Pastor John,
I was reading, in the Mailbag, Beth quoting from the Remembers of the first two chapters of the Synthesis book*, and this particular one stood out to me:
The body of Christ was created by the power of God in the second chapter of Acts.
Just a few days earlier I was reading the statement of faith (more precisely, the Faculty Teaching Position) of an American Christian seminary, and the document actually states that the body of Christ (which they call “the Church”) was “initiated at Pentecost”. I had already heard this said by Christian ministers a number of times before, and I have kept thinking: How can one come to this conclusion, and yet fail to recognize that the disciples were born again on the day of Pentecost? I think, if these ministers were forced to consider the logical conclusions of such a statement (that God’s New Testament people has come into being on the day of Pentecost), they would only have two choices:
1. Admit that the truth is the truth.
2. Do as one charismatic Christian minister in Dunaújváros did, when I showed him 1Corinthians 12:13; which is, claim that a person can be born again without becoming a member of the body of Christ. (When I asked this minister if this was what he had meant, and he said yes, it seemed like he felt the absurdity of that statement, but in that moment he felt he had no choice, but to embrace the absurdity).
Now, I actually do know how it’s possible to claim that the body of Christ was born on the day of Pentecost, and still deny that the baptism of the holy Ghost is the new birth. It’s because unless God, by His grace, opens someone’s eyes and heart to the truth, it is impossible to see it, and believe it, much less to love it. Thank God for His mercy that He decided not to leave us in our ignorance, but to bless us in a way that has been given to so few, even among God’s own children!
So, even though it’s by God’s choice that we get to believe what we believe, and know what we know, still, the fact that Christians must resort to such mental gymnastics in their attempt to stay true to the Bible, and to defend their Christian faith at the same time, shows the utter “nonsense” (as you put it in the book’s introduction) this religion really is.
God, give us grace to walk worthy of our calling!
Zoli
* IK Remembers The Synthesis Book 4
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