Some Fundamentals

By Larry White
January 30, 2022

 

I would like to go over some fundamentals of the faith that are seldom discussed or taught in the church. There are four that I think are important for everyone to grasp and apply while studying the scriptures.


1. It's a simple secret that is hidden

 

Paul, the apostle of Christ said,

 

"For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3:3-4)

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporary; but the things which are not seen are eternal."
(2 Corinthians 4:18)


Temporary things are physical and can be seen and can age, wear out and be destroyed. The writer of Hebrews says they are things that can be shaken and in the context he seems to think that they can not only be moved but also be removed. The eternal things are unseen because they are spiritual and not physical. They cannot be destroyed. And such is the kingdom, unshaken, immovable and eternal.
(Heb 12:25-29) Jesus said to the Jews,

 

"The kingdom of God comes not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)

 

Most people think that means that the kingdom is in one's heart. However Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees and so that idea doesn't seem to fit. When we think of the kingdom of God, we should view it not as a small government ruled over by a King, but rather an Empire ruled over by an Emperor who is over all of heaven and earth.  However, at this time the kingdom belonged to the Jewish nation at least in a nascent, primitive or typical way. So in that case it did not as yet fill the whole earth. Jesus is saying that the spiritual kingdom of God was coming invisibly from within the Jews. Another way of looking at it is, as Isaiah said concerning the kingdom, "For the law shall come forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Isa.2:2-3) He was speaking of the Mountain of the Lord which would fill the whole earth. This exalting of Jesus and receiving all authority in the kingdom was fulfilled on Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. 

 

The kingdom of God, the church, Christianity, is a spiritual nation invisible to the human eye, that did not come from the sky (it did come from the spiritual realm, or heaven as is symbolized in Revelation 22) but from our historical perspective it simply came out of the nation of Israel and spread throughout the whole world. It's the leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. (Luke 13:18-21) This was always God's plan and purpose in bringing many sons unto glory; (Heb.2:10) it was Zion bringing forth her children, (Isa. 66:7-8) the nation being born at once.

 

After the Jews killed the Messiah, the kingdom of God was taken away from the worldly and fleshly people, the carnal Jews, and given to the new spiritual nation of Christians who were bringing forth its fruits. (Matthew 21:43) The Jews had rejected the spiritual kingdom of God for one that they thought would come to the earth physically in the flesh. Most of them were in the end, materialists. When one rejects Jesus Christ, he rejects the spirit and true spirituality. (2 Corinthians 3:15-17) "Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." To this day those who call themselves "Jews" are bound in unbelief and a carnal mind, along with all the "evangelical" Zionists being led astray by the likes of John Hagee and Jonathan Cahn, who expect the Messiah to sit on a physical throne in physical Jerusalem. This worldly teaching was early disseminated by Cyrus Scofield and other premillennialists. If you want to read generally spiritual commentaries, then search out conservative writers in the nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries before futuristic ideas became popular.


However, the realm of God and of Jesus Christ is spiritual; it is incorporeal, immaterial i.e., without matter, "not of this building", "not made with hands." The real tabernacle of God is the one the Lord pitched and not man.
(Heb. 8:2) Please remember this fundamental item in your thinking; spirit is not made of atoms of matter, there are no molecular or nuclear physics involved. Consequently the spiritual man worships in an unseen temple, offering up invisible, spiritual sacrifices of prayer, thanksgiving and praise; a temple which is non-local, but within a kingdom which cannot be shaken or destroyed and that fills heaven and earth.

 

I heard a man who was schooled in science speaking on the Coast to Coast AM radio program and trying to explain the spiritual life of humans and what occurs at our passing in death. I give him credit for the attempt and for even believing that we are something more than gross matter. But every single time he referred to our spirits he called them "our electro-magnetic spirits" which is a popular compromise with the science community who cannot grasp anything that is not matter. They say that we are energy and because, according to science, energy cannot be destroyed, therefore when we die we will remain in existence because our spirits are energy. They say that we become a drop of energy in a vast universal sea of energy that retains our individual personalities. I suppose that does bring some comfort to our scientist friends, it is at least better than facing an existential void of non-existence. But that is all materialistic and rooted in a physical plane and they are unable to "grok" or to understand intuitively heavenly things. Their minds cannot see into the spiritual realm. Jesus said that one must me born again in order to see the kingdom of God - born of water and spirit, i.e. from above [ἄνωθεν]. (John 3:5-7)


A carnal understanding is concerned with things based in the material realm of the world, and also things of the flesh, i.e. things uniquely human; like human endeavor, human progress, human nature which has its fruit of greed, frailty, error, hatred, the desire for wealth and fame and all the other works of the flesh in Paul's list. This mind and wisdom of the world is akin to Humanism, the first tenet of which is that there is no God, and is where materialism, with the mysterious force of gravity, (it's actually electric) is the only reality - which is physical.

 

This wisdom or mind has been fed to us by the likes of Jean Luc Picard of Gene Rodenberry fame and James Coburn with his MasterCard; "So worldly, so welcome, so wise." This wisdom is foolishness with God. (1Cor. 1:20-ff)


God gives Christians the mind of Christ which is the only wisdom that God will countenance. They do not glory like the Jews, in appearance, but only in heart.
(2 Cor.5:12)

 

The spiritual man is incomprehensible to the natural man. Natural here has to do with his Soul, his animal, earthly life. It's our word Psyche. Most psychics, I have found, are not very spiritual but rather worldly, this includes, I think, most remote viewers. They are all working on the plane of animate life and are mistaking the oneness of all life for spiritual reality and "God Consciousness". The Soul or Psyche is what makes us alive on the earth along with all living things. But our contact with God and the life he quickens in us is Spirit, to which those in the world cannot attain.


1Cor. 2:6-16
"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are mature: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.' But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, no man knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God.


"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; applying spiritual things with spiritual [men.] But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned of no man. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ."


Many members in the church when confronted with such a man as this will call him a mystic or a Pentecostal, which he is not, and reject him as a person who thinks too much or has his head in the clouds, or talks over our heads. When all that is required is to have a trusting faith and receive the teaching as a little child.


This also gives us insight into the work of the Holy Spirit. First he is only sent to or given to those who are children of God. "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his son into your hearts crying Abba, Father."
(Galatians 4:6) "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (Romans8:14) As the Spirit is an incorporeal being, he has the ability to reside in and have influence in the hearts of God's children. (Eph. 3:14-ff) This is something with which Christians who are materialists have a difficult time. But if they will let go of doubt and take God at his word, it is really quite simple - our simple secret. For we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ, in God. (Col. 3:3)

 

I think that the major portion of the Spirit's job is done through the life with which he quickens us, and is to provide insight and illumination ("the light of life" John 8:12) in accordance with the spiritual life in Christ that has been given to us for our activity in the spiritual realm, and consequently in the understanding of his word. (1Cor. 2) He gives us the mind of Christ, and with that perspective we can grasp more fully the lessons in the scriptures and not be blinded by the flesh. "For you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Rom. 8:9)


Paul says that God can strengthen us with might by his Spirit in our inner man and give us the ability to see the whole environment; the breadth and length and depth and height, and going beyond knowledge, to appreciate the love of Jesus Christ, and be filled with all the fullness of God.
(Eph.3:14-ff)


In the spiritual realm the flesh counts for nothing. All the human distinctions and accomplishments that men tend to think are important in this world, are really not anything with God. "For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."
(Luke 16:15)

 

God structures his plan of salvation so that no one can second guess him or foreswear him. He makes decisions that are righteous and good and that rest solely on his own prerogative so that no human can take advantage of his choices in election or in his mercy; e.g. "The elder shall serve the younger." (Rom.9:9-12) "So that no flesh should glory in his presence." (1Corinthians 1:18-31) Human nature is not countenanced as significant when it comes to our standing before God. The nature of God is spirit. (John 4:24) Christians partake of "the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Peter 1:4) If they live in the spirit, their behavior and thinking should be in the spirit, i.e. be spiritual. (Gal. 5:25)


Those who are waiting for a physical kingdom with a human presence of Jesus on a material throne are looking in the wrong place with a carnal mind set on things of the flesh. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."
(1 Corinthians 15:50)


2. Death was possible, but not necessary.


Why do men die? God has revealed that He created man and it was not so that man would die. God is “bringing many sons unto glory,” (Heb. 2:10). He wants man to live with him. But God is holy. Anyone who lives with God must also have holiness, “without which no one shall see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14)


We can see the reason for death in the story of the first man. Mankind dies physically because we are the descendants of Adam, the first man. The Hebrew way of looking at that is that Adam was humanity, when he sinned, mankind sinned.
(Romans 5:12-14) We do not inherit his guilt of sin but the consequences of it. This man disobeyed a positive and direct command from God who had forbidden the eating of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and therefore was driven away from the Tree of Life. God had told him what the consequence of that disobedience would be when he said, "For in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die." He died that day when he was spiritually separated from God. He was expelled from the garden.


Afterward God told him more about the consequences and said, “For dust you are,’ (you can die) ‘and unto dust you shall return,” (you will die),
(Gen. 3:19). God took away the possibility of not returning to the dust from which he came. Man was going to die physically as a consequence or punishment for sin.


There are a few things in the Bible that are not explained, but they are not hidden either. A true account of the scene is presented simply, and like a child viewing their parents’ actions, no explanation is requested, or given. The prophets of old constantly wanted an explanation of what they had seen and in many instances it was allowed, but not always.

In the case of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the reason was that it was necessary to prevent the man’s access to the Tree of Life because he had sinned and also had “become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” (ver.22) So to prevent the man from eating from The Tree of Life and living forever in that state of sin, guilt and estrangement from God, he was driven from the garden and not allowed to ever come back. He would have to physically die.

 

What effect the fruit of the Tree of Life would have had on him is stated simply as “living forever.” Most people will assume that Adam and Eve would have continued indefinitely in their bodies of flesh and blood. But the Bible doesn’t say that. I cannot say that it would have been impossible, only that living forever in the flesh is not what God wanted for man, and therefore, not within His view or plan. Again, he’s “bringing many sons unto glory.” He wants man to be with him, he wants men to be his sons. That would necessitate a translation, a transcending of the flesh and living with God in the spirit, which is what Christianity is all about and providing a way to realize it.


It is probable then that the fruit of the Tree of Life effected a person's translation to the spiritual realm without actually dying physically. But being barred from any access to the tree would consign the man to physical death.


It is possible therefore to conclude that the normal course of a man’s life without sin, would be a birth, a growth in maturity and spiritual understanding as a son of God and then a translation to the spiritual realm where God is. Simply going to be with God – no death involved; without sin – no death necessary.


Death then, before Christ came, was only because of sin, physically because of Adam's sin and spiritually because of our own. It is not only the body going back to the dust, but also man’s spirit not going to be with God but (by God's mercy and justice), going to a place of the dead (Hades) without having access to the Tree of Life and living with God. In Hebrew it is Sheol, the place of the dead; it was like a holding tank for those awaiting trial. That is what Paul means by "the bondage of corruption" or we could say "the slavery of decomposition." Our bodies decompose instead of a glorious transfiguration into eternal life with God. So, death is a separation, and in this case, from God. Because of sin, man does not reach life. This is the Death that Jesus came to destroy.


3. The Transfiguration


Another event that is not explained in the scriptures is the mount of transfiguration. There, on the mount is the solution to the mystery of man displayed, and any question of confusion about man's condition and our destiny is revealed. I think there is no explanation because God wants us to see the reality of it from a growth in perspective and understanding. Understanding what the tree of Life was; and what death was and what Hades was for. Maybe He wanted his goal for creating us, to be for our hearts to perceive and appreciate and not be a left-brained exercise in conclusions. This scene seems to hearken back to Moses coming down from the mount radiating pure, glorious light from his face. It is like we are co-witnesses of something so profound that we stand there in awe and silence.

(see. 2Cor. 3:12-4:6)

 

I believe that Jesus, the sinless Son of man, is about to go on to God, transcending the flesh and being glorified, which would be the normal course of a man. Because man was never meant to die. He was suppose to live like the Son of man lived, and mature spiritually, overcoming the world with its flesh and then transcend to glory. For Jesus, like Adam, death was possible, but not necessary. If this is what Jesus was about to do, he instead, chooses to obey his father's command, go back down from the mount and lay down his perfect life as a sacrifice for all of mankind. ("the obedience of one," Rom. 5:19) This was the very thing under discussion between Jesus, Moses and Elijah, the exodus of Jesus from the Earth. (Luke 9:31) The KJV "decease," is the Greek ἔξοδον, exodus. They were discussing how he was to accomplish his exit in Jerusalem.


The average man, born into this world of sin, is easily defeated by it and dies spiritually. This is not total depravity. If he loves truth and wants to find God, he will search for him and find him, for God wants to be found and is not far from each one of us - "for in him we live and move and have our being." "For we are also his offspring."
(Acts 17:28)


God will teach this man and draw him, and every man who hears and learns from the Father comes to Jesus for spiritual light, love and life, to quench his thirst with the water of life.
(John 6:37-38) What Jesus provides him through his blood sacrifice, is forgiveness of sins and the gift of life through faith in God's powerful working when he is baptized into Christ; immersed into his death. He washes the stain and guilt of sin away, and as we come out of that water, he gives us back our spiritual life in a rebirth, a regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38-39; Titus 3:5-6; cf. John 3:5-6) Then, with this sanctifying empowerment of the Spirit we are separated from sin, (we die to it), and can live in the spirit, thus overcoming the world of flesh. Walking i.e. living in the spirit, we more and more grow into the image of Christ, (2Cor. 3:18) "because as he is, so are we in this world." (1John 4:17) "If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit." (Galatians 5:25)


All men need to transform. That is why we are here in the flesh. Our experience in coming to God and our immersion into Christ and sharing his life is instrumental in bringing about that transfiguration that we saw Jesus about to do on the mount. A transformation into the spirit, to go and be with God when we put off these tents of flesh, these tabernacles, as Peter said, i.e. when we physically die.
(2 Peter 1:4)


Do not allow any man to prevent you from obeying God and not allow Jesus to finish your faith and realize your inner transformation.
(2Corinthians 3:17- 4:2)


Overcoming the flesh of this world is not like the ascetics ("Touch not, taste not, handle not; which are all to perish with the using"
Colossians.2:22) but rather, in faith, with the enlightened eyes of spiritual understanding, knowing the game of the flesh, (its mode of operation), and in awareness of it, we are able to live above the circumstances in which we find ourselves - and easily resist it; bypassing it; being dead to it and walking away. By faith we find the strength to be holy. It is like someone coming back from the dead and seeing the world in a whole new light. "He that is dead is freed from sin." (Romans 6:7). Since we died with Jesus in the burial of baptism, the old life of the flesh is derailed; Paul says destroyed - put out of commission. So, we don't serve the lusts of the flesh; we live unto God, as those who are alive from the dead, and we live as Jesus lives now, serving God and walking in the spirit with renewed minds.


Romans chapter 6 is not an academic exercise to be practiced, but a living, dynamic activity, moment by moment in truth (reality) having been quickened by the Holy Spirit to walk in newness of life. "As he IS, so are we in this world."

 

To escape all the confusion in the world of religious denominations we need to hold to the sayings of our father. The holiness which we need is uncompromising - just like Light and Truth are inherently so.


4. The authority of God to which men can appeal, is only in his word.


Paul appealed to God's word in the Old Law when he stood before the High Priest, Ananias, and the priest commanded that Paul be struck on the mouth for saying that he had, "lived in all good conscience before God until this day."


In defense he said, "God shall strike you, you whited wall: for do you sit to judge me after the law, and command me to be struck contrary to the law?" And when some people asked him, "Do you revile God's high priest?" Paul answered, "I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, 'You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people.'"
(Acts 23:1-5)


This Ananias was High Priest at that time, the son of Nebedaeus who was nominated by Herod, King of Chalcis and held the office from AD 48-59. He was a Sadducee and a violent man. Paul simply did not know who was High Priest.


Jesus also appealed to the Law when he was struck on the face for what he had said to the High Priest at his interrogation.


"The high priest then asked Jesus about his disciples, and of his doctrine.
Jesus answered him, 'I spoke openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, where the Jews always resort; and in secret I have said nothing.'
'Why do you ask me? ask them which heard me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said.'
"And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, 'Do you answer the high priest so?'
"Jesus answered him, 'If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why do you strike me?'"
(John 18:19-23)


This was a kangaroo court and they were not following the Law in this trial. Both Jesus and Paul spoke up for their rights under the Law because they were both "meek"; meekness will humbly submit only to the proper authority. Peter had the same attitude. When the High Priest asked him why he had not obeyed when told not to speak in the name of Jesus, he said, "We ought to obey God rather than men."

 

However, today we cannot appeal to the Old Covenant law for authority, for no one is any longer under that law. We can only use it as an example or precedent. (1Tim. 1:8-11; 1Cor. 10:11) Today we appeal to the authority of the word of God given to us in the four gospels and the letters of the Apostles of Christ to the churches. The reason that Jesus and his apostles appealed to the scriptures is because, like the Bible says everywhere, it is the authoritative word of God. It is the only authority in matters of faith and religious practices. The authority of God is not in a man or handed down through men. There is no office in the church that God has ordained that can be passed on from one man to another. There is no "Apostolic Succession."


The Apostles of Christ, were men commissioned by Christ himself. (If Christ Jesus has not appeared to you, commissioning you to be an apostle, then you cannot be one.) There were twelve of them, not just one, as in the Catholic, Mormon and the Orthodox churches. They were appointed by Jesus to reveal the word of God through the Holy Spirit guiding them into all truth.
(John. 16:13) They were to preach it to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47) Once the truth was revealed in their lifetimes, there was no longer any need for miraculous knowledge, revelations from God or Apostles of Christ. (1Cor.13:8-10) Their work on earth being accomplished, Jesus had promised that they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Mat.19:28; Luke 22:30) That was accomplished in the great white throne judgement after the resurrection at the last day of that current age, which ended in the days after the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century, no one knowing the day or the hour. (Rev. 20:11-15)


The kingdom of God spans both heaven and earth, and so we still have the original twelve Apostles, not physically but in the word of God that they revealed. The word of God which they left for the church when they died, contains all truth,
(John. 16:13) and it is by the word of God that the church is built up and guided by the Apostles to this day - not by traditions or the teaching and commands of men.


Paul called the Ephesian Elders to gather for the last time they would see him and Paul commended them to God and his word, not to a succession of Apostles.


" For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears."


"And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified."
(Acts 20:27-32)


There is not anything that any man on Earth knows about Jesus Christ that he did not learn from the word of his grace, the Bible. That is a fundamental concept that one must realize in order to avoid all the confusion in the many churches. It is a litmus test; if they didn't get their doctrine from the Bible then from where did they get it? The test is: "Show me a book, chapter and verse where it teaches your church's doctrine, in context, and I'll believe it. If not, then the men teaching it have "transgressed and have not remained in the doctrine of Christ," and therefore they do not have the Father or the Son.
(2 John 9-11)

 

 The precedent was set long ago.


"To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."
(Isaiah 8:20)


"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God."
(1Peter 4:11)


"For this cause also we thank God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe."
(1 Thessalonians 2:13)


Jesus also followed the same rule as he gave us. Jesus never ever spoke from his own resources, i.e. from his own thoughts and his own opinions. His doctrine was not his, but God's who had sent him. He only spoke what the Father told him to say and how he was to say it.
(John 7:16-18; 12:49)

 

The one who speaks from his own resources is the Devil.

 

"He was a liar from the beginning and did not remain in the truth. Because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources; because he is a liar and the father of it."
(John 8:44)

 

From his own resources means that he did not get it from God, but he made it up, as we say, "from whole cloth". There is no truth in him means, that at the core of his being there is no verity, no honesty; he appeals to nothing and to no one but his own black heart. He does not stand in the truth, but stands outside of it. When he left and did not remain in the truth he exists only in illusion and fake illumination.


"But we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
(2 Cor. 2:17)


Needless to say... however, if you are not getting your beliefs and religious practices from the scriptures, then who are you following?

 

Our love of God is evident by our love of his word and our obedience to it.

 

"If you keep my commandments, you shall remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and remain in his love."
(John 15:10)

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." (1 John 5:3)

 

"And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." (1 John 2:3)

 

To "keep" God's word means to hold and guard it from violation and compromise by the world. It means to observe it and obey it.

 

Therefore, I also commend you to God, and to the word of his grace. It is the only thing that will truly build the church.

 

LW

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