8.1 Another Gospel
© 2019 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Nicene Christianity, the gospel of the serpent, is the departure from Christ that Paul so carefully warned us against. Now, you might read the “Nicene Creed,” and think, “Are these things not correct?” Do not answer that question, one way or the other, for it is a tree of death; nothing in the question or its answers can take anyone out of death and into life. Ideas for the mind cannot give life, only knowing a Person alive inside our hearts. And we know that Person by receiving into ourselves only what God actually says through, “Let it be to me.”
The Nicene Council was not God speaking.
Come to Me. Ideas of the mind, including Bible ideas, cannot be life. Life is Jesus in our hearts, with the mind as the servant of Christ. God did not give us the Bible so that we could eat of the tree of knowledge, even though anyone who wants is perfectly free to do so. God gave us the Bible for us to eat of the tree of life; that means knowing Jesus Sent into our hearts and through Him the Father.
Jesus said: “You search diligently the Scriptures, for you imagine having age-unfolding life in them, and these are bearing witness concerning Me; but you do not want to come to Me, that you might possess life” (John 5:40). No Bible idea can ever give life. The problem is not ideas; the problem is the absence of Jesus as He IS.
Frightened of What God Says. Most Christians assume that when Paul warned against those who preach “another gospel,” that he was referring to “a gospel” different from the Nicene gospel they have received.
For this reason, they are frightened of anything God says in the New Testament that might contradict what they adhere to in their minds. They do not recognize that the Nicene gospel is the “another gospel” of later days and that “Paul’s gospel” is something quite different. Yet they know Paul’s gospel, for they do know the Jesus of their hearts. Yet when the Jesus of their hearts is described and magnified by Scripture, they draw back, fearful that this “Jesus” is false.
Opposing Outcomes. More than that, the problem we face is that in presenting both gospels, Paul’s and the serpent’s, we are often using the same verses and the same terminology.
You see, the great issue set before Adam is also set before every human since and before every Christian, being cast by God all through the Bible. The Bible is a tree of death and the Bible is a tree of life; same words, opposing outcomes. This seems confusing, but it is actually rather simple. Do I want to be my own person, responsible for myself separate from God? Or do I want to be filled with another Person, Jesus, who makes me part of my Father?
The Great Issue. This great issue goes straight to the heart; the heart of man and the heart of God. Do we share the same Hheart, the same purpose and intentions with the Father? Those who prefer to be their own self, despise their present form and circumstances, and desire to be something “better” in their imagination, even while they grip tightly to their present lives. These do not give thanks but aspire to a future of “glory.”
The one who prefers to be filled with Jesus, to share spirit, soul, and body with Him, are content and grateful for the way God made then, knowing that Father is revealing Himself through their human weakness every moment. These give thanks in all things.
The Real Question. The issue goes much deeper than that, however, and we must have God’s issue right before we can even place these two conflicting gospels side by side to see the contrast. The real question is God’s heart, God’s intentions, God’s determination, what does the Father want for Himself?
We assert, out from core New Testament definitions, that our Father WANTS to be known by all created things, and that right now, God is not known. God wants to be seen and touched; He wants to enter into His creation as part of His creation, so that He might enjoy fellowship. Here is a picture of God: Then they brought little children to Him… And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them (Mark 10:13 & 16).
The Church His Body. Yet an invisible, All-Here-Now and Personal God can be seen and known through one means only – through other persons together. God desires a body, the Church, which IS His body the fullness of Christ who fills all inside of all (Ephesians 1:23).
Of truth, these two gospels, Paul’s and the serpent’s, can be easily compared on the basis of three things – entrance, journey, and destination. The end goal of God, the full meaning of salvation, is the Church together as the body and revelation of Father inside of creation, the entire Church as well as each local gathering. This is Paul’s gospel – you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22).
The Goal of Salvation. Here, then, is John’s expression of that same end goal, the fullness of what Salvation is and means. First, Jesus says this, “This is age-unfolding life {the end goal}, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Then He says this: “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I inside of them, and You inside of Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:3 & 22-23). God, seen and known by all through us His Body. – Salvation is not and never has been anything else.
The Vehicle. The journey, then – or shall we say, “the vehicle” that takes us from where we are at present into the full salvation of God, that is the Church, whole and complete, is one thing – Christ inside of us and we inside of Christ. Paul expresses this vehicle by using the word “in” and the prefix “syn/sym” innumerable times and in every way that each one of us could possibly be fused together with the Lord Jesus.
Paul’s central expression of this vehicle that carries us to Father’s Heart revealed through us is – symmorphy, sharing the same form with the Lord Jesus as the revelation of Father (Romans 8:29). John’s expression of Jesus saying the same thing is this – Know that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you (John 14:20).
By Grace through Faith. Then, the final question of the gospel is – how do we find ourselves inside this vehicle which takes us to the goal, the end purpose of Salvation? Paul’s answer to this question is simple and clear. – For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).
And here you see the problem, for our brethren, who hold to the Nicene image of “Christ” in their minds, also see these words as our entrance into God’s way of salvation – by grace through faith. And ALL Christians hold to this same entrance, regardless of sect or denomination. The problem is this, however – the definitions of three words, “grace,” “faith,” and “saved.”
Changing Definitions. We are then presented with an exercise of mental gymnastics. Is the issue really over how we define three simple terms? – I believe this, and you believe that? This may seem true on the surface but remember that God’s great issue has nothing to do with the definitions of the mind, but rather with the desires of the heart. It is only as we see out from Father’s Heart and intentions, from God’s Desire, that we can understand how the serpent did change the definitions of everything – same words, opposing definitions.
The key to the serpent’s success, then, consists of breaking the vehicle, of eliminating any knowledge of a Jesus who carries us all the way through death into life, that is, into knowing Father.
“Another Jesus.” The core of the serpent’s gospel, then, is to replace the knowing of the Jesus alive inside the heart with a mental image and definition of a high-above-you “Christ.” You cannot have “another gospel” without first presenting “another Jesus.” We will look more closely at that mental image of “Christ” in the next lesson.
But something else happens as well with the insertion of a different “Christ” into Christian “theology.” In the human imagination, God Himself becomes distant and cold, a demanding God who despises human weakness. And Father’s Desire is lost in the darkness and fog.
No one cares what Father wants; no one treasures His Heart.
A Jesus Someday. So, if our Father’s desire, to make Himself known through weak and silly humans loving one another with a pure heart fervently, is not in anyone’s mind, what takes the place of God’s desire and goal? – Death. – That is, since Jesus is far away in a different geographical location, then we will be able to see Him and to visit with Him only by going somewhere else, that is, to die.
So, what, then, besides death, carries us from where we are right now all the way to this “other place” where we can finally be in proximity to this faraway Jesus. And remember that a Jesus outside of us, even right next to us, is a “faraway Jesus” and not Paul’s Jesus at all. Those who see such a “Jesus” only will weep, as the Bible so clearly says.
Ready for Definitions. To replace this absent Jesus as the vehicle that carries the Nicene Christian to the end goal of being dead “in heaven” is two things, first the Bible as ideas for the mind and second, the church, which tells them exactly what the correct Bible ideas really are. When we contrast this empty and shallow vehicle with our joy of living inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us, we see how death could be the only possible end of such a travesty.
Yet now we are finally able to delineate the false definitions of “saved,” “grace,” and “faith” in contrast to the inexpressible joy of knowing all Salvation NOW. “Saved” has falsely become – “I have a ticket, so that someday, after I am dead, I can enter heaven where I will be instantly superior, like the image of the superior Christ I hold in my mind.” Notice that sharing Hheart with Father is not imagined inside such a “salvation.”
Adam’s Rebellion, now “Christian.” Then, “grace” must mean that – “I am an inferior loser right now – God I hate the way You made me – BUT – even though I clearly don’t ‘deserve’ it, I still get to be superior “in heaven.” You can see how such a “grace” is nothing other than the continued rebellion of Adam, now cloaked in Christian garb.
And faith? “Faith” in this scenario, can mean only one thing – “Hold tightly to the correct mental ideas, that is, to the Nicene Creed.” Yet their definition of “faith” becomes even worse. For by the gospel of the serpent, “faith” becomes – “Correct human performance now, resulting in a future human betterment.”
Our Wondrous Jesus. To us, by Paul’s gospel, “saved” means that Jesus Sent into our hearts connects us in all ways with Father, that Father now shares our lives as one Pperson together, and especially that we, right now, share Hheart with God.
To us, by Paul’s gospel, “grace” means the very gift of God Himself, all the fullness of God filling our human weakness full and rivers of God flowing out from us, bringing life and healing to all. And to us, by Paul’s gospel, “faith” means the most precious treasure of all, that every Word God speaks, the Lord Jesus Christ, might enter into us through “Let it be to me,” to become Himself in Person written all through our human hearts.
It is easy to see the horror of the false substitutes for the glorious Salvation in which we already live, yet the greatest loss of all for our brethren is not truly knowing the Jesus of their hearts, the One who already carries them.