21.1 The Confessions
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The question of this session is How Was Jezebel Formed? First, whenever I see people throwing around the word “Jezebel,” I cringe, because I suspect that I am about to be hit with religious accusation. Our purpose is not to condemn anyone, but to understand where our brethren dwell and why it seems so few can hear or are interested in a word of the tree of life.
I take the name “Jezebel” from Revelation 2:18-29, the admonition to the church of Thyatira, the corrupt church, which I equate, first with the triumph of Nicene thinking and second with the 1000 years of the height of Roman Catholicism from around AD 500 to 1517.
The Compromising Church
The corrupt church, however, is preceded by the compromising church, which I equate with this time we are studying, the fall of the church into Roman darkness. Nicene Christianity, which includes not only Roman Catholicism, but also her twin, Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as all of her Protestant daughters, includes enough truth to keep sincere Christians inside of it, but enough falseness to keep them far away from Jesus and Jesus far away from them. It is the field of which Jesus warned, wheat and tares all entwined together. It is the “other Jesus” and the “other gospel” of which Paul warned, yet Jesus remains Savior.
We study this time because God sets contrast as the backdrop of His victory; He wants everyone to KNOW the difference.
Nicene Thinking
In this lesson, I want to place Augustine in his role in the church and in his relationship with Jesus. As part of that, we will look at a few important statements from the most read book in Christian history from the early 400’s to the early 1700’s, Augustine’s The Confessions.
First, I want to reiterate just exactly how much Augustine is utterly, utterly familiar to you. You might think you have never read him, but you are wrong. If you have read anything written inside of Nicene Christianity, including all the way to Pentecostal Holiness and Deeper Truth, you have read Augustine, almost word for word.
Nicene thinking comes out of Augustine first and Jerome second.
My Purpose
Now, I posted a bit about Augustine on Facebook and received some questions and comments that, while good, yet thrust me into the press of autism. Inside that press, as I saw my Father utterly with me, sharing all things with me, I saw the real reason why I am writing these sessions on the fall into Roman darkness.
The church has never eaten of the tree of life. – The church has never eaten of the tree of life. – The church has never eaten of the tree of life. She does not know because her mind is filled with another gospel and a far-away Jesus.
A Pierced-Open Soul
When I was twenty years old, at Graham River Farm, the Lord spoke a word into me that pierced me like a spear, a word that opened me wide open, a word that I could not comprehend nor imagine how such a thing could ever be endured. A sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (Luke 2:23). Yes, this word meant something different when Simeon spoke it to Mary, yet it was not Simeon speaking to me, but God.
I write what I write, I embrace all difficulty my Father shares with me, because I would KNOW God, right here on this earth, right now in this age, and I would be a part of a people who know God, a people who eat of the tree of life.
Refusing Life
And everywhere I look, I see good, precious, dear Christian people who take one look at living in the tree of life, at eating only of life, and go their way; it is not for them. And I see exactly what it is that blinds their eyes and turns their hearts away. It is all the elements of another gospel and a faraway Jesus.
Everyone protests that, “No, the Bible is my guide; I follow only the Bible.” Either that or they claim, “No, I follow the Spirit; the Spirit is my teacher.” Yet when I hear them speak, or read what they write, I hear the words of Augustine and Nicene Christianity. And I know that they do not know the veil upon their eyes.
The Veil
In the first letter I wrote about Augustine, I paraphrased Paul’s admonition in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16 in this way.
But the minds of all Christians are blinded. For until this day the same veil of Augustine remains unlifted in the reading of the Bible, Old Testament and New, because the veil of Augustine is taken away only when we know that the Lord Jesus Christ is living now in full symmorphy with us, that He reveals Himself in and as every part of our humanity. But even to this day, when Christians read the New Testament, the veil of Augustine lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one TURNS TO full union with Christ, the veil is taken away.
That You Might Eat of Life
I am not writing these lessons on Augustine and on the fall of the church into Roman darkness in order to convince you of my arguments. I am writing that you might EAT of Life. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God (Revelation 2:7).
And when Jesus gives you to eat of that tree, I testify this with all certainty – everything looks different from here. The Bible and every word in it is talking about something totally other than what Nicene “Christian” definitions force upon it. The Bible is Jesus Alive in our hearts, living now as us.
The Fear of God
Now, in addressing Augustine, I want you to understand my position. Augustine is one of the godliest saints in Church history, one of the greatest of Christian leaders, a man to be revered and to be given all due honor and respect. Touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm is a word of the fear of God that holds my heart safely in His holiness.
That does not mean that a word of supreme mixture has not come through Augustine upon the entire church of Christ. Thus, in writing these things, we do not demean our brother in Christ, but seek only to remove that veil from our hearts.
Augustine
If Augustine had not been a godly man of great integrity who loved Jesus with all his heart insofar as he knew Him, then his ideas about God and salvation would never have prevailed in the church. For that reason, "I love Jesus," cannot mean that Augustine does not rule how one reads the Bible.
Let me give a brief history of Augustine. Augustine lived from AD 354-430. He lived most of his life in the area of Carthage, in what is today Tunisia in North Africa. Augustine taught for a few years in Italy where he met Ambrose of Milan who led him into the knowledge of Christ.
The Confessions
Augustine wrote what is called The Confessions, a spiritual autobiography, between AD 397 and 400. If The Confessions were all that he had written, its impact on the church would have taken Christianity into a closer love relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ all the way through.
Let me quote a bit to show how Augustine knew the Lord.
You awake us to delight in Your praise; for You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it repose in You (I. 1). Let me know you, O Lord, Who knows me; let me know You as I am known. Power of my soul, enter into it, and fit it for You, that You may have and hold it without spot or wrinkle (X. 1).
I Am Not Full of You
In fact, I find many lines in The Confessions that echo the relationship with Jesus and with the Father that we also enjoy. However, Augustine continued to see the promise of the gospel as something future.
When I shall with my whole self cleave to You, I shall nowhere have sorrow, or labor; and my life shall wholly live, as wholly full of You. But now, since whom You fill You lift up, because I am not full of You I am a burden to myself. Lamentable joys strive with joyous sorrows; and on which side is the victory, I know not. Woe is me! Lord, have pity on me. My evil sorrows strive with my good joys; and on which side is the victory, I know not. Woe is me! Lord, have pity on me.
I Am in Evil
…Is not the life of man upon earth all trial? Who wishes for troubles and difficulties? You command them to be endured, not to be loved (X. 41). Are You not mighty, God Almighty, so as to heal all the diseases of my soul, and by Your abundant grace to quench even the impure motions of my sleep? …But what I yet am in this kind of my evil, have I confessed unto my good Lord; rejoicing with trembling, in that which You have given me, and bemoaning that wherein I am still imperfect; hoping that You will perfect Your mercies in me, even to perfect peace, which my outward and inward man shall have with You, when death shall be swallowed up in victory (X. 43). (All underlining is mine – D.Y.)
Focusing on the Flesh
Augustine gave his heart to Jesus upon reading these words in Romans 13:13-14: Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. He read them, of course, as all Christians read them, putting the emphasis on “making no provision for the flesh,” with little thought of “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And thus, in spite of his real love for Jesus, Augustine never engaged with putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, but only with “subduing the flesh,” never understanding that only by putting on Jesus, only as Christ is all that we are, can whatever might be not-Christ ever vanish away from us.
Outward Appearance
Augustine saw his relationship with God as most Christians today see that relationship. Except my argument is that this comparison is backward; Christians today see their relationship with God as Augustine saw his.
Look at this overriding assumption – that we KNOW that God has filled us full, not by our faith in what He says, but by how we feel and how we appear. God filling us full will “lift us up.” And this “lifting up” amounts to a complete change in our outer man, our outer appearance, something that will happen ONLY in the resurrection; at present we are “in” evil. The only conclusion, then, is that God does not fill us full now.
Iron-Clad Definitions
And thus we find the foundational theology that man on this earth is not the image of God, but rather a heavenly perfection filled with light and angelic power. And we are back again to the same reason they killed Jesus: He did not look like “God.”
Here is the contradiction. No matter how much Augustine spoke about knowing God within, the moment you separate the flesh from Jesus, you separate Jesus far away and far above.
And further, we have this great contrast, a man so filled with the Spirit of God and a love of the knowledge of God, who gave to Christianity also an iron-clad definition of God and the church that would break this love in most.