Grace - False Gospel Preachers and Those Who Reject Grace 2

"I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you [in] the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another...." (Galatians 1:6-7a)

"Woe to you [experts in the Mosaic law]! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.” (Luke 11:52)

"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."  (Matthew 23:13)

"For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."  (Jude 1:4)

The passage from Jude above has been commonly interpreted to refer to a group of Christians walking on the wild side and twisting the message of grace to allow for their sinning, but when read carefully, one sees that this group of ungodly people denies "our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."  I submit to you that a person who does such a thing is NOT a Christian.  Jude continues to make a distinction between them and authentic believers when he calls them "hidden reefs" at the believers' gatherings.  He states that they have "gone the way of Cain" and are "following after their own lusts."  They "cause divisions", are "worldly minded", and are "devoid of the Spirit."  Perhaps the strongest word Jude uses is "devoid."  In the Greek the word here means "to not have".  It doesn't mean "not led by", but a complete absence of a union between these particular people and the Spirit.  Clearly:  not Christian.

I'm certainly not out to vilify anyone, but we have to properly view these passages to make sure that they are not applied to and used against Christians who have truly found grace.  Paul's major concern was two-part:  1. that non-Christians (Judaizers) would not turn Christians back to the law and, 2., that Christians would continue to have their minds renewed to the reality of grace.  Our situation is similar.  While we don't have non-Christians trying to turn us away from Christ per se, we do have a majority of Christians who, not seeing scripture through the lens of grace and the finished work of Christ, are trying to bring us back to their law mentality.

For this reason, it is imperative that we read and meditate on Paul's writing in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and Hebrews to see our OWN death and resurrection in Christ Jesus.  As long as we do not understand that we DIED to the Law, we will continue to believe that we are under it.  Moreover, we will be subject not only to the idea that we're still under the Law, but we will also see grace primarily as our enablement by the Spirit to obey the Law.  Sounds nice; not quite scriptural.

Go back and read the scriptures I quoted above.  I hope they will be a key for you to know you entered God's Rest when you believed.

Have a great weekend.  My next few emails will be about "Hyper-Grace!"

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy