If you recognize the picture here you’ve likely done some study into the earliest generations surrounding the Christian Religion in the world. The picture is from around AD 200 from Italy depicting a mockery of the idea of Jesus being a Savior who was crucified. A man worshipping this crucified man with the head of a donkey is being mocked. It’s not exactly a work by Raphael but it gets the point across. More details below. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is foolishness to a lot of people. To believe in many miracles is. It is humbling to read the Bible and to bow one’s head to it.
But the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is the answer to the sin and death of this present world. Adam, the first man—with his wife—sinned, and plunged creation into separation with God. But God, having decreed it all, has promised he will renew his creation. Cf. Romans 8:20-21. Man has lived in this fallen intermediate period of existence since. Through Christ’s earthly life the promise to fix it all is now nearly done. The next phase of God’s revealed plan to erase our sin and the death and suffering married to it will be Christ’s return to earth, a final judgment, and then that new heavens and new earth will arrive.
Back to this picture. Everett Ferguson writes: “The popular ridicule of Christianity is seen in the graffito scratched on a stone in a guardroom on Palatine Hill near the Circus Maximus in Rome. The figure of a man with the head of an ass is shown hanging on a cross. Nearby another man raises his hand in a gesture of adoration, and the inscription reads, “Alexamenos worships his god.” Jews had been charged with worshiping an ass; this calumny was here transferred to Jesus. As repulsive as the picture is to Christians now, it conveys strongly how contemptible the idea of a crucified Lord was to pagan thinking.” (Citation: Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, Third Edition (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 596.) Paul writes under inspiration: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 (NASB95). The Cross is the superlative of all of this. The Creator, the King, the only eternal being washing the feet of sinners and making propitiation for them on a Cross?! Get outta here with that nonsense!  
I hope Alexamenos got it though. (We know nothing of him at all outside of this by the way). Reader, Christianity is accessible to everyone. From the most august to the least esteemed. From the brightest to the dullest. The world mocks God, but according to the passage above, God will mock and shame the world who denies his wisdom in the Resurrection of Jesus. Consider one other passage with me today if you would please: “…God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Note the varying reactions: “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” Acts 17:30b-32. This was preached in Athens Greece within sight of the Acropolis with the Parthenon to Athena and the other false gods and goddesses atop it. Greece! Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander, and then Paul (the only one inspired) with a message of crucified King that turns the tables on all Greek religion.
Reader, let me be frank. If you’re not going to be in hell for your sins, just like back throughout Greece where Paul ministered the seeming foolishness of Christ crucified, it’ll be because the triune God, by the Cross of Jesus, has saved you. Be like Alexamenos. Yes, others will mock you. Trust me I know. But repent and believe the good news. You won’t be disappointed. Worship Jesus. The Cross wasn’t the end of the story. He is risen, and he is most highly exalted. Again, be like Alexamenos, get in on the ground floor now. And may God richly reward your wisdom in doing so!

In response to a video put out by Governor Gretchen Whitmer on or about 10 Jul 25 here: https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1943423466620731866 I respond with the following. Governor Whitmer is a rabid Democrat pro-abort.

@GovWhitmer is obviously not speaking for the boys and girls executed in Michigan. She's not speaking for every adult in the state or the country either. And we can see she's more than willing to "make decisions for people" by supporting unjust judges against the will of others. People like Whitmer should be in prison. I'd settle for unemployment, but the problem in Michigan is just like anywhere else justice is absent-- it is the people.
Yes, the people. "We the people" are the problem; the Whitmers are a symptom. (This is clearly not a political post.)
Abortion is a sex problem. We want it so much we'll slay even our little ones to have it, so long as they can’t complain. I think that just like it's the people with itching ears who prop up for themselves false teachers in churches and thus share responsibility for their teachings it's the same governmentally anywhere leaders support abortion. Why is America soaked in the blood of our kids with roughly 1 in 4 adults of child-bearing age having actually (literally) murdered? It's because the majority of us have either done it, support it, or just don't really care enough to stop it where we're able to...because we want sex. If our daughters get pregnant we'll offer our grandkid up on the "her future" altar. If our sons get a girl pregnant we'll "support their decision" on the same. Yes, we are the issue and God has hardened us in our recalcitrance. It's not, "If we don't turn" he will, no, our current pride and degradation is God's just and terrible judgment. Romans 1:18-32 and the realities of 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 alone prove us. We are given over. Whitmer should be justly imprisoned tonight...and would be by the just will of a just people. She's not because we're not.
But the solution cannot be top down. A president can't "fix it." We just don't have enough prisons. We need something more to change us so I'm writing this to be a part of it. I’m writing this to call out to you for it. In just a few years more than my lifetime alone nearing 70,000,000 innocent people have been mercilessly slain in the U.S. They should be here and they're not. This must end. We need a massive continental revival. We need men to take responsibility over their families. Grandfathers, like your sons, you need to repent, follow after Jesus, and talk openly and often about it.
The answer isn't politics or even families. We need grace. Unless God by his Gospel (https://subsplash.com/u/bibleciacom/media/d/yhyg24x-gospel-message-may-2018) moves in our nation to change the hearts of the people who come after us, and in his people in the churches to shake off the evil apathy, we'll continue to see people like Whitmer in office. We're almost surely too far gone in my generation. We deserve to die in the desert like the Hebrews of the Exodus generation. We’re far worse. God alone need not but can heal us. Perhaps the next generation will be better than we are by the grace of the only God, the God of the Bible.
Politicians will do whatever the people want. Please see again this last sentence.
Reader, repent and follow after Jesus today. He rose again from the dead. Believe the good news. The war you will not win can end tonight, and you can find rest for your soul. When God's truth is first his love never fails, and may our children and grandchildren say the amen.

"Wherever the bishop appears, let the congregation also be present; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church." -Ignatius to the Smyrneans ~AD 110 (citation below). The man wrote this on the way to his execution. 

The word “bishop” here simply means “pastor” or “overseer.” Long before there were Protestants, the Constantinoplian Orthodox, or the Roman Catholics, men could understand that the church, wherever it was found, was wherever there was the truth of God’s New Testament (NT). Where the Spirit himself was worshiped in his truth, there was God nurturing the elect by himself in the means ordained. We even see this first among Christ and the Apostles in many places in the Gospels and Acts. From the very start when sent out, wherever the disciples were received, their peace went upon a place. Luke 10:5, etc. After the Ascension, all things proper flowed out in the NT from the proofs that it was in the homes, staircases, riversides, prison cells, or street corner shops that it was not from any mountain top (see John 4:21 in context) that Jesus would be found, but from redeemed people wherever God placed them. In God’s providences this was also then wherever qualified men pastored formal churches as we generally think of them today with Christ as their only head. The Spirit in his laborers was powerfully preached by those with the keys of the kingdom going out to the world’s harvest with the message that saved and the truths that sanctified the saved. This is just as we Baptists (and many others) still practice righteousness today where there are pastor/teachers/elders and deacons at work among all the saints...just as reflected in Ignatius' early day. From Jerusalem (not Geneva, Wittenberg, Rome, or Constantinople) the people went out to the world with no headquarters but heaven. It was merely upheld at times, though always imperfectly, in all true churches from Geneva, Wittenberg, Rome, or Constantinople, etc.

The church still exists upon the truth. If you're in a good Bible believing church (today it will be called Protestant) you're potentially a part of the best of nearly two thousand years of the catholic (worldwide) church. We are all of us like a vessel (with a feasting and singing crew) sailing ever downstream to the warm gulf of eternal life. Our history as Christians includes many bumps with the shoreline. Shoot, we’ve needed emergency patchwork below the water line at times, but through every watch the vessel has only one wise and vigilant captain who values the training in his sovereignty and so the indestructible vessel continues to sail downstream without the possibility of total shipwreck. Many have taken lifeboats off to their death, but the vessel can’t crash. Christians today, just as always, base their faith in Christ and are afloat. They base their trust fully upon the supernatural (hands off to all others) Resurrection of one Godman, not upon any subsequent sacraments or mega churches, but upon the head, heart, and soul of the church- our triune God who is found only in Christ. Christ did not just do ‘more of the same’ from the Old Testament (OT) to the NT, as men falsely believe(d) the OT to have been. The OT was as much a faith by grace alone as the NT. God gave the promise to Abraham by faith, not by Law. (See Galatians 3:18 and connect Hebrews 6:13 in their respective contexts.) In Christ, faith by promise alone, with the Law now added for the forensic clarity of grace alone to the whole of the church, is made crystal clear in the NT. See Romans 4:23-25 in context. We needed Jesus. Romans 8:1-4 alone makes an “other gospel” idea of a sacramental salvation as pathetic as one by circumcision. (And yes, I’ve read Peter’s epistles). Salvation by water should be as condemned as imagining that circumcision is what saves. May the reader understand that the Christ came to do for the church what no works from it could do or even share in doing. See Romans 8:1-4 again. He came to secure his own grace over his own judgment. It is not “we” but “he” who is our Savior and he will not share his glory with another, not even those who are or just falsely claim to be in his church. Isaiah 45:21; Jude 25; et al. The demanded work stoppage of a Sabbath in Christ (see John 6:29) is foolishness both to the world and also at times even to men thinking carnally in a church. God can use confusion, but the Lord has shown us why we must strive to protect the Gospel both from the world and from the church at times. We must keep it shut up entirely in Christ alone because we are all sinners. We are sheep prone to wander and we will deny him his glory. We want to trust in us and in our works. We’ll call grace what he calls self-righteousness. We want to lean upon what we have done. This is like a warm blanket to fallen or weak man. We cannot touch, taste, or see Christ with our natural selves, but we do so by the miracle of union with him even more powerfully. We need a miracle for this. He then transforms us by grace and by grace in our works. Paul reminds the sheep to rest in Christ. Here’s what that looks like: “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:5-7. Note: we have done the works. We are running our race! We are to seek caloric deficit in the race! But that’s not why he saved anyone ever or how. We cannot pretend to schedule God’s redeeming grace. John 3:8. Men always resist the Lord…naturally. In short, we always want to pretend we can be made perfect by the flesh. See again Romans 8:1-4. Christians must war against trusting in themselves. They must put the sin of synergistic self-sufficiency to death at every possible level along with all the others Christ came to deliver his laborers (not a slip) from. It is always carnal man’s religion to buy a god’s graces. But those who understand Calvary weep at the idea of no one being able to loose the scrolls…while then and only then being placed to receive the Gospel of the only one who could and did. Revelation 5:2-5. He is risen! Jesus has loosed the scrolls! Stop weeping and rejoice, oh church, and proclaim him! God has said he will not justify wage workers, Romans 4:1-8, but trusters only. It takes a miracle and sanctification in the same to trust in Christ and to lean upon the justification of faith. It takes a miracle to taste this. Christ, in his life, fulfilled the Law’s requirements…in us…and thus there is no condemnation…now…in all those in him. I could never trust this unless the greatest of miracles took place in my stoney heart. John 5:24. Who believes in what he hasn’t seen? Answer: every believer. Friend, reader, I would not believe and taste this life without a new supernatural sort of a heart or tongue. I invite you to the truth that hands them out. Christ died for sinners in his love. Now repent or your sin and believe the good news. I could not believe that I have eternal life with the Lord Jesus Christ without the life of Christ. And I am a Protestant because I believe that the Gospel never changes. I neither add nor subtract anything to the truth Christ gave the world in Scripture. God’s churches have been teaching this message since the start…wherever the truth has gone, just as Ignatius said.  

And war has sharpened the church’s senses.
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Ignatius quote: Derek S. Dodson and Katherine E. Smith, eds., Exploring Biblical Backgrounds: A Reader in Historical and Literary Contexts (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018), 235.

Earlier today I saw a video on Facebook. I clicked away to write a response and lost the link. I had to search for a bit but found one cut almost the same. That’s what’s linked to below. You’ve seen a video just like it, I’m sure. A young female athlete from Colorado’s Thompson Valley HS, who opened with prayer in the first clip I saw, was speaking at what appeared to be a school board meeting for a group of about a dozen other girls against boys playing against them in her sport. You know the kind of video I’m talking about. She talked about how girls get physically hurt by boys in sports, etc. In her speech, she said something that struck me. She said, “My goal by giving you this speech is not to shame or put down any athlete. Me and the rest of my team believe that everyone deserves to be and feel however that they would like.” Others were smiling and nodding in affirmation. She said this while speaking against boys in girls’ sports.

This is both good and sad to me. Good because these young ladies are taking a stand, but sad because they’re sending a confusing message and may themselves still be very confused about the nature of the problem.

We as a people need to stop affirming that transgenderism is OK…at all. They did a good thing here standing up against it in sports, sure, but we just can’t say- as this group did- that it’s fine or OK for someone to do something on the one hand, but then on the other hand say they just don’t want to compete with boys in sports who do it. We can’t say that it’s OK…we just don’t want anything to do with those who do it in sports. If it is in fact OK, why can’t they compete?! See the issue? It’s precisely because it’s not OK that it shows us why they shouldn’t compete. You can’t affirm that it’s OK but then say it’s just not OK on the field.

Why? You have to remember that the most depraved of “leaders” among us (well inside the last decade) have written things like “gender or genetic identity” into civil rights. To them, being a so-called “transgender” (a fictitious word since no one ever actually changes sex/gender) is just like being old, Muslim, or Asian. So, if these girls were to say that it’s perfectly OK to be Asian but that they just don’t want to compete against Asians in sports they’d be sending a very confusing message and what they’d actually be saying is that it’s not OK to be Asian. Now just substitute Asian for transgender. Why are you saying you don’t want to compete against someone who’s just different? It’s weird now to not want transgenders on a field or in a locker room…but only to weirdos. That’s kinda my point. This is a wider cultural/people issue now, and we need to take a stand against it wholesale to help change. We can’t be duplicitous. Even if you’re not a Christian you know that transgenderism is wrong. You cannot call anyone who looks into a mirror and dislikes who they see unless they see something else in costume looking back “healthy” in any sense of the word. That would be far worse than pretending that a woman who’s already 50 pounds underweight yet sees herself as fat and starves herself is healthy for doing it. If we love the anorexic we will tell her. We won’t say it’s perfectly fine to be anorexic. If we love the so-called transgender we also can’t say it’s fine.

Tell the truth my friends, transgenderism is just not OK. I understand the limits of government here, but I’m talking about ethics among us as a people, not government legislation. My hope is not in politics. Legislators are just people too. They’ll do what we tell them, and politicians will do what gets them or keeps them in office. The problem is not primarily the legislators; it’s the people on your left and right. It’s our sons and daughters we’ve failed to educate who say that transgenderism is OK. Like people in churches who heap up for themselves false teachers to tell them what they want to hear, so it is in our country with our politics. The problem is the people; the results are those in office who represent them (at least supposedly anyway). Transgenderism is wrong. Please, say this in love, but say it clearly. These are people we’re talking about, not just ideas. Lives are ruined both eternally (you understand this if you’re of God) and temporally (you should understand this). It is objectively wrong in every way to pretend to be a transgender person. And remember that being too nice for too long can be a distraction. They are the perpetrators after all. We’re not nice to rapists. We should not be nice to thieves. We should not be nice to sex-traffickers. And we should not be nice to the perverts who pervert children. Jesus said that anyone who comes to him will find in him a heart that is gentle, so we who love him should want to be like him in his gentleness but at the same time it would be better for any person (parent, friend, judge, king, politician, “pastor”) teaching children that transgenderism is OK to literally have a millstone hung around their neck and to be cast into the open ocean than to stand before Jesus at the judgment. That’s what God says on this issue I have no doubt. Transgenderism harms everyone among us, and it especially harms vulnerable children. It is purest evil. Shunning it is the only appropriate cultural response to it, but our culture is the issue. Nevertheless, decency is why we shouldn’t want it around. And there’s more at stake here than a medal, a trophy, or even a scholarship, all things which also play a proper part. Think of the confused people that we don’t want to be confused anymore! What kind of message would it be for a dad to tell his son that it’s perfectly OK for him to dress up like a girl, leave makeup and dresses in his room, and then tell him it’s just not OK to do it in public? Clearly, he’s at best confused. No, it’s not OK to do it out there because it’s not OK to do it. And so, no one who loves their child encourages them to do evil. It is clearly wrong to be transgender and that it has resultant mental issues when you pretend you’re the opposite sex/gender that God made you. We should not respect transgenderism, but we must love and respect transgenders.

So, I want to see more actions like this of people both young and old saying why they don’t want boys in girls’ sports and vice versa because transgenderism is entirely unacceptable. That would be a much clearer, helpful, loving, and more consistent message. And yes, our girls would be protected on the field too, as they deserve to be.

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[A video like the one I first saw was posted by an Instagram group called, “Breaking911” (https://www.instagram.com/breaking911?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZWoyMnkxempycnNm). I don’t follow them or know anything about them, but I saw the video they posted. On 7 Jun 25, it was a video available at this link on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/reel/1888399721978438).]

“For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.” Hebrews 7:18-19.

The Law made nothing perfect. No one was perfected by it before God. The Law was given to the Hebrews around 1446 BC, but sin, in a real sense, reigned over all of humanity from Adam (the Fall of man) to Jesus. Question, reader: how perfect do we have to be to enter God’s heaven? To enter his very presence, how righteous must we be? What do you think? Do you have to be perfect? John writes: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.” Revelation 22:14. How clean must those robes be? In the chapter prior, John again: “Nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Revelation 21:27. I will argue that one must be perfect to not go to hell. Yes. 100% Perfect. So, who’s going in? I guess it’ll just be God and his elect angels there, right? How many sins did it require for Adam’s eyes to be opened to his (and our) expulsion? Just…one…sin. I’d argue in the inverse then that not one sin can remain to enter heaven! Not a single one! That’s how perfect we must be. We must have all sin gone. We must have our robes washed from every stain. No defilement enters heaven. None!

Reader, no, the Law never perfected anyone, but God has. Since long before the Law was even given, with his eyes on his Cross, God has extended his graces to his elect. Yes, that’s not everyone, but of that whole sea of humanity presented in Revelation 5, not one of them “deserved” God’s grace. John cried (vs. 4) at this fact when he says, “No one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it.” All of this intentionally sets up the Godman, Jesus of Nazareth, the one we call the Christ to loose the scrolls.

Back to Hebrews. Jesus’ incarnate life (he’s eternal God) merits him the title “perfect” in Hebrews 7:28. He alone is the “Son made perfect forever.” So, he’s perfect. But the author’s main point is that this perfect one is the Christian’s mediator, see 8:1. The writer crystalizes his main point as he continues. By the time we get to 10:14, through the New Covenant God has made, we’re told that it’s not just the Son who is spoken of as perfect, but that he: “Once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Hebrews 9:26. Whose sin? He had none (cf. vs. 14), so it wasn’t his sin he put away. Was it the sin of any of the angels? No. Was it the Father’s or Spirit’s sins? No, of course not. So, whose sins were “put away” by the perfect one’s Cross and New Covenant? Bow down! “By one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14. Reader, the perfect one, by his perfect covenant, has perfected his church. There is a perfection in full yet to come, but perfections are also already enjoyed. If you miss this, you miss the Gospel. Romans 4:1-8.

You must be perfect to enter heaven. Nothing less than perfect. There’s only one man who can make that happen, and he’s right there where you are. Repent. Trust in him alone who died and rose again from death. He shares his glory with no one. He shares his glory with no ordinances (or sacraments). He shares none of his glory with anyone or anything else. Trust in him and you show yourself already perfected…as you are being sanctified.

Here's more: 
https://subsplash.com/bibleciacom/media/mi/+yhyg24x

Psalm 130:3-4 (NASB95): “LORD, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.”

This is a line in one of what was called a “Song of Ascents.” It was a song celebrated while heading to Jerusalem to come together on an annual occasion as God had commanded Israel. It was a song of remembrance of the precious promises of God’s mercies given to the people. Reader, the whole of God’s work among his people has always been a presentation of his grace and grace alone in this fallen world. They knew it too and they sang about it…a lot. From the start, God’s dealings with Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham (especially clear), Moses (him too, absolutely), etc., were always works of his grace. God’s covenant with Israel was always one of unmerited grace. You could no more “earn” God’s grace in Moses than you could today in Jesus! Both the Law and the Gospel now work together to reveal God’s grace in the lives of those who’ve done nothing to deserve it. The Psalmist here says that no one could stand if God were to judge them while singing also of his forgiveness. But this all still prompts me to ask a question when I read this line of the Psalm.

Question: if you felt that nothing you did could ever please God, would you care to try to? Think about it in terms of parenting. If a child feels they could never please a parent, they would soon stop trying to wouldn’t they? It is precisely the opportunity of mercy that makes love with God worthwhile. A self-righteous man at this point may same something seemingly pious like, “I would serve God even if it meant hell at the end” but this isn’t the reality of service for a single Christian so it’s a meaningless phrase. Reader, there is the potential of grace with God for anyone reading this. That’s why you should fear him. That grace is why you should repent. You should turn to Jesus in repentance because he loves and will welcome all who do so.

The Psalmist says it well in two parts here. Part one- if God were to simply hold a person accountable for their sin, no one would pass the test. No one would be guiltless. There would therefore be no point in repentance because God would accept no one on the grounds of their own standing. James writes: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” James 2:10. This was true in the Psalmist’s Days as well as the days of James. Sin once and in a very real sense it’s as if you’ve broken all of the Law, and you too need God’s grace. This reality was not lost on God. He was under no delusion before the Fall in imagining a world where even some people would be guiltless. No, he knew that the Fall in Adam would result in a completely spoiled humanity. His plan for Creation included this reality. But he will forgive a sea of humanity so large no creature could number it. Are you to be one of them?

In part two, the Psalmist says that God offers forgiveness and thus is feared. God afflicts is children to restore his children. He gives his Law and his grace to them. He calls men to repent because he accepts their repentance. The Psalmist understands this. In the lives of all his readers, there is this offer of grace in life. God offers grace and so he is to be feared. Take him up on his offer of grace. Turn to him and he will receive you. There is grace with God. So fear him. He does accept. He does pardon. He does wash. He does bless abundantly.

God bless!!!

The following post was in response to a Catholic objector on YouTube, @MrJayb76, on 6 Feb 25. He objects to the idea of justification by faith alone as a Roman Catholic. He has scorned and mocked Martin Luther’s insertion of the word “alone” into the German New Testament in Romans 3:28. Was Luther wrong to add the word “alone” into the passage? Does Romans 4 not present a salvation entirely by faith alone? Below are some points in response to the objections of @MrJayb76. His words are first, then my responses follow in italics. The matter often becomes to expansive in these debates. Especially in writing. I try to stay focused on Rom. 3:28 and the other passage we had brought up in Rom. 4.
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@MrJayb76: The word alone is not in that verse and you are making things up by saying it is implied.

The word “alone” is not merely “implied” there, you misunderstand, it’s “demanded”. To insert contrary word ideas like “some” or “most” into Rom. 3:28 would obscure the very point, sir. It would be contrary to the passage to render it: “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from [some or most] works of the Law.” The word “alone” need not be physically inserted to be demanded from the text. Using an opposite idea renders it absurd. Abraham, long before the Law, was not justified by any of his works is the point next in Rom. 4. We have brought up the chapter. Paul goes back to the very first Hebrew. Abraham had works as did David, surely dear sir, but he was not reckoned righteous on account of any of them. If he was, this would *destroy entirely* the main point in vs. 6: “…blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.” It would be like inserting “some” or “most” into Rom. 3:28 again. The chapter concludes by including each true believer in the same faith alone faith as Abraham. To say we can be justified (initially or otherwise) by 17 works would be as against Paul’s point there as saying by 1 work. If one does not see the demand of grace alone here supplied fully by Christ, a veil lies over one’s face.
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@MrJayb76: No one for 1500yrs said the word alone is implied in that verse. This is totally intellectual dishonesty.

Gobbledygook. I can provide you multitudinous resources to substantiate the contributions of each name (and far more) that follows, sir: Irenaeus of Lyons, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Hermas, Clement of Rome, Athanasius, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Didymus the Blind, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, Basil of Caesarea, Hilary of Poitiers, Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, Oecumenius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ambrosiaster, Victorinus, and many more. These are all men from whom I find my present day Baptist/Reformed- now far more refined by the Holy Spirit and the exposition of the word of God- doctrine of justification loved and exalted. Rome, as you believe it to be, is less than one thousand years old. And these men named, all long before, would all oppose it as apostate today I say. None of them believed what you do, sir. None! Stop pretending they did. The necessary fights of these men were not against the later sacramentalists tacking their papal priestly payrolls onto the Cross of Christ for salvation. Others in the church later, removing the sinful tacks that came after them are the ones who fought that. We still do today. Amen. It’s true that justification by faith alone received its proper attention in the era of the Reformation. Sure. Like Trinity in the fourth or the opposition of homosexuality in the 21st, but this doesn’t make it a shred less apostolic! Period. God is most gracious to all who call on him. Grace was understood from the start. Articulations that underscored it later in the Reformation against departures into sola ecclesia invented nothing honestly.
 
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@MrJayb76: Furthermore Paul is clearly talking about circumcision in that chapter. Circumcision will not justify us before God but faith "working itself out through love".

Paul uses Abraham’s circumcision in Romans 4:9-12 as the quintessential example of his purpose stated up front in vv. 1-8. Here’s 4-5: “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Abraham’s imputation (ἐλογίσθη) of righteousness was unmerited. Entirely unmerited. This is what makes grace grace, sir. Your view, by the very words you offer next, are contrary to Paul’s, and try to make the works of Abraham (except circumcision apparently) the actual grounds of his final justification whereas Paul’s point is entirely otherwise (see vv. 4-5 yet again). You have I believe likely starved and killed the horse that should go before the cart, sir. I notice how you then import Galatians 5:6 to try to prop up your beliefs, but you are clearly the one blind to the glorious beauty of Christ in Romans 4, sir. https://biblecia.com/blog/2019/01/04/imputed-righteousness.
I don’t think this guy was confused: [Mathetes to Diognetus: “He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange (substitution)! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors! Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life, and having now revealed the Savior who is able to save even those things which it was [formerly] impossible to save, by both these facts He desired to lead us to trust in His kindness, to esteem Him our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counselor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honor, Glory, Power, and Life, so that we should not be anxious concerning clothing and food.” Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume I, Mathetes to Diognetus, Chapter 9.] This is the imputation of righteousness demanded in Romans 3-4 that we love and proclaim. It’s not new. I have nothing new to proclaim that Christ didn’t. This quote isn’t from the Reformation Era, but it could be!
 
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@MrJayb76: And how convenient for your to ignore Romans 6 where actions ARE required to maintain that initial salvation not gained by any actions.

Are you “ignoring” Leviticus 8:6 or any other passage if I simply bring it up in a response? I’d be silly to say so. I’m not “ignoring” Romans 6. Not in theology, and not in my life, sir.
Two audio messages from me on works in the Christian life:
https://biblecia.com/media/9rsnr9j/works-glorious-works-a-protestant-examination-of-the-role-of-works-in-the-christian-life-71-min
https://biblecia.com/media/7qzbq2w/christians-are-never-saved-without-their-works-25-min
 
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@MrJayb76: You are clearly confusing initial justification with ongoing sanctification.

No sir, we do not confuse that justification which is always by faith alone (Romans 4, et al) and the on-going daily process of sanctification, which is by the same grace alone, yet accompanied by a life of the repentant pursuit of holiness without which no one will see God. Your un-apostolic views assert that there is such a thing as “initial justification” and “final justification” but this is patently false. There is glorification to come, yes, but there is no probation and all true believers, contrary to modern Rome’s aberrations, are to speak of God’s love and grace toward them as the apostles did…without presumption, arrogance, or boasting. One writer (a non-pope) fully agrees (see 1 Peter 1:4-9). One justified will be glorified (Rom. 8:29-30) by the same Lord’s election, his same free and sufficient grace, and that salvation that I pray is for you too that began in Christ alone before the world was. Paul’s witness here in Romans 4 is that a man who “finds” what Abraham found is that same “blessed man” who’s sin will *not be imputed to him because it was imputed to Christ “who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.” Rom. 4:25. He calls David to witness. And I bear mine as well.
 
Grace to you.

I posted a video on Biblecia.com back on January 24th of 2025 called “The Doctrine of Scripture Alone (Sola Scriptura) as a Response.” On YouTube (https://youtu.be/Oxqv0_mgVeg?si=2Uj4EddKGi2WF0En), I got the following response. I thought I’d share my reply.

Response from @MrJayb76:
Who practiced SS in first 1000yrs? In the same way you practiced it. Who taught it? Why wasn't included in the Nicene creed? It is ridiculous to use a 15th century accretion to judge over a thousand years of Church history and practice. You are so wrong. Even scripture itself doesn't teach it. The word alone was added. You added it. The whole meaning of the text changes substantially once you add the word alone. To say that the church fathers whom you mentioned believed in SS as you believe in it is total intellectual dishonesty. All those church fathers were catholic through and through. Even your cherry picking is a joke.

My reply:
Below the line below is reference. At the risk of too much simplicity, sir, let me begin by saying that I think everyone on the right side of any issue practiced SS, sir. Those in church history who didn’t were, for example, among the majority of emperors and bishops who were Arian against Athanasius. The majority of “the church” taught that Jesus was a created being. Heresy, but these were the bishops and caesars, etc. That belief is not and was not "apostolic." It is not "biblical." Athanasius, against that overwhelming majority of the erring church in his day, was on the right side of the matter precisely and only because his opinions were biblically substantiable. That's SS from him before the buzzword. And no one at Nicaea believed what you do today about the papacy anyway. No one! I can prove this easily, but this response'll be long enough.

Schisms abound in history. The only thing that protects the church is the Scripture. Those who teach it well continue. Those who don't will die off. I assume you’re a Roman Catholic given your stated position, sir. I could be wrong. And I don’t know which of the 250 or so modern Catholic denominations you’re a part of, but if you believe what Rome believes of itself today, that view is not as old you’ve been taught. About half as old I’d say. Goes back about 1K years if I had to calendarize it. Overall, going all the way back, it’s a set of beliefs today that like an acorn has now grown into a tree producing all manner of rotten fruit on the gospel, Mary, and the church and its sacraments. Why? Because it's un-biblical. And every church "father" who was on the side of truth would agree with me today. No one for the first 1000 years of the history of the western church affirmed what you would say today is definitional of your faith. So, you can’t just magically make people in antiquity Roman Catholics any more than I can magically make them Reformed Baptists. Both are developed ideas we must contend for. Period. But in my opinion, each church “father”, just like any person today, would have to be presented (for example) a doctrine like the Immaculate Conception which no one taught before around the start of the 1100's with any sort of popularity. If a church "father" affirmed it, he’d be "in" with Catholics today. If he denied it, he’d be entirely out. Anathema. So, you can’t rope in the ancients by developed modern definitions. And especially once an idea of “dogma” comes into play and something becomes "infallibly declared" by a group.

Why wasn’t SS in the Nicene Creed, you ask? Well, it was. The creed is biblical and all Christians should affirm it...with the caveat of its revisions throughout history for 100's of years. But why wasn’t the infallibility of the pope in it? Why wasn’t Mary as a perpetual virgin, etc.? Do you dismiss those ideas because they weren't? No. It just wasn't the issue discussed. SS developed, as my video outlines, and this is CRUCIAL, in *response to the drift that took a lot of time among those who didn’t practice it. Question: if (argument sake) no one believed that submission to the Roman papacy was essential to salvation before 1869, does that make it impossible to state it in 1869-1870 at Vatican 1? If it was believed by all, why state it? SS comes because men, in their error, began teaching the late medieval idea that submission to the Roman bishop was needed for salvation. Once you’re that far from the Faith, and that took time, then an idea like SS, which corrects such ideas, becomes something clear. When challenges to Jesus’ humanity arose, answers about his true humanity become crystallized by those on the right side of matters such as at Chalcedon. And this is SS.

We could all be accused of cherry picking, sir. Romanists are the best at it. In summation, our position is that all opinions certainly biblical are acceptable. All those that aren’t, aren’t. That has been the position of the true church from the start...even when the papists were heretics. Today, this truth separates the church from the Italian and Turkish ones.

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Here’s a helpful Reddit thread (those do exist) on those who articulated our current view on SS that I found helpful and plenteous. Sir, it is we Protestants who stand with the true and ancient church, not the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox (who you also BTW anathematize and they both you and us). Please, carefully read the posts here and see if they check out historically: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChristianApologetics/comments/13v5hv/the_early_church_fathers_on_sola_scriptura/?rdt=42167.

This thread is what’s below:
Hippolytus (170-235) “Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, and lived not very long ago. This person was greatly puffed up and inflated with pride, being inspired by the conceit of a strange spirit. He alleged that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father Himself was born, and suffered, and died….But the case stands not thus; for the Scriptures do not set forth the matter in this manner….the Scriptures themselves confute their senselessness, and attest the truth…The Scriptures speak what is right; but Noetus is of a different mind from them. Yet, though Noetus does not understand the truth, the Scriptures are not at once to be repudiated….The proper way, therefore, to deal with the question is first of all to refute the interpretation put upon these passages [of scripture] by these men, and then to explain their real meaning….For whenever they wish to attempt anything underhand, they mutilate the Scriptures. But let him quote the passage as a whole, and he will discover the reason kept in view in writing it….if they choose to maintain that their dogma is ratified by this passage [of scripture], as if He owned Himself to be the Father, let them know that it is decidedly against them, and that they are confuted by this very word….Many other passages [of scripture], or rather all of them, attest the truth. A man, therefore, even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowledge God the Father Almighty, and Christ Jesus the Son of God, who, being God, became man, to whom also the Father made all things subject, Himself excepted, and the Holy Spirit; and that these, therefore, are three. But if he desires to learn how it is shown still that there is one God, let him know that His power is one….What, then, will this Noetus, who knows nothing of the truth, dare to say to these things? And now, as Noetus has been confuted, let us turn to the exhibition of the truth itself, that we may establish the truth, against which all these mighty heresies have arisen without being able to state anything to the purpose. There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practice piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us took; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them.” (Against the Heresy of One Noetus, 1-4, 7-9).

Irenaeus (175) “They [heretics] gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures…We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith….It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and to demonstrate the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these heretics rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to ‘the perfect’ apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon to the Church, but if they should fall away, the direst calamity….proofs of the things which are contained in the Scriptures cannot be shown except from the Scriptures themselves.” (Against Heresies, 1:8:1, 3:1:1, 3:3:1, 3:12:9).

Ambrose (330-397) “For how can we adopt those things which we do not find in the holy Scriptures?” (On the Duties of the Clergy, 1:23:102) “The Arians, then, say that Christ is unlike the Father; we deny it. Nay, indeed, we shrink in dread from the word. Nevertheless I would not that your sacred Majesty should trust to argument and our disputation. Let us enquire of the Scriptures, of apostles, of prophets, of Christ. In a word, let us enquire of the Father…So, indeed, following the guidance of the Scriptures, our fathers [at the Council of Nicaea] declared, holding, moreover, that impious doctrines should be included in the record of their decrees, in order that the unbelief of Arius should discover itself, and not, as it were, mask itself with dye or face-paint.” (Exposition of the Christian Faith, 1:6:43, 1:18:119).

Clement of Alexandria (150-215) “But those who are ready to toil in the most excellent pursuits, will not desist from the search after truth, till they get the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves.” – Clement of Alexandria (The Stromata, 7:16).

Augustine (354–430) “In order to leave room for such profitable discussions of difficult questions, there is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind….In the innumerable books that have been written latterly we may sometimes find the same truth as in Scripture, but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself.” – Augustine (Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, 11:5) “Every sickness of the soul hath in Scripture its proper remedy.” (Expositions on the Psalms, 37:2).

Cyprian (248) “Let nothing be innovated, says he, nothing maintained, except what has been handed down. Whence is that tradition? Whether does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the commands and the epistles of the apostles? For that those things which are written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying to Joshua the son of Nun: ‘The book of this law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.’ Also the Lord, sending His apostles, commands that the nations should be baptized, and taught to observe all things which He commanded. If, therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel, or contained in the epistles or Acts of the Apostles, that those who come from any heresy should not be baptized, but only hands laid upon them to repentance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed.” (Letter 73:2).

(MY PERSONAL FAVORITE HERE)
Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386) “For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell thee these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.” (Catechetical Lectures, 4:17) “This seal have thou ever on thy mind; which now by way of summary has been touched on in its heads, and if the Lord grant, shall hereafter be set forth according to our power, with Scripture-proofs. For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures.” (A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Oxford: Parker, 1845, The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 4.17).

Dionysius of Alexandria (265) “Nor did we evade objections, but we endeavored as far as possible to hold to and confirm the things which lay before us, and if the reason given satisfied us, we were not ashamed to change our opinions and agree with others; but on the contrary, conscientiously and sincerely, and with hearts laid open before God, we accepted whatever was established by the proofs and teachings of the Holy Scriptures.” (cited in Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, 7:24).

Gregory of Nyssa (335-394) “we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings…And to those who are expert only in the technical methods of proof a mere demonstration suffices to convince; but as for ourselves, we were agreed that there is something more trustworthy than any of these artificial conclusions, namely, that which the teachings of Holy Scripture point to: and so I deem that it is necessary to inquire, in addition to what has been said, whether this inspired teaching harmonizes with it all. And who, she replied, could deny that truth is to be found only in that upon which the seal of Scriptural testimony is set?” - (On the Soul and the Resurrection).

Basil the Great (379) Enjoying as you do the consolation of the Holy Scriptures, you stand in need neither of my assistance nor of that of anybody else to help you comprehend your duty. You have the all-sufficient counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you to what is right (Letter CCLXXXIII, ANCF, p. 312).

Hilary of Poitiers (300-368) “Their treason involves us in the difficult and dangerous position of having to make a definite pronouncement, beyond the statements of Scripture, upon this grave and abstruse matter….We must proclaim, exactly as we shall find them in the words of Scripture, the majesty and functions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and so debar the heretics from robbing these Names of their connotation of Divine character, and compel them by means of these very Names to confine their use of terms to their proper meaning….I would not have you flatter the Son with praises of your own invention; it is well with you if you be satisfied with the written word.” (On the Trinity, 2:5, 3:23).

Jerome (347-420) “When, then, anything in my little work seems to you harsh, have regard not to my words, but to the Scripture, whence they are taken.” (Letter, 48:20) “I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books [Scriptures], to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else.” (Letter, 53:10) “When Paula comes to be a little older and to increase like her Spouse in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man, let her go with her parents to the temple of her true Father but let her not come out of the temple with them. Let them seek her upon the world’s highway amid the crowds and the throng of their kinsfolk, and let them find her nowhere but in the shrine of the scriptures” (Letter, 107:7).

Justin Martyr (100-165) “And now, if I say this to you, although I have repeated it many times, I know that it is not absurd so to do. For it is a ridiculous thing to see the sun, and the moon, and the other stars, continually keeping the same course, and bringing round the different seasons; and to see the computer who may be asked how many are twice two, because he has frequently said that they are four, not ceasing to say again that they are four; and equally so other things, which are confidently admitted, to be continually mentioned and admitted in like manner; yet that he who founds his discourse on the prophetic Scriptures should leave them and abstain from constantly referring to the same Scriptures, because it is thought he can bring forth something better than Scripture. The passage, then, by which I proved that God reveals that there are both angels and hosts in heaven is this: ‘Praise the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the highest. Praise Him, all His angels: praise Him, all His hosts.’” (Dialogue with Trypho, 85).

Theodoret (393-457) “I shall yield to scripture alone.” (Dialogues, 1) Here is a good quote from J. N. D. Kelly: The clearest token of the prestige enjoyed by (Scripture) is the fact that almost the entire theological effort of the Fathers, whether their aims were polemical or constructive, was expended upon what amounted to the exposition of the Bible. Further, it was everywhere taken for granted that, for any doctrine to win acceptance, it had first to establish its Scriptural basis (Early Christian Doctrines, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978, pp. 42, 46).

And on and on and on it goes. We could all be accused of "cherry picking." My stance as a Protestant is on the 66 books we call Scripture. That is the sure foundation. All others are sinking sand.

Grace to you!


And I posted another short reply just afterward to address a point he made saying:
And "adding the alone" does change one's interpretation, sir, but when the errors you're correcting by that alone must be corrected to go back to what has been lost, that change is needed and holy and life-giving.

There’s no way to avoid division in life. What I’m determined to seek after is what’s outlined in 2 Timothy 2:24: “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged.” Confrontation marked Jesus’ ministry, so I know this kindness CAN’T be the absence of strife. They wanted to kill him for his teaching. Well, I’m not him, but I do try to follow him and teach his teachings. He promises me I’ll be hated for it…Matthew 5:12…and he is correct. I barely suffer, but I have suffered greatly for the gospel and I do still suffer. I’m not alone in this and my affliction is light. Others were tortured and killed for him, of course, both in the New Testament and throughout all of history.

Just after Paul’s words above to Timothy he says, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” 2 Timothy 3:12. It…will…happen. Paul’s ministry also was full of conflicts and stresses, yet he wrote what he wrote in truth and a sincere conscience.
So, might I suggest a balance between that which leads to an easy spirit and the conflicts of evangelism and outreach? Ask yourself if there’s balance in your life. If there’s not, balance it. Seek that which brings about peace while knowing it will not always work. Be gentle. Paul says that Timothy: “…you man of God…pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.” 1 Timothy 6:11.

Jesus shouted at the people at times and spoke of the condemnation of whole cities, yet there was a sweetness to him that’s unmatched. Are we modeling both the truth and his compassion? If not, we’re doing something wrong.

Grace to you...

I watched a 22-second video today of a group of four young ladies from the University of Kentucky dancing in front of a guy on a college campus who was protesting abortion. God bless him. They were celebrating abortion with a mocking dance with a few declaring how they’d immediately “kill their baby” if they got pregnant. They also said things like, “No uterus no opinion” to him and other commonly recycled yet easily refuted slogans. Here’s the link if it still works: https://x.com/LifeNewsHQ/status/1874490041415897469. I’ve seen a lot of these kinds of videos. Here’s a longer treatment from me on the history of abortion in the US and how Christians ought to wage war against it: https://biblecia.com/blog/2021/07/12/abortion.
I've prayed for these ladies before posting.
Reader, they're not victims. (Nor are the “men” who participate in all this by the way.) I know these girls have been duped by the collective “choice” darkness of our age, but this doesn't mean they're innocent. It's the contrary actually. In all humility as a Christian, I have to say that I believe these young ladies, as they appear today, represent in part the purpose of the wrath of God over the world as a whole. God judging the bloodthirsty idolater who would lay a baby’s little life down on the altar of their own is a justifying purpose for his wrath if there ever was one. I know it’s likely not the subject of your church’s present new year’s sermon series, but Paul teaches us that God wants to demonstrate both his love and his wrath over humanity. It’s not just one or the other. Romans 9:22 says, "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?" These ladies (and the men and “medical personnel” responsible) would be among the vessels of wrath prepared for hell. They're murderers, or at least those who celebrate murder. See Romans 1:32 for a clear description of God’s judgment on such. Perhaps all of these ladies have already taken a life. If they haven’t, they would tomorrow if they needed to. I cannot imagine a more wicked reality than a woman who would celebrate her liberation in the death of her own child.
Reader, please hear me say quickly that I believe Christ died for those who have had abortions. There is grace and mercy available. All of us deserve judgment for our sins. This post is directed against the ignorant and unrepentant such as the ladies dancing in the video I saw. And this stance is quite common today in this generation. It is in fact the majority view.
As much as I would personally call these ladies to the Cross and to the love of God if I could, and would rejoice if they came to him, I know that God's sword presently hangs just above their heads. If they do not repent and aren’t saved, which they might, their just destruction would be a fulfillment of God’s purpose in wrath. Reader, you do know that there’s a hell, right? That God made it? Why does this world with all its evil still persist? In part, God’s mercy is not done. Yes! In part also, God’s wrath is not done. He wants both to save and to judge.
Reader, God is a terrifying judge. He is dreadful and wrathful, and while his mercy is what makes all the difference in us as his children, vengeance is still his he says. See Romans 12:19. Christians cannot be averse to this. We should not be embarrassed about it. God is angry with sinners (Psalm 7:11) and there is no good news with him at all outside of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for any of us (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). In Christ, however, there is good news for all of us, even the bloodthirsty abortionist who will turn.
These ladies hate God. They're not "indifferent," and again, they're not innocent; no, they hate Jesus. Their deeds have made them enemies of God. Colossians 1:21. If he lays down his words and the Spirit does not turn them, they'd spit in his face if they could. These ladies love death. Proverbs 8:36 is spiritually tattooed on their hearts: "He who sins against me wrongs his own soul; all those who hate me love death.” They literally love death enough to call it by another name and call it “choice.” Abortion is key to their "freedom" in the sexual immoralities and idolatry they love and worship. We should all remember God's words regarding such folks if we love God, love them, speak gospel truth, and want to properly call them to life:
"‘Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver from My hand. For I raise My hand to heaven, and say, “As I live forever, If I whet My glittering sword, and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to My enemies, and repay those who hate Me. I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the heads of the leaders of the enemy.’” Deuteronomy 32:39-42 (NKJV). This is Jesus’ threat to these ladies today. Have we forgotten?  
I will preach to such ladies as often as I can. I go out to college campuses where such roam free for now, but God’s wrath isn’t distant. God will save so we go. I have hope for people because he has his vessels of mercy. He loves to turn sinners into saints. He alone can. He will.

Let’s honor our faith by honoring all of God’s word in our lives.

Happy new year!
Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Reader, even the most sanctified of followers alive today is still a universe away from that closeness he or she will know with God in the life to come. Christ’s work is not complete in any living saint reading this. In this life, we are justified in Christ entirely, and we are in that salvation sanctifying if we’re smart, but the work of God he calls our “glorification” is still pending for anyone reading this. The triune God isn’t finished with you. Take heart! This devotional post isn't exhaustive on the subject of holiness. Not at all. But I do pray it's exhortative!
The way we grow as disciples is not a mystery to the Bible reader. Following Jesus, though there are times of war and times of peace, looks similar for us all worldwide. There is a recipe. We pray, we study/hear, we repent, we rejoice, we fellowship. In short, we work. This is the recipe by which the Son speaks to his people these days and makes them holy. And no one goes to heaven without these works! 
Nope, not even the thief on the Cross did (if you were thinking that). He bore the fruit of repentance and by faith he confessed his desire for Christ his Savior to remember him. That confession, by God’s grace, was an acceptable work done by him. It isn’t what saved him, it was just the evident believing work of a saved man who was about to die. Everything we do in life in our union with Christ is either something acceptable or unacceptable before God. We either need to repent of it or rejoice in it!
Are you following the recipe? If you are then you’re blessed and you know what I’m talking about. You may not see all the fruit of it how you think you should but I encourage you to continue to follow the recipe. It’s a recipe that you should be partaking of often. It’s not one batch it’s an on-going product. If you have a “bad batch,” toss it and follow the recipe afresh again. Repentance is tossing it out. Obedience is putting it together again. Pray this short prayer today if you must: “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.” Psalm 51:12. And may it be life to you, friend!
If you’re to be fruitful, you can’t live in un-confessed and on-going sin. You…just…can’t! If you cannot rejoice in Jesus and you’re in fellowship someone’s reminded you of this within the past month I’d say, and you, in your sin, haven’t listened. You can fake it, but you won’t progress in your heart and mind. I want you to have that growth you want. Paul told Timothy something that just floored me this week. It is a summary statement for all of Christian ministry. Paul said, “The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5. This is what your pastors want for you. Repent, follow Christ, let him give it to you through the means he’s ordained in his limitless wisdom.
Lastly let me add that the recipe includes sales. You have to give to sanctify in Christ. It’s just a part of his wisdom. You receive in order to give. You have to receive love from the Lord and find ways to be a giving to others of what you’ve received to others. That’s it! That’s the recipe. That’s why study, prayer, and fellowship (works) matter. It all only works because of God’s grace. So, if you must repent, do it and don’t look back. There is nothing sweeter than Jesus and that “…love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” that comes with his smile upon your life.  

One of the most wonderful, shaping, compelling, inspiring, and repentance-sustaining passages in all the Bible for me for decades now has been Jesus’ wonderful words in Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (NASB). What a promise! When I think of these words, I just say to myself, “No matter what comes in life I ain’t gonna miss that! I wanna see God!” Yet just this week I saw how I was missing a huge point of the passage. The words took on new life this week. What I’ve done with the passage over the years is sort of inadvertently slip something into it. Not formally but whenever I thought of it I slipped in the word or the idea of “one day” into it. So, it read to me: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall [one day] see God.” Now of course, every reader of the passage knows that this isn’t wrong. Jesus does mean this. No one has yet seen of the triune God what believers will one day see of God when they stand face-to-face with him. When the meek “inherit the earth” (vs. 5) I believe it speaks most directly of that new heavens and new earth to come in glorification. That’s future. So, there is future in view here in Jesus’ promise. There is indeed something that is not at all yet.

However, what I was missing by inadvertently seeing this as only something for the future was something of the present reality of it. I’ve lived it, but seeing something in these words this week has been a blessing. The pure of heart get to see God today. That’s believers. When I kill my sin by the Spirit’s words, I see God. Sin will keep me from “seeing God” today. When I love my wife I get to see God, today. When I hug my kids I get to see God, today. When I go to work I get to see God, today. When I wake up this morning and my leg cramps for no apparent reason I get to thank God that it doesn’t usually do that and see God, today. When I type this letter and I think of all of the ways this week that I’ve gotten to see God I see God in the present. Sin will keep me from that reality today. In my life now I can see God, not just in the fulness of the reality of this that’s to come, but today. Because he’s purified my heart by faith (Acts 15:9) I get to see God’s word at work, today. And this is what he desires. Now, the world couldn’t care less, but for me, who is no longer of the world, I do. This is glorious. I can see him when I die, yes, and before I go to bed tonight, all by the same purifying faith he’s given me to live out!

There is something in this that comes in the humbling consideration of it. There’s an old phrase I’ve come to appreciate that says, “Those who put everything in God’s hands will soon see God’s hand in everything.” What I hope to tell you today is that Matthew 5:8’s promise is both for tomorrow and for today, and that I hope that you’re seeing it. I hope that the Lord himself is being glorified in your life today. And into all tomorrows.

I currently live just north of Tampa, Florida. As I'm typing this, the weather outside my study window is showing strong and dark signs of the soon overhead category 3 hurricane named "Milton" that's on its way. It's the first storm of this magnitude that Tampa has dealt with in about a hundred years. And I just moved back here last year! Great! It was a category 5 then a 4 out in the Gulf of Mexico just days ago but as expected it's dropped down in intensity as it hit some windshear nearing the state and also some cold front air coming down from the northeast and is now a category 3. The eye of this storm will basically move right over my home around midnight tonight. My family of six and I are staying put and have made all the preparations we could. We live in an area that is not a danger zone. We're way far enough inland that even a twelve foot storm surge of water won't get anywhere close to us. Even a 20-foot can’t move far over land. And remember, we're all still seeing the effects of Hurricane Helene that didn't even directly hit this area just days ago. I raked up several huge bags of sticks and debris from the beautiful oak, magnolia, and palm trees in my yard just days ago.

Global warming is a joke by the way. But I digress.

As I was driving into my place of work Monday, which is the church I work at now that I'm retired from the military, I was sitting at a stoplight near I-75 thinking. All the cars and trucks were busily making their turns, u-turns, stops, and starts. All of us headed somewhere. People coming home to loved ones, people leaving loved ones. Some wouldn't even make it where they were going. People living in great home situations, and people in abusive situations. People drowning in debt, people doing quite well financially. Black, white, thieves, liars. Singles, married people, divorced people. People addicted to drugs. People addicted to pornography. People with OnlyFans pages. All kinds of people, likely only some in Christ and most not. But you know, despite all of their varying demographic and salvific realities, every one of them was fully aware of this storm. They'd all seen the news, talked to someone about it, and made decisions. As I sat there, I asked myself- "What if everyone was as aware of the coming storm of God’s anger and judgment as they are of tiny Milton?" What would the world be like if we took heed of Jesus' words about this?

As I drove to work, I was reminded of a teaching by the great Ray Comfort. Ray grew up in New Zealand and did a lot of surfing. Surfers would float facing inland and look to the ocean horizon for waves. Little while lines in the surf. When they'd see these signs he said they'd yell out, "big set coming!" When they heard it, they'd begin paddling like crazy toward the shoreline because in seconds they'd be on a wave. Surfers could guess the size of the waves given the lines they saw coming. Ray used this as an analogy of what all the prophets have said about God's coming judgment on the world.

I recently concluded a study of the writings of the prophet Amos. Amos was prophesying around the mid-eighth century B.C. and spoke of a coming judgment on Israel for their unrepentant national and individual evils. His words were fulfilled around 722 B.C. This was a local judgment on Israel, by Assyria, by God. Like most “minor prophets,” Amos spoke of this time as one of great judgment to come. It’s a terrible message they shared, but God would judge his people. Period. And future generations could learn from it or not.
But, as terrible as this judgment was, it’s literally nothing compared to what’s coming on the world. Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:10-13-
“10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. 11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”
Folks, “BIG SET COMING.” Jesus came to forgive. This message of judgment, from which he rescues his elect, is a message of Jesus. (Matthew 25:31-33, cf. Matthew 10:15; 11:22; 12:36; John 5:22-24; 28-29). Hebrews says, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.” Hebrews 9:27. Judgement is true of us all both individually and collectively. There is a global judgment to come that we’ll all be a part of, but God’s covenant in Christ changes everything for the believer. The believer in Christ only will not face a judgment for their sin.
Jesus hasn’t told me what’s going to happen to me, my family, or my property tonight as Milton literally passes through my neighborhood, but he has told me plainly that when I die, I will not stand guilty for my sins. That I will receive a “not guilty” ruling from him. He has told me, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” John 5:24. This I know for sure. I didn’t come to Jesus for hurricane insurance. I have a company that I pay for that. I came to Jesus because I know that evil exists, that I’ve done my share of it, and that God hates evil and those who love it. I came to him because I knew I needed to be forgiven. How? Because someone told me about it. Through that, I was convicted of my sin by God. So, in faith, I came to the Cross because I knew I needed grace. And that grace, ever since, I now have firm in every storm.
How about you?  The truth is that everyone at that intersection on Monday has heard about Jesus. The Gospel has gone forth in this fallen world. We live in a time, place, and culture where I’m nearly positive this is true of every single one of them. We’ve all heard. But we have not all listened? What about you? Read the Bible.
 
Friend. This may very well be my last writing. God is love. We ain't. Repent. Believe in Jesus. Be free. No one knows what midnight will bring in this life. But one has died and rose again and told us exactly what truth is regarding our souls before him.

On 25 Sep 24, @MrCasey62 on X re-posted this meme from @cjohnsonn0311 above with the following response:

“Just going to keep reposting this every time Protestants lie: The Catholic Church has NEVER ONCE taught that indulgences forgive sins. This is exactly why so many Catholics think Protestants are simply unintelligent.”

I replied to @MrCasey62 with the following:

Sir, I’d like to respond.
It’s been well said that “He who frames the argument wins.” You’ve put forth a clear frame here. "The Catholic Church has NEVER ONCE taught that indulgences forgive sins." I'm terrified by the power many seem to think they hold to simply redefine the past at their pleasure.
I agree that there's a nuance to the idea of indulgences that many misunderstand, and I don’t want to intentionally misrepresent or certainly not “lie” about anyone’s doctrines, but it's not as far off as you're framing it to be. If I announce a “free hamburger…” outside my store and then in fine print on the inside counter put “…with the purchase of a soft drink” it’s false advertising, but not false advertising…if I can reframe it how I wish. The Catholic Church does teach something else regarding indulgences other than a blanket pardon of sin or the promise of future pardon for it, so the meme you responded to is likely more sarcasm than anything else, but the premise is not far afield given the church's teachings. One Catholic source gives a nuanced definition similar to one you present saying "An indulgence is the extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment due, in God's justice, to sin that has been forgiven, which remission is granted by the Church in the exercise of the power of the keys, through the application of the superabundant merits of Christ and of the saints, and for some just and reasonable motive." (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm). So, it's not a forgiveness for sins, per se, it's a removal of purgatorial punishments for sins already forgiven...if one is in good standing with the Catholic Church already. There is a nuance here. There is a difference here, but it just comes down to field semantics.
Sir, none of us get to ignore history or just redefine it away. Rome's abuses in the past on the doctrine have done more to create confusion than anyone’s ignorance. Remission of purgation of any sort, being that purgation only regards those whose sins are not yet completely removed, is not at all a far cry from believing that an indulgence straight up forgives one’s sins. There's a nuance, okay, but it's not like it's a Grand Canyon-sized chasm. It’s more like five feet wide. You do a thing, walk up some stairs, walk through a doorway, etc. and pay a customary fee and, if you're a good Catholic doing it in faith, you (or someone you know) get(s) blessing(s). That's all intact despite the nuance you’re highlighting. And it's still a dangerous falsehood. Indulgences have no basis in Scripture at all.  
When St. Peter's Basilica was to be built just about 500 years ago, indulgences were sold wholesale under an auspice you don't get to simply disregard. They were sold under the pretense that they could a) reduce one's time in purgatory, which you agree, and b) that they could affect one's loved ones already in purgation. Were other things understood alongside these ideas that weren’t papal teaching? I imagine so, yes. Could much of the confusion be opposed to much of cherry-picked/retained “official teaching?” Yes. Okay, but wrong beliefs about indulgences didn't come from nowhere. They came from Rome’s actual teachings. It violates the modern sensibilities of modern far western Catholics, but it’s history.
The Reformation was tipped off by the gross abuse of indulgences in Europe. The 95 theses of Luther (which I'd bet my bile duct you've not read) center on indulgences for a reason. And Luther was still a loyal priest when he wrote them. The treasury of merit is a terribly false doctrine with no basis in the apostolic faith. The abuse of indulgences is indeed an embarrassing abuse of the idea that most Catholics today would even say was wrong. I’ve spoke to priests who fully agree with that statement.
Indulgences are a dangerous idea, whether abused or not, that center on the un-biblical idea of the treasury of merit. It's an extra-sacramental exclusive sacramentalism. Period. And they should not be practiced.
Indulgences are still practiced today, they're just not nearly as abused. What they (falsely) offer are blessings for observances...customarily observed with alms giving. It's easy to see the confusion many had and have regarding this un-biblical idea. It made millions. I’ve been to the Vatican. I’ve been in St. Peter’s. The tourism today makes far more than the indulgence ever did. The confusion on the matter is a fact, okay, but it’s not the confusion that’s the problem, or even the abuses of it that are, it’s the established idea of an indulgence at all that’s the problem. It’s the un-biblical idea of the treasury, the keys, the papacy. But that’s clearly a wider issue. With respect, we’re not all ignorant or liars, we just deny indulgences in every sort.

Everyone knows that there have been disputes about the proper interpretation of the words of Scripture ever since the start. Even before the canon of the Bible was completed there were schisms and other gospels that Jesus and his first disciples all encountered. When we read the New Testament we see this over and over. Such will always exist. Until Jesus comes again, there will always be varying levels of division. Having said this, reader, what are your "non-negotiables" in the Christian Faith? What are those things that you know that God in Scripture has so emphasized that you'd say without them the Faith of the apostles is so compromised that it's lost? If you say there are no such things, I think you're wrong. If you say there are a thousand such things I'd say you're wrong. There are of course a lot of subjects in the Bible, but not all of them, or even most of them thankfully, are things that Christians should divide over. As we practice love and longsuffering with each other through all the non-divisive disagreements we actually get to show that we fulfill the law of love in Christ in many ways as we forgive, bear with each other, and strive for peace.
One thing worth dividing with people over, however, is the nature of the grace of God in Christ. Justification, being by faith and faith alone, is an essential. Without it, the Cross is forfeit. Unmerited grace is essential to the Christian religion. God died. He doesn’t share the glory of the redemption thereby accomplished with us. Paul understood this. So, when Paul said to the Galatian believers: "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" in Galatians 3:3, what's going on there? Why was this so important to faith of Paul? It's true that much of the letter was meant to correct erring brothers and sisters and "bring them back" to a better understanding. It was to instruct and edify. However, in that, it was also about dividing those who love and believe the truth from those who don't and who are outside the Faith by perverting the Gospel of grace. See Galatians 1:8-9 to gauge the clear severity of what Paul's dealing with in his love for the Gospel and for them all as well. What does it truly mean to fall for the idea that Jesus' death does not perfect? What does it mean to believe that you can be "perfected by the flesh" while you say you believe in Jesus? Perhaps you truly do believe in Jesus, but still, what correction has to take place in your heart if you think your works are why he saved, or how he will save you? Paul identifies the heart of the danger by saying things like, "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain." Galatians 4:9-11.
The question I think God answers for us all here, and one that must be asked as we read all this from Paul goes something like this: in Christ, what exactly do we do with the Law? This letter helps us understand a huge part of the answer. We certainly don’t toss it out at all, but we must understand the Gospel. This question was understandably huge in their generation as the Gospel spread. In Galatia, we see the same problem that prompted the calling of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:1 where we're told plainly what the issue was. We're told how, "Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” This is contrary to the Cross as they all knew. By the Spirit himself guiding them, they considered the matter well and made their noble decisions. Paul was dealing with this same issue of some form of law-keeping in his letter to the Galatians. Paul teaches us all how this was a perversion of the New Covenant by a conflation of certain ideas from the Old Covenant. Those were not bad things, but they’re not what saves in Christ…as Jesus had made clear to them. Christ and Christ alone saves. That’s the work of his Cross! But what might this have to do with us today? I’ve not had anyone challenge me on whether or not circumcision saves me. I doubt you have either. Has anyone, except perhaps the old guard of the Adventist group, challenged you about Sabbath keeping as what saves? Maybe, but not likely these days. But how about whether or not water baptism saves you? Ever had someone toss up a misinterpretation of 1 Peter 3:21 at you? Or a clearly contradictory interpretation of James 2:24? That’s very likely. So, is it that Old Covenant works like circumcision and Sabbath-keeping are bad when you make them the litmus of being in Christ or not, but that a teaching that says New Covenant works like baptism or the Lords’ table as the litmus of whether or not you’re in Christ are good? That’s something we all must resolve. Can we say that our New Covenant works save us and not commit the same error against grace that Paul corrected in Galatia?
Sadly, I don’t think so. Others, following suit in this error today, especially since medieval times (the era not the awesome restaurant experience), commit the same perversion of the New Covenant by making legitimate parts of the New Covenant just as performative or determinative for salvation as some did with things from the Old Covenant. In this, they commit the same sin and show the heart of the problem going on with the Galatians. (For more on this I invite you to an audio message I recorded a handful of years ago here: https://biblecia.com/media/ph8j3gq/what-paul-actually-condemned-in-his-letter-to-the-galatians-57-min.) I say, if someone says "church membership saves you" it's the same error as saying "circumcision saves you." It's not bringing something from the Old into the New unlawfully, but it’s the same error of feeling one can be somehow "perfected by the flesh." Reader, nothing perfects us, in the sense of justification, outside of what Christ gives us of or from himself by faith. The following really really really means something in light of all this: "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." Hebrews 10:14. We're not fully sanctified. Amen. We need works to be sanctified, but the Cross is our justification. We who are in him are perfected already by Jesus. And this only makes sense in what’s now called the Protestant faith.
Several forms of what perhaps once was Christianity in an ancient form have devolved into a sort of new/old error of ritualism and/or even tribalism. The same stumbling stone of works or performance or even tribal membership errors committed by the Jewish believers at the time of Jesus (usually it was some combination of these things) is committed by others who today say they believe in Jesus. They do in fact believe in Jesus, but they don't believe in the Cross who do not lay down all their works and merits as their hope for peace with God. It's not that Christians shouldn't have works and deep devotion to God. No. It's just that those things have no part in what secures their peace or forgiveness. The Cross is not a self-help program of any sort. It is a rescue mission of God. He died for the helpless to demonstrate his love. Romans 5:6. It’s not “help yourself.” You and I were helpless without his grace and mercy. This New Covenant is God's plan enacted from before the world began (Revelation 13:8) to ransom a people to himself. He has done it and it's wonderful in our eyes. There is simply to be no boasting in the Christian Faith. And that’s easy once we get it. We have no share in cooperating with God to save us. None. But we have a Savior. This is not to induce laziness, it's to come to Calvary in faith.
And Christians have understood and marveled at this since the start. Doxology wasn’t just something for the apostles. Of course, the apostles all believed and taught what is today called "Protestant" ideas. That's a given when you study their inspired letters. They were given the revelation of Jesus and what he came to do, and Christians have them as their principle disciplers still. But ever since the days of Jesus, people have understood that what Christ did on their behalf was enough to save. Consider the following from the early-mid second century:

"He himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!" (Epistle to Diognetus, chap. 9, p. 28.)

This writer basks in that same glorious glow of calvary that Christians invite everyone to consider today. If Christ takes all of one's sin upon himself, if he did that on Calvary, then what he offers in exchange, reader, is his own perfect and perfecting (how could it be otherwise) righteousness. This is Romans 4! That gift of life will improve us over time, stretch us, call us to follow him all our days, but there is no improving upon the grace of it. We improve, but his justification does not. Come, welcome, rest in Christ. His yoke is easy. He offers life to the world. He offers life to you. Repent. Acknowledge your sin. Ask him to forgive you. And may the peace of God rule your heart in a salvation Sabbath as sure as the Resurrection that purchased it.  

Here is a great teaching to learn about the endless schisms and false authority claims in history both from Rome and Istanbul, mostly the latter:

“Filioque: How Eastern Orthodoxy Anathematizes the Church Fathers.” https://youtu.be/5mEMG4tkQf0?si=oHyqNQufcJj1yi-r via @YouTube.

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The fact is that neither the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) nor the opposing Eastern Orthodox Church (EOC) today represent the Faith of the apostles. This is evident when you know where to look. My Baptist (Protestant) church is also not the infallible standard in the world. All of us are judged by the Lord and the standard that he has given us in his word and will emerge either as members of the body building well upon the foundation, or building poorly, or as enemies of Jesus who’ve attacked the foundation. What’s clear regarding both the RCC and EOC today is that they’ve both departed from the roots we share while they outright mock and condemn the grace of Christ for their ever-varying un-biblical sacramental apostasies and siloed dogmatisms. They’ve both set up new and mutually exclusive standards via their selective post-apostolic authority claims. Protestants have not. Our cry is Sola Scriptura; theirs is Sola Ecclesia (and varying ecclesias at that).

Reader, history is hard. No one grasps it all, and he who frames the argument often wins it…especially these days in the sea of ignorance that’s often ours. What emerges to us today in any study of history is that we do indeed need a standard. God knew it. We needed it, need it still, and God has given it. What that standard is is not the endless power schisms of popes or patriarchs but the word of God. Period. When we use that well, the wolves are kept at bay. And we can use it well. God’s word (which no one claims is anywhere other than the Bible) stands above us all as its author intended. It’s wonderful…beautiful…and terrifyingly hard sometimes…yet sublimely pure and evident.

Have claimed protestants always practiced this? No. But the same standard remains intact to correct them too.

The true church catholic would not understand the Faith as it does without the constant challenges from “without.” That is from those who outright deny God’s teaching and didn’t always even pretend to value them. Gnosticism, Islam, Mormonism, etc. No doubt. We also, however, and this is key, would not understand the value of “Scripture Alone” (the 16th century solidification of it) without the challenges that arose from “within,” that is from among those who claimed fidelity to Christ yet added their traditions onto the Faith in the medieval era. Simply put- both Rome and Istanbul (EOC & RCC) stand guilty today of adding their opposing church(es) to Christ. Whatever arguments can be made in understanding how this may have occurred, the dangers of it are now on full display. “Jesus’ church” now to them means “their church.” Holding the faith of the apostles in Christ (which they deny) is not enough for them.

Protestantism, as it’s today understood, that esteems Scripture as the sole inspired and sole infallible rule for doctrine remains the un-changed and most historic and biblical approach to the Christian life. Wherever this approach was seen in history, be it in the EOC or in the RCC or to the uttermost parts of the earth, we see the church catholic at work.

What is essential is clear in Scripture. What’s not is clear also by Scripture. And most if not every one of the church fathers would agree with us on this as they did not hold to the medieval and scholastic devolutions of either the RCC or the EOC of today.

Grace to all who call upon the triune God and his never-changing Gospel (of non-sacramental salvation) through the Cross. Anathema to the attackers. The apostles taught us to look to Christ, who could be understood, and who by God the Holy Spirit has always been revealed in the hearts of God’s children who believe…everywhere they’ve been found.

I have a strong belief that the Bible’s 66 books tell me everything (and then a lot of some) I need to know about what it means to be a Christian. It is a sufficient revelation of doctrine. This is another one of the many proofs of its divine authorship. It’s a necessary condition for its establishment as a body of doctrine “inspired” and “authoritative.” In it, we have the qualifications given for leadership in the church. It comes to us in many ways autobiographical and biographical by Christ’s disciples demonstrating Christian service, humility and truth, but it also comes in some very direct or prescriptive ways as well. Like any company putting out a list of specific or necessary skills, degrees, or experience required for a candidate today, Scripture tells us what the church’s pastors and deacons must be. Pastors are men only. No women are permitted to pastor at all. 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-9 are not exhaustive but amazingly serve as many of those prescriptive necessary conditions listed. The deaconate seems to have been born in Acts 6. Deacons are servants of the church. Servant leaders, but not as high as the role of pastor/elder/overseer/bishop (words used interchangeably for the same office).

There are no positions higher than those of the elder/pastors of a local church. None! How do I know? Because there are no such positions described in Gods sufficient word! Period. This does not stop a number of groups from inserting positions higher than one’s local pastor, but it should. The apostles were given a unique deposit of faith. They were like concrete that was poured wet around Christ, was hardened, and cannot be re-liquefied. Their inspired words are a solid foundation with Christ the head cornerstone of the building. They themselves, as they were inspired to teach and write, did function as leaders of leaders as by necessity in God’s church, but after them we’re all just equal handlers of the revelation given to them for the whole of the church who are required to build well upon what was laid. Outside of a local pastor may be other pastors or leaders more experienced and respected that work to help. There may be continental and even inter-continental cooperation programs that require roles to serve as leaders over many pastors/elders, but there is only one church head and his name is Jesus.  

So, respect and pray for your pastors. God has placed them over you to be a shepherd of your soul. They answer directly to Christ. Your love for Jesus and love shown to them will make their work joyous! And that’s good for you in every way.  

God bless!!!
(If this has been a blessing to you, would you please share it with someone else? Come by Biblecia.com anytime for new stuff).

I wrote this on a X today and thought I’d post it here also. I could sum up the discourse as a response to a common idea presented by Catholics today that Catholicism would fix what Protestantism broke in the west.
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Nevertheless gentlemen, a papacy had no place in American governance. You've both properly conceded this fact. As a Christian opposed to a papacy, I have a few thoughts on this matter to push back against what appears to me a false narrative presented to me by many Catholics today even in some responses here. Thank you to who’d read. And God bless.
America is obviously a new and very different nation than Italy. No kings, no popes, a representative republic with a unique judiciary, vast in its scale with its own geography and a cultural/linguistic homogeneity, etc. Comparing its model today (to over 330 million) to Italy's (w/ less than 60 million) in many ways is clearly apples to oranges as I'm sure you'd agree. I do not at all disagree that the Catholic Church helped build western society as the book's title says. But let’s remember that "Christian Rome" also fell in the early 5th cent. And that timeframe (from Constantine/his sons to that day) was far shorter than America's current history. Granted that was from without. But then, after a restructuring, by 1054 from within, wars and hostilities gave way to an entire religious/political schism throughout the whole of the empire that continues through today. I could illustrate these issues at great length. From early medieval times, Europe was scandalized by the constant chess games of its kings and popes. Rome's (as went all of Italy usually) history alone is permanently dotted with failures that if endured in the U.S. even just since its founding would constitute complete collapse. Multiple popes at times, investiture controversies galore, wars, contradictions, power struggles at every level, sexual immorality tantamount to ancient Sodom’s, assassinations, false religions, greedy simony and exploitative profiteering that'd make even a Nancy Pelosi blush during communion, etc. Rome's leaders at all levels were bought and sold both inside and outside the church in a horribly corrupt system that most Catholics today clearly recognize as defunct if not purely pagan. The sum of these parts shows us a clearly an un-biblical and failed governance, and all under- in my theology anyway- the un-biblical papacy. Rome's (Italy's) is an ugly history with a lot of nice art. I’ve been there. The medieval developed system today survives more by a wider and separated modern political power than an ecclesiastical one. On another inescapable level then, the religio-political system of Romanism is no more surely commanded by Christ than modern America’s or anyone else’s. The questions of any governmental system’s legitimacy cannot be measured outside of a more complex rubric.
Yet many Catholics today want to try to hang America’s secularism on the neck of Protestantism. As if imagining for a moment that all churches worldwide aren’t at various levels affected by the wealth of the modern era or the philosophies of the Enlightenment, etc. As if we legitimate Protestants (who actually practice the Bible as inspired and authoritative) somehow don’t teach that the church (the one of 2K years with Christ as its only head and its elders properly identified and appointed in each locale) should unify a people as a people. Or that the lives of Christians isn’t communal. As if we don’t teach that sound teaching and accountability to Christ and to his church in your life doesn’t impact who you are or what you do. We do, we have, we will. And we call Catholics to join us.
What America, as a governmental ideal, *should represent, with all of its failures also, is a far more biblically substantial model of governance than ancient Rome's was. The three biblical spheres of influence of church (not possibly Roman Catholic), family (a man, a woman, kids), and state (industrious and noble servants for the good of the whole) are maintainable in full biblical honor. The church as Rome defines herself is not biblical. Therefore, leaving it aside, it need not be Constitutional. And wasn’t. And I’m fully aware that many if not most of the “Founding Fathers” (mostly guys in their 20’s) were heretics. Therefore, I see the hand of providence even more than them in what they left behind.
Question for anyone: *if* the foundational documents of the U.S., its Constitution (w/ a developing Bill of Rights) and the Declaration of Independence were lived out, would we not have in the U.S. just about every degree of peace or prosperity we'd all hope for as a people? I think and would argue so. Would the church, state, and the family, interconnected but not governmentally nested, not be able to function unto the glory of God and the good of a people? Ex: If “All men are created equal…” from the start had prevented America’s relatively minor participation in the evils of chattel slavery, would it not have been a non-issue? Not requiring the wars that followed? Yes. So, we can look at the document and see the error comparing it to Christ’s wisdom which perhaps led to the document, and amazingly, we see that we needn’t toss out the document at all. The ideal remains from it. The foundational ideal or plan under God (see Mayflower Compact) is solid…with planned space for adding on some other nice rooms. Can’t go into all the ways this works, but it does. And the sentiments of former U.S. leaders that understood that our system of government is “only fit to govern an already religious people" only strengthens the system. We as a people want churches, we must allow for other religions understanding that a government isn’t God’s house learning from many peoples’ histories. The religion we want and need isn't something like Islam, Mormonism, or Roman Catholicism, but Christianity. Protestant Christianity. This is rulers caring for the entire good of their people. Then, alongside or on top of a good governance, we would have the church(es) everywhere (by the way able to evangelize any immigrants around us) and the family that alone makes the world turn as God is gracious to a people. And he has been to us. Our presidents and leaders would be raised up in our churches in families that heard and could live out the Gospel that was all around them, along with God’s full counsel, with their neighbors. The American ideal facilitates a nation’s prosperity on solid biblical grounds.
The Catholic model “fixes” nothing…though it’s often presented as such to people who see our clear national evil today…which we all can and should. It’s like any political challenger against any incumbent: “He or she’s the problem; I’m the solution.” I could say the same in Catholic lands in just about every generation, especially when leaders were most evil, and present a “Protestant fix-all answer” too. I recognize this a lot and most doing it aren’t even aware of it. Every leader (other than Jesus) fails in some ways and failures of any sort can always be isolated. We can all also be guilty of either intentionally or unintentionally seeming to say something we might not wish to, but the schism’s and factions of the idea that if everyone was just Catholic most of our problems would disappear could be as faulty as me saying if we were all just Baptist Reformed folks, America’s problem’s would basically evaporate. But since neither system is necessarily apostolic, the lie that Papists often sell, like political challengers, are dangerously faulty. Look today at Fiducia Supplicans. Is everyone submitted to Rome? The answer is no. Many Catholics see this as “satanic” work from the Vatican and have publicly said so. So, the idea that an infallible head “fixes things” is as silly as saying, “If everyone just had a Bible” we’d be fixed. And historically, what of the Arian resurgence post Nicea 1? Or the post-mortem condemnations of the theology of Pope Honorious and other anti-popes (if I apply that definition rightly here), or Nestorianism, Pelgianism, the growing sedevacantists, Monophysitism, Eutychianism, Pro-LGBTQ priests across Germany and England, Manicheanism, indulgence abuses, etc. And the worst part of Romanism today *aren’t the ideas that some of its honorable leaders have argued well against. Sadly, it’s the doctrines it teaches today such as papal infallibility (in the Hildebrand on sense), transubstantiation (anathematizing opposition to extended metaphysical definition), Mariology (Mariolatry), purgation, infused righteousness, its full on sacramental synergism works righteousness paganism, etc. So, submission to apostate authorities may indeed bring ecclesiastical peace “under ones own roof” but it still says nothing about the governance of your neighborhood! The problems are too wide for any one solution. True churches have existed in Rome’s history. In Catholic Europe’s. But there comes a point when dogmatized heresy changes that. All you need to do to convince a learned Christian is to show them where God’s inspired word (our only infallible source) gives the answer soundly and you’ve won us, and that’s true whether inside or outside the church on any matter. Good councils in Catholic history have demonstrated this fact repeatedly. And we all have lenses.
America today is a nation clearly under God’s just wrath for public and flagrant sin. The ideas that shaped our nation nevertheless came from a semblance of biblical wisdom governmentally applied and have literally changed earth. America's governance isn't a church's statement of faith, but it was an ideal birthed from, among many things, seeing the utter failures of Catholic nations. It was a willing departure, and one worth fighting to keep. I will.  
I'm a westerner, but while I primary reject the modern Roman Catholic Church based on my heavenly citizenship, I also reject its idea that it’s a political system that works. No. Only if we ignore Scripture, and history, could I assume that it ever would.

Christianity truly is a theology of the Cross. We can read right over statements in the Bible like, “Christ was crucified” or that he was “raised up” or that he “suffered unto death” without thinking about it much I know, but I want to ask you to recall and consider such passages with just a brief pause. God…died. He rose…but…our…God…died. The Son, of the only eternal being, took on flesh and that flesh expired in death. This is not just another god myth or perversion of the Bible written by the devil to confuse the truth. This is something and someone else altogether different.
There are many things to remember as Christians. We should literally carry about the remembrance of God in all things in our lives as we pray, fast, reach out to others, etc., but chief among all things is that “…our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus…gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” Titus 2:13b-14. He gave himself in death. And not a peaceful one I hasten to add. He was crucified. In the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians 1, Paul mentions Jesus’ crucifixion three times. He mentions it in other ways also. Paul’s theology is a theology of the Cross. In vs. 23 he says, “We preach Christ crucified…” This is said as the height of all he preaches. He wants the church there to remember this truth above all things. He wants them to remember who was crucified for them (1:13). He wants them to remember the Cross (1:17). He speaks of it as that which God has chosen to confound the supposed wise men of the world (vv. 20-25).
I will never forget when I first learned of the insult of what’s called the “Alexamenos Graffito” (see picture). What it is is a piece of Roman graffiti once scratched into a wall near the famous Palatine Hill in Rome, Italy. It now sits in the Palatine Museum in Rome. It’s been estimated to have been made around the year AD 200. The words etched in the stone under the carving are translated often as: “Alexamenos worships his God". It’s a picture of a man worshipping a crucified man with the head of a donkey. The imagery is clear about what its carver thinks of what Alexamenos believed. It seems that Alexamenos had learned from Paul. What Paul taught in Corinth, he also taught in Rome. The Gospel had come to an obscure man, likely a Roman soldier, named Alexamenos. It was foolish to the carver of the graffiti, but seemingly not to Alexamenos. Paul teaches us that the Cross is always foolishness to the world. Is it foolishness to you? Is the idea of salvation from sin and death through a Cross foolish to you, or is it the very power of God on display? I pray it’s the latter. If it’s not, you’re a fool who denies the very wisdom and power of God. Not through strength did he conquer, but through humility. Death has been killed. Evil has been swallowed up in good. Sin has been put away for all who will come to God in Christ.
Believer, seek God in everything. Seek him at work. Seek him in your home. Seek him on the streets. May the shadow of the Cross of Christ loom high over your every step in life. It is the very meaning of this world, the exaltation of the Son. Be like Alexamenos. Have a theology of the Cross. Know what that means. Only fools will think you’re foolish.

Secularism is one of the greatest enemies of Christ ever created by Satan. Many people today have gone the way of the secularist. Secularism often comes under the pretense of communal benefit. The idea is that if we were all just secular, then no one would ever get offended or excluded. Excluding non-secularists, of course, no matter what else they believe, is always the one acceptable discrimination. Of course, the neo-atheist evangelists of our day would be more than happy to have us all abandon any idea of God for their humdrum evolutionary mediocrity. Secularism has been described as that process whereby all religious beliefs, ideas, and institutions lose their social significance. We have certainly seen this accelerated in our day. It comes about in the hedonistic pursuit of sex, money, or power and there’s surely plenty of them all to go around today. Secularism is most closely associated with atheism, but many secularists are agnostics. Secularism is the false idea that there’s somewhere that God has nothing to do with, or where he’s just downright not present. Back in 2021, the leftwing New York Congressman Jerry Nadler demonstrated the accepted secularist mindset of our day when he said, “What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress” as he was debating the so-called, “Equality Act.” The tide of wisdom has turned to such men getting away with making statements like this without repercussion. America has gone the way of secularism and so it is dying. America was formed expressly as a society concerned with (the Protestant) God’s will. The documents drafted as its basis, as much as they’re lived up to, make our government’s foundation the best the world has ever seen.

God is everywhere at all times, however. He’s omnipresent. There’s nowhere he’s not. There is nothing secular therefore about life anywhere, reader. Wherever you are, you can bring the wisdom and counsel of God to bear there. At work, in your family, where you play sports, everywhere. And you only have one short life to do it in. We in the Christian church sometimes seem to believe that unless we’re in ministry for a living that we’re not serving the Lord like a pastor or other church leader might be. I’ve recently finished a few wonderful books challenging such ideas with great biblical insights on the beauty and sacredness of secular work.

I want to encourage you to not live like the secularists. Do all that you can, in every place you are in life, to the honor of God. It’s not that you must do “Christian things” in the midst of whatever you. Supposing any of it is good biblically speaking, those things are the very things you can do to his honor. Wherever you are, you’re not alone. God is there.

“Where can I go to escape your Spirit?
Where can I flee to escape your presence?
If I were to ascend to heaven, you would be there.
If I were to sprawl out in Sheol, there you would be.
If I were to fly away on the wings of the dawn,
and settle down on the other side of the sea,
even there your hand would guide me,
your right hand would grab hold of me.”
Psalm 139:7-10.

Again, God is there. Don’t listen to the lies of anyone anywhere that says otherwise. Secularism is a death sentence. What God says about anything in his word should be of the utmost importance to us all. 

When we extrapolate, correlate, and humbly appreciate all the biblical data as New Testament believers, it's sure that baptism in water no more unites us to Christ than anything else. It's not a single prayer that surely does it, it's not our decisions, joining a church, or partaking of the blessed ordinance of the Lord's Table that saves us.

Christ Jesus lived/dead/risen/glorified and calling alone gets the glory of uniting us to God! He is the true food and the true drink. Salvation may come with one's baptism, it may come at a first prayer of repentance, or during the table as God has and may ordain, but what surely unites us, what surely saves us, is only when God moves us from column "Adam" to "Christ." This is the circumcision of the heart. This is the baptism into Jesus. This is eternal life. This leads us to willing faith and supernaturally to that sure justification which is by faith alone with all the fruit of obedience accompanying.

In summary, friend. Christ did not die to provide any saving works, Christ died to save. Men are not saviors, there is only one Savior, Christ Jesus.

[Repeat of series introduction that began on 17 December 2023: Where would you go today in the Old Testament to argue that Jesus is the Christ? There’s so much to this that cannot be dismissed. We’re given in many ways what the Messiah would be like, what his character would be, how he’d be received (even by different people), what he’d do, how he’d redeem, that we’d have his lineage, what he’d say, how it would all end, how he’d come and more. So much, and we see it all done in just one man! How would you know that he is the promised Messiah? Jesus’ birth, life, suffering, and glorification all demonstrate the facets of his excellent work. Jesus himself asked two of his disciples the same question I could ask you today, and then went to the same source to explain it that I’d like to go to as well in this series: “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Luke 24:26-27. Jesus had to suffer to then enter into his glory he said. With this premise, he goes through some measure of the 39 books of the Old Testament revealing himself to them thereby. This is the same Old Testament we have today. I wish we were given the transcript of that talk, but God didn’t wish to give it. But can we see it? Many historical events in the Scriptures could be fulfilled by men and women, but no one but Jesus (Messiah) could fulfill them all. The Lord himself demonstrated that he was and is the Christ, and our New Testament reflects that its writers were well aware of this. The clear approach of the Apostles was to argue the same from the Bible that Jesus read- the 39 books we now call the Old Testament. To know what it means that Jesus is the Christ is to show the fulness of God’s revelation to mankind in the New Testament in him. In the Old Testament, God said he’d defeat sin and death; the New Testament shows us that work done. There are so many ways to talk of this. So many passages. I won’t exhaust them, but in this series, I wish to examine some of these passages. These passages are how I would prove Jesus is the Christ from the Old Testament].

According to the Bible, Adam was made as the first of mankind. He did not evolve from lower life forms some six million years ago. That’s obviously just unreasonable and a-scientific poppycock. Adam was without doubt made special from the start less than ten thousand years ago in our Creator’s own image and likeness. He and Eve were made the same. After their unique creation, God chose to allow mankind to create life. Seed. To participate in bringing life itself about. From these two therefore, we all came. There have been interesting studies emerging lately from numerous geneticists whose models are becoming more and more biblical. An internet search for “Y chromosome Adam and mitochondrial eve” will show you some models that are becoming more biblical. Many geneticists, some of whom I’d actually trust, are today affirming that all of us descended from two ancestors within just hundreds of thousands of years ago out of Africa. It’s not that they’re affirming Genesis…yet, but the studies are sounding more accurate according to the Bible. The math adds up just fine through today. Ever since we were made, we get to share in making life. We pro-create. Amazing! Children are referred to as “seed” many times in the Bible. Seed is a tremendous theme in the whole of the book as to God’s blessings. Genesis 1:28; 9:1; 22:17; Psalm 127:4-5, etc. One of the most incredible ways the blessing of offspring was set forth in the Bible is in the blessing Rebekah’s family spoke over her just before she was to return with Eleazar to Isaac. Eleazar had found Rebekah in God’s guiding providences. She agreed to go back with the man and her family says to her just before he departure: “May you, our sister, become thousands of ten thousands, and may your descendants possess the gate of those who hate them.” Genesis 24:60. What a beautiful idea. The blessing of seed is clear. But there’s one Seed above them all that blesses. Jesus is The Seed of mankind, but is 100% God.
In the story of my father Abraham, he is promised seed. To an as yet childless man God says one evening, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them…so shall your descendants be.” Genesis 15:5. Thousands of years earlier, God spoke cryptically of a seed who would in fact undo the curse on mankind as a whole. Genesis 3:15. From a study of the whole, we can see that this is God bringing about the promise of Christ’s (God’s Son’s) incarnation from the day Abraham’s great great…great grandfather Adam first sinned. Jesus is spoken of as the Seed to whom the promises to Abraham was actually made. This plays out through the whole of the Bible. There are two seeds on earth among men, one of Satan, and one of God. A godly seed, the elect, and an un-godly seed, the non-elect. Believers and non-believers. Billions of people. Jesus is The Seed over all the seed.
Listen to Paul in Galatians: “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.” Galatians 3:16. Paul says here that Jesus is the Seed to whom the triune God spoke the promise. This promise is Christianity ultimately. Abraham was given promises by God; they were indeed fulfilled in his life in many ways, but ultimately are fulfilled in Jesus, the incarnate Godman who came much later. I think of them like a layaway fee paid later.
God gave grace and still does. To everyone grace is given, Jesus paid for it. He justifies it. God will lavish his love on an untold multitude and Christ made it all justifiable and possible. I cannot understand the nature of this promise to Abraham without understanding the triune nature of God. The Father promises the Son something here and he involved Abraham. It’s even possible that the two items that passed through the cut animals while Abraham was fast asleep were to represent the Father and the Spirit with the Son represented by all the animals slain in sacrifice. Genesis 15:7 reads: “It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.” The promises to Abraham were really between God’s Persons. Abraham just gets the blessings granted as a result. God produces seed and the Seed, and both, in their ways, from mankind. Jesus is that virgin-born Seed Paul said to whom the promises were truly made. Now, the promises took God’s timing to unfold. It included Abraham’s descendants and their time in Egypt and a lot of other folks for two millennia, but what it ultimately took was the Cross to bring it all to pass. Christ fulfills the Law and fulfills the promise. Abraham is now, in Christ his Lord and his descendent, the spiritual father of every Christian on earth since. This is the fulfillment of the counting of the stars exercise.
Jesus is the Seed of all seed. He is the Christ. Abraham now bows at his feet and we should too. The continuity of this is like a thread from page one to the last in the Bible.

God bless!!!
(If this has been a blessing to you, would you please share it with someone else? Come by Biblecia.com anytime for new stuff).

[Repeat of series introduction that began on 17 December 2023: Where would you go today in the Old Testament to argue that Jesus is the Christ? There’s so much to this that cannot be dismissed. We’re given in many ways what the Messiah would be like, what his character would be, how he’d be received (even by different people), what he’d do, how he’d redeem, that we’d have his lineage, what he’d say, how it would all end, how he’d come and more. So much, and we see it all done in just one man! How would you know that he is the promised Messiah? Jesus’ birth, life, suffering, and glorification all demonstrate the facets of his excellent work. Jesus himself asked two of his disciples the same question I could ask you today, and then went to the same source to explain it that I’d like to go to as well in this series: “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Luke 24:26-27. Jesus had to suffer to then enter into his glory he said. With this premise, he goes through some measure of the 39 books of the Old Testament revealing himself to them thereby. This is the same Old Testament we have today. I wish we were given the transcript of that talk, but God didn’t wish to give it. But can we see it? Many historical events in the Scriptures could be fulfilled by men and women, but no one but Jesus (Messiah) could fulfill them all. The Lord himself demonstrated that he was and is the Christ, and our New Testament reflects that its writers were well aware of this. The clear approach of the Apostles was to argue the same from the Bible that Jesus read- the 39 books we now call the Old Testament. To know what it means that Jesus is the Christ is to show the fulness of God’s revelation to mankind in the New Testament in him. In the Old Testament, God said he’d defeat sin and death; the New Testament shows us that work done. There are so many ways to talk of this. So many passages. I won’t exhaust them, but in this series, I wish to examine some of these passages. These passages are how I would prove Jesus is the Christ from the Old Testament].
 
In Genesis 22, Abraham is called to offer his son Isaac as an offering to God. He has Ishmael, but his only son from Sarah, Isaac, is that miraculous son of promise that God promised to Abraham back near the start of God’s call on the man. Isaac is what God calls for. This is a test, and God has no intention of seeing Isaac killed. That won’t happen. Abraham suffers tremendously during this time. He loves his son. The promises his God has given him are tied up with him. Ishmael is not the son God promised him and he’s come to know it. Now, he’s being told to kill him. But Abraham knew he’d heard from God on this. The New Testament prophetically reveals to us some two thousand years following that Abraham, “Considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type” in Hebrews 11:19. If God had promised millions of descendants through Isaac, then Isaac had to remain alive. Abraham didn’t know how it was all to work out, but he knew it had to.
The foreshadowing this as of Jesus is the main reason for this entire test. It is almost certainly on this same hill that the Son of God would be sacrificed for the sins of the world thousands of years later. God would not stay his own hand but would deliver him up to die as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of all God’s elect in every generation. Jesus gives us the reality of this in saying, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, But a body You have prepared for Me…” Men would not offer their own sacrifices any longer. The Son of Man, via his body, would become the final perfecting sacrifice. Hebrews 10:14.  
God says in Proverbs 30:4: “Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son’s name? Surely you know!” Do you not now know his name? It’s Jesus.” That is his Son’s name. From Abraham himself we have this type of a sacrifice given to us. Isaac was not to be offered. God’s angel prevents it. In Genesis 22:13a it says, “Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns…” It was the Father’s will that the Son offer himself. There was no other way, no other sacrifice, that could be offered in his behalf. The cup would not pass from him to another as it did from Isaac to the ram. The time for foreshadowing the wrath of God was over. Jesus knew it full well but truly became as us in every way yet without sin.
Isaac foreshadows Jesus in his incarnation. Isaac is a type of Christ. His blood was not shed, however. Jesus’ was. Abraham is a type of the Father. The prophet Isaiah says of the Father and the Son: “the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.” Isaiah 53:10. The Father crushed him because it pleased them both to redeem the elect by the sacrifice of himself. Jesus was willing and more than worthy of more than us all.

[Repeat of series introduction that began on 17 December 2023: Where would you go today in the Old Testament to argue that Jesus is the Christ? There’s so much to this that cannot be dismissed. We’re given in many ways what the Messiah would be like, what his character would be, how he’d be received (even by different people), what he’d do, how he’d redeem, that we’d have his lineage, what he’d say, how it would all end, how he’d come and more. So much, and we see it all done in just one man! How would you know that he is the promised Messiah? Jesus’ birth, life, suffering, and glorification all demonstrate the facets of his excellent work. Jesus himself asked two of his disciples the same question I could ask you today, and then went to the same source to explain it that I’d like to go to as well in this series: “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Luke 24:26-27. Jesus had to suffer to then enter into his glory he said. With this premise, he goes through some measure of the 39 books of the Old Testament revealing himself to them thereby. This is the same Old Testament we have today. I wish we were given the transcript of that talk, but God didn’t wish to give it. But can we see it? Many historical events in the Scriptures could be fulfilled by men and women, but no one but Jesus (Messiah) could fulfill them all. The Lord himself demonstrated that he was and is the Christ, and our New Testament reflects that its writers were well aware of this. The clear approach of the Apostles was to argue the same from the Bible that Jesus read- the 39 books we now call the Old Testament. To know what it means that Jesus is the Christ is to show the fulness of God’s revelation to mankind in the New Testament in him. In the Old Testament, God said he’d defeat sin and death; the New Testament shows us that work done. There are so many ways to talk of this. So many passages. I won’t exhaust them, but in this series, I wish to examine some of these passages. These passages are how I would prove Jesus is the Christ from the Old Testament].

A man named Melchizedek appears and disappears from the biblical narrative in Genesis 14:18-20. He brings out bread and wine to Abram after Abram recovers his nephew during a pretty major skirmish, he blesses Abram, was honored by Abram with a tithe of the spoils, and then he disappears. This same Melchizedek is mentioned again in Psalm 110:4 and is made reference to numerous times in the Book of Hebrews. In Hebrews, God makes great use of this rather enigmatic man named Melchizedek as a type of Christ. There is speculation about who exactly Melchizedek was. I used to believe he was a Christophany (a pre-incarnate appearance of God the Son) but I no longer do. I now believe him to be a Gentile priest king from ancient Salem, the land King David made the Lord’s capitol city roughly a thousand years later.

We learn by Barnabas’ inspiration (the man I say wrote Hebrews) almost everything we know about Melchizedek. He was clearly an awesome guy. His translated name alone is fascinating. I’ll let you look it up in Hebrews. Hebrews 7 gives us a ton of detail. Melchizedek was a Gentile priest and king long before there was such a thing as an Aaronic priesthood. He did not become a priest due to his genealogy therefore as those of the Mosaic Covenant did. In fact, we’re not even given his genealogy. This is the point of vs. 3 which reads: “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.” He had parents, but we’re not given their names, and so, since we know nothing of his death or the length of his days he remains a priest, like Jesus now is in reality, in picture forever. This is what God capitalizes on. Melchizedek was a priest to God and a king. Fascinating!
The high nature of Melchizedek’s supremacy is also a point made in Hebrews. He is shown higher than even Abraham in Hebrew reckoning. And so if Abraham is, as he is, the first and greatest of all the Hebrews, and thus in Christ the father of us all (Romans 4:16), then how great a figure was this Melchizedek to whom Abram 1) gave tithes, and 2) received blessing? This is what Hebrews 7:7 means saying, “Without any dispute the lesser person is blessed by the greater.” Abram (the lesser) was blessed by Melchizedek (the greater). Jesus is a high priest higher than Aaron and his progeny which came much later. This is the point. Jesus, from Judah’s tribe, doesn’t get his priesthood from Levitical descent, which is lower than Melchizedek; he gets it from his very nature. Jesus’ priesthood is higher than Aaron’s, not lower. Jesus didn’t get his “great high priesthood” (a totally unique title for him from Hebrews 4:14) by his genealogy. Thus it’s written: “Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 6:20. Jesus’ priesthood is an eternal one since he’s above death again through his Resurrection.
This was prophesied from Genesis through the Psalms and made plain in Hebrews for us. Jesus is the Great High Priest of the New Covenant ratified by his blood.

God bless!!!

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