This month, we are covering a seemingly simple concept that has powerful, revelatory, and wide ranging applications: Right-Right vs Right-Wrong...Right WHAT-Right HOW/WHY vs. Right WHAT-Wrong (or NO) HOW/WHY.
The overview for the rest of this Series is that God wants our brain to have Profitable Thought Processes. The enemy and our flesh wants our brain to have Unprofitable Thought Processes.
Throughout this Series we have seen the brain is the battlefield on which God and our mind participate in Spiritual Warfare against the enemy and our flesh. So, there are two participants attempting to access our strongholds: the enemy and our flesh.
This week we will conclude this series. In the previous post, we concluded the three part mini-series on HOW the enemy participates in Spiritual Warfare:
The HOW of God's Spiritual Warfare Overview
1. The goal is to bring about God's Will
2. God supplies the power through the Holy Spirit with an influence upon our heart
3. We (Mind) choose to speak WORDS that are truth
4. These WORDS are spoken according to our understanding and experience...our imagination and memory.
The HOW of the flesh and the enemy's Spiritual Warfare Overview:
1. The goal is to hinder God's Will
2. The enemy supplies an influence upon our heart
3. The influence from the enemy is meant to encounter strongholds (sin) in our brain
4. The flesh attempts to weaken our understanding and experience...so that our imagination and memory serves the enemy.
Specifically looking at HOW #4...
Using faith to make sure the influence that reaches the brain is from God (grace) will require the person to state WORDS according to their faith so that upon completion of The Second Feedback Loop, the individual's faith and ability to experience grace is built.
Following the flesh and enemy's HOW of Spiritual Warfare for the first three steps results in the faith and individual's ability to experience grace Profitably to be weakened...to put their Salvation in danger.
Today, we will summarize both processes by looking at conviction vs. condemnation...
CONVICTION VS. CONDEMNATION
There are two responses that people confuse to their detriment: conviction and condemnation.
We have seen that if a person fails the HOW of Spiritual Warfare, they will end up feeling guilt. They will have done something that their conscience recognizes as sin...as something that is apart from faith...something apart from what is right in the Long Term according to their understanding and experience. The individual will feel this confrontation from God (through the Holy Spirit) and their Mind concerning the action, attitude, or thought of the individual. This confrontation is conviction.
Conviction in the New Testament is Strong's #1651 elegeho - "to confute, admonish:-convict, convince, tell a fault, rebuke, reprove"
Notice, everything about this word is to confront the individual about their BEHAVIOR, ATTITUDE, or THOUGHT. Remember what was written in "Modeling God"?
"Sin is an action, attitude, or thought that is wrong because it is done apart from what the individual knows is right due to their understanding or experience." (page 89)
In the previous post, we saw that the individual OUGHT to attach this conviction to the sinful behavior, attitude, or thought. Then the individual OUGHT to intentionally file ALL of this information TOGETHER into their cortex, so next time they can access this information BEFORE they choose to sin.
Here are some verses using Strong's #1651:
"7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you.
8 And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 of sin, because they believe not on me;
10 of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more;
11 of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged." (John 8:7-11)
"7 For the bishop must be blameless, as God's steward; not self-willed, not soon angry, no brawler, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre;
8 but given to hospitality, as lover of good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled;
9 holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict the gainsayers." (Titus 1:7-9)
"8 Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well:
9 but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors." (James 2:8-9)
These passages state the Holy Spirit will convict the world, bishops ought to be able to convict gainsayers, and those who commit sin by giving preference to people will be convicted by the law. All of this concerns actions, attitudes, and thoughts...not the actual individual's being.
We saw the other way for people to handle sin is to personalize it. To file it away along with everything else that the person values that is Profitable. When sin is filed away in the cortex along side things that are Profitable, we saw that it can lead to the individual losing faith and not having a Profitable interaction with grace. It can lead to the person losing their Salvation. The feeling the person experiences from this sin is condemnation.
Condemnation is Strong's #2917 krima - "from 2919; a decision...damnation, go to law, judgment"
Strong's #2919 krino - "to distinguish, i.e. decide (mentally or judicially); by impl. to try, condemn, punish"
Condemnation goes beyond the action, attitude, and thought. Condemnation reaches the being of the individual. Condemnation results in the individual being judged and receiving damnation...loss of Salvation!
Let's look at some passages using Strong's #2917:
"14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, even while for a pretence ye make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive greater condemnation." (Matthew 23:14)
"38 And there was also a superscription over him, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
39 And one of the malefactors that were hanged railed on him, saying, Art not thou the Christ? save thyself and us.
40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?" (Luke 23:38-40)
"7 But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
8 and why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil, that good may come? whose condemnation is just." (Romans 3:7-8)
"2 The bishop therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3 no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money;
4 one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
5 (but if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
6 not a novice, lest being puffed up he fall into the condemnation of the devil." (I Timothy 3:2-6)
Condemnation in each case is a judgment against the individual that implies eternal consequences.
There's one more passage (John 8) that uses both concepts (conviction and condemnation) together:
"2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3 And the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery; and having set her in the midst,
4 they say unto him, Teacher, this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such: what then sayest thou of her?"
Notice, this could be seen as fleshly Spiritual Warfare. The Pharisees ask a Question after stating what the Law said. They are trying to get Jesus to CONDEMN her. We know from John 3:17 that Jesus did NOT come into the world to CONDEMN. What is Jesus going to do?
"6 And this they said, trying him, that they might have whereof to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground."
This verse states that the INTENT of the Pharisees' Question was to trap Jesus! They will continue asking until Jesus does something. What will Jesus do?
"7 But when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground."
I've covered this before as an example of "Weed Killer". Jesus didn't tell them NOT to stone her...which would have violated the Law. Jesus didn't physically try to prevent them from stoning her...that would have triggered their amygdalas and led to them stoning her. Jesus came up with a way TO stone her!
In fact, this looks like Spiritual Warfare. Jesus stated a will for the people in a conditional manner. Basically Jesus said for the people to fulfill the Law by meeting the requirement of being sinless. The result was the most efficient and effective way to disperse the crowd:
"9 And they, when they heard it, went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the midst."
The Greek word for "convict" is in this verse. It is easier to see in the King James Version:
"9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." (KJV)
So, CONVICTION prevented them from continuing in their fleshly pursuit...it prevented their continuing in their actions, attitudes, and thoughts.
Once, the crowd leaves, Jesus addresses the woman:
"10 And Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, Woman, where are they? did no man condemn thee?
11 And she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more."
The crowd was CONDEMNING her!
Jesus used WORDS to CONVICT the crowd.
Jesus states He doesn't CONDEMN her.
I had an interesting experience this weekend with traditional-minded people...people who hold to man-made traditions instead of God's Word...but think they are following God. The key way to determine if these people are following God or not is whether they operate in conviction or condemnation.
People who know their Bible and operate according to it can convict a person. They can focus on the behavior, attitude, or thought. They can objectively show how it is Unprofitable. They can do this without judging the person. They can do this without getting emotional. They can do this the same way Jesus did like we saw above in John 8. They can be Christians.
Traditional-minded people condemn...they focus on the being of the individual. They don't get all the facts. They make judgmental statements about the being of the individual in an emotional manner. They are NOT focused on reasoning with the individual and patiently showing with the Bible how the behavior, attitude, or thoughts of the person are Unprofitable. They focus on stating the person themselves is Unprofitable. As we saw above, they do this the same way as the crowd did in John 8.
This is the main reason there is so much damage being done today by "Christians"...
We looked at Romans 7 during the post on Strongholds: The Flesh. It was the post that showed how strongholds are formed in the flesh so that the enemy can give a stimulus (thought) that activates this sin that is within us. We saw the conclusion of Romans 7 is:
"22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."
Paul showed that the believer's Mind and God's Holy Spirit serve the law of God (grace) while the believer's flesh serves the law of sin.
Once this conclusion is reached, notice Paul's next statement, which is the beginning of Romans 8...
"1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."
There is NO condemnation for believers! Paul's reason was in Chapter 7. However, Paul is going to give more reasons:
"2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death."
Reason #1: Grace freed me from the Law that activated sin in me and brings death.
"3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
Reason #2: The Law is good and was meant to help me...but my flesh is too weak to handle the Law Profitably. So, God sent His own Son so that sin itself is condemned!...and that we can walk according to the Spirit and not see condemnation.
"5 For they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit."
Reason #3: Our mind is able to be after the things of the Spirit which cannot be condemned.
"6 For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace:
7 because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be:
8 and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh:
13 for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
Reason #4: God's Spirit is able to live in us and do the Righteousness that allows us to avoid condemnation...because it leads to Salvation...which is the avoidance of punishment.
"14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."
Reason #5: We are sons of God.
SUMMARY
Conviction is the confrontation the individual feels when he fails the HOW of Spiritual Warfare and sins through action, attitude, or thought. This conviction comes in the form of guilt and is NOT focused on the being of the individual.
Condemnation is the confrontation the individual feels when they file the experience of failing the HOW of Spiritual Warfare along with everything else that the person values that is Profitable. When sin is filed away in the cortex along side things that are Profitable, we saw that it can lead to the individual losing faith and not having a Profitable interaction with grace. It can lead to the person losing their Salvation. Condemnation is focused on the being of the individual.
Tomorrow, we will look at Old Testament examples of the HOW of Spiritual Warfare.
Next Post
10 comments:
A general comment about your entire new theology:
1) Your theology completely denies God's omniscience or omnipotence as they pertain to the Scriptures. The general understanding that Bible-believing Christians of nearly every doctrinal bent all agree on is that the Word of God is divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. That same Spirit who wrote the book knew the beginning from the end, omniscient of every "causality" in the universe. That means he knew the audience who he intended it for throughout the ages--from the underground church in Rome to the Middle Ages to the Reformation to the 21st Century--and wrote it for timeless, universal human understanding.
Your heretical theology implicitly demands one to believe that only after the application of late 20th/early 21st Century neuroscience and the philosophical musings of Ayn Rand--aided by haphazard and specious use of a Strong's Concordance--can we now REALLY understand what the Bible is saying, or, more precisely, what the Bible had ALWAYS been saying but could not be perceived prior to your illumination.
2. Your theology arrogantly and dismissively ignores two millennia of Bible scholarship and exegesis. Yes, you have some expertise in neuroscience, which you can pepper throughout your work in an effort to appear intellectually superior to your audience, and you've read Rand, so you can sound as smug and arrogant as she did. But your exegetical training is non-existent and your inept use of the Strong's Concordance (a beginner's reference volume) and complete lack of interpretive consistency are embarrassing. I took three semesters of ancient Greek in college--two learning the more irregular Homeric Greek of epic poetry and one in Koine Greek, translating the Gospel of John, and I would not consider myself well versed enough to make translation claims with the certainty that you do.
For twenty centuries, scholars who read Hebrew, Latin, and Greek fluently, understanding the nuances of First Century vernacular and customs, and with piercing intellects that far, far outperform either yours or mine have written and eloquently argued over the Scriptures and their resulting theological implications to mankind. But you, a guy from Green Bay, with no formal training, unable to read the Torah (Hebrew) the Septuagint (Greek), the Vulgate (Latin), or the Textus Receptus (Greek), and armed only with the most basic layperson Bible study aids, have discovered the "truths" that 2,000 years of scrutiny somehow missed?
Oh, wait--you've "discovered" that some of the inherent contradictions in Scripture aren't really contradictions at all, so long as everyone uses your new systems of interpretation. All of the intellectual theological discourse of twenty centuries was all for nothing. If only clods like Augustine, Luther, and Calvin were more philosophically astute and knowledgeable about the hippocampus and the pineal gland! They would have deduced your non-contradictory nirvana and ended their striving!
But it all makes sense if you are trying to invent a new religious sect in an L. Ron Hubbard manner, which your "Modeletics™" nomenclature, complete with the "™" symbol, would suggest. But you can't start a new cult without "innovative" new truths, can you? You need some razzle-dazzle, some pizzaz in order to turn people's heads. Orthodoxy and conservative, originalist interpretive methods can't do that for you. Boring. It's been done. No notoriety or marketing potential to that. So, a dash of Randian capitalism (to appeal to libertarians/conservatives), a pinch of applied neuroscience (to give you the air of credibility because you can baffle lay people with your knowledge and academic jargon), then throw in some random dispensationalism and 8th grade Strong's-based, pretext-guided Biblical exegesis, and write a book you can sell.
It will not work, and you need to repent of this apostasy. Collapse this site and find a local pastor to help in your restoration. You will not grow rich from your "inspired" reinvention of Biblical truth, and you risk eternal peril. There is nothing "contradictory" about that.
Hi "Anonymous",
Thank you for giving me two real life examples of condemnation.
You failed in your ability to convict me...which makes me question whether you truly are being led of the Holy Spirit.
If you want to attempt to convict me, please give your definition of "omnipotence"...and how you support this belief with the Bible.
Otherwise, you are PROVING this post!
By the way "Anonymous"...
Every time you get in distress, you displace pain on my blog anonymously...
You give yourself and the weakness of your position away every time you get emotional and displace pain on me. If you no longer feel guilt for doing this, then I am afraid you conscience may be seared over...
Thanks for letting me know the latest events are getting to you.
FWIW these were my first two posts to this blog. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "every time you get in distress..." You are confusing me with another anonymous poster.
Your failure to hear sound doctrine and repent indicates quite clearly to me that you are certainly not led by the Spirit.
I hope your followers' eyes are opened to just how obtuse and utterly absurd your neo-gnostic pseudointellectual heresies really are.
This will be my last post. But I'm sure when the next poster uses the "anonymous" button, you'll blame him/her for my contributions, as you have done to me. You've made a pretty irrational assumption for someone who pretends to be so rhetorically precise.
Repent.
This line from you says it all:
"Your failure to hear sound doctrine and repent indicates quite clearly to me that you are certainly not led by the Spirit."
You DIDN'T present sound doctrine...in fact, I asked you to give your definition of "omnipotence" and now you state you are done posting.
Again, you have proven that you are unable to convict people...even when they ask for it!!!!
Thank you!
well, anon (why dont people want to post their name if they really believe what the are posting anyways??)
you wrote...
For twenty centuries, scholars who read Hebrew, Latin, and Greek fluently, understanding the nuances of First Century vernacular and customs, and with piercing intellects that far, far outperform either yours or mine have written and eloquently argued over the Scriptures and their resulting theological implications to mankind."
Wow, all that study over all that time, why isn't there any agreement over what the bible says?
No matter what interpretation you may have, someone else is going to call you a heretic.
I found some of johns definitions helpful, guess that makes me a heretic too. why don't you share some of your definitions and beliefs with us? i bet you are a heretic too, everyone is!
Anon,
i have been reading a book that my pastor shared with me called, "unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters (9780801013003): David Kinnaman, Gabe Lyons"
have you read it? or heard of it?
i find it very interesting. it goes into detail on everything how and why christians are wrong with pretty much everything they do. it looks at christianity through the eyes of the unbeliever, and it is not pretty.
anon, where in the Bible does it say to judge people you don’t know?
Also, you said “2. Your theology arrogantly and dismissively ignores two millennia of Bible scholarship and exegesis. Yes, you have some expertise in neuroscience, which you can pepper throughout your work in an effort to appear intellectually superior to your audience, and you've read Rand, so you can sound as smug and arrogant as she did. But your exegetical training is non-existent and your inept use of the Strong's Concordance (a beginner's reference volume) and complete lack of interpretive consistency are embarrassing.”
Is this love? Or what you would call loving someone, according to the Bible?
anon, i found your comments after this post interesting. they reminded of what the "unchristian" book is railing against; angry, mean spirited, hatefull christians.....
what i have learned is that whenever someone argues in such a matter, that is, calling names, not giving any proof or reason for what they are stating, allowing no rebutal, going on pure emotion, is that they are usually wrong and unwilling to look at the possibility there could be another way. your comments were anything but christian.
even if John is wrong, this was in no way, shape, or form how to handle the situation according to God's Word and was a perfect example of "unchristian"
and let's just say John is wrong, i would still listen to what he had to say verses you, i KNOW your method of (evangelism?) is wrong, i wouldn't want to learn from someone who says they represent God yet attack people the way you did. Is it possible that you could be an example of a christian who is pushing people away from God, in the name of God?
with love
dave taube
Funny you mention Luther, wasn't he a heretic? he was tried for heresy and given time to recant, but he stood by his convictions.
The people who translated the bible into our "beginner laypersons" language were heretics too. if it wasn't for heretics, we would have to learn greek or latin to read the scriptures. mabye you would like that anon? it would keep people like us from daring to form new heretical beliefs, definitions, etc... guess we will never know, unless you state what you believe, instead of just yelling from your soapbox, eh? ;)
aw come on anon, come back, don't just be a hit ansd run internet bully!
I was hoping someone who strongly disagreed with JG would come and have some interesting discussions!
You kind of got a rough start, but there would still be hope if you could come back and bring up one area of disagreement and why you disagree, and we could go over it.
And post using your name, or at least make up a user name, too many anons running around.
Unless you are chicken? ;-)
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