Rebound
Revisited
THE
APOSTLE PAUL, above all men, completely understood the importance of rebound,
naming sins privately to God the Father. When rebound is neglected carnality is
perpetuated and the spiritual life self-destructs. Without rebound the filling
of the Holy Spirit is grieved and quenched; the Christian way of life
disintegrates.
In 2
Corinthians 7:5 Paul has deserted his post at Troy; he has gone AWOL
(absent without leave). He is emotionally tormented.
For even when we [Paul, Silas,
Timothy] came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted
[under stress] on every side [in every way]: conflicts without [adversity],
fears within [emotional irrationality].2 Cor. 7:5).[1]
The Corinthians are still immersed in
carnaIity.[2]
Reacting in anger and despair over developments in Corinth, Paul has also
become carnal ( 1 Cor. 3:1-3). Paul describes his distress this way — “this
body, this flesh, of ours had no rest but we were under stress” or ‘’stressed
out in every way” — conflicts on the outside; fears on the inside. Paul is in
the grip of fear and stress.
There
is a principle we will extract from this passage: Every believer is culpable
for his own sinfulness under the law of volitional responsibility. Thus, when
God initiates any of three stages of divine discipline upon the carnal believer
(warning, intensified, or dying discipline), it is with a desire for the
believer to recover fellowship using the rebound technique. When a believer
refuses to or fails to acknowledge his carnality, he must hurt before he will
receiver. In carnality he is in a position of weakness. From weakness springs
fear, a malevolent fear now internalized by both Paul and the Corinthians.
Without
rebound any believer can be enslaved by fear.
1.
The more things you surrender to fear, the more things you fear.
2.
The more things you fear, the more you increase the power of fear in your life.
3.
The more you increase the power of fear in your life, the greater your capacity
for fear.
4.
The greater your capacity for fear, the greater the stress factor in your soul.
5.
The greater the stress factor in your soul, the more you concentrate on the
problem and the less you concentrate on the solution.
Paul,
currently mired in human viewpoint and human solutions, is a prisoner of fear.
This tenacious carnality would persist until Titus arrived in Macedonia (2 Cor.
7:6-7). By that time Paul had rebounded and was encouraged.
But God, who comforts the depressed
[the carnal believer who humbles himself by employing God’s grace provision of
rebound], comforted [encouraged] us by the coming of Titus; (2
Cor. 7:6)
and not only by his coming, but also
by the comfort with which he [Titus] was comforted in [about] you. as he
reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I
rejoiced even more [because the authority of Paul among the Corinthians was
restored]. (2 Cor. 7:7)
DIVINE SOLUTIONS vs. HUMAN SOLUTIONS
If we confess (homologeo) our sins.
He is faithful (pistos) and righteous (dikaios) to forgive (aphiemi) us our
sins and to cleanse (katharizo) us from all unrighteousness. (1
John 1:9)
Rebound
is the divine solution for recovering fellowship with God and defeating fear in
life. Just as faith in Christ for salvation is accomplished in the status of
spiritual death. so rebound for the recovery of the filling of the Holy Spirit
is accomplished in the status of carnality. In each case God does all the work.
That is grace.
Countless
believers fail to understand and rely on the grace of God. When they reject
God’s grace in rebound and continue in carnality, their attention is gained
only through the pain and suffering of divine discipline. God disciplines the
believer as a Father disciplines a child. He loves and desires only the best
for every believer. Divine discipline alerts believers to the futility of human
solutions. Human solutions are no solutions! Divine solutions are the only
solutions!
The
believer who receives divine discipline will eventually be motivated by the
pain and anguish where, unfortunately, he is not motivated by grace. Homologeo, “to confess” or “to name,” is
a non-meritorious grace function. How do we know it is a grace function? Once
we come to point X, the divine solution, we rebound by naming our sins and God
takes over.
Our
responsibility is to simply acknowledge sins to God. We never earn or deserve
the wonderful recovery of fellowship God provides for us. Recovery is not based
on how we feel, it is not based on how we agonize, it is not emotion (metamelomai — 2 Cor. 7:8), it is not to
sorrow (lupeo — 2 Cor. 7:8), it is
not “godly sorrow” (wrong translation of lupeo
plus kata Theon — 2 Cor. 7:9). All these are emotional gimmicks, signs that
believers do not understand the grace of God. The believer who tries to recover
through emotion and remorse is the believer who has misplaced the key to the
spiritual life. Instead, he substitutes emotional human penance — “godly
sorrow” for God’s wonderful plan of recovery.
Two
nouns in 1 John 1:9 describe God’s grace in rebound — “faithful and righteous.”
The Greek word pistos means
“faithful.” The faithfulness of God always forgives and cleanses the believer
who names his sins to the Father. God always extends the same grace, even when
we name that sin for the 1,385th time. He never tires of forgiving us because
those sins were judged on the cross.
Dikaios means “righteousness” — God’s
perfect righteousness. His righteousness is never compromised by forgiving our
sins. No matter how evil we are, God never compromises His righteousness by
forgiving us. Why? Our sins have already been judged on the cross. We receive
the imputation of perfect righteousness at the moment we express faith alone in
Christ alone. Nothing we can do extinguishes that judicial, forensic
righteousness in us (1 Cor. 1:30).
Remember
a basic principle: In eternity past, God isolated every problem in human history
and God provided the solution to every problem in human history. All solutions
for the believer are contained in the ten problem-solving devices. No believer
will ever have a problem that cannot be worked out through the ten
problem-solving devices.[3]
The first problem-solving device and gateway to the other nine devices is
rebound.
First
John 1:9 is a statement about the character of God when He confronts all our
sins. Is He shocked? Does He revile us? Definitely not! He has already taken
care of every sin we will ever commit — He took all our sins to court at the
cross. In dealing with our sins God sees only the righteousness of Christ, His
substitutionary sacrifice that blots out those transgressions. His work on the
cross is the basis for salvation — “believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be
saved” (Acts 16:31). Concurrently, the work of Christ on the cross is also the
basis for forgiving the sins of the believer in rebound.
What
does God do for the carnal believer, in every case, when a sin is acknowledged?
First of all, God “forgives” (aphiemi)
our sins. Secondly, God “purifies” (katharizo)
from all wrongdoing. God’s grace does it all! Just as He provides thirty-nine
irrevocable things plus one the moment we believe in Christ, He also restores the
filling of the Holy Spirit and fellowship with Himself at the moment a carnal
believer rebounds.
We
can temporarily lose our spirituality; we can quickly recover our spirituality.
We can fail in our spiritual life, but we can never lose our salvation. What we
do lose through carnality are eternal rewards in heaven and temporal blessings
in time (2 Cor. 7:9b; cf., 1 Cor. 3:15; Phil. 3:18-19; 2 John 8).
Despite
his spiritual maturity, the Apostle Paul had entrapped himself in pain and
emotions. He suffered anguish in Troy, then later in Macedonia. What Paul was
experiencing, the Corinthians were also experiencing. Paul’s anguish is
reflected in the Greek verb metamelomai
which is used twice in 2 Corinthians 7:8. Metamelomai
is regret, sorrow, feeling sorry for sins, being desperately sorry for
wrongdoing. Metamelomai is strictly
emotional, a penitence which is incompatible with the grace of God. Just like
the Corinthians, Paul had allowed his ‘feelings’ to supersede his knowledge of
God’s faithful provision of rebound.
A
believer may feel sorry for his sins but his feelings carry no merit with God.
Emotion is never a criterion for the spiritual life. Emotion may be a grateful response to God’s magnificent
care and provision, but emotion has no value in God’s forgiveness.
The
solution is homologeo, the
nonmeritorious act of naming your own sins to God the Father. To interject your
feelings into God’s method of rebound is arrogance. As soon as you lean on
emotions, you propagate arrogance. Only what God thinks about your sins is
important, not how you feel. He despises our sins. However, He is faithful and
righteous to forgive them based on the work of Jesus Christ. You cannot help
God — that is anti-grace and legalism.
When
I first came to Berachah Church, forty-five years ago, I taught rebound. Some
people resented this concept of grace. They wanted to help God — to justify
God’s forgiveness of them. Rebound is still resented, but the message is the
same: Rebound results in the filling of the Holy Spirit and restores the
spiritual life. You will never recover the filling of the Spirit by feeling
sorry for your sins. If you have to hurt or be disciplined as a motivation for
rebound, then the law of volitional responsibility takes over.
For they sow the wind, and they reap the
whirlwind. (Hosea 8:7a)
Do not be deceived, God is not
mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows
to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption. (Gal.
6:7-8a)
You conclude,
“I must help God to recover — I felt sorry for my sins! I regretted what I had
done; I apologized to God!” This becomes your criterion for forgiveness by God.
What arrogance; what legalism! How dare you have the colossal ego to attempt to
bribe God with your pitiful sorrow! God never asks for an apology or regrets.
He says only, “Name your sins!” You can do nothing about your past failures,
but through rebound you can do something about your future, your spiritual
life. You make wrong
decisions, you sin, and you hurt. You lose track of the grace of God. You must
come back to square one. Do you know what square one is?
If we name our sins He is faithful [He
always does it — never gets exasperated] and absolute righteousness to forgive
us the sins we name and to purify us from all wrongdoing. (1 John 1:9,
corrected translation)
When
you get out of fellowship and you rely on so-called ‘godly sorrow’ for
recovery, you are a loser.
You
find the same sort of problem today in Lordship salvation — faith plus
commitment. As a spiritually dead person you can never make Christ ‘Lord,’ or
gain the approbation of God by making a dedication, walking an aisle, raising
your hands, jumping through a psychological hoop. You can never invite Christ
into your heart or into your life. When you invite Christ into your spiritually
dead heart, you are inviting Him into a sewer; you are inviting Him into a
tomb. Instead, God summons you to share His eternal life through faith in the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. Only the Holy Spirit can make Christ your Lord at the
moment you express nonmeritorious faith in Christ alone.
Likewise,
only the filling of the Holy Spirit makes the believer spiritual. Without
rebound the Holy Spirit is grieved and quenched by carnality. No wonder
believers have so little impact for Christ. Political activism and rigid
morality are the only impression many unbelievers have of Christianity.
Activism and morality are not spirituality. Spirituality is on a higher plane
and is derived from the filling of the Spirit. The believer who substitutes
human morality and political activism for the virtue of the spiritual life
loses his impact for Christ in the devil’s world.
As a
believer progresses in the sphere of Christian virtue, he develops a sense of responsibility.
That sense of responsibility is not based on an emotional guilt trip, but on
divine viewpoint from metabolized doctrine. Hence, the believer is no longer
carried away with ephemeral emotional compassion as he watches television
reports of unfortunate, starving people around the world. Such fervent sympathy
fades when the momentary emotion subsides.
Instead,
the compassion of a believer with virtue is permanent, a far loftier empathy
than exists in fleeting emotional outbursts. This true compassion puts human
tragedy in perspective. We live in a lost and dying world in which the Gospel
and Bible doctrine must take priority.
The
virtuous believer realizes the solutions to wretched human conditions in
Satan’s world are not political activism, not well-meaning compassion, but
spiritual regeneration and growth. Hunger, famine, starvation, war will be
present until the Lord returns. Only the Gospel and Bible doctrine can heal the
misery of human circumstances. Those who accept the Gospel of faith alone in
Christ alone will spend eternity with no more pain, sorrow, or tears (Rev.
21:4). For those believers who grow spiritually, peace, happiness, and
contentment characterize their lives. Circumstances are not the consuming
issue.
Believers
who reject rebound reject the only means of gaining and maintaining spiritual
momentum. They say, “I cannot just rebound; I need to feel remorse. I do not
feel forgiven unless I regret my sins.” But how you feel is inconsequential!
The
issue is not your feelings; the issue is the cross where your sins were judged.
The issue is the righteousness of God the Father. Countless millennia ago God
the Father isolated every problem in human history and provided a solution
based on grace. There never has been a divine solution that was not based on
grace.
Unbelievers
have access to divine solutions through the laws of divine establishment, the
four divine institutions that deal with individuals and nations. These
institutions are volition, marriage, family, and government. For the individual
believer — the child of God, the priest indwelt by God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit, the ambassador for Christ — the divine institutions
are just one aspect in a myriad of significant principles and doctrines inherent
in the Christian life. The virtue of the spiritual life includes the principles
of divine establishment.
The
believer has access to all divine assets — the filling of the Holy Spirit,
Bible doctrine, ten problem-solving devices. The function of the spiritual life
depends upon the filling of the Holy Spirit, the great equalizer. The filling
of the Holy Spirit converts even the lowest human IQ
into spiritual !Q. Every believer now has equal opportunity and equal privilege
to perceive and understand Bible doctrine. With spiritual IQ the
believer is capable of understanding and metabolizing doctrine and forming
problem-solving devices in the soul.
Metabolized
doctrine also provides a mirror in the soul for objective self-evaluation. When
the believer sins and fails, he can look into the mirror of his soul. The
quicker the believer sees his reflection in the mirror of divine viewpoint, the
sooner he rebounds and avoids hurt and discipline. Until you understand grace in rebound, you will have an
emotional hangover. You will be emotionally wrung out from all the attempts to
help God forgive your sins. Hangovers originate from a lack of grace
orientation; from believers who do not understand what God can and will
accomplish.
You must recognize that
divine solutions are the only solutions; human solutions are no solutions. In
spiritual death the divine solution is faith alone in Christ alone. Anything
you add to faith is a human solution and salvation is not yours. Faith
accompanied by human works is invalid. The only faith that is valid is faith
without works. Then, God takes over and provides thirty-nine irrevocable things
plus one. That one is the filling of the Holy Spirit — spirituality.
Spirituality is obtained through the gracious auspices of God’s provision at
salvation. Spirituality is maintained through the gracious auspices of God’s
provision of rebound. Spirituality dispenses spiritual freedom, the power to
determine one’s own destiny in the Christian life.
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
God
gives every believer a system of freedom based on metabolized doctrine
circulating through the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness.[4]
With this spiritual freedom we can fulfill His plan. God provides the time and
the means to fulfill His plan. When the believer perpetuates spiritual freedom
in his life, he moves into the sphere of virtue.
If
your happiness depends on people, if your happiness depends on your love life,
if your happiness depends on approbation, you are not free. If certain people
can upset you, you are not free. You are a slave to whatever ruins your peace
of mind. You do not know spiritual freedom or true contentment.
Paul
was a slave to fear, worry, anxiety as we have noted in 2 Corinthians 7:5. His
fear made him unhappy. Ask yourself. Who makes me unhappy? What makes me
unhappy? Who does things to hurt me? What gives me the ‘blues’? If your
happiness depends on people or circumstances, that is slavery. When you have a
happiness that does not depend upon people or circumstances, but rather your
well-being is based on Bible doctrine in the soul, you share the happiness of
God. God has never been unhappy.
In
eternity past Lucifer, the highest angelic creature created by God, revolted
against Him. Satan, as he is now called, persuaded one-third of the angelic
creatures to join the mutiny. Nevertheless, God did not become unhappy. The
defection and loss of those super-creatures could not make God unhappy.
When
Adam sinned and died spiritually, God never became despondent. God has eternal,
infinite, perfect happiness that does not depend upon people or circumstances.
This same magnificent happiness can be yours. Yet, you will never attain His
happiness if you operate on unstable, pseudo-compassionate, emotional binges,
instead of Bible doctrine.
The
truest and most genuine compassion is based solely on Bible doctrine resident
in the soul. Such compassion motivates people to witness for Jesus Christ. Such
compassion inspires noble kindnesses. Bona fide Christian compassion reveals
divinely influenced contentment and happiness in your soul to a lost and dying
world.
According
to 2 Corinthians 7:5-6 Paul was “comforted,” he was back in fellowship by the
time Titus arrived in Macedonia. As a born again believer in the adult stage of
the spiritual life, Paul recovered his fellowship with God through the rebound
technique. His comfort came from his confidence in the faithfulness of God. He
was, therefore, prepared for either a good or bad report from Titus concerning
the Corinthian problem.
The
nature of the report was not the issue. Rather, the issue was the status quo of
Paul’s spirituality after he confessed his fear and trepidation to the Lord.
After rebound God took over and solved Paul’s anxiety problem.
God
is faithful. God is righteous. God forgave Paul’s sins. God purified Paul from
all unrighteousness. At the point of purification Paul was again filled with
the Holy Spirit, restored to fellowship with God, and had resumed his spiritual
life. Paul was relaxed and ready for anything by the time Titus arrived. The
report from Titus was excellent and Paul “rejoiced.” It is interesting to note
that while Paul was out of fellowship in Troy and Macedonia, and the
Corinthians were also carnal, Titus remained spiritual.
THE FOLLY OF EMOTIONALISM
For though I caused you sorrow
[lupeo, severe mental anguish] by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did
regret it [metamelomai, extreme emotional anguish] — for I see that letter
caused you sorrow [lupeo], though only for a while (2
Cor. 7:8)
I now rejoice [after Paul utilized
rebound], not that you were made sorrowful [lupeo], but that you were made
sorrowful [lupeo} to the point of repentance [metanoia, “change of mind” that
brought them to rebound]; for you were made sorrowful [lupeo] according to the
will of God [kata Theon, idiomatic usage meaning “as God would have it"],
in order that you might not suffer loss [as a loser believer] in anything
through [because of] us. (2 Cor. 7:9)
For the sorrow [anguish of divine
discipline] that is according to the will of God [as God would have it]
produces a repentance [change of mind, the motivation to rebound] without
regret [ametameletos, without any emotional remorse], leading to salvation
[deliverance from the anguish]; but the sorrow of the world produces death [sin
unto death]. (2 Cor. 7:10)
Under
the filling of the Holy Spirit Titus had delivered a now lost letter from Paul
to the Corinthians. The epistle was a severe reprimand. It caused the
Corinthians severe mental anguish and agony [lupeo]. Paul matched their agony for a short time with his own
emotional torment (2 Cor. 7:8). When Paul recognized his emotional folly and
realized that the Corinthians had responded positively to his letter, he
stopped emoting, rebounded, and rejoiced (2 Cor. 7:9). The anguish the
Corinthians suffered from the letter also brought them “to the point of
repentance,” metanoia, “a change of
thinking” that induced rebound. Paul’s triumphal rejoicing occurred not because
the Corinthians “were made sorrowful,” but because their sorrow and anguish
caused the change in their thinking.
Lupeo, “sorrow,” has a number of
meanings in the passive voice: “to become distressed, to be sorry, to be
grieved, to be hurt, to be sad, to be insulted, to be irritated, to be offended,
to be in mental pain or anguish.” The passive indicates that the carnal
Corinthians in verses 8-9 were acted upon by the divine laws from the Supreme
Court of Heaven. Two laws were operational: the first was the law of volitional
responsibility and the second, the law of divine discipline.
The
carnal Christians of Corinth were disturbed by Paul’s lost letter delivered by
Titus. Titus was face-to-face with hostile Corinthians full of iconoclastic
arrogance and evil obsession. They were resentful of him at first, but through
doctrinal teaching and explanation he finally straightened them out. They saw
the issue clearly and came around to rebound and began to spiritually advance.
I now rejoice, not because you were
distressed [lupeo], but because you were in pain [lupeo] to the point of
repentance [metanoia]. (2 Cor. 7:9a, corrected translation)
The
first appearance of lupeo in 2
Corinthians 7:9a connotes outright emotional anguish. The second use of the
verb lupeo follows the adversative
particle “but” and sets up a contrast with the emotional grief of the first lupeo. Metanoia distinguishes the unsettling distress of the first phrase
from the encouraging distress of the second phrase. Metanoia does not connote an impulsive action based on emotion.
THE CHANGE OF THINKING
“Repentance,”
metanoia, is a vastly misunderstood
term. Many people think repentance means to feel sorry for sins, an emotional
repudiation of sin. What does repentance actually mean? It means “change of
mind” — serious thinking, not temperamental emoting.
Serious
thinking repudiates emotion as part of the solution. How do we know that?
Because 2 Corinthians 7:10 abandons emotion: “repentance without regret
[emotion].” Emotional reaction is the source of countless sins. Emotionalism
actually functions as a catalytic agent that locks in the arrogance and
emotional complexes of sins.
The
carnal believer in an emotional state cannot think accurately. Therefore, the
emotional inclination must be rejected if the believer is to start thinking
correctly. When the believer sets aside emotional activity, he can then recall
what is hidden in the recesses of his mind. If he has been taught rebound, he
will remember the divine method of recovering the filling of the Holy Spirit,
restoring fellowship with God, and resuming the spiritual life.
The
Corinthians had to endure mental agony to overcome their emotional reactions.
They needed to think, not emote. They needed to search the recesses of their
minds for the divine solution — the doctrine of rebound.
If
the carnal believer does not rebound, he will “suffer loss” at the Judgment
Seat of Christ (1 Cor. 3:15; 2 Cor. 7:10). He loses his eternal rewards but
never his eternal salvation. Therefore, the Corinthians must change their
minds. Nonemotional thinking motivates their change of mind. A change of
thinking results in their accepting the divine solution of rebound.
However,
emotional garbage in the soul must be eliminated. Hang-ups, defense mechanisms,
denial — all the psychological garbage must go! That is the reason for
“repentance,” metanoia, being
introduced in a prepositional phrase. Metanoia
is the result of eliminating all the refuse of emotional activity. Garbage includes
feeling sorry for your sins, going through penance, pleading with God for
forgiveness, agonizing, feeling guilty to get back in fellowship. All of these
false principles preclude rebound. Rebound requires no emotional activity.
If
you add emotion, regret, penance, guilt, you have not recovered your fellowship
with God. You are not filled with the Spirit. You remain in a state of
carnality, only now you are worse off than you were before. The divine solution
is simply to “name” or “admit” your sins in the privacy of your own soul.
The
arrogance of those who believe they must do something, feel something, or
renounce something to effect a divine solution is appalling. Some believers are
going to stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ in a resurrection body in a state
of shame. Why? Because they never could get it through their heads that you
only do something one way — God’s way!
The
Corinthians had been taught God’s solution to sin. Rebound instructions were
given by Paul in 1 Corinthians.
For he who eats and drinks [at the
communion table], eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the
body rightly [through rebound]. For this reason many among you are weak and
sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly [rebound], we
should not be judged. ( 1 Cor. 11:29-31 )
But
the Corinthians were still doing things their way — what seemed right to them.
Human ways are never God’s ways. Because of their perpetuation of carnality,
the Corinthian believers were losers. God had to get the attention of these
carnal, loser believers.
‘GODLY SORROW’
For you were made sorrowful [lupeo]
according to the will of God [kata Theon], in order that you might not suffer
loss in anything through us. (2 Cor. 7:96)
The
use of the aorist passive of lupeo
reveals unequivocally the nonemotional content of the word “sorrow.” It was
God’s intention for the Corinthians to feel pain, not to wring a passionate
apology from them but to induce rebound. The pain caused objective
self-examination which brought on a change of thinking that resulted in a
decision. The carnal Corinthians chose to acknowledge their failures and sins
to the Father. That decision was the solution, the only solution. Divine
discipline pressured these believers to comply with God’s grace method of
rebound.
Lupeo is followed by another
prepositional phrase, kata Theon. I
want you to notice that Theon is the
accusative case of the proper noun for “God.” This noun is not an adjective to
be translated “godly.” To make an adjective out of the proper name for God is
heresy and blasphemy. Theon is never an adjective.
What
does the preposition kata plus the
accusative of Theon mean? Kata Theon can legitimately be
translated three ways:
1. A
literal translation is “according to God” which actually means “according to
the will of God” There is a problem with this translation. The believer is in a
state of carnality, “out of fellowship.” The will of God cannot be associated
with carnality.
2.
“In accordance with God” is also a legitimate translation. The phrase literally
means “in accordance with the standards of God.”
“Standards
of God” presents the same problem as the first translation, “the will of God.”
Carnality is no more compatible with the norms and standards of God than it is
with the will of God. The norms and standards of God in the believer are
related .to the filling of the Spirit. The norms and standards of God are
related to the spiritual life — fellowship with God. These standards are
irreconcilable with carnality.
These
first two phrases would ordinarily be sufficient as translations, except we are
discussing a believer in carnality. No carnal believer is in the will of God or
functioning under the norms and standards of God. 3.
The
third literal translation is “on the basis of God.”
“On
the basis of” is an unusual rendering of the preposition kata. This usage often denotes a combination of norms and purpose:
“in accordance with” and “because of.” The same problem exists. Carnality is
never in compliance with the will, standards, and purpose of God.
The
three previous translations are all legitimate when the believer is in
fellowship. But 2 Corinthians 7:9 describes believers out of fellowship. So
what translation remains? The idiom, “as God would have it.”
What
does “as God would have it” connote? The idiom simply states the divine purpose
to stimulate thinking in the carnal believer and to set aside emotion. Thinking
brings the believer to a decision about rebound, God’s way of dealing with
carnality.
I now rejoice, not because you were
distressed, in pain, anguish, sorrow and grief, but because you were distressed
resulting in a change of mind; resulting in thinking that led to a decision to
rebound, for you were distressed as God would have it. (2
Cor. 7:9a, corrected translation)
This
translation avoids the blasphemy of making an adjective out of the proper noun
for God. “As God would have it” is the correct translation of kata Theon in 2 Corinthians 7:9 and
7:10.
The
King James Version of 2 Corinthians 7:9 is translated, “after a godly manner,”
and verse 10 is translated “godly sorrow.” The New International Version
translates the phrase correctly in 7:9, “as God intended,” but inaccurately in
7:10, “godly sorrow.” Three of these translations are blasphemous. Theon should always be translated as a
noun.
Metanoia is a change of thinking that
results in a change of mind. The change of mind is not the solution but leads
to the solution, the decision to rebound. The believer changes his mind by rejecting
all of the emotionalism which has no bearing on forgiveness and cleansing by
God.
You
must understand that emotion has no faculty for cognition. Emotion is a
responder, not a thinker. You must set aside emotion as a spiritual criterion.
You must start thinking according to Bible doctrine!
Emotion
is no gauge of salvation — you are never saved because you feel saved. After
salvation you are not restored to fellowship because you feel restored or feel forgiven.
There is only one way to recover fellowship with God after you sin and that is
God’s way. God’s way is to “name” your sins to Him. God takes over from there.
The
carnal believer loses fellowship with God and the Spirit’s power for living the
spiritual life until he rebounds. At the Judgment Seat of Christ the
consistently carnal, loser believer feels shame when he is evaluated (2 Cor.
5:10; cf., 1 Cor. 3:12-15; Phil. 1:20; 1 John 2:28). He will not receive
greater blessings which were set aside for him by God in eternity past but can
never be conveyed to him. What a tragedy!
“I
now rejoice” is Paul’s legitimate emotion after the rapid employment of
rebound. He continues his spiritual life with great contentment. When Titus
came from Corinth with a good report, Paul was already in fellowship, and,
therefore, he was already rejoicing.
THE LAWS OF VOLITIONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND
DIVINE DISCIPLINE
I now rejoice, not because you were
distressed but because you were distressed resulting in the thinking that led
to the decision [the decision is the divine solution], for you were distressed
as God would have it, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything
through us. (2 Cor, 7:9, corrected translation).
Paul adds a clause at the end of verse 9 —
“in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us,” which
indicates the carnal Corinthians will “suffer loss” but not because of Paul.
They will suffer from their own bad decisions, the law of volitional
responsibility, and from distress “as God would have it,” the law of divine
discipline.
What
is the law of volitional responsibility? Scripture states the law:
For they sow the wind, and they reap the
whirlwind. (Hosea 8:7a)
The
longer you stay out of fellowship, the greater your misery and pain becomes.
He who sows iniquity will reap vanity
[trouble]. (Prov. 22:8a)
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for
whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. (Gal. 6:7)
Paul wrote to the Colossians the
effect of both laws as they work in combination. For he who does wrong
[volitional responsibility] will receive the consequences of the wrong which he
has done, and that without partiality [divine discipline].
(Col. 3:25)
When
you stay out of fellowship and fail to rebound, you extend carnality
indefinitely. You can be revived in only one way from a state of carnality and
emotional revolt. The consequences, “as God would have it,” become increasingly
miserable. God uses the law of volitional responsibility and the law of divine
discipline to remind you of spiritual priorities. He allows you to wallow in
the pain of your own making and if that does not remind you to rebound, then He
applies divine discipline to hasten your recovery. The justice of God makes you
hurt! But remember, His laws are compatible with His perfect righteousness.
At
some point you must recognize reality. You must realize the consequences of
your sin. Do not blame the torment from your sin on someone else. The ultimate
self-deception is never taking responsibility for your own thoughts, decisions,
and actions. You always do things because you decide to do them. Only when you
reverse bad decisions can you reverse stress. The trend-reversing decision is homologeo, name your sins to God the
Father ( 1 John 1:9).
Prayer
cannot be the means to recover fellowship with God either. Prayer is not a
problem-solving device and can be effective only under the filling of the Holy
Spirit. You can pray fervently for forgiveness of sins and you are not
forgiven. God heeds no prayers offered in a state of carnality.
Too often prayer for forgiveness is substituted; but
prayer for forgiveness is not an adjustment to the Light which God is. Prayer
for forgiveness really assumes that God Himself needs to be changed in His
attitude toward the one who has sinned.[5]
You
can feel perpetually sorry and guilty and you are not forgiven. You can
apologize, you can try to make it up to God, you can go through all the penance
in the world and you are not forgiven. That is not God’s way. If you will not
acquiesce to God’s way, the alternative is suffering under the law of
volitional responsibility and divine discipline, “as God would have it.” You
will reap what you sow. Divine discipline is administered in three stages.
First is warning discipline, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev.
3:20a)... Knocking is God’s warning. “If anyone . . - opens the door” is
addressed to believers only. What does “opens the door” mean? Name your sins to
God. What
happens next? “I will come in to him and will dine
with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20b)… .Fellowship is restored! If the
believer ignores warning discipline and keeps the door shut, he then moves into
the second stage of divine discipline called intensive discipline, a more
potent form of warning discipline.
Believers
who are out of fellowship and ignorant of doctrine exist on how they feel, on
their emotions. Feelings are subjective and irrational. Such believers are spiritually
blind. A physically blind person must feel his way through life. Likewise, a
spiritually blind person feels his way through the Christian life. And if you
are feeling your way through life, you have had it!
Spiritual
blindness is a dangerous condition which may lead to the third stage of
discipline, a dismal departure from life under the sin unto death (1 John
5:16-17). The loser believer will still go to heaven and be absent from the
body and face-to-face with the Lord. He will be in a place of “no more sorrow,
no more tears, no more suffering” (Rev. 21:4). Why no more sorrow, no more
tears, no more suffering? Are these not loser believers? Yes! Don’t they suffer
in heaven? No! The purpose of certain earthly suffering is to encourage rebound;
rebound is unnecessary in heaven.
Whether
you are a winner or a loser believer, when you die you are in a place of
perfect happiness. When I conduct your funeral service or the service of any
believer, I can say with certainty that you are surrounded by the greatest
happiness in heaven. The law of volitional responsibility is no longer
operable. Sin is no longer a factor. Whatever suffering you incurred from
volitional responsibility and from divine discipline is finished.
However,
inequality will always exist for believers while in this life. The only
equality in life is the freedom to use volition. Persistent positive volition
toward Bible doctrine advances the believer to become a winner. Persistent
negative volition minus rebound generates a loser. Thus, freedom spawns
inequality. Where freedom reigns, winners and losers coexist.
The
Ten Commandments are a freedom, code. Destruction of freedom is caused by
violating that code. “You shall not steal” affirms the right to own property
(Ex. 20:15). When someone steals, they are the enemy of freedom. The Bible
asserts that property is sacred — “you shall not steal.” Scripture also says,
“you shall not commit murder,” not “thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13 KJV).
Homicide is the ultimate deprivation of freedom. The criminal who kills should
be executed. Otherwise, the victim is forgotten. The Law demands death for a
murderer, so he will never again despoil the freedom of another victim (Lev.
24:21; Rom. 13:4).
“As
God would have it,” then, relates to the principle of freedom and the law of
volitional responsibility. Every believer will be accountable for his decisions
both on earth and before the Judgment Seat of Christ (Rom. 14: 10; 2 Cor.
5:10). Those who regularly utilize the rebound technique in life, remain in
fellowship with God, grow to spiritual maturity will not feel shame at the
Judgment Seat (Phil. 1:20).
For the distress as God would have it
[divine discipline] produces a change of thinking without regret, resulting in
deliverance [rebound]; but the distress of the world produces death. (2
Cor. 7: 10, corrected translation)
“Distress
as God would have it” produces a change of thinking that brings on a decision.
What is the decision? Rebound that results in (soteria), “deliverance.” What is deliverance? When you rebound, you
are forgiven and cleansed. God takes over. God forgives your sins; God purifies
all your wrongdoing.
AMETAMELETOS
Notice
the phrase, “a change of thinking without
regret” The alpha prefix on the Greek word metamelomai
denotes a negative. Ametameletos
means feeling no remorse, having no regret — hence, the word has no emotional
connotation. The deliverance of rebound requires no emotional activity. If you
bring emotion to rebound, it is no solution. Ametameletos abrogates rebound through guilt, penance, or feeling
sorry for sins.
God’s
plan is never fulfilled by emoting. When you do fulfill His plan, you may feel
some emotion as you respond to the wonders of His grace. But the great enemy,
the worst arrogance in the world is to believe that you have to feel saved to
be saved and that you have to feel forgiven to be forgiven. How you feel is of
no consequence! Ametameletos, “no
emotion,” contributes to this vital knowledge.
As
Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer clearly taught, God always forgives and cleanses the
sinner from sin “regardless of emotions respecting the sin which may continue.”
Great
emphasis is placed on the fact that the one condition to be met for restoration
of fellowship with God is confession of sin.
Verse
10 reflects the law of volitional responsibility. “Distress as God would have
it” are the three stages of divine discipline designed to eliminate emotion as
a criterion for the spiritual life and elicit a change of thinking. A change of
thinking evokes rebound and results in the restoration of fellowship with God,
the recovery of the filling of the Holy Spirit, the grace method of resuming
your spiritual life.
If
you stubbornly prefer to trust your emotion, a false standard for the spiritual
life, then worldly sorrow and stress bring “death.” If you rely on feeling
forgiven, feeling sorry for your sins, or a system of penance, you will never
return to fellowship and may die the sin unto death. God alone forgives and
purifies.
THE SOLUTION TO SIN — REBOUND
In
this study of 2 Corinthians 7:5-10 we learned of Paul’s failure, his anguished
decline, and then his recovery. At the same time, we studied the source of
Paul’s unhappiness, the Corinthians. Paul’s distress over these carnal
believers developed into an emotional reaction. The effect is depicted by the
Greek word metamelomai, “to have
great regret, to fee sorry, to enter into guilt reaction.” We also studied kata + Theon + lupe
mistranslated “godly sorrow.” Godly sorrow would erroneously involve God in the
emotional reaction of Paul and the Corinthians.
Emotion
is not necessary for rebound recovery. In fact, emotion inhibits the function
of the rebound technique. Therefore, in the same passage there are other Greek
words that signify to the believer the divine method of recovery.
Ametameletos signifies “the absence of
emotion,” the state of mine which promotes rebound. Metanoia means a “change of thinking,” remembering Bible doctrine
and picturing the true concept of rebound Once you decide to rebound, soteria is the “deliverance.” You are
delivered from sin and restored to fellowship with God.
Rebound
as a problem-solving device is not victory
over sin. The rebound technique is recovery
from sin and carnality. Victory over sin occurs from the modus operandi of
the spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God. Spiritual mechanics
include utilization of the two power options — the filling of the Holy Spirit
and Operation Z; also the three spiritual skills — the filling of the Holy
Spirit, Operation Z, and all the problem solving devices.[6]
Without
the premise of rebound, there can be no spiritual conclusion What is the
premise of rebound? It is found in the first half of 1 John 1:9 The premise
comes in the form of a Greek third class condition, a more probable future
condition. The purpose of the third class condition is to indicate that you
have a choice, in this case a choice of whether to remain carnal or not. “If we
admit our sins,” maybe we will and maybe we wil not, is the premise. The Greek verb
homologeo means “to admit, to name to
cite” your sins. Nonmeritorious homologeo
is the divine solution of rebound.
If
the premise is false, then, of course, the conclusion is false. If you add
anything to “confess,” homologeo, it cancels
recovery of fellowship, just as in salvation, if you add anything to faith, (pistis), it cancels faith for salvation.
Faith plus ‘lordship salvation,’ faith plus commitment, faith plus anything
negates faith. Rebound plus sorrow, rebound plus anguish, rebound plus emotion,
rebound plus penance superimpose human standards on divine methods and negate
rebound. The result is no recovery of fellowship with God. When the believer
consistently fails to utilize rebound, he is on the road to becoming a loser.
He can never lose his salvation, yet he resides in a
state of perpetual carnality. The lust patterns of the
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sin nature rule his life. With the sin nature in
control the loser develops a smug and pompous mental attitude. In emotional
revolt he becomes jealous of those in his periphery. Jealousy develops into
bitterness. By neglecting rebound bitterness turns to anger and implacability,
then hatred and vindictiveness. Now, the loser begins a pattern of
self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption, the three arrogance
skills. Once the arrogance skills are in place the believer acts no differently
than the unbeliever. He is capable of being full of malice, revenge motivation,
vituperation, vilification, violence, even murder. Even the most mature of
believers is susceptible to this road to ruin if he neglects rebound.
Rebound
is the road to restoration accomplished in the privacy of your priesthood.
Every believer in the Church Age is a priest (1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10)
and has access to God the Father. The sins that you admit to God the Father are
the same sins He imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Christ received
the judgment of your sins on the cross. “He who knew no sin was made sin as a
substitute for us” (2 Cor. 5:21) — the corrected translation of the Greek
preposition hupo + the genitive
plural of advantage from ego, “a
substitute for us.” He was your substitute: He took your place; He was judged
for your sins; “He carried our sins in His own body on the cross” (1 Pet. 2:24).
Therefore, when we use homologeo,
when we “name, cite, admit, confess, acknowledge” our sins, we are
acknowledging sins that were judged in the courtroom of the crucifixion.
Without
the basic premise of rebound no spiritual skills can exist. Without the true
conclusion of rebound no spiritual life is possible. The conclusion is in the
Greek form of the apodosis of a third class condition — “If you name your sins
to God, God forgives you.”
Two
Greek words aphiemi, “forgive,” and katharizo “purify,” define God’s actions
when we rebound. He “forgives us our sins” and “He purifies us from all
wrongdoing.” We resume fellowship with Him. We do so many things that we do not
even know are sins. When we name our known sins, He purifies us from those we
did not remember or did not know were sins. What about rebound as a
problem-solving device? Here are a few principles you should know:
1.
Rebound as the first problem-solving device on the PLOT
line of the soul is the key to recovery of the spiritual life from sin and
carnality.[7]
2.
Rebound is the only problem-solving device that functions in the status of
carnality.
3.
The only reason that rebound can function in the status of carnality is because
of the doctrine of the universal priesthood of the believer.
4.
The universal priesthood of the believer is irrevocable and is not affected by
the carnality of the believer.
Since
the priesthood is irrevocable, when the priest is out of fellowship through
sin, he still represents himself before God. The believer-priest names his sins
to God in the privacy of his priesthood. .
The
royal priesthood of the Church Age is part of equal opportunity for the
believer to execute the protocol plan of God. Therefore, the function of the
priesthood in rebound has three results:
1.
recovery of the filling of the Spirit;
2.
restoration to fellowship with God;
3.
resumption of your spiritual life.
When
emotion becomes the criterion for the spiritual life, believers become
subjective and embrace salvation by works and rebound by works. The believer
can eventually become involved in crusader arrogance and Christian activism. A
few points to remember:
1.
Rebound is not victory over sin or carnality; rebound is recovery from sin and
carnality.
2.
Pseudorebound perpetuates carnality while true rebound has four important
results in the spiritual life — well, actually three of them that we have
studied: recovery of the filling of the Spirit; restoration of fellowship with
God; resumption of the spiritual life. The fourth is to reach the point of a
spiritually mature, invisible hero.
Resumption
of the spiritual life and consequent persistence in the grace mechanics of the
spiritual life set the stage for victory over sin.
Rebound
is not a victory over sin. Victory over sin is the modus operandi of the four
spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God: the utilization of the two
power options; the function of the three spiritual skills; the deployment of
the ten problem-solving devices; and execution of the three stages of the adult
spiritual life. All of this is accomplished under the filling of the Holy
Spirit as the first power option, followed by the second power option,
metabolized doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of the stream of
consciousness.
NO SUBSTITUTE FOR REBOUND
Faith
is not a substitute for rebound in the life of the believer. The faith of a
regenerate human being is ineffectual with God apart from the filling ministry of
the Holy Spirit. Since the carnal believer grieves and quenches the Spirit,
such a believer is void of strength to recover or to execute the Christian
life. Faith without the controlling ministry of the Holy Spirit is futility,
just another human activity that cannot gain forgiveness or the approval of God
and has no part in the spiritual life. Homologeo,
the naming of sins, is the divinely ordained, grace method for reinstating the
filling of the Holy Spirit in the life of every believer. Only when filled with
the Spirit can faith be effective for living the spiritual life. The faith of a
regenerate person functions only under the filling of the Spirit.
The
exercise of human faith without the filling of the Spirit is a work. An act of
faith lacking the filling of the Spirit is merely a human endeavor to placate
God. Only rebound, the first divine problem-solving device, can operate without
the filling of the Spirit which initiates a believer’s recovery from sin, the
restoration to fellowship with God, and the resumption of the spiritual life.
Remember this principle: God cannot have fellowship with believers who add
human works to rebound.
While
God gives every believer thirty-nine irrevocable things at the moment of
salvation, there is one other gift, the fortieth thing, the filling of the Holy
Spirit, that can be interrupted through sin and lack of rebound or by
pseudorebound. When sin puts us out of fellowship, how can we recover the
filling of the Holy Spirit? Not by faith! Only by rebound! Only after recovery
of the filling of the Holy Spirit can faith even function in the spiritual
life.
Let
us examine the concept of faith. In eternity past our sins were collected in
one PROM
chip in the computer of divine decrees. The omniscience of God knew all the
knowable and programmed this one chip with all the sins of human history. The
impeccable humanity of Christ on the cross received the imputation of and the
judgment for all those sins. Our sins went before the Supreme Court of Heaven
and were expunged.
This
is why anyone who expresses faith alone in Jesus Christ can be eternally saved.
Yet this believing faith issues from a spiritually dead person. Such faith has
no value or validity in itself. The value of faith lies in its object, Jesus
Christ, and the validity of faith exists only through the power of the Holy
Spirit who causes faith to be effective for salvation. Faith is nonmeritorious;
the merit belongs to Jesus Christ for His work on the cross and to the Holy
Spirit who substantiates faith by His work of common and efficacious grace.
The
same is true of rebound. Naming your sins is nonmeritorious. Exoneration occurs
because Jesus Christ was already judged for all our sins on the cross. When we
name our sins, God takes over. His faithfulness and righteousness forgive us
from all wrongdoing. Not our faith, but His faithfulness secures forgiveness.
Our failures are our own, but our recovery depends on the grace of God.
Rebound
is never a work on the part of the believer. God does all the work. No
emotional purging, agonizing, godly sorrow, or penance is required of the
believer. Neither can the nonfunctioning faith of the carnal believer bring
forgiveness. We can recover fellowship only through naming sins to God the
Father. This is the mandate of 1 John 1:9. Once sins are named, then the
faith-rest life may again operate under the mentorship of the Holy Spirit.
Naming
sins is accomplished by a priest; a priest represents himself before God. Who
is a priest? Every believer in Jesus Christ. You are a member of a priesthood,
different from all priesthoods of the Old Testament. In Israel the Levitical
priesthood served all the nation. But every believer in the Church Age is his
own priest, a royal priest. At the moment of salvation the baptism of the Holy
Spirit places us in union with Christ, in the royal family and priesthood of
God.
Once
a priest, always a priest. There are two kinds of priests: a good priest and a
bad priest. A good priest is filled with the Spirit. A bad priest is in a state
of carnality. When a priest is carnal, how can he ever be spiritual again?
Rebound! Yet, even in carnality he is still a priest — just like the Levitical
priest of old who could be unrighteous and still hold his priestly office.
Regardless
of whether a Levitical priest was carnal or not, he followed divine
instructions as defined in the Mosaic Law. He was charged with interceding
between God and the sins of the people. What was the personal spiritual life of
the priest? We do not know — he may or may not have been in a state of sin. But
whatever the status of his spiritual life, he still followed instructions in
performing his priestly duties. Faith was not the issue; he was just to obey
instructions. When he followed instructions, even in carnality, God’s grace was
made visible to all and the rebound offering was acceptable to God.
When
the Church Age believer commits a sin, the sin nature takes control of the soul
and the Holy Spirit is quenched and grieved. The believer is powerless to
express faith that is acceptable to God the Father. He must simply follow the
instructions laid down by 1 John 1:9. Those instructions are to name or cite
the sins. Then, God takes over.
The
believer uses his volition to enter into sin. Likewise, he uses his volition to
follow divine instructions to recover the filling of the Spirit — to be
restored to fellowship with God. Just as the Levitical priest followed the
mandates of the Mosaic Law, so the Church Age believer must follow New
Testament instructions. Faith alone for recovery of fellowship is not part of
those directions. When you are out of fellowship, your faith cannot function.
For the believer faith is the vehicle for learning and applying Bible doctrine.
This faith-rest drill operates only in the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore,
recovering fellowship with God through faith is not part of the divinely
designed plan.
If
you examine your spiritual life in the light of Bible doctrine and discover sin
and failure, accept the blame and follow instructions. What are the
instructions? Name the sins that you know are sins, acknowledge them to God in
the privacy of your priesthood — no repentance, no works, no faith, no emotion,
no begging God for forgiveness, no “I’ll do better, I promise.” That is works!
You have just ignored God’s instructions.
A
subtle attack on rebound has emerged: Since faith is the requirement for
salvation, faith must also be the requirement for rebound. If you must believe in Christ for salvation,
likewise you must believe to recover
fellowship. Not true! Expressing faith is not the biblical mandate for
spiritual recovery from personal sin. In 1 John 1:9 homologeo charges you only to name your sins, admit your sins,
acknowledge your sins to God the Father. To follow any other instruction perpetuates
carnality and destroys the spiritual life.
Follow
your instructions! What could be simpler or reveal God’s grace more than naming
your sins in the privacy of your priesthood? Acknowledging sins does not
require faith. Faith without the filling of the Holy Spirit is a hollow gesture
devoid of spiritual power.
In spiritual death the unbeliever
has but one divine solution — faith in Christ. In postsalvation carnality the
believer has only one divine solution — to follow instructions and name all known
sins to God. Can we not conclude since it is faith alone in Christ alone for
salvation, it is also faith alone for rebound? This may be an intriguing
parallel but it is not God’s stated solution to the personal sin problem of the
believer.
Unbelievers are spiritually dead and
there is only one thing a spiritually dead person can do for salvation. He
cannot make a commitment; he cannot make Christ Lord; he cannot go through
agonizing emotional activity. He must simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
to be saved (Acts 16:31).
Should not the same be true for
rebound? Definitely not! Spiritual impotence characterizes a believer-priest
out of fellowship. Faith has no power to induce forgiveness from God. What is
the solution for the priest? The believer-priest simply follows divine
instructions. In the privacy of the priesthood name that sin or sins to God and
God takes over. Then the recovery of the filling of the Spirit provides the
power to utilize faith in the spiritual life.
Since Jesus Christ paid the penalty
for all sins, fulfilling the mandate of 1 John 1:9 is never an activity that
earns forgiveness. The acknowledgment of sins carries no merit in itself. When
you name your sins to God, you are citing sins that went to court at the cross.
God forgives based on the work of Christ, never our work.
Faith is never a requirement for
forgiveness from God, only the function of your royal priesthood in following
divine instructions. You must represent yourself before God. As a
believer-priest in the state of carnality, you cannot deploy any other
problem-solving devices, including the faith necessary to launch the faith-rest
drill. You are out of fellowship, minus the filling of the Holy Spirit. All
other problem-solving devices function only under the filling of the Spirit. As
long as carnality continues, you are helpless to utilize faith or the
faith-rest drill. That is why the instructions are so simple.
God is not emotional; God gave us
emotion in our souls as an appreciator to enjoy the wonderful things in life.
God’s solutions are not emotional. You can whine and mew and beg God’s
forgiveness. You can express an enormous amount of faith. You are wasting your
time — follow divine instructions! Name your sins to God privately!
Rebound is based on the function of
the believer’s royal priesthood. As a carnal or sinful priest, believers simply
fulfill the function of homologeo.
Naming your sins does not require faith. All postsalvation faith is related to
one of three stages of the faith-rest drill that functions on the filling of
the Spirit. The first stage is faith-mechanics. Faith-mechanics includes
claiming promises and doctrinal rationales and mixing them with the second
stage, faith-function. When you believe the promises of God under the filling
ministry of God the Holy Spirit, then faith is operational. The third stage,
faith-execution, relates to the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan
of God for the Church.
In a state of carnality the Holy
Spirit is quenched and grieved and, therefore, faith cannot operate. The carnal
priest must follow instructions by naming his sins to God. When he does cite
his sins, the recovery of the filling of the Spirit causes faith to once again
become operational.
You were not a priest when you
believed in Christ. Therefore, you employed faith alone in Christ alone for
salvation. Now that you are a priest, you can deal with your own sins. Follow
the priestly directions — name your sins; nothing more. When you name your sins
by obeying instructions, God’s actions are described in the apodosis of 1 John
1:9. Pistos, “He is faithful” — He
always does the same thing. You may have to name the same sin five hundred
times or more but He is always going to do the same thing. He never loses
patience. We cannot be consistent, but God is always consistent.
God is faithful, pistos, and He is also righteous, dikaios. His righteousness is not
compromised by forgiving your sins when you name them from the privacy of your
priesthood. When Jesus Christ went to the cross and every sin in human history
was imputed to Him, He insured that the righteousness of God could not be
compromised in forgiving the believer’s personal sins.
Because He is faithful and always
does the same thing and because His righteousness is never compromised, He
“forgives,” aphiemi, us the sins that
we name and He “purifies,” katharizo,
us from all wrongdoing. The sins we forgot to name, He forgives those, too.
Who does the work in rebound? God! We simply name our sins — sins that went to court at the cross. We are citing a case — the only case in our favor. The true principle of rebound is based upon the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross. Sins that we name to Him were all judged on the cross. Rebound works because God the Father imputed to Jesus Christ every sin that any human being ever has or ever will commit.