Our Common Salvation, our unity

Today the Church is faced with a unity that challenges the genuine unity that takes place by the Spirit and the Word; the replacement is the brotherhood of man.

Our spiritual unity is based on our salvation, by faith -being put in the body of Christ when we are given his spirit (1 Cor.12:13.)

Why do some see it necessary to unite with others that focus on other matters? It is only when they cannot unite by the only gospel that saves souls that they pursue to find alternatives. But to unite with those who have another gospel or another Jesus is not being united in Christ it is a worldly unity, one that is prophesied to take place in the end, called mystery Babylon. Just as Babylon united the people after the flood into false religion, God saw this unity and came to earth to scatter the people. This next time he will judge them.

Jude’s purpose in his letter had the intention to expose the false teachers that had infiltrated the Christian church, he encouraged Christians to stand firm in the faith and fight (contend) for the truth.

Today some still enter unnoticed as it took place in the early church, but today we have the completed Word, and what was unnoticed then is quite noticeable today. There is no excuse unless one fully disregards what is delivered to us in the Scripture.

1 Cor. 15:1-2 “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you-- unless you believed in vain.”

When he speaks of standing it means it is our life. It also has to do with being justified before God as he stated in Rom. 5:1-3 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

We are to continue in this faith which Christ and the gospel bring.

Elsewhere Paul penned the warning to the Galatian church that succumbed to false brethren that influenced them to accept the Old Testament law, adding it to Christ's work, explaining in no uncertain terms they have turned away from the grace in Christ to another gospel.

Gala. 1:6-8 “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”

Paul says those they have listened to have twisted the gospel by their own desires and are accursed. Why did they add to it? They did not experience the power of being saved by God's grace, so they looked elsewhere. The Judaizers offered the law as an addition.

Most people who have crossed over to unity with Roman Catholicism, a religion that has a Pope who is probably the most illiterate of the Bible and God in centuries. Even may Catholics that understand what the bible says disagree with him. There is the Latter Rain or word faith adherents that have had hands laid on them, slain by those who are already in this unity. They have attended these services and opened themselves up to alternate spiritual message[s], either way they have been influenced into a false fake unity, not the spiritual unity that is of the gospel.

How bad is all this, what exactly is the result? Let me put this in more obvious terms. If you are married and committed to your wife, loved her for years. Someone then comes along and introduces you to another woman and your affections grow that you get involved with her. Can you say you still love your wife like you once did? Can you say you are faithful to your vows and commitment? The longer you stay in this other new relationship the harder it becomes to stop and return, in fact, there comes a point when you can’t return.

This is what spiritual departure is about. It takes place when one is influenced away from the one who is the original object of their affection, who is their way and salvation. John records Rev 2:1 angel of the church of Ephesus v.4 “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” There are a lot of admonishments of ‘remember.’ The next verse is crucial, for if they do not remember there only remains judgment. “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place--unless you repent.”

The lampstand is a reference to the 7 churches he is addressing, they will no longer have the Lord as their light. They had stopped doing the work for Christ as they had done from the beginning, they got distracted, led astray. The Lord lays out for them the way back and the repercussions if they do not.

There are too many voices telling people this is the way the spirit is moving when we already have what the Holy Spirit spoke to us as eternal truth. It is these words we are to hear, what the Spirit says to the church, not other men's opinions or telling us what is needed by their own imaginations or revelations or the way the world operates by tolerance.

Unity at the expense of the gospel is man-made and has nothing to do with what the Spirit is doing in the church. The true church is being made faithful to the Word and the direction we are told to hold to is by the Word's instruction alone. This manmade unity is an insurrection to Christ; using his name to promote worldly harmony and peace that in the end will remove you from standing in the gospel, Christ who gave his life for you.

As we are surrounded by these other voices that increasingly get louder, let us hold to 1 Cor. 16:13-14 “Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.”

 

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