Putting Myself On The Line

Last week I wrote, Lordship Salvation - Fact or Fallacy? and according to input by other bloggers on this site, I think my last blog could have been easily misunderstood. In one sense I could be one labelled as Easy Believism, a label which I'm prepared to accept. But as one who grew up as a Roman Catholic who turned atheist during my later teenage years, I was then converted to Christ in 1973 then aged twenty, and after this accepted Lordship Salvation as a way of Christian living, which dominated the 1980s and into the 1990s, I thought of writing this follow-up blog in a hope of clearing up any doubts, uncertainties or confusion which might have arisen among readers of last week's blog post. 

 

When my father was a boy, not long before the onset of World War II, he was sent for a time to be educated at an Italian Convent. On one occasion, he took Holy Communion without first making confession to the priest. When Mother Superior found out, she approached him and crashed her hand full force onto his cheek. Little wonder, after I was born, I grew up in a "hellfire" environment, a concept enforced by the Church itself in preparation for First Communion every Catholic child was obliged to take.

 

In those days I was aware of Jesus Christ, an exceptionally good man who did no wrong. That was why I wanted to know him, even as a boy. But what I craved was his love. Instead, an image of him constantly displeased with my attitude and behaviour led me, when I got older, to deny his existence.

 

It took many, many years to undo everything I learned and grew up in. But even to this day, rather than to say that I have arrived, it would be more honest to say that I'm still on my way there. One real eye-opener occurred when I attended a Baptist church in my home town around 1975 or '76. As we filed past the door steward, each of us were given a copy of the Baptist hymn book as we made our way to the main auditorium. By pure chance, I was given the large print copy, normally used by the pastor or elder. One of the hymns we sang that evening was To God Be The Glory, which contained this verse, followed by the chorus:

 

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood;

To every believer the promise of God,

The vilest offender who truly believe,

That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

 

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Let the earth hear his voice.

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Let the people rejoice!

O come to the Father through Jesus the Son,

And give him the glory, great things he has done!

 

That evening I was shaken. Because of the large print copy, the verse carried an extra powerful punch. Written in 1872 by Frances Crosby, who had been totally blind since she was a baby, such lyrics were a reflection of her faith. Then the explosion of praise which followed. This is Christianity - a love-relationship between a believer and God his Saviour. It is God who does all the saving and all the keeping, and the believer revels in his free gift of salvation.

Frances Crosby
 

I have discovered by my own experience that Lordship Salvation hardly comes close to such explosive praise as the hymn narrates. As I wrote already last week, I had been involved with a small Pentecostal home group for about a month, which after I left, not being happy with the leader's theology, the structure of service and his intrusion into member's homes to check that there was no television in the house. This attitude, often known as heavy shepherding, I found offensive. I believe that the leader sensed my unease, and he let me go, unlike with the rest of the group which he had a strong hold over.

 

The group soon moved into a chapel near the town centre. For several years he led a growing congregation. Then one day the chapel was vandalised, with windows smashed. A special mesh was put up over the newly re-glazed windows. Shortly after, the leader disappeared as if off the face of the earth. He was never seen or heard of again, according to my knowledge.

 

This Pentecostal leader was a good example of Lordship Salvation. His theology included a fear of  loss of salvation, along with short hair for the men and compulsory head cover for the women, normally with a headscarf. Compulsory long hair for the females did not seem relevant, some of the women were middle aged and preferred their hair permed. It was during this time that I, for once, decided to have my hair cut to satisfy his wishes and, to my belief, pleasing to God.

 

But otherwise, since I was eighteen, I grew my hair long, and I have shoulder-length hair to this day. Perhaps this stemmed from the military attitude of my late Uncle, Dad's older brother. He was Warrant Officer in the Royal Air Force. He was very particular that, as a youth, I always wore shirt and tie all day, even at weekends, and insisted that I had short back-and-sides. Once, when he came to visit, he rebuked my parents for allowing my hair to grow by an inch. No doubt, Mum resented this, and stood up to defend both my younger brother and me. By the time I came of age, Uncle was powerless as he watched my hair grow long whenever he and his wife came to visit.

 

To this day, I feel comfortable with long hair. During the day I have it tied back as a ponytail. Like this, from the front I look as if my hair is short, as well as keeping it away from my eyes whilst at work or in the gym. Therefore, I did not like to be told to cut my hair, although I obeyed, if it meant pleasing God. He took this idea from Paul's letter to the Corinthians that it is against nature for men to have long hair. In a sense that is true. No way would long hair would have suited my Uncle, being chubby-faced as he was. Also with virtually no neck, a shirt and tie was best suited for him as well. 

 

But to read that a man sporting long hair is effeminate and shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, to me, is way out of order, but I believe that there is such a teaching in some groups, including Pentecostals. Do I have a dislike for the Pentecostal denomination or their churches? By no means. To me, every one who truly believes is born of God and is a member of God's family, regardless of group or denomination. But to read or being told that a man with long hair is effeminate, I find so irritable, and does not edify. As a matter of fact, when I had an assessment with a Psychologist some years ago, she commented on my "brutally masculine" character. On top of this, tradition has it that Jesus Christ had long hair. Being from tradition, of course, this can be disputed, and it has been too. But one Biblical character who did have long hair was none other than Samson, one of the judges of ancient Israel.

 

 Samson, with his long hair, might have looked like Jesus Christ, above.
 

Samson was a Nazarite, a special calling from God which required the head to remain unshaven and to refrain from anything of the grapevine. We tend to imagine Samson with huge, barrel-shaped biceps whose strength was the result of years in the gym. Rather, the very fact that the Philistines had to blackmail his wife Delilah on where he had gotten his strength indicates that as a person, he looked like any other man, except with long hair, as his call to be a Nazarite demanded. The word "Nazarite" means "Branch" and it was the same title applied to Jesus. In order to keep the whole Law, Jesus had to have been a Nazarite, which included having long hair and staying off alcohol. That is the reason why I think pictures of Jesus sporting long hair are valid.

So after reading about men with long hair being effeminate, I decided to look into where this idea came from. It turned out to be from the Authorised Version (KJV) of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which reads:

Know ye that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Puzzled, I turned to the Interlinear Greek/English New Testament to verify exactly what Paul had written here. In fact the Greek word malakoi, translated as effeminate, actually appears as voluptuous persons. With this, the picture changes. A voluptuous person is one who revels in luxury without giving any regard to God, let alone thanks. It had nothing to do with a guy wearing long hair! Yet such a bad translation was the cause of such demeaning messages put out both in writing and orally.

But there is more. Lordship Salvationists, along with groups which insist that salvation can be lost if unconfessed sin accumulate, often quote these two verses as proof text for their position - mainly that an erring believer is in danger of ending up in the fires of Hell. I have read of one British author and pastor teach exactly this, and his books have sold well in English churches and bookshops. Even in my own housegroup back in the 1990s, I was rebuked by other members for calling this chap a "false prophet." But in just about all cases, I have yet to come across the verse which immediately follows:

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. v. 11.

That Paul wrote that we are washed, sanctified and justified speaks volumes. With washing in the blood of Jesus, I imagine a garment washed in soapy water. The solution penetrates between every fibre in the garment, extracting the very last speck of dirt. Then the garment is rinsed. This may explain why the modern washing machine has five rinse cycles. This is necessary to ensure that the last of the soap is removed. But with the garment, once worn over the body, it will start collecting dirt again. But to be washed in the blood of Jesus, the cleanliness is eternal. No dirt could ever pollute the soul again. This is backed by Paul's statement that we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. Another term for justification is judicial acquittal. It means that the whole of our sins are taken away and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to our account. Therefore God the Father see Jesus in us, not our own righteousness. Finally, sanctification means that we have been called by God to conform to the likeness of his Son. Since this take a lifetime, we are in effect, students - or disciples of the Kingdom of God.

So does the content of verse 11 contradict the content of verses 9 and 10? No, not at all, because these two verses were not referring to the believer as Lordship Salvationists thinks. To understand who Paul was referring to, we need to read the whole chapter, and it is one concerning believers taking their disputes to unbelieving judges, barristers and lawyers. Paul sharply rebukes these believers for not dealing with the dispute themselves. "What?" he protests, "you who are in Christ are taking your disagreements to unbelievers? Don't you know that the unrighteous cannot inherit the kingdom of God? Neither the fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, the voluptuous, sodomites, thieves, drunkards, revilers and such like, shall inherit the Kingdom of God. Yet some of you were as them. But you as believers, are washed by the blood, sanctified and justified in the name of Jesus. Yet you go to unbelievers who are unrighteous themselves to resolve your dispute? Are you out of your mind???" That was Paul addressing the unrighteous who cannot inherit the Kingdom. The unrighteous were the unbelieving judicial system of the day, and not the Christians! Paul finally hammers this home with the words:

And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. v.14.

A positive, unconditional promise for all who are in Christ! Those believing in Lordship Salvation just seem to miss out on the joy of such a promise.

An Ancient Fountain, Corinth.

Also in his letter to the Romans, Paul talks a lot about Judicial Acquittal, or Justification by Faith, and he picks out Abraham as an example. In Genesis, God declared to Abraham that he will have a son, from whom his seed will bless many families. Abraham believed this revelation and God's righteousness was imputed to his account. There was no talk about "unconditional surrender to Christ" or "do not sin or else you will perish" or for that matter, "cut your hair and don't go about looking like a woman." No, instead God revealed to him something and by believing he was acquitted from all his sins.

Which leads me to a question which answer would put myself on the line:

Can we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
The answer is, Yes, we can!

But Paul did not write that in Romans 6:1. Instead he wrote:

Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

That is a very different question, to which the obvious answer would be:

God forbid. How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein? v.2

I love the J.B. Phillips' version of Romans 6:2 as if Paul was a posh Englishman - "What a terrible thought!"

But then he asks the question: If we are dead to sin, then how can we continue in it? Dead to sin. That what Judicial Acquittal does, removes our sins as far away as east is from the west, and our iniquities he remembers no more. In other words, God no longer see our sins. Instead in us he sees Jesus Christ.

Yet, going back to 1 Corinthians 6, Paul wrote in verse 18:

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he who committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

For Paul to instruct members of the church in Corinth to flee fornication seem to imply that there was evidence of it going around among the assembly. But there is no indication that any of them were in danger of losing salvation and threatened with Hell. Instead he instructs them to put away fornication, for it is a sin against the physical body, a temple of the Holy Spirit dwelling therein. I have a book written by Dr. McMillen, None of these Diseases, which tells very graphically of the agonising pains suffered by sexually transmitted diseases as being the end result of fornication. God certainly does not want members of his family to go through such dreadful experiences. Therefore, God disciplines his children whenever they go astray. But this discipline has two purposes and neither is a threat of Hell. The first reason for discipline was for their own good. The second was so they would partake in his holiness, the best way for any saint to experience full joy in the Lord.

My heart goes out to anyone who thinks Lordship Salvation is the only way to live the Christian life. But I do get angry with the "guys at the top" who constantly push such nonsense to their followers, depriving them of the fullness of the truth of the Gospel. They were the ones who underwent college training and passed graduation. Because of this, they are seen by their followers as always right, and us plebs who had never seen the inside of a university as hopelessly wrong and deceived. It is at this I at times would wish I could grab these leaders by the neck and shout, "GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER, YOU WHITED WALL!" - as Paul himself had done on one occasion, although he had to apologise afterwards! This is again putting myself on the line, but done for the glory of God.