrates by contrast that learning and executing divine protocol bring blessing. No degree of suffering can destroy the blessing of life in the palace of the divine dynasphere.

Through suffering God reveals His marvelous power to sustain and bless the believer who follows divine protocol and utilizes his royal assets. Suffering focuses the attention of the believer, who is imperfect and prone to distractions. Adversity compels him to remember, apply, and thus more fully understand the Bible doctrine in his soul. Suffering accelerates his spiritual growth. Suffering helps him see the essence of God.

Suffering is inevitable for the believer on earth. Every Christian must prepare himself to meet and conquer adversity as part of advancing to spiritual maturity. To be ready for suffering when it comes, he must give first priority to learning, metabolizing, and applying Bible doctrine, as consistently taught by a theologically orthodox pastor. Each believer must receive, retain, and recall the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit in the divine dynasphere.

The purpose of this book is to delineate systematically and comprehensively the divine viewpoint regarding Christian suffering. In the midst of adversity, the spiritually adult believer shares the happiness of God as a consequence of thinking divine viewpoint and consistently utilizing the omnipotence of God. We must think as God thinks and regard adversity in the light of His marvelous objectives for our lives. By perception of the doctrines pertinent to suffering, we gain access to the problem-solving devices that convert suffering into blessing. Each problem-solving device is efficacious because of its relationship to the essence of God.

REBOUND is based on divine justice and faithfulness. Because God judged all the sins of the human race at the cross, He is always consistent in forgiving our sins when we name them to Him (1 John 1:9).

The FAITH-REST DRILL depends upon God’s omnipotence, immutability, veracity, and faithfulness, which stand behind all His promises. Furthermore, His integrity and omniscience guarantee that God is rational and that true conclusions can be reached logically from doctrinal premises.

HOPE as a problem-solving device also depends on divine veracity. Hope is our absolute confidence that God is true to His word. Divine veracity is manifested in pertinent biblical doctrines that cause us to anticipate future blessings that will glorify God to the maximum.

PERSONAl LOVE FOR GOD focuses on His absolute righteousness, the divine attribute that is the object of His own personal love. Only when directed toward perfect God does our personal love become a virtue in itself.

IMPERSONAL LOVE FOR ALL MANKIND is modeled after God’s impersonal love for the fallen, degenerate, spiritually dead human race. God never feels threatened by sinful man. He saved us because of His own integrity, not because we deserved salvation. Therefore, impersonal love for the entire human race based on our Christian integrity follows the pattern of divine self-esteem and divine love as expressions of the integrity of God.

Finally, the believer’s HAPPINESS as a problem-solving device is sharing the very happiness of God. The believer enjoys God’s happiness as a consequence of learning, metabolizing, and applying Bible doctrine. He thinks God’s thoughts and shares his viewpoint concerning Christian suffering.

By inculcating our souls with the thinking of God as revealed in the Scripture, by applying His truths to the circumstances of our lives, by executing divine protocol in the power of His omnipotence, we come to appreciate who and what God is. We grow in our respect for the one “worthy of praise and glorification.” Our resultant contentment is the most powerful solution to the frustrations, the difficulties, and the heartaches that we cannot avoid. No suffering in life is too great for the plan of God.

Appendix

DIVINE JUDGMENT IN CONTRAST TO DIVINE DISCIPLINE

GOD’S DEALINGS WITH UNBELIEVERS IN TIME

AN ESSENTIAL DISTINCTION must be understood concerning God’s punitive actions against man during the course of human history: Divine discipline is not the same as divine judgment. Discipline is reserved for believers; judgment is for unbelievers but may affect all categories of the human race and fallen angels as well. The believer suffers only in time, never in eternity (Rev. 21:4). He is disciplined in time—individually and collectively—but his appointment with eternal judgment was canceled when he believed in Christ (Heb. 9:27; Rom. 8:1). The unbeliever suffers in time and in eternity. He may face individual and collective divine judgment in time; he will receive individual judgment throughout eternity.

Because God deals with unbelievers as well as with believers, the doctrine of divine judgment toward unbelievers on earth reveals God’s justice and grace and also explains a tremendous amount of worldwide suffering. Like discipline to the believer, divine judgment in time to the unbeliever is administered in progressive stages:

1. JUDGMENT BY PAIN

2. JUDGMENT BY DEATH

3. JUDGMENT BY FINESSE

Judgment by pain and judgment by death are the progressive stages of divine judgment in time. Finesse judgment presents a principle by which Jesus Christ controls history despite Satan’s rule over the world.

JUDGMENT BY PAIN

The first stage of divine judgment, judgment by pain, is an expression of God’s grace to the unbeliever, just as warning discipline expresses God’s grace to the believer. Evangelism is the objective of all judgment by pain. On the cross Jesus Christ paid for the salvation of every human being who will ever live, whether or not that person ever believes in Christ (1 John 2:2). Our Lord has accomplished completely all the work of salvation; nothing remains for an individual to do but to accept the work of Christ on his behalf. The way of salvation is simple and plain: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31).

Because God will never violate man’s free will, He must wait for positive volition before He can actually apply salvation to any individual. In grace, God has already gone to the farthest extreme—the judgment of His own Son. With the work fully accomplished, God continues to do all that is possible to bring the unbeliever to eternal salvation.

Normal evangelism involves the presentation of the Gospel. God has an obligation to supply Gospel information to all who are receptive and desire to know Him when first they become aware of His existence. Their positive volition at the point of God-consciousness usually remains positive at Gospel hearing. They believe in Christ with no greater stimulus than a clear presentation of true Gospel information. But for others, who are indifferent or antagonistic to their first awareness of God—negative volition at Godconsciousness—God still repeatedly extends the opportunity to be saved.

The Lord is not slow about His promise [to judge unbelievers], as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance [change of mind about Christ]. (2 Pet. 3:9, NASB)

When normal evangelism fails, God shifts gears into crisis evangelism. Crisis evangelism involves judgment by pain. As with discipline to the recalcitrant believer, judgment by pain to the negative unbeliever is designed to shock him into temporary objectivity. The pain proves his inherent weakness, his need of a relationship with God, and provides a lucid moment in which the Gospel can be considered.

The salvation of the Apostle Paul is a dramatic example of crisis evangelism. Saul of Tarsus, as Paul was known during his meteoric career as a Pharisee, was a zealous persecutor and murderer of Christians. Only when struck blind on the road to Damascus did he objectively consider the Gospel of Christ. Judgment by pain was responsible for the salvation of the greatest believer who has ever lived.

JUDGMENT BY DEATH

If repeated judgment by pain fails to bring the unbeliever to faith in Christ, judgment by death becomes the only alternative. Judgment by death against unbelievers who have hardened their volition against God is divine protection of the human race. The evils of cosmic influence must be restrained; therefore, following a period of grace before judgment, God removes the cancer from society in order to preserve believers and perpetuate mankind.

The Pharaoh of the Exodus, Amenhotep II, suffered increasingly intense pain in the plagues against Egypt. By persistently rejecting the message of Moses, Pharaoh “hardened his heart” (Ex. 8:32). His obstinance through the first five plagues locked him in the cosmic system beyond any possibility of escape so that he was incapable of right decisions. For him, faith in Christ, who is the God of Israel, had become impossible; he had shackled his own volition (Rum. 2:5; 2 Cor. 4:3—4).

When further grace becomes pointless, God normally removes the unbeliever from this life. However, God did not remove Pharaoh but “allowed [him] to stand . . . in order to proclaim [God’s] name through all the earth” (Ex. 9:16). Following the fifth plague. “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” by allowing him to continue making negative decisions (Ex. 9:12; Rom. 9:17—18). Pharaoh’s deceitful negative volition presented an opportunity for God to evangelize the world through further displays of divine power (Ex. 7:3; 11:9; Josh. 2:9—10). In the final divine exploitation of Pharaoh’s stubbornness, God administered judgment by death as the tenth plague.

Pharaoh was not merely a private individual; he ruled an empire. His negative volition typified the obstinance of many of his subjects, who shared his rejection of salvation and applauded his decisions to retain the Jews as a race of slaves. The tenth plague killed the eldest son of every household in Egypt that joined Pharaoh in rejecting the message of Moses.

God’s action was not indiscriminate genocide. Many Egyptian families believed in the God of Israel and survived that night of judgment, and many joined the Exodus as the “mixed multitude” of Gentiles (Ex. 11:3; 12:38). Furthermore, the Egyptian infants who died before reaching the point of God-consciousness, which is also the age of accountability, received automatic salvation (2 Sam. 12:23).[51] Pharaoh himself did not die in the tenth plague but was allowed to release the Jews and then precipitate yet another crisis, at the Red Sea, which again glorified God (Ex. 14:13—18).

Judgment by death was the extreme measure taken by God to remove individual negative unbelievers and in doing so to demolish hardened opposition to the Exodus. God’s promises to Israel and to mankind hinged on the national freedom of the Jews through whom would eventually come all client nation concepts, the Mosaic Law, the written canon of Scripture, and above all the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. God was protecting the human race and the Jews and advancing His plan of grace by administering judgment by death.

JUDGMENT BY FINESSE

The third category of divine judgment demonstrates the genius of Jesus Christ in controlling history despite the fact that Satan rules the world. In finesse judgment, our Lord uses evil to destroy evil.

Arrogance cannot tolerate arrogance; one form of evil despises another form of evil. An intense, human-good crusader cannot abide an insouciant rounder. The libertine regards the religious reformer with contempt. One form of prejudice despises another form of prejudice. The Nazi hates the Communist. Each is hostile toward the other. The very multiplicity of gates into the cosmic system, which successfully appeals to the weaknesses of so many different kinds of people, is the system’s ultimate flaw. The greatest destroyer of evil is evil.

For the wrath of man shall praise Thee. (Ps. 76:10a, NASB)

The sons of Sceva were sorcerers who traveled throughout the region around Ephesus discrediting Paul and promoting themselves at his expense (Acts 19:13—20). Thoroughly evil men, these exorcists claimed to cast demons out of the possessed.[52] Although they were permanent residents of the cosmic

system, these unbelievers tried to use the names of Christ and Paul in incantations aimed at exorcising a demon from a young man. The evil demon perfectly squelched the arrogance of these evil charlatans:

“I recognize Jesus and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15b)

The demon then attacked the Sons of Sceva so that they fled wounded from the house. As a result ~‘the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified” (Acts 19:17) in the vindicated doctrinal ministry of Paul.

The principle of finesse judgment applies to nations as well as to individuals. An evil nation is often permitted power in history for the sole purpose of being used by God to judge another evil nation. Israel is God’s chosen nation, but in 721 B.C., again in 586 B.C., and again in A.D. 70, God’s client nation had degenerated into evil as its citizens lived perpetually in the cosmic system. The pivot of mature believers had shrunk; the spin-off of cosmic believers was dragging down the entire nation. On each of these three occasions, God raised up an evil empire to punish Israel. Evil₁ destroyed Evil₂. In 721 B.C. the Assyrian Empire destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In 586 B.C. the Chaldean Empire destroyed the Southern Kingdom. In A.D. 70 the Roman Empire destroyed religious, pharisaical, rebellious Judea.

Finesse judgment of collective groups is not reserved strictly for degenerate client nations. As foretold in prophecy, God will destroy the worldwide religion of the Tribulation, which will be sponsored by Satan, with an attack by a rival political entity, also sponsored by Satan (Rev. 17:16—17). God’s objective will be achieved by Satan when the devil betrays one part of his own cosmic system in a treacherous ploy to increase the power of another part.

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[1] Thieme, The Integrity of God (Houston: R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, 1988), 105—12. Hereafter, cross-references to my books will cite only author, title, date of publication (in the first reference), and page(s).

[2] Unless indicated, Scripture references are my translations, representing more literally the original Hebrew or Greek text. References marked KJV are quoted from the Authorized King James Version; NASB, from the New American Standard Bible; and NIV, from the New Intematjonal Version. Bracketed commentary reflects Bible class lectures (available on tape from R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, Houston) or correlates the quotation with b the topic at hand.

[3] Thieme, Christian Integrity (1984), 9—12.

[4] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, s.v. “protocol.”

[5] Thieme, The Plan of God (1992).

[6] Thieme, The Faith-Rest Life (1961).

[7] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 142—45, 165—84.

[8] Satan’s objective is to use mankind to prove his own superiority over God. The devil’s multifaceted policy for achieving this goal is called the cosmic system. His diverse tactics express one strategy, which either encourages human arrogance or sponsors human antagonism to God. See Thieme, Christian integrity, 158—70.

[9] Thieme, Rebound and Keep Moving! (1993).

[10] Theme, Christian Integrity, 102—09.

[11] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 1—4.

[12] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 57—77.

[13] The cosmic system is Satan’s evil policy toward mankind. See Thieme, Christian Integrity. 158—70.

[14] Thieme, Freedom through Military Victory (1996).

[15] Although not judged at the cross, human good and evil were rejected (reserved for future judgment), and errors in human discernment did not enter into the exclusive work of God. See Thieme, The Integrity of God, 105—12.

[16] Thieme, Isolation of Sin (1976).

[17] Thieme, Christian Integrity, 32—35.

[18] U.S. Congress, Senate, Medal of Honor Recipients, 1863—1978, 96th Cong., 1st sess., 14 February 1979, 928.

[19] James Bond Stockdale, “Dignity and Honor in Vietnam,” Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1982.

[20] Thieme, Prayer (1975).

[21] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 95, and Christian Integrity, 94—96.

[22] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947), 2:100.

[23] See Appendix, “Divine Judgment in Contrast to Divine Discipline.”

[24] The “times of the Gentiles” extend from the destruction of the Jewish state in AD. 70 until Christ will restore Israel at His Second Advent. See Thieme, The Divine Outline of History: Dispensations and the Church (1989), 8, 68.

[25] Thieme, Daniel Chapters One through Six (1996).

[26] Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1983), 1.

[27] During the Age of Israel, the preincarnate Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory dwelt in the Tabernacle or Temple (Ex. 25:21—22; Lev. 26:11—12; Ps. 91:1; Heb. 9:5). The Shekinah Glory appeared as a cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night, as well as a bright light over the ark of the covenant. The presence of the Shekinah Glory guaranteed God’s promise of temporal and eternal blessings to Israel. In the present Church Age the believer’s body is the temple of the Shekinah Glory (John 16:13—14; 17:22; Cot. 1:27).

[28] Thieme, The Integrity of God, app. A, “The Doctrine of Divine Essence,” 231—56.

[29] Thieme, Christian Integrity, 9—12.

[30] Thieme, The Blood of Christ (1979), 13—14.

[31] Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self, 4.

[32] Thieme, Divine Outline of History, 97—100.

[33] Theme, Christian Integrity, 112—38.

[34] Thieme, Christian Integrity, 169.

[35] Thieme, Prayer.

[36] Thieme, Christian Integrity, 60—82.

[37] Thieme, The Blood of Christ, 3 1—34.

[38] Thieme, Giving: Gimmick or Grace? (1990).

[39] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 172—89.

[40] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 42—46.

[41] The five cycles of national discipline are delineated in Leviticus 26:14—39. See Thieme, Daniel Chapters One through Six, 5n.

[42] Thieme, Victorious Proclamation (1977).

[43] In theological terminology, the hypostatic union is the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. See Thieme, Christian Integrity, 193—96.

[44] Strategic and tactical victories are described in Christian Integrity, 175—77.

[45] Thieme, Christian Integrity, 49.

[46] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 126—64.

[47] Thieme, Canonicity (1973).

[48] The King James Version adds “let us mind the same thing,” but this phrase is not found in the best manuscripts.

[49] See pages 67—69, 87—90.

[50] Thieme, Christian Integrity, 55—57.

[51] Thieme, The Integrity of God, 67.

[52] Thieme, Satan and Demonism (1996).