None:
Polyps:
Strongs:

Approaching Pleasure, Avoiding Pain

Just to tie up this section with the previous sections on the dialectic; In the word of God there is the clear and blunt truth of the gospel as a "rock of offence"

Rom 9:31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
Rom 9:32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
Rom 9:33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. (KJV)

The truth can be blunt and painful to accept; it is the nature of the creature to approach what we find pleasurable and avoid pain. In faith on Jesus Christ we have a perfect example of obedience and approval by God of how to live and order ourselves. The commandments of the law cause the death of the carnal man, but the Spirit of God to bring us into obedience is that which gives life. We have no cause to be ashamed of Christ's example, indeed he was not ashamed and scorned the treatment of the cross, suffering it obediently in the knowledge of good standing before God, and the example for us was finished and the work of redemption finally completed.

If we are certain of our predestination, we can not be ashamed, neither have we any righteousness of ourselves, being in need of predestination. (Otherwise we make God a liar.) Our righteousness then is found in belief on Christ which has replaced our sin with the desire to repent to find proper standing before God, knowing that the example is attainable and we will approach it within the predestination by the Holy Spirit.

Without the Holy Spirit then, we are resigned as OT Israel was to merely the laws and ordinances which we continually live under the condemnation of. The sin is only made known by the condemnation by the law: to be left in a state of reprobacy without the love of the truth (and the absolute fixed facts of God's will for us, the reign of the Kingdom of God) we are left outside of God's approval and locked out with only the guidance of our senses and the dialectic evaluation of the environment about us for our knowledge of good and evil. That is, we follow the serpent instead; as to deciding for ourselves the difference of good and evil in each relative setting - and no one culture or religion has the right or authority to correct any other - except of course every other upon christianity which is the one every such dialectic practitioner seeks to dismantle.

By holding the commandment of God in no regard, the system of the dialectic would make every environment the same, whether in favour with what is good universally or not. It is logical under the dialectic to go with the group in every setting: the view "I was just following orders" is what is in view also - although legally that is no defense as we all should know. There is no safety in numbers.

The love of the truth then is and has to be stronger than the love of pleasure and peer-group approval. Faith is not the evidence of things unseen: it is the manifestation of that love of the truth of what is correct before God, not as in the setting of the androgenous God that could be from anywhere, or of any people. God has brought His kingdom here and it is here to stay, Jesus is Christ, come in the flesh to one people Israel.

Israel stumbled at that love of the truth, written "faith" as in the scripture above. In seeking to be approved by the law that they were all condemned under, the nation of Israel had made God into a God after their own interpretation of the law; that every ordinance and numerous legalisms, the washing of hands and the best seats preserved for the most renowned were in reality completely outside of the love of the truth in the character and person that is Jesus Christ. As Jesus taught, none but He Himself had known the Father; Israel without faith had bcome rudderless. (As salt that lost its savour.)

So, how does this equate with the subject of determinism? clearly that if God's own people were not fully determined into eternal life by predestination on the basis of their accidental birth then there is something faulty with determinism! The extreme and harsh judgement of the law exists not to merely identify the one individual in Jesus fulfilling all requirement, but also to divide as harshly the elect in Christ from the unsaved. Without predestination in Christ there is the real possibilty of future reward in the lake of fire only. There is no "grey line" of "almost saved" after the judgement, one is in grace or is not.

The title "approach pleasure, avoid pain" is not a misnomer - for the dividing line between one and the other - the "painful truth" or the "pleasurable compromise" (and making God into what is no God at all, an interpretation in deference to our sins) is always in view when it comes to the election of the people of God - the final choice that settles the believer into saved or not saved.

The history of OT Israel is communicating to us things that we are saved from, and we are called to respond. The Lord came "but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and no other people. We as grafted into that tree of life are only able to join on the basis that we improve upon their failed standard. It is a most natural thing to gain the kingdom of God. It is truly "within us". The problems arise when we add our own systems upon it, and the birds and devils come to roost in the branches of the tree we made for ourselves, rather than dwelling in that small herb sown by the Lord in a mustard seed.

If keeping the liberty of sovereign God (L(G)) intact in all things is so hard to do; that these systems spring up over the liberty of God (over us all) in churches and governments and social settings should ring alarm bells: Today we no longer preach the gospel of "an unknown God" but are seen to preach the "God of everyone's refusing" - God is a rejected concept and is rejected falsely by those that never knew the same love for the truth of the good news; Grouping together for strength in numbers is to go with what is easy, and pleasurable - and is to build a tree for the fowls of heaven. There is no middle way: The two do not mix somewhere in the middle.

Either one is in approval keeping only what is known to be righteousness by faith, or one goes with the group because it is an easy ride. If a person can do it on their own, then it can work for anyone. If it is only possible to be saved in a group, then the group is saved and the individual is not. The lone believer has my utmost respect.


Return To Section Start

Return To Previous Page