Moreover, brethren, I declare unto
you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and
wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I
preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you
first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the
third day according to the scriptures: 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4
For as many as have sinned without
law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall
be judged by the law; (For not the
hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be
justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto
themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or
else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men
by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Romans 2: 12-16
The list of
reasons for why we do not see in our church and in our lives an equivalent experience
to that of the biblical age saints is long and varied but in the end can be
reduced to two factors pride and ignorance. These two states come together to
form unbelief.
I assure you
that the writer of what you now read does not exempt himself from this
evaluation. As a rule we do not evaluate ourselves as spiritually ignorant or
immature and will ignore any evidence that may show we are. If we bear no false
witness of ourselves either we are experiencing in every way those things
witnessed by Messiah and His apostles as a matter of common living for a believer
or what they have witnessed is a lie.
Two of our
greatest enemies in a war against unbelief are sparks of the new creation and
assumption of knowing the truth. What I mean by sparks of the new creation is
like if I had a light and a switch connected by wire that did not have proper
connection.
If I flip
the switch I will see a bright spark and smell the burning ozone but the light
will only flicker leaving me still in the dark. This experience is like when we
see YHWH move to answer prayer, or prophecy, or give peace and so on. The
initial experience gives us light so intense that we see it even after its gone
but slowly it fades leaving us to wonder if it was real or not. These flashes
are caused by not having a sound connection; however they, by our own pride and
ignorance, cause us to ignore that we are not experiencing the light as an every
moment environment of our living. Yeshua testified His believers would live in
the light as He was in the light.
The second
major cause of unbelief is assumption. It is often the things we are certain we
know already that cause us to not hear and understand what is being said. As an
example if I were to ask any Christian “what is the gospel” the answer will for
the majority of people Jesus died so my sins can be forgiven and I can go to
heaven. Yeshua no doubt provided forgiveness and the promise of eternity with
the Father and Him but that is a only a result of the gospel. Yeshua and the
apostles teach about a forgiveness of past sins but this result is secondary to
trusting in the redemption provided by Messiah which frees us from sin. The
death of Messiah was not to settle an account of wrath but instead took the
fate of our sin on him that we could be free from sin.
The death of
Messiah is about binding the strong man inherent from Adam. The Adamic man we
were dies in the cross so that by faith in our redeemer we join Him in the
Fathers life. No man can have two masters; you cannot generate your life and be
given His life at the same time. Yeshua referred to this as the kingdom of
heaven and the heart of man while Paul spoke of the flesh and the spirit even
YHWH spoke of it to Moses as life and cursing but all concluded that the
solution is a complete giving of all that we are to YHWH and trusting,
depending, and expecting YHWH to be our creator.
