,
(Picture taken from Rich Ganz's
unrelated book about Corinthians)
I think I may have said this before, but it is tempting to believe that everything in the New Testament operates in a smooth continuum of the presentation of the gospel of the Kingdom to a people willing to listen, first by Jesus in the gospels and then by the 12 apostles and then Paul.
Ofcourse, Darkness being Darkness, and masquerading as Light all manner of wrangles are set up. It is part of establishing the Truth in a place. For it is not an intellectual Truth only, or else we would be told to put on the eyepatch of Truth, or the Mark Knopfler headband of Truth, but Ephesians 6 says we must gird our loins with Truth. Truth is more an innards thing which finds its expression....sometimes slowly as a clear articulation.
The clash of Kingdoms is in controversy. In Matthew we see this clash first of all in Jesus Ministry against the devil in the wilderness, and then against all manner of disease and affliction of the devil. Then as fast as Jesus is trying to withdraw to give special time for sharing with his disciples, people are turning up who, too, get healed, and despite being told to keep quiet, they blab it around their localities.
Then the controversies really begin with various individuals, and more specifically later the religious authorities. This IS the nature of Spirit Life invading a Kingdom of people who believe they are independent selves, independently controlled god-souls....but who are, once the false seeing of Adam and Eve is stripped away, simply containers for the alien spirit power of a usurping spirit....the one who has been a thief, liar and a murderer from the beginning.
Here are two of my run-ins over the weekend.
+++++++++++++++++++++
The first one is trying to get to the bottom of George's criticism of John Madden's material. And in the process learned still more of the connection between Jessie Penn Lewis, Keswick, Frank Buchman and Alcoholics Anonymous.
A Christian inventory reveals a new creation
20 September 2013 at 07:24
As we do our PERSONAL INVENTORY are we considering the effects of
Christs shed blood in our lives? The blood of Christ keeps our sins
washed away daily along with His death, burial, and resurrection. The
blood holds us up righteously and pure in the most adverse
circumstances. This inventory goes way beyond a mere change of
perspective. This inventory will immerse us in the reality of
redemption. By taking this inventory we will see that we can walk
through this life with righteousness. Why? Because we have righteousness
within! We do as Jesus siad we would do. That is eat His flesh and
drink His blood.
Before we accepted Christ we were a pure
"sinner". And we can still be! But once we have accepted Christ what we
become has little to do with us. It’s our job to see ourselves standing
in the Lord psychologically and socially, that is, in our stature and in
our interactions with OTHERS. We can see this because this is what we
are made into by the Lord. The origin of this reality has nothing to
do with our opinion of ourselves. We have been baptized into Christ.
Human reasoning has to be cast aside in light of the facts. We consider
what God has done for us.
It is the Holy Spirit that guides us
in our inventory and into the truth of it. God will reveal to us that we
(the church body, the body of Christ) have been made a new
creation. Our focus is to be on the finished work of Christ and how
His victory TAKES precedence over our old ways. His shed blood actually
seperates us from our sin. It is a continuing action. When you do your
inventory see your complete dependency on what Christ did for you. Do
not accept a different reality regarding who you are. Our attachment to
His shed blood, His death, His resurrection, and His love within us is
what defines us. We have consumed His blood we contain it. Let us factor
this in to our inventory. We have the life of God.
Our
character defects in the “psychosocial” are the terrible symptoms of a
lack of faith. God must be fully considered when we look at these areas
of our lives. He is right there within us making His blood effectiive.
Have faith in what God has done in you upon His finished work. God
within us is far different than what we were accustomed to before we
became born again. God has miraculous capabilities that He has placed
into your heart. As He once was in this world as Jesus Himself, you
are! We must keep the following in mind; the Holy Spirit lives in us
because the blood of Christ cleansed out a place for Him. His
blood separates our sin from us. Can you see the separation ?
My Comment on this : Hmmm. I don't think I understood George's position at all at this point.
Thanks
for your comments, Christ. The Plymouth Brethren and the Keswick
conferences after them taught, and Classic Pauline Dispensationalist of
our time, Miles Stanford agreed with their teaching, that Romans Chapter
Six had never been properly taught by the churches.
Romans 5 taught that we are justified by his blood. We were made right with him though his finished work on the cross:
Rom 5:9-11 “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we
shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we
also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now
received the atonement. KJV
The great men and women of God who came to Keswick, inspired by the
teachings of Hannah Whitall-Smith (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy
Life)* were not looking for salvation. They all, with hardly an
exception knew they were saved, but like Mrs. Smith they had wondered
why they still ‘struggled with sin.’ They thought being saved give them
the power to overcome.
At Keswick they listened to 5 days off teaching. Day One was to show
these Christian leaders that if they were not experiencing ‘power for
service’ it was because the still had un-confessed sin in their lives.
Day Two presented the 6th of Romans, as the cure for on-going sin:
Rom 6:3-11 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried
with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness
of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His
resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him,
that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer
be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin 8 Now
if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9
knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more.
Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He
died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but
alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. NKJV
On
Day Three attendees were asked to write down on paper all known sins
and confess them to another participant. Day Five was the day where they
planned to and began to make restitution for wrongs done. In later
years Day Six was a day when these folks made a commitment for mission,
and many went from Keswick to missionary work all over the world. They
went because somewhere in the 5 day process, as they came to know their
own wickedness and lostness, even as ministers of the gospel, they were
filled with the Holy Spirit and were empowered to a new level of
Christian service.
It was the teaching of Keswick that lit the flame of the Pentecostal
Revival in Wales in 1904-5 and led to the Azusa St Revival in the US in
1906.
Frank Buchman, who led a group (the Oxford Group) that was the
precursor to AA, attended the Keswick Conference in 1908. He heard
Jessie Penn-Lewis preach the message of the Cross and it changed him
because, for Mrs. Penn-Lewis, the message of the Cross was not just
teaching, it was a real experience she had gone though by a daily
confession of sin and a willingness to experience her death with Christ:
Phil 3:10-11 ‘That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
NKJV
Buchman adapted the 5 days of Keswick to the 5 things that an
Oxford Group Member needed to do to, first of all, change himself and
then to help promote change (conversion) in another. (His “World
Changers” movement revitalized churches around the world. The saved got
“sanctified”, filled with the spirit). AA took the 5 things and made
them into 12 steps. AA is clearly effective in ‘changing drunks, and we
do not criticize it that it does not have a vision for changing the
world like Buchman was doing because they got away from a purely
Christian way of talking about God to help drunks who hated God, take
baby steps toward Him.
The distinction which Keswick made was the difference between being
saved and being sanctified and the proof of the understanding of this
truth was in the power to bring change to others.
The split that there exists between me and John, is that John is
gifted to teach, but he is not particularly action oriented and is
either un-willing or is unable to move (john is more cognitive and not
kinetic - Romans 12 gifts) to the position that Keswick was setting
forth. John is not aware that his teaching is trying to justify self.
Keswick, the Oxford Group, and AA to an extent is focused on a process
(action, steps) of humbling self which destroys self-centeredness. John
seems to have fused together his own combination of justification and
sanctification that I myself have never heard taught the way John
teaches it.
John keeps arguing for the grace of God which makes him right with
God. That is not the argument. John is a sanctified, holy man of God. He
is just not dead buried and resurrected as much as he might claim that
he is. If he were, I would expect to hear of his experience of being
‘yet not I’ Gal 2:20 ‘Glorying in the Cross of Christ My Savior” Gal
6:14. I only hear his concepts.
The world needs to hear the message of the Cross. Millions have heard
that the blood has washed them clean, but they have walked away from
our churches disillusioned because no one took them to the Cross and
helped them stand in the place of death and their ‘after-salvation’
struggle with sin led them to believe that they were not really saved.
Many who came to Keswick in the 1800’s heard the message spoken but
could not hear it clearly enough to stand in the position that Keswick
advocated..
Since meeting John, I have tried to get him to shift his position; he
was remained “in his head about all this,’ and tries to fuse together
the blood and the Cross (confused). They are each beautiful aspects of
the same new creation and should each be fully presented.
Finally, I tried another tack, by confronting him about several
resentments he expressed, hoping he would see how resentment is stopping
him from standing in the position and experiencing the power of the
resurrected Lord. He claims to have no resentment and resents one who is
trying to call him to a higher level.
Chris, I appreciate your comments.
All that I have said here is contained in my book Absolutely Sober
The Plymouth Brethren and the Keswick conferences after them taught,
and Classic Pauline Dispensationalist of our time, Miles Stanford agreed
with their teaching, that Romans Chapter Six had never been properly
taught by the churches.
Romans 5 taught that we are justified by his blood. We were made right with him though his finished work on the cross:
Rom 5:9-11 “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we
shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we
also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now
received the atonement. KJV
The great men and women of God who came to Keswick, inspired by the
teachings of Hannah Whitall-Smith (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy
Life)* were not looking for salvation. They all, with hardly an
exception knew they were saved, but like Mrs. Smith they had wondered
why they still ‘struggled with sin.’ They thought being saved give them
the power to overcome.
At Keswick they listened to 5 days off teaching. Day One was to show
these Christian leaders that if they were not experiencing ‘power for
service’ it was because the still had un-confessed sin in their lives.
Day Two presented the 6th of Romans, as the cure for on-going sin:
Rom 6:3-11 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried
with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk
in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death,
certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of
sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of
sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died
with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no
longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to
sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11
Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but
alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
NKJV
On
Day Three attendees were asked to write down on paper all known sins
and confess them to another participant. Day Five was the day where they
planned to and began to make restitution for wrongs done. In later
years Day Six was a day when these folks made a commitment for mission,
and many went from Keswick to missionary work all over the world. They
went because somewhere in the 5 day process, as they came to know their
own wickedness and lostness, even as ministers of the gospel, they were
filled with the Holy Spirit and were empowered to a new level of
Christian service.
It was the teaching of Keswick that lit the flame of the Pentecostal
Revival in Wales in 1904-5 and led to the Azusa St Revival in the US in
1906.
Frank Buchman, who led a group (the Oxford Group) that was the
precursor to AA, attended the Keswick Conference in 1908. He heard
Jessie Penn-Lewis preach the message of the Cross and it changed him
because, for Mrs. Penn-Lewis, the message of the Cross was not just
teaching, it was a real experience she had gone though by a daily
confession of sin and a willingness to experience her death with Christ:
Phil 3:10-11 ‘That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
NKJV
Buchman adapted the 5 days of Keswick to the 5 things that an
Oxford Group Member needed to do to, first of all, change himself and
then to help promote change (conversion) in another. (His “World
Changers” movement revitalized churches around the world. The saved got
“sanctified”, filled with the spirit). AA took the 5 things and made
them into 12 steps. AA is clearly effective in ‘changing drunks, and we
do not criticize it that it does not have a vision for changing the
world like Buchman was doing because they got away from a purely
Christian way of talking about God to help drunks who hated God, take
baby steps toward Him.
The distinction which Keswick made was the difference between being
saved and being sanctified and the proof or understanding of this truth
was in the power to bring change to others.
The split that there exists between me and John, is that John is
gifted to teach, but he is not particularly action oriented and is
either un-willing or is unable to move to the position that Keswick was
setting forth. John is not aware that his teaching is trying to justify
self. Keswick, the Oxford Group, and AA to an extent is focused on a
process (action, steps) of humbling self which destroys
self-centeredness. John seems to have fused together his own combination
of justification and sanctification that I myself have never heard
taught the way John teaches it.
John keeps arguing for the grace of God which makes him right with
God. That is not the argument. John is a sanctified, holy man of God. He
is just not dead buried and resurrected as much as he might claim that
he is. If he were, I would expect to hear of his experience of being
‘yet not I’ Gal 2:20 ‘Glorying in the Cross of Christ My Savior” Gal
6:14. I only hear his concepts.
The world needs to hear the message of the Cross. Millions have heard
that the blood has washed them clean, but they have walked away from
our churches disillusioned because no one took them to the Cross and
helped them stand in the place of death and their ‘after-salvation’
struggle with sin led them to believe that they were not really saved.
Many who came to Keswick in the 1800’s heard the message spoken but
could not hear it clearly enough to stand in the position that Keswick
advocated..
Since meting John, I have tried to get him to shift his position; he
was remained “in his head about all this,’ and tries to fuse together
the blood and the Cross (confused). They are each beautiful aspects of
the same new creation and should each be fully presented.
Finally, I tried another tack, by confronting him about several
resentments he expressed, hoping he would see how resentment is stopping
him from standing in the position and experiencing the power of the
resurrected Lord. He claims to have no resentment and resents one who is
trying to call him to a higher level.
Once again, thank, Chris, .
All that I have said here is contained in my book Absolutely Sober https://www.createspace.com/3730731
You
can find A Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life and The Centrality of the
Cross, and Miles Stanford's 'Green Letters" free at:
http://www.thechurchofbrotherlylove.net/.../recread.htm The Church of Brotherly Love: Recommended Reading.
www.createspace.comAbsolutely Sober tells the story of the origins of Alcoholics Anonymous in 19th
Century
Evangelical Christianity. The subtitle is taken from a phrase written
by AA co-founder Bill Wilson as he described the cost living a
God-directed way of life in order to stay sober: Simple but not easy; a
price h...
Why
is this book above interesting? And what has this to do with Morris
Cerullo's idea of a 3 or 5 Day Scool of Ministry? Well the roots are
Keswick Convention's Holy Spirit initiated framework of communicating
the real kernel of the Romans Gospel message
over 5 days, which became the framework offered in the 12 step AA
programme. In the background is again Jessie Penn Lewis. Jessie is the
one used to communicate the message of Galations 2:20 as inner knowing
to Norman Grubb. Her agenda wasn't even to do this. She wanted Norman to
be baptised in the Spirit. So here we have further proof of the major
fork that occurred because Norman, like many British people, are simply
too damaged by the way they are raised in leftbrain over dependency to
take the gospel at face value. "Repent,be baptised and receive the Holy
Spirit." Since that time we have had two main houses in Christendom
worldwide. Both valid. Both separate, when the true explosiveness of the
gospel is when both are twinned, as in the coming move of God ...As
Smith Wigglesworth prophesied ...a Move of Word and Spirit. But both
Keswick and Morris Cerullo have both proved that major fruit can be
detonated in just 5 days of meetings....SO WHAT HAPPENS SAINTS when both
ingredients are put together????
My Comment : This last bit was a separate status I had written because I was so fascinated to learn of the Keswick framework.
Two natures
I die a natural body, I am raised a spiritual body: 1 Cor 15:42-45
So
also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption,
it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in
glory. It is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being." The
last Adam became a life-giving spirit. NKJV
“I”,
(the natural body, the body of sin) am (is) crucified with Christ,
nevertheless, “I” (the spiritual body) live(s)….ek etai ego (yet not
ego) (yet not ‘I”) Gal 2:20
When
“I” takes the position that “I” is dead in Christ, “I” then stands in
the place of crucifixion and “I” then, in faith, begin to experience the
resurrection. “I” then is seated (sits – having entered my rest) in
heavenly places with Christ:
Eph
2:4-7 4 “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with
which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive
together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up
together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus”, NKJV
While
I am dead buried and resurrected and seated in heavenly places, the old
man is not yet dead, as I still have (has) a mortal body. The mortal
body is the repository of the old Adamic life and I will need to daily
allow the Cross to cut away the old man, (the circumcision made without
hands, by daily confessing sin.) It is a nasty business, “I”(the old
man) has been quite wicked. But if “I”(the new man) is willing to be
fearless and thorough and stand in the certainty that ALL SIN has
already been nailed to the Cross, “I” (the new man) can rejoice in my
daily walk in the spirit for there is now no condemnation for those who
walk after the flesh but after the spirit. “I” (is) am not trying to
walk holy, but when “I” find(s) my SELF (the ole nature) backslidden
(still with sin as I am sure to find), I simply confess, “this is sin.”
and “I thank you Lord that this does not take you by surprise, because
you knew what you were getting when you bought me.” (At first I may say,
“I thought I was really a wonderful Christian because I was choosing to
not smoke, drink, look at pornography etc. –self righteous) (but then I
begin to learn) I am so glad that you are showing me not to try to walk
in my own power, but in your spirit.
The best part of all is the Yet Not I.
Once
I have stood in the position that I am the body that dies and I am the
body that is raised from the dead, the duality that you spoke about,
what begins to happen is the self, the old man, begins to shut up. The
I…I…I…I…loses its ability to tell me what to do, or threaten or judge or
condemn me. When it condemns me, I say, “You are right, I am a
worthless bum. Thanks for helping me with my inventory. Let’s take this
to the Cross. After a while it quits accusing me. (This is not the
devil, the accuser of the brethren. This is self which acts on behalf of
Satan, but has been dealt with at the Cross.)
"Yet
not I" is that place of singleness of vision that you mentioned. But it
is no longer “I” or put Paul's way “I” no longer live(s). Christ lives
in me. (not left brain, not right brain)
This
is my testimony: I am dead. I no longer live. Christ lives in me. I am
Holy, and perfect in Him. I have entered my rest and eternity while
still here in the world. I am the resurrected body of Christ. I am the
Church. And if you are dead in Christ, then I am in you and you are in
me, even as Jesus is in all of us and He is in the Father and the Father
is in Him. We are the Body. I am the Body. Do I still sin? Yes, I am
still in the body here on earth. But I am a paradox, a wicked evil man
whom God has made Holy. A sinner saved by grace. A new creation.
The second thing I had a funny feeling about is from Colin Lagerwall
I really didn't like something his wife wrote a while back, and I have realised since then I really don't like what I call the South African gospel. This is not so much the gospel of say Rob Rufus who is now in Hong Kong, but it's a particular Calvinist Reformed swing against the rather glib "sign along the dotted line " evangelism of many evangelical and charismatic churches there in the last decades. Both aren't necessarily God....although God can use both positions...because He moves BEYOND our rather thin understandings.
I wrote on my status:
Colin
Lagerwall writes "Exclusion is a word which proclaims the antithesis of
faith, for if 'I am' excluded from anything of God unless I have the
faith to believe......." My answer was : I think this is coming out of total
reaction to a leftbrain South African experience of "sign along the
dotted line evangelism". It's like trying to correct one leftbrain truth
with another opposite leftbrain truth.
If
we are not in faith we are judged already. It's the John 3:18 dilemma
He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been
judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the [f]only
begotten Son of God.
God seeing the whole thing comes from
outside the spider's web and invades it and corrects it, and you are
shortcutting this in the global picture by saying see God loved us all
along and did the whole thing all along...which is also true. But by
declaring that big panorama too soon you actually cut across what Jesus
spoke Himself, which is kinda rude. It's like you are afraid of the
reality of the Darkness and have to call it Light all the time, even
down here. I guess we can do that...but it robs people of their own
right to their own faith. And this is one of the problems with trying to
hold all of God's stuff simultaneously in a South African leftbrain.We
need the whole Word . I guess a similar thing would be to just talk
Isaac all the time and not to include the entire Abraham Isaac Jacob
package. Isaac is a good example because he really represents us getting
everything on a plate.
