believing

The prostitute

One of the key themes that is found throughout the Bible is faithfulness. Faithfulness and believing are connected in that the Hebrew word âman (aw-manˊ) is translated both ways. It says of Abraham in Genesis 15:6 that he believed (âman) in the LORD (KJV) and of Moses in Numbers 14:11 that he was faithful (âman) to God. The opposite of course is unbelief or faithlessness (G570) which was identified numerous times by Jesus as the cause of Israel’s and more specifically, his disciples lack of spiritual success (Matthew 13:58; 17:20; Mark 6:6; 9:24; 16:14). Israel’s unfaithfulness was linked to their continual involvement with idolatry. Israel was forbidden from making covenants with the inhabitants of the Promised Land because of their tendency to worship other gods. The people of Israel were told before they entered the Promised Land:

“Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.” (Exodus 34:11-16)

The LORD used the phrase whoring after their gods to describe idolatry. The Hebrew word that is translated whore, zânâh (zaw-nawˊ) means “to commit adultery… (figurative) to commit idolatry (the Jewish people being regarded as the spouse of Jehovah)” (H2181). Zânâh appears in most of the Major and Minor Prophets’ writings in conjunction with God’s judgment of Israel and the surrounding nations that influenced her to practice idolatry. Isaiah said of Jerusalem, “How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers” (Isaiah 1:21).

One of the principal influences that led to Israel’s downfall was Assyria’s world dominance. At the height of the Assyrian Empire’s success, the king of Assyria, referred to as Sennacherib, defied the LORD and challenged King Hezekiah to give up his faith in God. The king of Assyria sent a message to King Hezekiah stating “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Razeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’” (2 Kings 19:10-13). Sennacherib compared Hezekiah’s God to the gods of other nations that had failed to protect their worshippers from Assyrian attacks. Hezekiah took the letter from Sennacherib and spread it out before the LORD and asked him to intervene because Sennacherib had mocked the living God (2 Kings 19:16).

Isaiah recorded God’s response to King Hezekiah’s prayer. Isaiah 37:21-32 states:

Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:

“‘She despises you, she scorns you—
    the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you—
    the daughter of Jerusalem.

“‘Whom have you mocked and reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
    Against the Holy One of Israel!
By your servants you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of Lebanon,
to cut down its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses,
to come to its remotest height,
    its most fruitful forest.
I dug wells
    and drank waters,
to dry up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams of Egypt.

“‘Have you not heard
    that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
    what now I bring to pass,
that you should make fortified cities
    crash into heaps of ruins,
while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field
    and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
    blighted before it is grown.

“‘I know your sitting down
    and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come to my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
and I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.’”

“And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

God pointed to the return of the exiles from Babylon as a sign of his future judgment of Assyria. The prophet Nahum’s entire message concerns the destruction of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. “Nahum prophesied in the time between the Assyrian capture of No (Thebes) in Egypt (see Nahum 3:8-10), which is known to have occurred in 661 BC, and the final destruction of Nineveh in 612 BC (Nahum 2:8-13). Since verse fifteen of chapter 1 suggests that the feasts were being observed in Judah, it is probably that he ministered during or just after Josiah’s revival. This means he would have prophesied around 620 BC, or about the time of Habbakuk, Zephaniah, and the early part of Jeremiah’s ministry” (Introduction to Nahum).

It says in 2 Kings 19:35 that an angel struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians the night after Isaiah’s prophecy about Sennacherib’s fall. It states, “And when the people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.” Nahum referred to this incident in his condemnation of Nineveh. Nahum wrote:

Woe to the bloody city,
    all full of lies and plunder—
    no end to the prey!
The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel,
    galloping horse and bounding chariot!
Horsemen charging,
    flashing sword and glittering spear,
hosts of slain,
    heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
    they stumble over the bodies!
And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute,
    graceful and of deadly charms,
who betrays nations with her whorings,
    and peoples with her charms.

Nahum used the Hebrew word zânâh when he referred to Nineveh as the prostitute whose countless whorings had brought about God’s destruction of the Assyrian army. The prostitute is mentioned in Revelation 17:1-6 in connection with the martyrdom of Christians during the great tribulation. It states:

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.

When I saw her, I marveled greatly.

According to Bible teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee, the great prostitute is the antichurch or false religion that is established for the purpose of worshiping antichrist. The references to sexual immorality have to do with idolatry, the worship of false gods (G4203). John indicated that a name was written on the forehead of the prostitute, “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations” (Revelation 17:5). John wanted his readers to understand that the antichurch would be the culmination of all false religions and would serve the purpose of leading a revolt against God that would threaten the existence of believers in Jesus Christ. Immediately following his discussion of the great prostitute and her relationship to antichrist, John went on to talk about the fall of Babylon (Revelation 18) and Christ’s return to earth (Revelation 19), suggesting that Antichrist’s brief world dominance will trigger the end times events that shift the balance of power back to worshippers of God.

Believe it or not

Abraham appears to be the first man that God communicated with after Adam sinned and was cast out of the garden of Eden. Their initial encounter is recorded in Genesis 12:1-3. It states, “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” Later, Abraham questioned God’s faithfulness and was challenged to believe something that seemed impossible. Genesis 15:1-6 states:

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

The King James Version of the Bible indicates that Abraham “believed in the LORD.” The Hebrew word that is translated believed, âman (aw-man´) means “to stand firm, to trust, to be certain, to believe in” (H539). Âman is translated faithful in Numbers 12:7 where God said that Moses had been faithful to him and in Deuteronomy 7:9 where it says, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them.”

Faith and believing are linked together in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews. In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the author starts out by defining faith and then, goes on to give numerous examples of what faith looked like in the lives of people in the Old Testament who had believed in God. Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” and then, the author stated, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrews 11:17-19).

Abraham’s faith was tested by his obedience to God’s command to offer his son as a sacrifice even though it seemed to contradict the promise that God had made about blessing all the families of the earth through his offspring Isaac (Genesis 12:3, 15:4). When Isaac asked his father where that lamb for the burnt offering was (Genesis 22:7), Abraham answered, “God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering” (Genesis 22:8). Abraham understood that there was a need for a sacrifice for sin and believed that God would provide for that need himself. During his institution of the Lord’s Supper, after he had taken the cup and given thanks, Jesus told his disciples, “Drink of it all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28).

On numerous occasions, Jesus warned his disciples that he was going to be killed, but assured them that he would be raised him from the dead (Matthew 20:19). After Jesus’ resurrection, an angel appeared to Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ mother Mary and told them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:6-7). Mark goes on to say:

Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. (Mark 16:9-11)

Mark indicated that Jesus’ disciples would not believe that he was alive. In other words, those who had been with Jesus when he instituted the Lord’s Supper, and were told numerous times that he would come back to life the third day after he was crucified (Matthew 20:19), refused to believe that he had actually done what he said he would.

Mark’s account of Jesus’ resurrection emphasized the point that some people believed and some did not when they were told about Jesus’ resurrection. Mark stated, “After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking in the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe him” (Mark 16:12-13). It was not only Mary’s testimony that wasn’t believed, but also the testimony of two others to whom Jesus had appeared. The Greek word that is translated did not believe, apisteo (ap-is-teh´-o) means “to betray a trust, be unfaithful” and by implication to “disobey…i.e. without faith in God and Christ (Mark 16:16; Romans 3:3); to break one’s faith, to prove false (2 Timothy 2:13)” (G569). A person that is apisteo is an unbeliever (G571).

Paul considered the possibility that the disciples and other Jews’ unbelief could nullify the effect of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Paul argued:

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

“That you may be justified in your words,
    and prevail when you are judged.”

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:1-8)

Paul concluded that whether we believe it or not, Christ’s death on the cross paid the penalty for the sins of every person in the world and his resurrection demonstrated that God had provided the lamb himself as Abraham believed he would (Genesis 22:8). Paul used himself as an example to convey the point that a person’s unbelief justifies their condemnation because the truth is that everyone knows they are a sinner (Romans 3:9-20), but only those who are willing to admit the truth about themselves to God and others can and will be saved (Matthew 25:37-46; John 3:19-21; 1 John 1:9).

King of the Jews

The first prophetic vision that pointed to Israel’s Messiah in the Bible is recorded in the book of Numbers. Not long after the Israelites disobeyed God’s command to enter the Promised Land and take possession of it (Numbers 14:1-12), a false prophet by the name of Balaam was hired to curse God’s people. Because of Balaam’s interaction with Balak the king of Moab, God intervened and it says in Numbers 24:2 that the Spirit of God came upon Balaam, “and he took up his discourse and said:

‘The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor,
    the oracle of the man whose eye is opened,
the oracle of him who hears the words of God,
    who sees the vision of the Almighty,
    falling down with his eyes uncovered:
How lovely are your tents, O Jacob,
    your encampments, O Israel!
Like palm groves that stretch afar,
    like gardens beside a river,
like aloes that the Lord has planted,
    like cedar trees beside the waters.
Water shall flow from his buckets,
    and his seed shall be in many waters;
his king shall be higher than Agag,
    and his kingdom shall be exalted.
God brings him out of Egypt
    and is for him like the horns of the wild ox;
he shall eat up the nations, his adversaries,
    and shall break their bones in pieces
    and pierce them through with his arrows.
He crouched, he lay down like a lion
    and like a lioness; who will rouse him up?
Blessed are those who bless you,
    and cursed are those who curse you.’” (Numbers 24:2-9)

The mention of a king whose kingdom shall be exalted indicated that God’s plan of salvation was going to be fulfilled in a way that people didn’t necessarily expect. The Hebrew word that is translated exalted, naçah (naw-sawˊ) “is used of the undertaking of the responsibilities for sins of others by substitution or representation (Exodus 28:12; Leviticus 16:22; Isaiah 53:12; cf. 1 Peter 2:24)” (H5375). After Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross, God exalted him to a position of honor. Peter and the apostles who were with him told the council that had arrested them for preaching the gospel, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:30-32).


Mark’s gospel tells us that after the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, “they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate” (Mark 15:1). The first question that Pilate asked Jesus was, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (Mark 15:2). The wise men who came to Jerusalem after Jesus’ birth asked a similar question, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2). It is possible that Balaam’s prophecy about a king whose kingdom would be exalted was intended to alert the secular world to the fact that a Savior was coming and that they as well as the Jews should anticipate the arrival of their Messiah. John’s gospel elaborates on Jesus’ interaction with Pilate. John 18:33-40 states:


So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”


After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.

Jesus differentiated his servants from the Jews and indicated that his kingdom was not from the world. (John 18:36). What Jesus meant by his kingdom not being from the world was that his kingdom came from, and only existed at that time, in the spiritual realm. Jesus went on to explain to Pilate that the reason why he was born was so that we would know that the spiritual realm exists. Jesus referred to the spiritual realm as truth because it is the reality (G225) that the physical realm is based on or you might say patterned after (Hebrews 8:5).

Jesus told Pilate, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Being of the truth means that you have conformed to the nature and reality of things (G225). It says in Romans 8:29 that those whom God foreknew he also predestined “to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” The Greek word summorphos (soom-mor-fosˊ) means “jointly formed that is (figuratively) similar” (G4832). It also says in Romans 12:2 that you should “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” In this instance, the Greek word that is translated conformed is suschematizo (soos-khay-mat-idˊ-zo) which means “to fashion alike, i.e. conform to the same pattern” (G4964). Suschematizo has to do with the external condition of a person, whereas summorphos has to do with the person’s internal nature. Therefore, being of the truth means that you have been internally conformed to the nature and reality of things, as opposed to externally conforming to the pattern of the world around you.

The Jewish religious leader’s decision to deliver Jesus over to Pilate is evidence that they were not only conforming to the pattern of the world around them, but were also trying to negate the reality of God’s existence in the physical realm. It says in Mark 15:29-32 that the Jews derided and reviled Jesus. The Greek word that is translated derided, blasphemeo (blas-fay-mehˊ-o) means “to blaspheme” (G987) and oneidezo (on-i-didˊ-zo), which is translated reviled, means “to defame” (G3679) or ruin someone’s reputation. Oneidezo is derived from the word onoma (onˊom-ah) which is “spoken of God, where His name is said to be hallowed, revealed, invoked, honored” and “spoken of Christ as the Messiah where His name is said to be honored, revered, believed on, invoked” (G3686). Mark said of Jesus’ crucifixion:

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. (Mark 15:29-32).

There is no doubt that the Jews knew who Jesus was, they referred to him as the Christ, the King of Israel, but not in way that was respectful or even appropriate for the situation. The Jews made it clear that they did not want to be identified as God’s servants, their allegiance belonged to Caesar (Luke 23:2)

Mark tells us that the inscription of the charge against Jesus read, “The King of the Jews.” It was as if Jesus’ true identity was the only thing that the Jews could hold against him. In Mark’s record of Jesus’ death, he noted that others believed who Jesus was in spite of the Jewish leaders’ defamation of his character. Mark wrote:


And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:33-39)

Jesus’ death was not the death of an ordinary man. The centurion who stood facing him saw Jesus stop breathing and declared, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39). The King James Version of Mark 15:39 says that the centurion saw that Jesus “so cried out, and gave up the ghost.” Giving up the ghost is explained in the Amplified Bible as being fully in control. It states, “When the centurion, who was standing opposite Him, saw the way He breathed His last [being fully in control], he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39). Jesus voluntarily, rather than involuntarily, stopped breathing when he took his last breath.

Jesus explained to his disciples that he had the authority to give up his life if he chose to. He told them, “The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:10-18). Jesus later told his disciples, “Greater love has no one that this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), and then, concluded his explanation with this statement, “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (John 16:25-28).

Jesus’ physical departure from earth is recorded in Acts 1:6-11. Just before Jesus ascended into heaven, his disciples asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Jesus didn’t answer their question, but instead talked about his disciples receiving power when the Holy Spirit had come and their mission of spreading the gospel to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). We don’t hear anything more about Jesus’ position as King of the Jews or God’s kingdom in the New Testament until we get to the book of Revelation, except for a brief mention of it in Paul’s first letter to Timothy. Paul told Timothy, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:15-17). Paul concluded his letter to Timothy with an admonition to fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12) and then stated, “I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen” (1 Timothy 6:13-16).

Divine authority

One of the groups that was opposed to Jesus’ teaching was the scribes. A scribe was one who was “skilled in the Jewish law, an interpreter of the Scriptures, a lawyer. The scribes had charge of transcribing the sacred books, of interpreting difficult passages, and of deciding in cases which grew out of ceremonial law. Their influence was of course great; and since many of them were members of the Sanhedrin, we often find them mentioned with elders and chief priests (Matthew 2:4; 5:20; 7:29; 12:38; 20:18; 21:15)” (G1122). Mark 2:6 tells us that the scribes were sitting among the crowd when Jesus healed a man who was paralyzed. Mark states:

And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!” (Mark 2:4-12)

The scribes knew that God was the only one who could forgive sins, and yet, they didn’t realize that Jesus was God. Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man, a title associated with the Israel’s Messiah (G5207), which indicated he had authority on earth to forgive sins (Mark 2:10). The Greek word that is translated authority, Exousia (ex-oo-seeˊ-ah) means “power of doing or not doing, i.e. license, liberty, free choice (Acts 1:7; 5:4; Romans 9:21; 1 Corinthians 7:37; 8:9; 9:4-6, 12, 18; 2 Thessalonians 3:9; Revelation 22:14)” (G1849). Jesus had the ability to forgive sins, if he wanted to.

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11:1-11) marked the coming of God’s kingdom on earth. Following this event, Jesus displayed his divine authority openly and began to prepare his disciples for his departure. One example of this was Jesus cursing the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14). “Fig trees in that area yield fruit in both June and August, and it is normal for the figs to hang on the trees through the winter. New fruit grows right over the old and out of the old shoots. Consequently, fruit can normally be found on the trees year round. This particular fig tree illustrates the fruitlessness of Israel (Isaiah 65:3-7). The Lord was entering Jerusalem, where he would experience his final public rejection by Israel. Despite the fact that Jesus had adequately demonstrated that he was indeed God incarnate, they still refused to accept him as such” (note on Mark 11:12-14, 20-24). Mark tells us that the morning after Jesus cursed the fig tree, he and his disciples passed by and saw the fig tree withered away to its roots (Mark 11:20). “And Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.’” (Mark 11:21). Jesus responded to Peter’s remark by giving his disciples a lesson in faith. Mark 11:22-26 states:

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Jesus wanted his disciples to understand that faith is the believer’s means of exercising divine authority and identified four criteria for God to do something on a believer’s behalf (Mark 11:22-23). First and foremost, Jesus said, you must have faith in God. Having faith in God means that you are relying upon Christ for salvation and therefore, believe his gospel is true. The Greek word that is translated faith, pistis is derived from the word peitho (piˊ-tho) which means “to convince (by argument, true or false)…Generally, to persuade another to receive a belief, meaning to convince (Matthew 27:20; Acts 13:43; 14:19; 18:4; 19:8, 26; 26:28; 28:23; 2 Corinthians 5:11)” (G3982). When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13), and then, more specifically, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15), Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Jesus responded to Peter’s declaration of faith by stating, “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven  and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:17-19).

Jesus told Peter that he was going to give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:19). Keys are a means of locking or unlocking something. When you give someone the keys to something, you are giving them access to it, the ability to use whatever the key controls. It is the same with authority. Authority allows you to control a person or thing; the power to do or not do something with it. When Jesus cursed the fig tree, he decided he didn’t need or want it anymore, and so, by exercising his divine authority he caused the fig tree to wither away (Mark 11:21). The Apostle John explained in the beginning of his gospel message that Jesus giving Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven meant that he was turning the kingdom over to him, giving Peter the same rights and privileges that he had as the Son of God. John wrote, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right (exousia) to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God” (John 1:9-13).

The scribes, chief priests and elders, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, did not want to associate themselves with his mission of saving the world, but rather challenged his divine authority. Mark tells us:

And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” (Mark 11:27-33).

The scribes, chief priests and elders decided to play it safe and refused to acknowledge John the Baptist’s status as a prophet of God. John identified Jesus as the Messiah and declared to the people of Israel, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Jesus didn’t try to convince the religious leaders of who he was or that his divine authority was legitimate. Instead, Jesus left it up to them to decide whether or not they wanted to rely on him for their salvation or to continue trusting that their relationship to Abraham would get them into heaven (Matthew 3:7-10).

Lip service

Jesus’ frustration with the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious leaders was evident in his response to their inquisition into his teaching and ministry. When he was asked, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the traditions of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:5), Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’” (Mark 6-7). Jesus pointed to the inconsistency between the Jews’ worship of God and what was in their hearts. Jesus said, the Jews’ hearts were far from God, and in vain did they worship him. The Greek word that is translated vain, maten (matˊ-ane) is a derivative of mataios “through the idea of tentative manipulation, i.e. unsuccessful search, or else of punishment); folly, i.e. (adverb) to no purpose” (G3155). The scribes and Pharisees’ worship was not intended to bring them closer to God, but only to give the impression to others that they were close to the LORD. Jesus indicated that their worship was an empty, futile effort.

Jesus went on to explain that the scribes and Pharisees had established traditions that contradicted the Ten Commandments, giving the people of Israel the false impression that it was alright for them to bend the rules. Jesus used a parable to drive home his point that the condition of an individual’s heart is what really mattered to God. Jesus explained to his disciples:

“Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:18-23)

Jesus linked a person’s actions to his thoughts and said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him” (Mark 7:20). The Greek word that Jesus used, koinoo (koy-noˊ-o), which is translated defiles, is derived from the word koinos (koy-nosˊ), the base word for the terms koinonia (koy-nohn-eeˊah) and koinonos (koy-no-nosˊ). Koinonia has to do with fellowship and communion with Christ (G2842). Jesus’ reference to becoming defiled was likely meant as false fellowship or believers being connected to unbelievers instead of to each other and Christ.

Jesus’ accusation against the scribes and Pharisees contained both positive and negative aspects. Isaiah’s prophecy stated, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6). The Jewish religious leaders were half right in that they were honoring God with their lips, but because their hearts were not right with God, it appeared that they were only giving him lip service, a verbal but insincere expression of their agreement with God’s commandments. In his letter to Titus, the Apostle Paul made note of the fact that there were many who were teaching false doctrine and claiming to be Christians who were not. Paul said:

For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach…To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. (Titus 1:10-16)

Paul indicated that unbelievers may profess to know God, but will demonstrate whether or not they are a follower of Christ by their actions. The Greek word that is translated deny in Titus 1:16, arneomai (ar-nehˊ-om-ahee) means “to contradict, i.e. disavow, reject, abnegate” (G720).

The people of Israel demonstrated their denial of God for many years before they were taken into captivity. In the desperate years leading up to Israel’s conquest by the Assyrians, the Israelites resorted to cannibalism and the king of Israel, rather than repenting and seeking God’s help, threatened to kill the prophet Elisha because of the nation’s problems. Second Kings 6:24-31 states:

Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?” And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body—and he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”

The king of Israel appeared to be mourning when he tore his clothes in response to the woman’s trouble, but his threat to kill Elisha, who was God’s appointed spokesman, contradicted his action and showed that his heart was hardened toward God.

The Apostle John described having fellowship with God as walking in the light. John said:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10)

John said that confessing our sins will result in God forgiving our sins because he is faithful and just, but John also indicated that denying our sins makes God a liar, proving that his word is not in us.

Jesus used the example of a tree and its fruit to illustrate his point to the Pharisees that the heart was the source of each person’s thoughts and actions. Jesus said, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:33-37). Jesus’ emphasis on the words that we speak had to do with a key aspect of salvation, confession or rather making a profession of faith. Paul explained this aspect of salvation in his letter to the Romans. Paul said:

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:5-10)

Paul indicated that believing originates in the heart, but it is with the mouth that one confesses and is saved. The Greek word that is translated confesses, homologeo (hom-ol-og-ehˊ-o) means “To speak or say the same with another, e.g., to say the same thing, i.e. to assent, accord, to agree with” and also “to promise” (G3670). When a person confesses that Jesus is Lord, he is agreeing with what is written in the Bible, the inspired word of God. If the person believes in his heart what he is saying is true; it is not just lip service, but a promise, an actual profession of faith and will result in the person being saved.

Overcoming unbelief

One of the primary obstacles that Jesus faced in his mission to save the world was the unbelief of the people of Israel. Mark’s gospel tells us when Jesus came to his hometown, they “took offense at him” (Mark 6:3). The Greek word that is translated offense, skandalizo (skan-dal-idˊ-zo) means to “scandalize.” In a moral sense, skandalizo means “to be a stumbling block to someone, to cause to stumble at or in something, to give a cause of offence to someone. It says in Mark 6:1-6:

He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.

Jesus’ family, friends, and neighbors saw him as an ordinary man. Rather than accepting him as their Messiah, the Son of God, the people in his hometown associated Jesus with his occupation, and referred to him as “the carpenter” (Mark 6:3). Mark said that Jesus could do no mighty work or miracles there because of their unbelief.

Unbelief is the state a person is in before embracing the gospel, but it can also be a violation of faith or apostasy (G570). The writer of Hebrews admonished the people of Israel because of their unbelief. Hebrews 3:12-19 states:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

The writer of Hebrews associated unbelief with the heart, and also indicated that a person could become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

In his parable of the sower, Jesus identified different locations that the seed could end up after it was sown and explained to his disciples that the seed represented the word of the kingdom or the gospel. Jesus said, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart” (Matthew 13:19). According to Jesus the intended destination for the gospel is the heart, but Satan tries to keep us from understanding God’s word so that it doesn’t have any effect on us. Jesus went on to explain that the seeds that fell on rocky ground are, “the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away” (Mark 4:16-17). The seeds that fell on rocky ground may have been a direct reference to Jesus’ twelve disciples, who were noted by Mark as abandoning Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark said, “They all left him and fled” (Mark 14:50). After Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, he came to his disciples in the middle of the night walking on the sea. Mark tells us, “And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:51-52).

The reason why Jesus’ disciples were utterly astounded when he walked across the water and got into the boat with them was because there was no logical explanation for what had just happened, they may have even thought they were losing their minds or were hallucinating. Mark says, “When they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost” (Mark 6:49). Mark’s assessment of the situation was linked to what had happened the day before. Mark said, “They did not understand about the loaves” (Mark 6:52). The Greek word that is translated understand, suniemi (soon-eeˊ-ay-mee) means “to bring together in the mind, to grasp concepts and see the proper relation between them. Hence, to comprehend, understand, perceive” (G4920). At this point in the disciples’ relationship with Jesus, it is likely that they were grappling with the fact that God had become a man, that the man they knew as Jesus, was actually God. In one of Jesus’ final conversations with his disciples, John lets us know that his disciples still couldn’t completely comprehend how Jesus, a man, could also be God. John writes:

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. John 14:8-11)

Jesus told Philip that the Father dwelt in him, that he was in the Father and the Father was in him. Jesus was speaking “of the relation in which one person or thing stands with another…thus to remain in or with someone, i.e. to be and remain united with him, one with him in heart, mind, and will” (G3306). Jesus concluded his conversation with Philip with the statement, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works” (John 14:11). Believing means that you have faith in someone or something. “Particularly, to be firmly persuaded as to something…with the idea of hope and certain expectation (Acts 18:8)” (G4100). The Greek word pisteuo (pist-yooˊ-o), which is translated believe, is derived from the word pistis (pisˊ-tis), which speaks “(of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or the religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation” (G4102).

Jesus’ miracle of feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish was motivated by compassion. Mark tells us about Jesus, “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34). The Greek word that Mark used that is translated shepherd, poimen (poy-maneˊ) is translated pastors in the King James Version of Ephesians 4:11 where Paul talks about the various manifestations of grace in the context of unity in the body of Christ. Paul said, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, but craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way unto him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16). Paul identified the goal of Christianity to be attaining the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. The role of the pastor or shepherd in this endeavor is to act as a spiritual guide for believers whose faith is being developed as they grow in their knowledge of the Son of God.

Paul said in his letter to the Romans that the Israelites were like branches that had been broken off because of their unbelief, and then added, “But you stand fast through faith (pistis)” (Romans 11:20). Standing fast implies that there is a force that is trying to move you or perhaps, knock you down. The Greek word histemi (hisˊ-tay-mee), which is translated stand fast, is used metaphorically in Acts 7:60 as “to impute, e.g. sin unto someone” (G2476). Histemi is used three times in Ephesians 6:11-14 where Paul talks about putting on “the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). Paul concluded his discussion of spiritual warfare with the statement, “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:16-18). Paul indicated that we must take up the shield of faith, suggesting that faith involves an intentional effort on our part to protect ourselves from spiritual attacks. Paul said that we can not only use our faith to protect ourselves from the enemy’s attacks, but we can also use our faith to launch a counter attack by praying in the Spirit at all times. From that standpoint, it could be said that prayer is a weapon that believers have at their disposal to overcome their unbelief.

Preaching the gospel

Mark’s gospel opens with a statement that sets the context for the rest of his message. Mark informs his readers that his message is about, “The beginning of the gospel Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). In other words, Mark was saying, this is how it all got started, we were told that the Son of God is here. Mark went on to talk about John the Baptist’s preparation for Jesus’ arrival (Mark 1:2-8), and then, recounted how John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. Mark said:

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:9-11)

Mark indicated that it wasn’t Jesus who informed the people of Israel about his identity, but God himself who said, “You are my beloved Son” (Mark 1:11). Mark also clarified that it wasn’t Jesus’ story that was being told, but “the gospel of God” (Mark 1:14). Mark stated, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15).

Mark used the Greek word kerusso (kay-roosˊ-so) to describe what Jesus was doing. Kerusso means “to herald (as a public crier), especially divine truth (the gospel)…Especially to preach, publish, or announce religious truth, the gospel with its attendant privileges and obligations, the gospel of dispensation…’To preach Christ’ means to announce him as the Messiah and urge the reception of His gospel” (G2784). Kerusso is translated as both preached and proclaiming in Mark chapter one. Jesus’ brief message, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15), suggests that there was a simple formula for accepting Christ as one’s Savior, “repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark’s gospel is the most simple and direct of the four gospels. Mark seems to cut to the chase and doesn’t waste any time trying to convince people of the truth. Mark just states the facts and then, lets people draw their own conclusions.

Mark briefly described what a typical day for Jesus and his disciples probably looked like in Mark 1:35-39. Mark stated:

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Jesus indicated that he came out in order to preach the gospel. The Greek word that is translated came out, exerchomai (ex-erˊ-khom-ahee) is derived from the words ex “denoting origin (the point whence motion or action proceeds)…primarily meaning out of, from, of, as spoken of such objects which before were in another, but are not separated from it, either in respect of place, time, source, or origin” (G1537), and erchomai “in the sense of to come forth before the public” (G2064). This seems to suggest that it was necessary for people to see Jesus, who was described by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4 as “the image of God,” in order for the gospel to be preached.

Paul explained in his second letter to the Corinthians that the gospel is veiled or hidden from those who are perishing. Paul stated:

We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:2-6)

Paul referred to the devil as the god of this world and said that he has blinded the minds of unbelievers (2 Corinthians 4:4). The mind is where perception comes from and is what makes it possible for us to think and plan our activities. Without our minds, we wouldn’t have the ability to understand the world or people around us. When Paul said that the devil has blinded the minds of unbelievers, he meant that the devil could skew their perception by making them conceited, proud, arrogant; unaware of their need for a Savior.

Matthew’s gospel tells us:

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:25-30)

Jesus said no one knows the Father except the Son, “and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). The Greek word that is translated chooses is boulomai (booˊ-lom-ahee). Boulomai has to do with exercising the will, being willing to do something (G1014). The Apostle Peter indicated that the Lord is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, KJV). Therefore, it can be assumed that the rest of Jesus’ statement is an explanation of how people get to the point of repentance. Jesus said that we must 1) come to him, and that we must 2) take his yoke upon us, and 3) learn from him; and then, Jesus added as a word of encouragement, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).

The wisdom of God

According to the Bible, wisdom “is the knowledge and the ability to make right choices at the opportune time. The consistency of making the right choice is an indication of maturity and development” (H2451). It says of Jesus in Luke 2:40, “the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.” Before Jesus, the only person in the Bible described as being filled with wisdom was King Solomon, the son of King David. It says in 1 Kings 3:5 that the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and said, “Ask what I shall give you.” Solomon’s request to be given an understanding mind (1 Kings 3:9) resulted in him becoming the wisest man on earth (1 Kings 4:31). First Kings 3:10-12 tells us:

It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.

Solomon’s subsequent decision in a case where two prostitutes were contending for the custody of a child (1 Kings 3:16-27) was thought to be brilliant. It says in 1 Kings 3:28, “And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.”

First Kings 4:29-34 tells us that “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser that all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations…And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.” One of the people who came to hear the wisdom of Solomon was the queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:1-13). At the conclusion of her visit, she told Solomon, “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!” (1 Kings 10:6-8). Jesus mentioned the queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon when he rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for their unbelief. Jesus said, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of Sheba will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:39-42).

Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees that something greater than Jonah and something greater than Solomon was there (Matthew 12:42). Jesus wasn’t referring to himself, but the wisdom of God that was within him. Jesus explained to one of the lawyers, who was insulted by his condemnation of the Pharisees legalism, that the Wisdom of God had been manifested in God’s messages to unbelievers throughout history. Jesus said:

“Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” (Luke 11:46-52)

Jesus said that the lawyers had taken away the key of knowledge. Jesus was talking about the “knowledge of the revealed will of God, by which men entered into the life that pleases God” (G2807). Jesus may have been referring to the misguided efforts of the people of Israel to be witnesses to the nations around them of God’s love and faithfulness. The Jews thought that they were supposed to distinguish themselves by rigorously following the Mosaic Law, but God’s intention was for them to reflect his grace and his forgiveness of sinners.

Paul touched on the topic of believers using God’s wisdom verses legal disputes to resolve their differences with each other in his first letter to the Corinthians. Paul argued:

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! (1 Corinthians 6:1-8).

The Greek word that is translated wise in 1 Corinthians 6:5, sophos (sof-osˊ) is “spoken of God as surpassing all others in wisdom, being infinite in skill, insight, knowledge, purity (Romans 16:27; 1 Timothy 1:17; Jude 1:25)” (G4680). Paul’s reference to believers being wise enough to settle a dispute had to do with their reliance upon the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to discern God’s will in specific matters. Paul said that “to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you” and he asked, “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?”

The point that Paul wanted to make with his statement about lawsuits being a defeat for believers was that it was evidence that they didn’t have spiritual discernment. The Greek word sophia (sof-eeˊ-ah), which is derived from sophos, “stands for divine wisdom, the ability to regulate one’s relationship with God (Luke 2:40; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2:6, 7; 12:8; Ephesians 1:17; Colossians 1:9; James 1:5; 3:13, 15, 17; 2 Peter 3:15). The wisdom of God means the divine wisdom, including the ideas of infinite skill, insight, knowledge, purity” (G4678). Sophia is used in Luke 2:40 in reference to Jesus being filled with wisdom and in 1 Corinthians 1:30 where Paul said, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God.”

Paul went on to talk about wisdom from the Spirit in the context of God’s thoughts being revealed to us. Paul said:

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
    nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:6-13)

Paul said that no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God in order to make it clear that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was the only means a believer had of discerning the will of God.

Paul shared in his letter to the Ephesians that he had been praying for believers, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened” (Ephesians 1:17-18). Paul’s use of the phrase having the eyes of your hearts enlightened was meant to convey the fact that spiritual darkness was not immediately dispelled when a person accepted Christ as his or her Savior. James indicated that believes should ask God for wisdom, but said that faith was necessary for it to be received. James said, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:5-8). James compared a person who doubts the wisdom of God to a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. This illustration suggests that the doubter is being led by the Holy Spirit, but he has decided to do things his own way. James indicated that this will result in the person being tempted by sin. James said, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:14-15).

Spiritual Work

Many of the parables that Jesus used to teach his disciples were focused on work or labor of some sort. Jesus used the example of wise and foolish builders to teach his disciples the importance of using their minds in a skillful manner (Matthew 7:24-27). In the parable of the sower, Jesus emphasized the importance of being open to the influence of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23). Jesus used the example of the unmerciful servant to teach his disciples about forgiveness (Matthew 18:23-34) and laborers in a vineyard about the goodness of God (Matthew 20:1-16). The emphasis that Jesus placed on work and productivity indicate that the spiritual realm has some of the same characteristics as the material world that we live in. Jesus told his followers:

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” (John 4:34-38)

The Greek word that is translated work, ergon (erˊ-gon) means to “toil (as an effort or occupation)” (G2041). The Greek word kopiao (kop-ee-ahˊ-o), which is translated labor, means “to feel fatigue; by implication to work hard” (G2872). Jesus told his disciples, “I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor” (John 4:38). The others that Jesus was referring to in this statement is not clear, but he may have been talking about the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ final instruction to his disciples had to do with their dependence upon the Holy Spirit to accomplish the mission that he gave them before he ascended to heaven (Matthew 28:16-20). Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The Apostle Paul elaborated on Jesus teaching about spiritual work in his first letter to the Corinthians. Paul said:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:5-9)

Paul referred to the Corinthian believers as both God’s field and God’s building, linking Jesus’ parables to his work of preaching the gospel. Paul said that “each will receive his wages according to his labor” (1 Corinthians 3:8). Jesus talked about wages in his parable about laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:8). In this parable, Jesus said the laborers were hired at different times of the day, but they all received the same wages. When the ones who were hired first grumbled about it, Jesus said, “Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal with us who have borne the burden of the day, and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go, I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:10-16).

The idea that God treats all of his spiritual workers the same and rewards them equally was acknowledged by Paul (1 Corinthians 3:7), but Paul also indicated that the result or output of our work is what really matters. Paul said, “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:12-17). Paul clarified which Day he was referring to when he said, “Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God” (1 Corinthians 4:5). The purposes of the heart are the decisions believers make that identify them as being either for or against Christ (G1012). Paul pointed out that the purposes of the heart would be disclosed and implied that it had something to do with the evidence of one’s spiritual intake. The Greek word phaneroo (fan-er-oˊ-o) means “to render apparent” (G5319). The English Standard Version of the Bible uses the word phagos (fagˊ-os), which means “a glutton” (G5314), instead of phaneroo in 1 Corinthians 4:5, and translates it as discloses. This seems to suggest that Paul was talking about a believer’s spiritual weight being the output or perhaps the gauge of how successful his spiritual work was.

The Old Testament of the Bible links weight with God’s glory. The Hebrew word kabowd (kaw-bodeˊ) is properly translated as weight, but as a masculine singular noun, its meaning is “honour, glory, majesty, wealth” (H3519). Kabowd is derived from the word kabad (kaw-bad), which means “to be heavy…The hands of both humans and God were described metaphorically as heavy, that is, powerful” (H3513). The effectiveness of one’s spiritual work may be gauged in terms of weight in the Bible because of the fact that wealth was associated with gold and silver which is measured in weight. A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms. When the Temple of God was constructed, many of the temple furnishings were made from gold and silver. It says in Exodus 25:39 that the golden lampstand was made “out of a talent of pure gold.” In today’s prices, the golden lampstand itself would be worth about 2.3 million dollars. Paul said of his work in the ministry, “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest” (1 Corinthians 3:12). The Greek word that is translated builds on, epoikodomeo (ep-oy-kod-om-ehˊ) is only used figuratively. To build upon is “spoken of the Christian faith and Christian life, both the whole church and its individual members as built upon the only foundation, Christ, and implying the constant internal development of the kingdom of God and the visible church, like a holy temple progressively and increasingly built up from the foundation (1 Corinthians 3:10, 12, 14; Ephesians 2:20; Colossians 2:7).

Peter’s first letter looked at spiritual work from the standpoint of intense persecution. Peter said, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:6-9). Peter indicated that faith is more precious than gold and said that it is what will be tested when Jesus judges the world (1 Corinthians 3:13). Peter’s viewpoint was that believing in Jesus was the outcome or product of faith and said that it would result in the salvation of your souls. When Jesus was asked, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’” (John 6:28-29). The reason why Jesus identified believing as work was probably because it took a great deal of effort from a human standpoint. Jesus told his disciples, “if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20-21). The fact that faith can move a mountain makes it a very effective instrument for spiritual work. Jesus said that nothing is impossible, if you use faith to accomplish it.

Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow was intended to convey the point that it was not God’s unwillingness to answer prayers that was the problem with regard to accomplishing spiritual work. Luke opened the story with the comment, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to lose heart” (Luke 18:1). And then stated:

He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 2:2-8)

Jesus’ question, “will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 2:8) was a rebuke to those who prayed constantly, but got no results.

Hebrews 11, which highlights the accomplishments of Old Testaments believers, begins with the statement, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation” (Hebrews 11:1). The Greek word that is translated conviction, elegchos (elˊ-eng-khos) means to have a certain persuasion, “in the sense of refutation of adversaries” (G1650). In other words, faith presupposes that there is a contradicting opinion about the things that we believe. Paul went on to say, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Paul identified two requirements for drawing near or worshipping God. First, a person must believe that God exists. There needs to be an awareness of his presence in the world. In addition to that, a person must believe that God rewards those who worship him. The Greek word misthapodotes (mis-thap-od-otˊ-ace), which is translated reward, is derived from the words misthoo (mis-thoˊ-o) which means “to let out for wages, i.e. (middle) to hire” (G3409) and apodidomi (ap-od-eedˊ-o-mee), which means “to give away” or pay (-ment) (591). In that sense, a worshipper of God has to believe that not only does he exist; but also, that seeking God is a form of work, and God pays those who do it.

Being saved

The Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians began with a detailed description of the people he was writing to. Paul said, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those in every place who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Paul addressed his audience as the church of God and indicated that they were sanctified in Christ Jesus. Paul was clearly referring to people who had already accepted Jesus as their Savior. The Greek word that is translated sanctified, hagiazo (hag-ee-ad’-zo) means “to make holy” (G37). Hagiazo is spoken of persons who are consecrated “as being set apart of God and sent by Him for the performance of His will (John 10:36).” The resultant state of Hagiazo is hagiasmos (hag-ee-as-mos’). Hagiasmos refers not only to the activity of the Holy Spirit in setting man apart unto salvation and transferring him into the ranks of the redeemed, but also to enabling him to be holy even as God is holy (2 Thessalonians 2:13)” (G38).

Paul went on to say that his audience was not lacking in any gift as they waited for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who would sustain them to the end, “guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7-8). The term guiltless has to do with being accountable for a debt. Jesus told a parable about an unforgiving servant in order to explain each person’s accountability to God for the sins they commit (Matthew 18:21-35). Jesus began by stating that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. At first, a servant was forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents. A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer, so there was no way the servant could pay the debt he owed. After the servant was forgiven, he demanded payment from someone who owed him a hundred denarii. A denarius was a day’s wages for a laborer, a very small amount compared to the ten thousand talents that the servant had been forgiven. When it was reported to the master what had taken place, Jesus said, “Then the master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailors, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:32-35).

Paul wanted his readers to understand that their moral debt was cleared from God’s accounting system when they accepted Christ as their Savior, but that didn’t absolve them of their responsibility to deal with their fellow believers in a manner similar to the way God had dealt with them. Paul said, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind, and the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). The divisions in the church were hindering the believers’ spiritual growth and what Paul later referred to as their edification (1 Corinthians 14:3). Paul used the Greek word katartizo (kar-ar-tid’-zo), which is translated united, to describe the purpose of edification, that the members of Christ’s body would be “perfectly joined” together. Katartizo indicates the close relationship between character and destiny in that the right ordering and arrangement of the members of Christ’s body results in every member being “fitly framed together” into a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:21, KJV).

Paul went on to explain that the power of God was linked to the cross of Christ and that it had to be working in the believers’ lives until the day of our Lord Jesus Christ in order for them to be guiltless in the end. Paul said, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:17-18). Paul indicated that the cross could be emptied of its power. In other words, Christ’s sacrifice for our sins could be neutralized or made ineffective in what it was intended to do in a person’s life. Paul brought up this problem in the context of a person being saved. “The participle is used substantively to refer to those being saved, those who have obtained salvation through Christ and are kept by him” (G4982). Paul clarified his statement about being saved in 1 Corinthians 15:2, when he said, “Now I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.” According to Paul, being saved meant that you continued to believe what you did when you first received salvation through the gospel. Paul likely contrasted being saved with perishing in order to make it clear that  a person’s state does not change. A saved person can not become unsaved, but he can lose the reward God intended for him (Matthew 25:26-30).

Paul indicated that Jesus is the one who sustains believers as they go through the process of being saved. He said, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:4-8). Jesus’ ability to sustain believers to the end is based on a personal relationship with the Lord that involves walking together by faith (G950). Paul indicated that Christ sustaining believers results in them being guiltless or being freed from their eternal moral debt to God. The way that it happens is by miraculous power being activated through the preaching of the gospel. Paul said, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:21-24).

Paul went on to say that the effect of being saved is that the mind of Christ is formed in the believer. Paul said, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:14-16). Paul also talked about the renewing of the mind in his letter to the Romans. Paul admonished them, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). The Greek word that is translated transformed, metamorphoo (met-am-or-fo’-o), is where the English word metamorphosis comes from. Metamorphosis refers to the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct phases. Paul indicated that transformation takes place as a result of the renewal of the mind. Renewal is intended to make a person different than in the past. The Greek word that Paul used, anakainosis (an-ak-ah’-ee-no-sis), stresses the process of sanctification (G342). Anakainosis “is the gradual conforming of the person to the new spiritual world in which he now lives, the restoration of the divine image. In this process the person is not passive but is a fellow worker with God” (G3824).

Paul linked together different aspects of being saved in his letter to Titus. Paul referred to these two aspects of salvation as the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. Paul said, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7). Justification by grace means that God’s divine influence upon our hearts and its reflection in our lives will cause us to be declared innocent in the end, when God actively intervenes to punish sin. God’s day of judgment is referred to as the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord holds an important place in prophecy (note on 1 Thessalonians 5:2). Paul wrote about the day of the Lord in his first letter to the Thessalonians. Paul said, “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11).

Jesus emphasized the importance of remaining under the influence of the Holy Spirit in his message about the signs of the end of the age. After his disciples asked him when the end would occur, and the sign of his second coming, Jesus said, “Many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:10-13). The Greek word that is translated endures, hupomeno (hoop-om-en’-o), means “to remain under the approach or presence of any person or thing, in the sense of to await” (G5278). What Jesus meant by the one who endures to the end will be saved was that endurance will be a distinguishing characteristic of believers that are in the process of being saved at the end of the age. Constant communion with the Holy Spirit will be more and more important for believers as Christ’s return draws near. Jesus concluded his Olivet Discourse with several parables about faithful and wicked servants and then, talked about the final judgment. Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all his angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:31-32). The sheep and the goats represent two spiritual categories that all people fall into, saved and unsaved. Jesus said of the sheep, who represented the group of saved people, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). Jesus commended the sheep because they had taken care of him when he was in need of help (Matthew 25:35-37), but they were unaware that they had done anything to merit his favor (Matthew 25:37-39). When Jesus confronted the unsaved, the opposite happened. They argued that they had done everything that was expected of them. Matthew 25:41-46 states:

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

The key differentiation that Jesus made between the sheep and the goats was that one group ministered to his needs and the other did not. The sheep had done what Jesus expected of them, but were most likely unaware of it because it had not been an intentional effort on their part, but rather the divine influence of the Holy Spirit on their hearts that caused them to act the way they did.

Paul summarized all of his doctrine related to salvation in his letter to the Romans. In this letter, Paul emphasized the importance of faith (Romans 4:1-5:11), but he also made it clear that it takes an act of the will to overcome the effects of sin in our lives (Romans 6:13). In order to clarify the difference between works of the flesh, the things we choose to do based on our own desires and preferences, and acts of faith, Paul said:

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
    and whose sins are covered;
blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” (Romans 4:4-8)

The main point that Paul made in this passage was that God counts righteousness apart from works. Therefore, it isn’t necessary for us to do anything to be saved. But, Paul went on to explain that life in the Spirit involves being mentally disposed toward doing the things that God wants us to (Romans 8:5-6). In his conclusion, Paul identified the uniting principle associated with being saved and the final judgment that Jesus described in Matthew 25:31-46. Paul said, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10).