Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
I will
try to summarize things God has given me from his word either through my
morning time with him prayer-journaling through the Scriptures, my exercise
time where I have the Scriptures read to me while I (slowly) work out, or what
has been shared within our home church by others.
First,
Paul concludes the book of Romans with this glorious doxology:
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen (Romans 16:25-27).
Notice
the order of what Paul lists as God’s word to his people:
1. “according to my gospel” is the
gospel Paul preached. We know this is the same one the other apostles preached.
The book of Acts and all the epistles (letters to the churches) tell us what
this gospel contained in both summary statements and detailed explanations.
Paul is now writing about this gospel, so we have the gospel he proclaimed with
his voice, and his written testimony of this gospel that Peter said was
Scripture.
2. “and the preaching of Jesus Christ”
partners everything the apostles preached as the gospel with everything Jesus
preached as the gospel. They are one and the same.
3. “according to the revelation of the
mystery that was kept secret for long ages” speaks about all the
Scriptures that came before the first coming of Christ. This is what Jesus
summarized as the Law/Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. All those Scriptures
were “revealed”, or “breathed out by God”, but they also were communicated in
“the mystery that was kept secret”, meaning, its specific details were not made
known before Jesus’ first coming.
4. “but has now been disclosed” tells
us that what was a mystery kept secret until the coming of Christ has now been
made known to everyone in the ways Paul just mentioned, the gospel the apostles
preached in attachment to the gospel Jesus preached. This means that everything
we see in the New Testament is the fulfillment of everything we have in the Old
Testament, and all we see going on with the apostles is the living out of
everything Jesus taught us in the gospels. It is a beautiful cohesive whole, a
tapestry with threads of glory woven from one end to the other.
5. “and through the prophetic writings
has been made known to all nations”. Returning to the Bible Sense Lexicon to
make sure we understand the term “prophetic writings”, we have “prophetic:
prophetic adj. — of or relating to representative declarations of the mind,
will, or knowledge of God”, and “writings: passage (scripture) n. — a section
of text from the sacred Scriptures; especially the Old Testament.” It would
appear that this means that all the prophecies made about Christ have made the
gospel known throughout the whole world, as we see today when people discover
how clearly Jesus fulfilled prophecy.
6. “according to the command of the
eternal God,” makes the whole works God’s doing from beginning to end,
absolutely denying BJ’s claim that anyone “got it wrong” in the past. Paul is
absolutely endorsing all the Scriptures (Old Testament, Gospels, Acts,
epistles) as the word of God!
7. “to bring about the obedience of faith—“, the
ultimate aim of the whole Scriptures, for God to “purify for himself a people
for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). This makes
clear that “faith” is never separate from “obedience”, but the “obedience of
faith” is different from the obedience of law.
8. “to the only wise God be glory
forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.” Meaning, everything taught in the
Bible is to the glory of God through Jesus Christ. That is why we don’t turn to
“another Jesus”, we do not turn to “a different spirit”, and we do not join BJ
in his “different gospel”. And I simply praise the Lord that he included this
wonderful gift of Scripture as I journey along the very disappointing trail BJ has set
before his followers.
Second, this morning, as I sluggishly worked through my workout routine,
I listened to Scriptures from I Corinthians, through II Corinthians, and five
chapters into Galatians. Hearing the things Paul addressed in a “big picture”
format certainly shows how God’s thoughts are woven through the Scriptures in
such undeniable ways (hence BJ needing to continually misrepresent Scripture to
make his points). Here are some things that stood out.
1. In I Corinthians 14:37-38, Paul
wrote, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should
acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If
anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” This means that in the
letter of I Corinthians, we have a written word from Paul about his written
words. His claim is that his teaching is “a command of the Lord.” Peter
obviously agreed since he calls Paul’s writings Scripture. This also means that
Scripture is not a hybrid of Paul’s thoughts mixed with his best understanding
of God’s thoughts. It is Paul writing down commands of the Lord. Contrary to
BJ’s lies, the Scriptures are absolutely authoritative.
2. Going through II Corinthians, I was
well aware that Paul was defending his ministry to the point that he was
obviously struggling with how personal he needed to be in speaking of his
credentials. As I have written before, Paul was “afraid that as the serpent
deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere
and pure devotion to Christ” (11:3). This is the same concern we must have
about people like the BJs who are using their cunning to lead people’s thoughts
away from their sincere and pure devotion to Christ to following non-biblical
authorities telling everyone to go back to aspects of the law that the apostles
so clearly taught we must leave behind now that we are in the New Covenant.
3. Starting into Galatians confronted
me again with how horrible Paul felt to hear that the Galatian churches were
also turning back to elements of the Old Covenant when Christ was so clearly
revealed to them as crucified, meaning, that there was now a New Covenant in
his blood that replaced the Old Covenant. We must apply that same horror and
condemnation to what BJ is doing in his books.
4. Paul’s claim was very clear, “For I
would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not
man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I
received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11-12). What
Paul preached was “not man’s gospel”; what BJ preaches is “a different gospel” that
is man’s gospel. Paul received his message “through a revelation of Jesus
Christ”; BJ clearly did not. He then continued showing what God did in his life
to give him his apostolic authority, something the other apostles confirmed; BJ
clearly has no such authority.
5. Paul gives his own testimony of how
“false brothers” were already at work that early. He writes, “Yet because of
false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that
we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— to them we
did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel
might be preserved for you” (Galatians 2:4-5). Paul’s concern? The “truth of
the gospel”. BJ’s concern? To replace Paul’s gospel with “a different gospel”.
However, the gospel Jesus and the apostles taught HAS been preserved for us,
and God, in his incredible wisdom, even used the controversies with false
teachers to preserve the true gospel! We have that today in the Scriptures,
hence Satan trying so desperately to erode our confidence in the Scriptures as
God’s word.
6. When Paul wrote, “O foolish
Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was
publicly portrayed as crucified” (Galatians 3:1), he was telling people what
their problem was, they were foolish! Foolish means, “mindless adjs. — not
marked by the use of reason” (BSL). The Galatians had adopted a “different
gospel” because they were not THINKING! In a sense, Paul had to come in and do
their thinking for them! As a parent of a child who experienced a traumatic
brain injury (TBI), I know what it is like to have to do someone’s thinking for
them! However, it is far scarier when people receive false teachings without
any effort at all, but then it is so much work to reason them out of such
schemes of the devil!
7. In Galatians 3, Paul makes a big
deal about clarifying the complete separation of the law and the gospel,
something that BJ is rejecting by suggesting we go back to the very things
Jesus saved us from.
8. Then Paul expresses his deep
emotions again by saying, “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to
be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless
elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” BJ
is doing the very thing Paul warned against. In fact, look at how clearly Paul
addresses what BJ is trying to do: “You observe days and months and seasons and
years!” You know, like the cycle of feasts and festivals BJ is promoting! So
Paul laments, “I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain” (Galatians
4:9-11), meaning, that all Paul’s labors to bring the true gospel to them
appears to be “in vain” because the churches are so easily letting false
teachers lead them away from Christ. You know, like the popularity of BJ’s
books is showing!
9. Paul then describes BJ’s motives
like this, “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut
you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). That is where I am
in BJ’s book, where he is trying to show how he twists Scriptures to make much
of how wonderful we are in the hope that his readers will see how wonderful he
is!
10. I will end with this one “You were
running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not
from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have
confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is
troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is” (Galatians 5:7-10). The
warning applies to BJ to the T; the exhortation for us to “take no other view”
than treating such people as under the penalty of God is much needed.
Now, I
just read the sharing from someone in our home church, and you will never
believe what the Scripture says that was shared:
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:22-24).
Why is
that such a big deal? Because I had already been working on some of the things
BJ addresses next in the trail ahead of us, including trying to remove the
sense of the “wrath of God” from what is written. As I was writing notes during
my exercise time, I wrote a note to myself, “Wrath: CONTEXT! CONTEXT!
CONTEXT!”, meaning, the immediate context of the verse, the context of the
chapter, the context of the letter (Romans), the context of the New Testament,
and the context of the whole Bible.
So,
with this Scripture that was shared this morning, I get part of the bigger
context of Romans 5:9, where BJ claims the “of God” part of “the wrath of God”
is not in the Scriptures. Meaning, wrath is mentioned, but it cannot be
attributed to God.
However, with this passage from Romans 9, Paul specifically refers to God
and “his wrath”. Sounds like important context!
Bible
Sense Lexicon defines “wrath” as, “wrath (punishment) n. — the punitive
outworking of God’s righteous indignation at sin; perhaps describing an anger
long-building.” The verse is talking about God showing this. I won’t elaborate
any further because I know I will need to do a detailed examination of the
message of God’s wrath in Scripture to address BJ’s point. For now, I simply
wanted to give a testimony of how God brought this to my attention right after
discovering where BJ was going in that department, and he did it in the
fellowship of believers who are seeking God in his word and prayer every day so
we can know what he is saying, see what he is doing, and join him in his work.
If I
could lead everyone to do just this one thing, I would show everyone that the
Bible is the word of God because everything it contains is the word of God. Read
your Bible every day until something stands out. Then talk to God about what
you are reading like he is your Father leading you into his will. See how well
you can describe what God is doing in you with this, and consider what this
means he would be doing around you through this. And finally, join God in his
work in “the obedience of faith” with all your heart.
Anyone who seeks God in this way will discover that the word of God, the Scriptures, are truly “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). BJ clearly does not want you to know God’s word like that. But it has been the written word of God leading people to the Word of God for centuries. And I would never give up this living and active word of God, the Scriptures we have in the Bible, for any ol’ peddler of God’s word who has to twist everything for his profit and everyone else’s loss. After all, it is the word of God that introduces me to the Word of God, and continues to do so!
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
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