5.3 The Golden Cup
The horrifying thing about the golden cup of a Christianity “in bed with” the world is not that the cup is filled with lies, but that it is also filled with the Truth of the Gospel. This is not just “knowing good and evil.” Paul said that the law, which gives to us a knowledge of right and wrong, is pure and good in itself. It’s just that it is not made for humans. Yet that knowledge of sin does compel us to run into Jesus. Mixing lies with Gospel Truth is something entirely different.
The “golden cup” of Revelation 17 and the “mind of the flesh at war against God” in Romans 8 are the same thing. It is the mind of Christian thinking that places the grace of God and the salvation of Jesus into a structure of theology mixed fully with paganism and with the many definitions of an “evil” God.
Dishonest Unbelief. The most dangerous to us of all influencers along our way are those precious ministries of Christ who are near and dear to us, who love Jesus, who know the truths of the Gospel, but who mix those truths with lies in their dishonest unbelief. We ourselves, in hammering out our own take on “theology,” have also mixed Jesus with Satan in dishonest unbelief.
“Come out of her, My people” (Revelation 18:4). There is only one Way out of our dishonest unbelief, and that is to place our forehead on the ground before God and respond with – “Let it be to me, pleasant or unpleasant, gain or loss, according to Your Word, whatever You might mean by it.” In the remainder of this lesson, I want to show some of the terrible mixtures inside the golden cup of Christian hostility.
Breaking the Covenant. God enters into a Blood Covenant with each of us who believe into Jesus, that we would know the Father, just as Jesus knows the Father, through knowing Jesus Sent into us, that we are just like Him as we see Him as He is, Jesus alone. The purpose of the mixture, “you believe that, but I believe this,” is not argument over theology but to break the covenant, to plant in the mind of every Christian the certainty that being just like Jesus is impossible, even that it is not of God.
In Luke 11, Jesus warned of just such a scenario, that a person could be set free and cleansed, even to keeping their house clean, yet – not FILLED with knowing Christ Jesus alone. The result was that seven even more wicked demons of opposition against God and His word, entered into such a Christianity.
The Seven Seals. John, in his vision, saw a scroll written inside and out, a visible expression in the heavens of 2 Corinthians 3:3. Yet this scroll of Christ written upon the hearts of His Church was sealed up by those seven demons of opposition against God.
In all things, humans possess the authority, especially Christians, thus even the mightiest of angels serves only. The seven seals do not picture either “God’s judgment against humans” or any “demonic control.” The seven seals are the hostility of Christians against God, Christians refusing to know Jesus as every Word God speaks now become them, Christians refusing to be the revelation of Jesus Christ. The removal of these seals, allowing Christ alone to be read by all, is the deliverance of the Church, happening right now.
Jesus – and His Replacements. At no point does the evil one create something “new”; neither do fallen angels possess their own real power. Rather, these seals represent a demonic anointing that simply twists God’s Words slightly – into something close, into something mixed. Thus the goal is not the development of various aspects of “theology”; rather, the goal is to replace Jesus towards us with “theological ideas” in the thinking of all.
In Revelation 2 & 3, Jesus speaks into us seven aspects of His ability to make us just like Himself, which we receive through the Spirit, the victory of our faith that He already is. In refusing Jesus, Christians have “blown a smoke,” we might say, full of ideas that sound “right,” but that replace each one of those abilities of Jesus imparted to us.
Replacing the Source of Life. Jesus is our Source and our only life, sustaining us by His good speaking every moment.
Replaced with an arrogant “Christ,” an above-you “Jesus,” who requires you to “get up out of yourself.” “Jesus is perfect – and you are NOT!” “Jesus is God – and you are NOT!” The purpose of the non-Biblical title, “God the Son,” is not to exalt Jesus, but to break the Covenant, to drive Jesus far away from us wicked sinners here below, in our imaginations.
Thus all definition of “Christ” is externalized, with an image of Jesus as a miracle-worker, a performer of outward exploits. And His Word to us is turned into arrows of condemnation. “You ought to be like Jesus, but you are NOT. You ought to do what He did, but you cannot. – And it’s your fault.”
Replacing the Entrance of Purpose. God enters through us into our world with thanksgiving, meek and lowly of Heart, to bless and to give Life.
Replaced with contempt and every aspect of theology defining humans, including the “total depravity,” not just of hearts empty of God, but also of Christians. – To get you to fail to see the GLORY of Jesus when you look at your heart, but only evil, and thus to despise yourself. But contempt for self, “I am just a sinner, going to heaven someday, even though I deserve hell,” quickly turns into contempt for others, even for God, thus removing peace.
These are the definitions that call creation as contrary to God, that exalt evil, and that make sin in the flesh here and now to be greater than Jesus.
Replacing a Complete Resolution. We have entered into Jesus’ Life through His Cross already finished, with no consciousness of sins, cleansed by Blood.
Replaced with barter, negotiation, buying penance, selling forgiveness, a “limited atonement.” In theology, it’s called “soteriology,” the definitions given to an in-part redemption. Jesus as Savior present and active is absent from these ways of thinking. Rather, each sect has its own “formula” of what it means to be “saved.” They are adamant that you are not “saved” unless you obtain their approval.
A “limited atonement” excludes knowing the Father through the Spirit and Life of Jesus inside. It is the most wicked device that breaks the Covenant in the minds of its victims. It’s single strongest image is the Catholic “mass.”
Replacing a Present Devotion. God imparts to us all that He is through Jesus, and in turn we give God to all around us, the means by which God is known.
Replaced by Death! “It can’t happen here, it won’t happen now, BUT – you will know it all, someday, in heaven, after you are dead. All the meaning of the Gospel is known through death taking you to see Jesus someday.”
The thought of “going to” heaven to “see Jesus someday” eliminates all thought of knowing Jesus TODAY, the only Day of Salvation. Giving an account inside of God every moment becomes – Death will take you to “meet your Maker.” But when Death “replaces” Jesus as the one who “takes you to” God, in the Christian mind, all that is left is the terrible confusion of soul that God calls “hades following after.”
Replacing Agreement with God. We receive all that God speaks as Jesus in our hearts, already True. We dwell only inside of God’s Completed Devotion.
Replaced with hard unbelief, even refusal. The imagination that “the veil of our sinful flesh” prevents us from living now inside of God’s Completed Devotion, inside of knowing all the fulness of God filling us full, prevails in all Christianity. Augustine gave the words all speak. “Because I am evil (I hate myself), You, oh God, cannot fill me with Your fulness now.” Yet this is an incredible mixture, looking straight at God and His word and refusing God by blaming Him. – “You’re Word cannot be True because of me, me, me, me, me.”
Sin and death prevail because Christians refuse God through hard unbelief, through hating the way He made them.
Replacing the Face of Kindness. We are the face of Jesus, the face of Kindness. Life flows from our hearts imparting the knowledge of God everywhere we go.
Replaced with every kind of “Christian work,” all of it in-part and most of it fake. Paul described it as doing the actions of Love without acknowledging the Father. James described it as claiming to “love” without doing anything. This propensity to put on a show to make others think “I am holy,” and to hide behind every insignia of this world, including country and flag, even to exalting a false covenant, has become far more than Adam’s fig leaves and tree trunks.
Why do Christians refuse the judgment of God? They blame Jesus, the Lamb of God, for being “wrath.” As Jesus said, “They hated Me for no reason at all.”
Replacing Knowing the Father. We know the Father at Home in our hearts, sharing our life with us. We see as God sees; we call all things into Goodness.
Replaced with all accusation against God, that He “knows” evil and that His Word is not True. This “deceitfulness” of God is known as “positional truth,” that “God’s words are true only as you make them true, loser.” As Jeremiah implied in 17:9, who could possibly know such a “God,” who could share heart with him?
Defining God by the devil, by an image of “heavenly superiority” is the foundation and source of all degradation. We escape forever from this greatest of evils by the first action of our redemption – all silence about “ourselves” inside the presence of God, then becoming the speaking of Christ.
A Disorganized Mixture. The primary metaphor of God in the Bible and in creation is the reproduction of life. The primary pattern of God upon which we know our redemption is the Tabernacle of Moses. When we know the Gospel Word by these, it’s all so simple, so clear, and so pure, a straight path into knowing our Father.
Consider all Nicene theology from “the apostles creed” to the hyper-Calvinism found in “deeper truth” circles. None of it follows God’s patterns. All of it is disorganized, with verses cut apart and ideas tacked together in non-Biblical ways.
Yet in all this mess, we also see Jesus, the Savior of all, carrying each little one who believes into Him all the way through the darkness into all the knowledge of God.
By the Blood of the Lamb. THEY defeated the accuser of their brothers and sisters by the Blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11). There is nothing to be gained from the intellectual exercise of “dissecting” Nicene theology. Rather, the removal of the seals from off the hearts of our brothers and sisters is a deliverance service. In deliverance, we cast their enemy DOWN.
By the authority of the Blood of Jesus, we cast down the demon of the arrogant Christ, we cast down the demon of contempt for self and others, we cast down the demon of measuring the Atonement, we cast down the demon of “go to” heaven, we cast down the demon of unbelief, we cast down the demon of pretense, and we silence all accusation against God that He is evil. – By the Blood of the Lamb.