Going to Jesus

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Jesus did not lay out the elements of the New Testament; he did not even try to explain such things to his followers while he was on earth, for to do so was not his mission from God. Indeed, it would have been useless for him to do that because his followers did not yet have the Spirit, through which all truth is understood. Of course, Jesus knew what those basic elements would be, but he also knew that he could not explain such things to his followers at that time. He told his disciples the night before he died, “I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them right now” (Jn. 16:12).

It was Paul, not Jesus, who was anointed by God to lay out the fundamentals of the gospel of Christ:

1Corinthians 3

10. According to the grace of God that is given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, but another builds upon it. But let each man take heed how he builds.

11. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul listed what I call the Seven Pillars of the gospel, for upon them rests everything that is in the gospel of Christ:

Ephesians 4

1. I, the prisoner of the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling to which you were called,

2. with all humility and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love,

3. making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the unifying bond of peace:

4. one body, and one Spirit, just as you were also called to one hope of your calling;

5. one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6. one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all.

These Seven Pillars are “the unifying bond of peace” of which Paul spoke in verse 3, and any doctrine that is not based on these is false. If all God’s children would base their lives and their worship upon these Seven Pillars, adding and omitting nothing, they would enjoy perfect peace and unity and be bound together in the love of God. Whenever the Seven Pillars are neglected or anything is added to them, strife, confusion, and competition always follow, for they are unshakable, being “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20).

When we are born of God, these seven fundamentals of the Faith are engraved in our hearts by the Spirit. The challenge then is for us to listen to the Spirit and grow in Christ to understand them. They are the immovable supports of the household of faith, which was instituted by God on the day of Pentecost when He poured out His Spirit on Jesus’ followers.

The Seven Pillars of the Gospel

Pillar #1: One Body

Jesus named the body of Christ the Assembly of God.

Zion was the name of a city David conquered and made his capital. That is why it is called “the city of David” (2Chron. 5:2), and it became synonymous with Jerusalem. However, the prophets were sometimes moved to speak of Zion as something other than an earthly geographic location. In Psalm 2, the prophet used the name Zion in reference to the most holy place in heaven, where God glorified His Son to sit at His right hand:

Psalm 2

5. Then will He speak to them in His wrath; yea, in His furious indignation will He terrify them, saying,

6. “In spite of you, I have enthroned my King upon Zion, my holy mountain.”

7. “I will declare Jehovah’s decree! He said to me, ‘You are my Son. Today, I have begotten you!’ ”

Moses’ tabernacle was an earthly pattern of the true tabernacle of God in heaven (Heb. 8:5; 9:11, 23–24). Likewise, the earthly city of Zion, often referred to as God’s dwelling place (e.g., Ps. 9:11), was but a figure of the true, heavenly Zion, where God actually dwells.

The name Zion was occasionally used by the prophets for the body of Christ, for those who would be born of the Spirit after Jesus offered himself to God as a sacrifice for our sin:

Psalm 87

2. Jehovah loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.

3. Glorious things are spoken in you, O city of God! Selah.

4. I will make mention of the Proud One and Babylon to those who know me. Behold! Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia! This man was born there.

5. And to Zion, it will be said, “This man and that man were born in her.” And the Most High Himself will establish her.

6. Jehovah will note in the record of the nations: “This man was born there.” Selah.

Isaiah also spoke of Zion as God’s New Testament people, in whom He would dwell by the Spirit. Isaiah prophesied of the day when the Spirit would come from God’s heavenly temple and enter into Jesus’ despised followers (Acts 2:1–4), creating a new nation, “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16):

Isaiah 66

5. Hear the word of Jehovah, you who tremble at His word: “Your brothers who hate you and cast you out for my name’s sake said, ‘Let Jehovah be glorified!’ but He shall appear to your joy, and they will be ashamed.”

6. A sound of uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of Jehovah rendering recompense to His enemies.

7. Before she travailed, she gave birth. Before she was in pain, she gave birth to a man.

8. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be born in one day? Shall a nation be born at once? For even as she travailed, Zion gave birth to her children.

Isaiah, prophesying again of the body of Christ as Zion, said that God would give that Zion a new name:

Isaiah 62

2. The Gentiles shall see your [Zion’s] righteousness, and all kings, your glory. And you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of Jehovah shall give.

And what new name did “the mouth of Jehovah” give Zion through His Son Jesus?

Matthew 16

18b. Upon this rock I will build my Assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

The new name for Zion, then, is “Assembly”, that is, the Assembly of God, which in the new Testament is referred to in other ways, such as the body of Christ, the household of faith, and others.

The History of “Church”

It is important to note that the new name which the Lord gave Zion was not “church”. Every place in New Testament translations where you see the word church is an intentional mistranslation. The word church does not belong in the New Testament; the Greek noun for church does not exist in any Greek manuscript. A church is a building dedicated to a god, any god. The Assembly of God is people, called by God to assemble together to edify one another. The new name for the body of Christ is Assembly (or Congregation), and Jesus is the one who named it.

Who first started using the word church for the body of Christ, we do not know, but it was already being used that way in the second century. In the early 1500s, William Tyndale made an English translation of the New Testament (which was illegal at the time), and he refused to mistranslate the Greek as church; instead, he used congregation. For his efforts to make a faithful English translation, churchmen hunted Tyndale down and had him burned at the stake, after extending to him the Christian courtesy of strangling him. All he had done was translate the New Testament into English, leaving out the word church.

Just a few decades later, when the King James Version was being written, King James commanded his translators to mistranslate the word for Assembly as church. His original list of commandments for his translators still exists at Cambridge University, and #3 on that list is that they must use the word church because King James, needing the support of politically powerful churchmen, wanted to please them. But church does not belong and should not be in the New Testament.

The Greek word for church is kuriakon (κυριακόν). The Greek word for assembly is ekklesia (ἐκκλησία), from “ek” (ἐκ), meaning “out,” and “kaleo” (καλέω), meaning “called”. That is the name Jesus gave to the people of God. The name Assembly was not a new word; the Greeks had been using it for many centuries, notably in Athens, where citizens were called together to conduct the city’s business, such as to vote on new laws. That gathering was called the Assembly, and God chose that word for us! The word church is added by Christian translators to the New Testament for one purpose, to wit, to validate and promote their Institution, the religious system known as Christianity.

In the beginning, as we see in the book of Acts, God’s people assembled in homes. Doing that keeps the assemblies of God’s people small and personal, as He intended. All God’s children need such a spiritual home; they all need a place they can call “our meetings”.

Jesus is the head of the Assembly of God.

Ephesians 1

22. [God] subjected all things under his feet and appointed him head of all things in the Assembly of God,

23. which is his [Jesus’] body, the fullness of Him who fills all things with all things.

Colossians 1

18. He [Jesus] is also the head of the body, the Assembly of God; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything, he might be preeminent.

The Assembly of God is Spirit-baptized people.

1Corinthians 12

13. For with one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and all were given to drink of one Spirit.

Note: This is the starting point of all right understanding in the New Testament. Knowing who is in the body of Christ and how one enters into it is essential to the knowledge of the truth of Christ. Paul said, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9b), and it is essential to know who has the Spirit and who is in the body. A person receives the Spirit of Christ when he is baptized with it, and when someone is baptized with the Spirit of Christ, a sound from the Spirit is always heard (Jn. 3:8), just as it was heard on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4). That was the day the body of Christ, the Assembly of God on earth, was created by the power of God.

If we do not understand this pillar of the Faith, if we do not know who is in the body of Christ and how someone enters into it, we do not rightly understand anything concerning the kingdom of God.

Jesus loves the Assembly of God.

Ephesians 5

25. Husbands, love your own wives, just as Christ loved the Assembly and gave himself up for it.

There are many members of the Assembly of God.

Romans 12

4. Just as we have many members in one body, and not all the members have the same function,

5. so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members of one another.

1Corinthians 12

14. For the body is not one member, but many.

Note: There are certain phrases in the New Testament that only Paul used, and “body of Christ” is one of them. Only Paul called the Assembly of God the body of Christ. His view of the Assembly of God was very wise and good. He conceived of the body of Christ as a functioning body, with its members living and worshipping in the Spirit alone. Only Paul had that wisdom from Jesus. He saw the Assembly of God as a body with many different functioning members, all working together for the same purpose at the same time.

God puts the Assembly of God together as it pleases Him.

1Corinthians 12

18. God has set the members, each one of them, in the body as He pleases.

Note: God has a reason for how He puts the body together. God saw beforehand that the testimony of every soul in the body of Christ would be needed in order for the body to be healthy. The body uses testimonies the way a natural body uses vitamins and minerals. We are together because God saw we would need one another and, so, created the body this way. That is the norm in God’s kingdom.

In a body, wherever the blood flows, there is life, and so it is with the body of Christ; wherever the blood of Christ flows, the life of God goes, and the body is able to function properly. Wherever the blood of Christ flows, the body can feel what Jesus feels, think what Jesus thinks, and do what Jesus did. If his blood is flowing through a body of believers, from one to another, that body of Christ is truly alive.

Every member of the Assembly of God has a function.

Ephesians 4

16. From [Christ,] the whole body, fitted together and held together by the support of every ligament [that is, each other’s support] according to the work meted out [by God] to each individual member, produces the growth of the body for edification of itself in love.

Note 1: When one member edifies others, he edifies himself because they are all one in Christ. No member of the body can bless the Assembly without himself being blessed.

Note 2: For the sake of the Assembly of God as a whole, some members may have to be cut off.

Matthew 18

15. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.

16. But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you so that “by the mouth of two witnesses, or three, every matter may be confirmed.”

17. And if he won’t listen to them, speak to the Assembly. And if he won’t listen to the Assembly either, let him be just like a Gentile or a publican to you.

Matthew 5

29. If your right eye offends you, tear it out and cast it away from you! It’s better for you that one of your members perish, and not that your whole body be cast into Gehenna^[1].

30. And if your right hand offends you, cut it off and cast it from you! It’s better for you that one of your members perish, and not that your whole body be cast into Gehenna.

Note: Whenever Jesus does this, it has to be done for the survival of the body. He has to cut off a leg that has gangrene in it. It must be done for the welfare of the body as a whole.

In my years of being a pastor, I have learned that every member of the body has personal issues to work out, especially husbands and wives, and I do not need to get involved with most of them. They and Jesus will work it out. However, if the problem grows so great that it starts affecting the body, then it becomes my business. In order that the body is not damaged by any individual member, I have had to perform surgery a few times and cut a member of the body off. It is not something anyone can look forward to doing, but in some cases, it must be done for the good of the body.

As a shepherd under Jesus, the “Chief Shepherd”, I must care more about the body of Christ than for any individual member in it because that is how Jesus feels. He loves the Assembly of God as a whole more than he loves any individual member of it, though he loves each one dearly. He will not allow any member to pervert his body and corrupt it. So, sometimes, he will cut off a diseased member. And when he does that, the body hurts, but God always heals it.

On January 18, 1981, Jesus and my pastor cut off four dear, but self-willed, members of our little body of believers, and we hurt for seven months. It was then that I learned how God heals a wounded body. It is as the Psalmist said: “He sent His word and healed them” (Ps. 107:20a). On August 23^rd of that year, the word of the Lord came to me with a powerful revelation which lifted us all out of sorrow and “set our feet on high places.”^[2] I did not even realize how badly we needed that wonderful, healing visitation until He healed us and we felt the difference.

Individually and as a whole, the Assembly of God is the earthly dwelling place of God.

1Corinthians 6

19. Your body is a temple of the holy Spirit that is in you, which you have from God.

1Peter 2

5. You, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Note: God’s children, together, are His temple in this covenant. If God has a church, Spirit-baptized people are it. I do not decline to use the word church because I am afraid it. There is nothing wrong with the word itself. The bodies of God’s people are, spiritually speaking, buildings dedicated to and inhabited by God, that is, churches. They are being built up together, as Peter said, as a holy place for offering spiritual sacrifices to God through His Son Jesus. So, we may rightly call the body of Christ the church of God, so long as we remember that the church of God is people who have been baptized with His Spirit – and nobody else. It is the work of God.

Those in the Assembly of God are reconciled to God.

Ephesians 2

16a. And that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, having put to death the enmity by it.

Note: How thankful we are that we have been reconciled to God when we were lost in sin! That reconciliation could not have been accomplished by any other means than the sacrificial death of Jesus – and he did it! Jesus offered himself to God as a sacrifice for our sins.

In the Assembly of God is the peace of God.

Colossians 3

15. Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, for which also you were called out into one body; and be thankful.

Note: “For which you were called out.” God’s children have been called out of the world into the Assembly of believers. And why were they called out? For peace! The extraordinary peace of God. Let that peace rule in your heart! And it will rule in our hearts much more quickly when we understand these Seven Pillars of the Faith. They, together, are the bond of unity, the bond of perfection.

This is the eternal peace for which we have been called out of the world. The peace of knowing there is but one God, one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one hope. That is where God’s peace is found. If there were two of everything, or three, we would fall into debating or quarreling over which one was right. But now, thanks be to God, we don’t have to wonder at all; we can just let the peace of God rule in our hearts. Believing the truth brings the peace of God into our hearts. Let that be in charge of our thoughts. Amen! And be thankful that we have been called to this peace.

In the Assembly of God is liberty from the law of rites and rules.

Romans 7

4. My brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit to God.

Note: If anyone asks you if you want to be baptized in water, say, “No. I belong to another. I don’t belong to that Jesus. I belong to the Jesus who set me free from the law of sin and death.” That is letting the peace of God rule in your heart.

It is necessary to know who is who in the Assembly.

1Thessalonians 5

12. We beseech you, brothers, to acknowledge those who labor among you and who rule over you in the Lord and admonish you,

13. and to esteem them as highly as possible in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

Note: We will enjoy God’s peace if we do this.

14. And we exhort you, brothers, warn the disorderly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, and be patient with everyone.

Note: This is what Jesus showed me in the early 1980s. My pastor told me he wanted me to “work up a sermon on discerning the Lord’s body”. So, that night I attempted to do it. But when I opened my Bible concordance, I found only one verse in the Bible that mentioned discerning the Lord’s body:

1Corinthians 11

29. He who eats and drinks [of the Lord’s supper] unworthily, eats and drinks condemnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.

Note: Based on that single verse, I tried to come up with a sermon, focusing on knowing who is in the body and who is not, but that didn’t feel right; it was not the right direction, and I could sense it.

Finally, I just gave up. I turned out the light on my desk and started toward my bedroom. Then, quite unexpectedly, Jesus gave me the sermon I had been trying to “work up”. He showed me that discerning the Lord’s body is much more than discerning who is in it and who is not. Discerning the Lord’s body is discerning who’s who in the body. It is discerning where people are, spiritually, and what their place in the body is and how far along they are in the knowledge of God. You don’t give an exam on chemistry to first graders; they are not able to handle that. If we don’t discern where people are in the body, we may, instead of warning the disorderly, warn the elders whom we should respect; instead of encouraging the faint-hearted, we may encourage somebody who needs to be reproved. If we don’t discern the body, we may fail to help the weak, and revere the foolish instead of pitying them.

The pastor in Revelation 2 did well to discern the body in his Assembly. Jesus told him,

Revelation 2

2. I know your works, and your labor, and your patience, and that you cannot tolerate those who are evil. And you have put to the test those who make themselves out to be apostles but are not, and you have found them liars.

Note: This pastor was able to test the false apostles because he discerned the body. He discerned more than who was in the body and who was not; he was able to discern who was who in the body. He had the knowledge of God required in order to put false apostles to the test and expose them. He was judging righteous judgment, and there is nothing wrong with doing that. Jesus commanded his disciples to judge that way (Jn. 7:24). There is nothing wrong with us knowing right from wrong, who is telling the truth and who is not.

Every child of God has the right to demand that of their pastor. You, as God’s child, have a right to be told nothing but the truth. The truth belongs to you. Why would you settle for something you have a bad feeling about? Child of God, demand that you be taught nothing but the truth! After all, your soul is at stake. You are betting your life on what you believe about Jesus. So, insist on being told the truth! Have it no other way. Insist on a clean plate with good food on it. That’s your right in Jesus.

Finally, discerning the Lord’s body includes discerning who you, yourself, are, and where you stand with Jesus. James gave this exhortation to the saints:

James 3

14. If you have bitter envy and strife in your heart, do not glory in spite of it and, so, lie against the truth.

15. This wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

Note: If there is ungodliness in your heart and you come to a gathering of the saints and rejoice with them in the Spirit, James said you are lying against the truth. Do not do that. Be honest with the children of God about where you stand with God.

That is what was on Paul’s mind when he mentioned “eating and drinking unworthily”. He was not talking about physically eating and drinking; he was referring to drinking of the Spirit and sharing the bread of life with fellow believers. Paul explained this to the Corinthians:

1Corinthians 10

15. I speak as to wise men; judge what I say.

16. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?

17. For we, being many, are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

Note: It is an honor for believers to praise God – if God accepts it. However, it can be a curse to us if He does not. That is why David cautioned the saints to “serve Jehovah with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Ps. 2:11). David knew the danger of worship-ping God with an unclean heart. Hypocrisy, covering an unclean spirit with worship, is the plaything of fools.

The whole world has always praised God, or something called God, but how much of it has been acceptable? Very little. To say it another way, how much of it has been sanctified by the holy Ghost? Very little. How much of it has not been a lie against the truth? Very little. If worship is not in the Spirit, it is a lie. The praise of unclean lips is nothing but flattery, and God is not a sucker for it. An unclean soul is not even worthy to praise God.

You do not want to lie against the truth and then have God deal with you in wrath. Let us examine ourselves, and then we may freely praise God and be blessed for it.

The Assembly of God is nourished by the word of God.

Matthew 16

17. Jesus answered him, “You are a blessed man, Simon bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

18. And I tell you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Assembly, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

Note: What did Jesus say he would build his Assembly on? “This rock.” The Catholics say the rock was Peter. If you go to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, in the center, you may see that verse written along the wall near the ceiling, for it is the basis of Catholics’ claim of authority for their popes. Protestants say the rock wasn’t Peter himself; it was his confession. Well, Peter’s confession did him a lot of good, but it didn’t do anything for you. You have to have your own testimony.

The rock was neither of those things; it was what had happened to Peter. Jesus was saying, “Peter, what you just said came from my Father and upon this rock I’m going to build my Assembly.” Nothing can build up the body of Christ except something from God. God’s children are born again, Peter said, by the incorruptible word of God (cf. 1Pet. 1:23). The word of God came to you when you were a sinner and convicted you of sin, and then it led you to Christ, who washed you with the Spirit. Now, he nourishes you the same way, that is, by the word of God. Nothing else does it. The saints are kept from sin and death by hearing the word of God. The body must hear from God or die, for otherwise, it will have no food.

Whatever God has ever said to any pastor, He has said in order to nourish the Assembly. It would be sin for me to withhold the counsel of God from the Assembly entrusted to me; I would be withholding precious food from God’s children. The members of the body of Christ are not mine; they are his, and he expects them to be cared for. In a healthy body, every joint and sinew supplies what is needed to keep the body going. And “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

A wise old saint whom we called Uncle Joe once said in a testimony, “What is a gate of Hell?” Then he said, “One gate is called Baptist. One gate is called Methodist. One gate is called Presbyterian. One gate is called Pentecostal. One gate is called Catholic. They’re all just gates to Hell.” It is the Spirit that gives life, not church religion! Whenever someone starts a church, it is just another gate to Hell. He can name his church, “Gateway to Heaven Church”, but it will still be a gate to Hell. Church religion in this covenant is not of God.

Be thankful if you have been baptized with the Spirit into the one and only body of Christ; you have been greatly blessed.

The ONE BODY is the first of the Seven Pillars of the New Testament of Jesus Christ.

Pillar #2: One Spirit

In AD 325, the foundation of Christianity was laid, a religion that Constantine and apostate believers devised. Part of the foundation was the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which holds that the Spirit of God is a person. The Apostates and Constantine made the Spirit of God into a philosophical idea, one that nobody can explain. Books that are honestly written about the Trinity admit that nobody can explain it, and nobody can understand the Trinity; still, Christian teachers insist that followers of Jesus must believe it – but it is a lie. Man was created in the image of God, and man’s spirit is not a person. Our spirit is the life that is inside our bodies, and so it is with God. His Spirit is the life that is within Him.

I have heard it said many times that the Bible indicates God’s Spirit is a person because His Spirit is said to feel things, know things, and do things. So, with that in mind, we will examine the Scriptures to see what they say about spirits feeling things, knowing things, and doing things.

The Spirit of God is God’s life and the spirit of man is his life.

God’s life: Romans 8

10b. The Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Man’s life: James 2

26. Just as the body without a spirit is dead, so also, faith without works is dead.

Note: If a person’s spirit is his life without it being a person, and we are created in God’s image, then God’s Spirit can be His life without it being a person.

Both the Spirit of God and the spirit of man can be grieved.

God’ Spirit: Ephesians 4

30. Do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, by which you were sealed until the day of redemption.

Man’s spirit: Isaiah 54

6. For Jehovah called you when you were a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a young wife when she is rejected, says your God.

Note: Your spirit can be grieved just like God’s Spirit can be grieved. That doesn’t mean God’s Spirit is a person any more than it means your spirit is a person.

Both the Spirit of God and the spirit of man can be outside the body.

God’s Spirit: John 14

26. The Comforter, the holy Spirit which the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will bring to your remembrance everything that I’ve told you.

Note: When God sent His Spirit down from heaven, He shared with us some of what He has inside of Him, and with a measure of His Spirit within us, we may share in God’s feelings and thoughts.

Man’s spirit: 1Corinthians 5

4. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you and my spirit are gathered together, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Note: What Paul meant by telling the elders in Corinth to do this was that they would have the same thoughts Paul had concerning that situation and that they would say what he would say if he was there in person. He is saying, “When you get together, I’m going to be right there with you.” And that’s how Jesus is with us, through his Spirit which creates within us God’s thoughts and feelings.

If your spirit being somewhere other than where you yourself are does not make your spirit a person, and we are created in God’s image, then God’s Spirit being somewhere other than where He is does not make God’s Spirit a person.

Both the Spirit of God and the spirit of man know things.

God’s Spirit: 1Corinthians 2

11b. No one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God.

Man’s spirit: 1Corinthians 2

11a. Who among men knows the things of man except the spirit of man that is in him?

Note: If your spirit knowing something does not make your spirit a person, and we are created in God’s image, then neither does God’s Spirit knowing something mean that God’s Spirit is a person.

Both the Spirit of God and the spirit of man can testify.

God’s Spirit: Romans 8

16. The Spirit itself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.

Man’s spirit: John 15

26. Now, when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth which comes out from the Father, he will testify of me,

27. and you also will testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

Note: If someone’s spirit can testify without it being a person, and we are created in God’s image, then God’s Spirit can testify without it being a person.

Both the Spirit of God and the spirit of man can restrain a person.

God’s Spirit: Acts 16

6. When they had traveled through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, having been forbidden by the holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

Man’s spirit: Job 32

18. I am full of words; the spirit in my belly constrains me.

Note: If someone’s spirit can constrain him from an action without it being a person, and we are created in God’s image, then God’s Spirit can constrain somebody without it being a person.

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Some other examples of what God’s Spirit and man’s spirit can do, feel, or think include the following:

• The Spirit of God can intercede for people (Rom. 8:26–27). Man can also intercede for people (1Tim. 2:1–2).
• The Spirit of God can speak (Mt. 10:20; 1Tim. 4:1; 2Sam. 23:2). Man can also speak (Acts 2:4; 1Cor. 14:13–15).
• The Spirit of God can be tempted (Acts 5:9). Man can also be tempted (Jas. 1:13–14).
• The Spirit of God can strive with people (Gen. 6:3). Man can also strive (Lk. 13:24; 2Tim. 2:24).
• The Spirit of God can be quieted (Zech. 6:8). Man can also be quieted (Ps. 131:2).

Note: There are many other things God’s Spirit can do, feel, and think (e.g., Rom. 8:26), and because man is created in God’s image, man’s spirit can also do, feel, and think many other things (Prov. 20:27; Gen. 45:27; Isa. 57:15; Prov. 18:14). None of that means God’s Spirit is a person or that man’s spirit is a person.

Lastly, there are many spirits – of animals, humans, angels, and other creatures – in heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth.^[3] But there is only one holy Spirit of God because there is only one God.

The ONE SPIRIT is the second of the Seven Pillars of the New Testament of Jesus Christ.

Pillar #3: One Hope

When we were in sin, Paul said, we were “without hope, and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). But now that we are no longer without God, having received His One Spirit, we want to understand the wonderful hope He has given to us in Christ.

The one great hope of believers is the hope of salvation.

1Thessalonians 5

8. Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

Hebrews 9

28. Christ will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who earnestly look for him.

Romans 13

11. We know the time, that it is already the hour for us to awake from sleep, for our salvation is nearer now than when we believed.

Those without Christ have no hope.

Ephesians 2

11a. Remember that when you were Gentiles in the flesh,

12. you were without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world.

Note: The most important question anyone can ask about the hope of eternal life is the question which the trembling Philippian jailer asked Paul in Acts 16: “What must I do to be saved?” The Bible provides the answer to that question, describing the kind of life we all must live in order to receive the salvation Jesus will bring with him when he comes for his saints. A list of the things required for salvation will be given, but first, we need to make sure we understand the frightened jailer’s question, and Paul’s answer to him.

Paul’s oft-repeated reply to the jailer was that in order to be saved, he must believe on the Lord Jesus. That is true, but what does believing in Jesus entail? What was Paul thinking when he said that? Let’s read the story:

Acts 16

22. The people rose up together against them [Paul and Silas], and the magistrates stripped them of their garments and commanded them to be beaten with rods.

23. And when they had laid many blows on them, they threw them into prison and commanded the jailer to keep them securely.

Note: If prisoners escaped, the jailer might well forfeit his life. That was Roman law. Jailers were held personally accountable if prisoners escaped. The jailers in Acts 12:19 paid with their lives after an angel delivered Peter from their prison. And in Acts 27:42, when it seemed likely that prisoners would escape because the ship they were on was shipwrecked, the soldiers responsible for guarding them considered killing them all rather than allow that to happen. It was only because the centurion wanted to save Paul, who was one of the prisoners, that the soldiers were prevented from carrying out the plan. So, Roman jailers took every precaution to make sure their prisoners did not escape, especially when they were commanded to keep certain prisoners secure, as in this case.

24. who having received such an order, put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Note: This jailer was very dutiful. Having been given a command concerning Paul and Silas, he did not just lock them up; he sent them into the innermost part of the prison and shackled them to make certain they would not escape.

25. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying, and they began singing praises to God, and the prisoners were listening to them,

26. when all of a sudden, there was such a great earthquake that it shook the foundations of the prison, and all the doors were immediately opened, and everyone’s chains were unfastened.

27. And the jailer was woken up, and seeing the prison doors opened, he drew out a sword and was about to kill himself, assuming that the prisoners had escaped.

Note: The poor jailer was going to go ahead and kill himself instead of waiting to be tortured and executed by Roman officials. He was sure he was doomed, since all the doors were opened and all the prisoners had no doubt fled.

28. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm! We are all here!”

29. Then, when he had called for lights, he rushed in, trembling with fear, and fell down before Paul and Silas.

Note: Why did the jailer do that? And how did he know who to run to? There were many prisoners in there to choose from. But he knew to run to Paul and Silas because their conduct had commended them to the jailer’s conscience. Paul told the Corinthians that if they walked uprightly, they would commend themselves to every man’s conscience (2Cor. 4:2). God’s faithful children commend themselves to everyone’s conscience whether those people know it or not, and even whether they like it or not. Sinners with sound judgment and common sense respect a child of God who walks uprightly. But even if that is not the case with some, even if righteousness stinks to some people, and even if they curse it and hate it, a godly life commends itself to every person’s conscience, and it cannot be avoided. Some may say it’s an odor of death, while to others, it carries the aroma of life. Paul told the Corinthians,

2Corinthians 2

15. We are, to God, the sweet fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are being lost;

16. to these, an odor of death leading to death, but to those, a fragrance of life leading to life. And yet, who is sufficient for these things?

Note: Regardless of how holiness smells to anyone, sweet or foul, the truth does its work and forever changes every heart who hears it. No one is ever the same after being confronted with the truth. I have described a person’s meeting the truth not as a crossroads, but a T–intersection. From that point on, a person will go one way or the other; he cannot continue in the direction he was traveling.

He may not have been aware of it, but the Philippian jailer had been changed before the earthquake struck his prison. He rushed to Paul and Silas because Paul and Silas’ preaching and attitude had touched his conscience. And with enough of the fear of God, which convicts of sin, a conscience God has touched will run to the right place for mercy, and it will ask, “What must I do to be saved?” So, when God added the blessing of fear of His wrath to the jailer’s new conscience, he ran straightway to the right place.

Acts 16

30. And after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Note: We must understand the question the pagan jailer was really asking. By “What must I do to be saved?” he wasn’t speaking theologically, that is, he was not asking what he must do to be born again. He knew nothing about the new birth. What he was asking is this: “What must I do to escape your God’s wrath?” God’s touch in his heart let that pagan man know that the God of Paul and Silas was angry with how they had been treated. And it was in answer to that question that Paul and Silas spoke.

31. And they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your house.”

Note: That is all Paul and Silas said to the terrified jailer at that moment, amid the uproar caused and as the jail-keepers hurried to relock the prison doors. Christians all over this world have long repeated that phrase, assuming Paul was saying, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be born again.” But that is not at all what Paul was saying; indeed, there would have been no point in him saying that. The jailer would not have understood it.

When Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved”, I know what the trembling jailer responded, even though it is not in the Bible. He said in all earnestness, “I do believe in Jesus! I do believe in Jesus! I really, really do!” And then, he would have sincerely asked Paul, “Who is he?” The Philippian jailer had received the basic answer to his question, “What must I do to be saved?” but he needed to know what Paul’s answer entailed so that Jesus would save him. In response to Paul, he would have wondered, What does this Jesus expect of me, so that I can escape the wrath of God?

The first thing God requires of those who believe on His Son is to demonstrate heartfelt repentance by turning from evil and doing what is right. Every man of God that He has ever sent has preached repentance, including Jesus (Mt. 4:17). Believing without repentance will save no one. James said the demons believe (Jas. 2:19), but they are damned because God will not allow them to repent. Likewise, people who believe but do not repent will be damned. And so, Paul and Silas next explained to the jailer and those in his house what God required:

32. And then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house.

Note: And when the jailer and his household heard the gospel, they believed and repented of their evil deeds and began doing good instead:

33. And he took them [Paul and Silas] at that hour of the night and washed their wounds [the jailer repented for giving them those wounds by washing and cleaning their wounds], and he was straightway baptized, he and all his house.

Note: That was not water baptism. Paul never baptized a Gentile with water. He said plainly that Christ did not send him to do that (1Cor. 1:17a). Instead, Paul would have laid hands on the jailer so that he would be baptized with the holy Ghost and fire, he and his household. And they were.

34. Then he brought them to his house and set food before them. [That was another way the jailer was continuing to repent for giving Paul and Silas those beatings.] And he rejoiced with all his house, believing in God [that he would be saved from God’s wrath].

Note: The jailer put himself in danger of severe punishment by letting Paul and Silas leave the prison and giving them aid. What if they escaped? But the terror of God carried him beyond the fear of death. He had been made wise by the work of God in his life.

When Paul was a young man, the smell of holiness stank to him. He hated it. He was on his way to Damascus to arrest those who loved Jesus, but on the way, Jesus stopped him, speaking from a brilliant light from heaven. When Paul cried out, “Who are you, sir?” the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). From that moment, Paul believed in Jesus. But he, like the Philippian jailer, knew that Jesus would require something of him, and so he asked, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” (Acts 9:6). In effect, Paul was asking Jesus the same question the jailer would later ask: “What must I do to escape your wrath?” And just like the jailer, Paul had to learn what he must do.

The question of all questions is this: “What must I do to be saved?” It is the greatest question anyone will ever ask. The following scriptures provide the Bible’s answer. These are the things we MUST do in order to obtain the hope of saints and be judged worthy to receive the crown of life in the Final Judgment. Nothing in this list is optional.

What Must I Do to Be Saved?

1. We Must Repent .

Acts 17

30. The times of ignorance God formerly overlooked, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent.

Note: When God commands someone to repent, the question for that person then is: What is God commanding me to repent of? The answer will differ with each person, according to the sins he has committed. Some will be required to repent for stealing, some for committing adultery, etc.

See Luke 13:1–5 and 2Corinthians 7:9–10.

2. We Must Believe.

Acts 16

31. And they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your house.”

Note: Believing in Jesus is not the new birth; the baptism of the Spirit (Acts 2:1–4) which follows believing, is the new birth (cf. Heb. 11:6).

See Mark 1:15 and 2Thessalonians 2:10–13.

3. We Must Be Baptized .

Mark 16

16. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe [and so, is not baptized] will be damned.

1Peter 3

21b. baptism now also saves us (not a removal of filth from the body, but a pledge to God from a good conscience), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

1Corinthians 12

13. With one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and all were given to drink of one Spirit.

Note: The baptism which saves us and puts us into the body of Christ is the baptism that came about because of the resurrection of Jesus, that is, the baptism of the Spirit which Jesus performs. No water baptism can save anyone.

See Romans 6:3 and Galatians 3:27.

4. We Must Have the Spirit.

Romans 8

9. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.

. . . .

11. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who raised Christ from the dead shall also bring to life your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you.

Note: We receive the Spirit when Jesus baptizes us with it, not before. In Acts 1:4–5, Jesus told the disciples that they would soon be baptized with the Spirit and receive “the promise of the Father”, which is the Spirit (Gal. 3:14). That took place in Acts 2. In Acts 8:14–17, the Samaritans also received the Spirit when they were baptized with it. In Acts 9:17 (cf. 22:16), young Paul likewise received the Spirit when Ananias laid hands on him and he was baptized with it. In Acts 10:44–47, the first Gentiles, too, received the Spirit when they were baptized with it, and in Acts 19:1–6, the twelve men Paul met in Ephesus received the Spirit when they were baptized with it.

5. We Must Be Sanctified.

2Thessalonians 2

13. We are compelled to give thanks to God always for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you for salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

Note: To be sanctified means to be made holy and set apart as belonging to God. Without that, salvation will be impossible.

See John 17:17–18, Romans 15:16, and Hebrews 2:11.

6. We Must Obey Christ.

Hebrews 5

8. For although he was a Son, he learned obedience by the things that he suffered,

9. and when he had been made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

2Peter 2

20. For if after escaping the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, their last state is worse than the first.

21. It would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.

Note: Some Christian ministers teach that living an obedient, holy life is not necessary in order to obtain salvation, but that is an evil doctrine. The body of Christ is comprised of both wise (obedient) and foolish (disobedient) people, and the foolish will be rejected in the end (Mt. 25:1–13). In the Old Testament as well, false prophets in Israel taught that living in disobedience to God’s law did not provoke His wrath, but God hated that doctrine (Mal. 2:17).

See Hebrews 5:8–9.

7. We Must Do Good Works.

John 5

28. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice,

29. and they will come out, those who did good things unto the resurrection of life, but those who did bad things, unto the resurrection of damnation.

Romans 2

7. To those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, God will grant eternal life,

8. but to those who are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, God will pour out indignation and wrath,

9. tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who does evil – to the Jew first, and then the Greek –

10. but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good – to the Jew first, and then the Greek.

2Corinthians 5

10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive recompense for the things done in the body, according to what he did, whether good or bad.

Revelation 20

12. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. And books were opened, and another book was opened (which is the Book of Life), and the dead were judged by the things written in the books, according to their deeds.

13. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one, according to their deeds.

Note: Every time the Bible mentions the subject of man’s judgment, either now or at the end, it warns us that man’s judgment from God is determined by his deeds. In the end, we will not be judged by what we believe or what we think, but on how we behave ourselves in this life.

See Psalm 62:12, Philippians 2:12, and James 2:14, 19–26.

8. We Must Have Faith.

1Peter 1

7. so that the trying of your faith, much more precious than the trying of gold that perishes, though it be tried by fire, may be found worthy of praise, and honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,

. . . .

9. receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

9. We Must Worship and Walk in the Spirit.

John 4

23. An hour is coming, and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Father spiritually and truly, for the Father is searching for such people to worship Him.

24. God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.

Romans 8

13. If you live after the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

Note: Paul was writing to believers, not to sinners, admonishing believers to remember that if they lived in the Spirit, they would obtain the promised hope of salvation, but if they lived after the flesh, they would perish along with the wicked.

See Galatians 5:16–21.

10. We Must Call upon the Name of the Lord.

Romans 10

12. There is no difference between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord of all is rich toward all who call upon him,

13. for “whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

14a. But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

1Corinthians 12

3. I give you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God is saying, “Cursed be Jesus.” And no one is able to say, “Lord Jesus,” but by the holy Spirit.

Note: To “call on the name of the Lord” is impossible for those who do not believe, just as Paul says here. Only those who have believed and been baptized with the Spirit have the power to call on the name of the Lord, for it can only be done by the Spirit, as Paul said. Zephaniah prophesied (3:9) that when Israel turns to Jesus, a pure language will be given them (cf. Acts 2:4) so that they might be able to call on the name of the Lord.

See Joel 2:32 and Acts 2:20–21.

11. We Must Confess Christ .

Romans 10

9. If you [believer] confess with your mouth, “Lord Jesus”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

10. For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.

Note: Sinners cannot confess Christ because they do not have him. The only thing sinners can confess is sin because that is all they have. God’s children alone can confess Christ because he is in them, by the Spirit, and in them alone.

See Matthew 10:32–33.

12. We Must Have Power from God.

Mark 10

25. [Jesus said] “It is easier for a camel to enter into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

26. Then they were even more astounded, saying to each other, “Who, then, can be saved?”

27. And with an intense look, Jesus told them, “With men, it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.”

1Peter 1

3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in His abundant mercy has begotten us anew into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4. for an incorruptible, and pure, and permanent inheritance reserved in heaven for you

5. who are kept by the power of God, through faith, for the salvation prepared to be revealed in the last time.

Note: It is impossible for us, in ourselves, to live as we must in order to be saved. As Isaiah said, “We are all like an unclean thing, and all our forms of righteousness are like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6a). Only by walking in the power of God can we escape the bondage of sin.

See 1Corinthians 1:18.

13. We Must Overcome the World.

Revelation 2

7. He who has an ear, hear what the Spirit is saying to the Assemblies: To him who overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life that is in the paradise of my God.

. . . .

11. He who has an ear, hear what the Spirit is saying to the Assemblies: He who overcomes will not be harmed by the Second Death.

Revelation 3

5. He who overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the Book of Life but will confess his name before my Father and before His angels.

6. He who has an ear, hear what the Spirit is saying to the Assemblies!

See Revelation 2:17, 25–29; 3:12–13, 21–22.

14. We Must Have Hope.

Romans 8

24. We are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope, for what someone sees, why does he still hope for it?

25. But if we hope for that which we do not see, then with patience do we earnestly wait for it.

Colossians 1

27. God has willed to make known among the Gentiles what is the richness of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Note: If you have something, you cannot hope for it. There is no need to. That is why Paul said that we are saved by hope. Spirit-baptized people do not yet have their salvation; Jesus is bringing that with him when he comes. What they have is the hope of salvation, which the world does not have because it does not have the Spirit and cannot receive it (Jn. 14:16–17).

Every person alive on earth right now is being saved from the wrath of God because that wrath has not yet come. Sinners and unfaithful believers will face that wrath in God’s time, but that time is not now.

15. We Must Endure to the End in the Love of God.

Matthew 24

12. And because of a great increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.

13. But he who endures to the end, the same shall be saved.

See 1Timothy 4:16; 2:14–15 and Hebrews 3:5–6, 12–14; 4:1; 9:27–28; 10:38–39.

16. We Must Remember All the Above.

1Corinthians 15

1. Now, I remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I proclaimed to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,

2. by which also you are being saved if you are holding fast that message which I preached to you; otherwise, you believed in vain.

A Lifestyle

The Bible teaches us that salvation is the reward for a holy lifestyle, not for knowledge (cf. 2Tim. 3:7), or for spiritual gifts (Mt. 7:21–23; 1Cor 13:1–2), and certainly not for proper observance of rituals (cf. Gal. 2:15–16; 3:21). The holy life we must live in order to be saved in the end, includes the following:

• We Must Be Meek (Ps. 76:9; 149:4).
• We Must Be Righteous (1Pet. 4:18).
• We Must Surrender Our Lives to God (Mt. 10:37–38; Lk. 9:23–24).
• We Must Be in Christ (Jn. 10:9).
• We Must Be Contrite (Ps. 34:18).
• We Must Be Upright (Ps. 7:10; Prov. 28:18).
• We Must Be Patient (Lk. 21:19; Heb. 6:11–12; 10:36).
• We Must Obtain Mercy from God (Tit. 3:5).
• We Must Obtain Grace from God (Eph. 2:8; Acts 15:11; Tit. 2:11–13).

And there are many, many more!

Note: These scriptures, taken together, show that the answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” is to live a lifestyle of holiness. The life a child of God lives after receiving the Spirit will determine whether or not he obtains his hope of salvation.

God’s promised salvation is for the body, not the soul. The saints will receive salvation when they receive the new, glorified bodies Jesus will bring with him when he comes back. The souls of God’s children have already been delivered from sin and death. What God requires in return is that they walk worthy of such a great deliverance.

The Final Judgment Is Coming

We have shown that there are many things required of us – not suggested, but required – if we would be saved in the end. But there is one more. He who would be saved must believe that there is a Final Judgment coming, that there is such a thing as damnation as well as salvation. He must believe that God is keeping a record of our lives and that we all will be judged according to the things written in His Book. It is essential to a sound faith to know that an eternal Judgment is coming, for otherwise, we will lack the fear of God needed to live the lifestyle that leads to salvation.

The fear of God is clean (Ps. 19:9). The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10). Job said that the fear of God is wisdom itself, and to depart from evil is understanding (Job 28:28). Those men of God said those things because they understood there is a Final Judgment coming, and they feared God. They knew that the record of what they had done in this life, whether good or bad, will be in God’s Book and that they will be judged by those things. That is really going to happen, and we all will be there.

Jesus said, “I am the truth” (Jn. 14:6), and he spoke of the coming Judgment often. It is critical that we believe him! Paul believed Jesus and declared to the philosophers in Acts 17:31 that there is coming a day when God will judge all men by that man whom He has appointed, Jesus Christ, whom He raised from the dead. How is it that someone rises from the dead? I do not know. I have never known anyone, personally, who has done it. But the Bible said Jesus rose from the dead, and God sent back the holy Ghost to prove he did it. The holy Ghost is God’s personal testimony that Jesus came back from the dead and is sitting now at His right hand. And God is going to judge every human being who has ever lived by that man He has chosen! That is a reality, and the holy Ghost bears witness to it. Whether or not anyone believes it, we all will face Christ one day. If we really believe that, we are going to fear God and earnestly seek His answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?”

The Spirit Will Remind You

Besides all the things in the lists above that are required in order to obtain salvation, we must also do anything else that God says to us. Please note that not on the list is the “repeat after me and you are saved” ritual frequently performed by evangelicals. Spiritually speaking, that is madness. There is no such thing in the Scriptures because it is false; it gives people a false hope.

We have now seen what the Scriptures say we must do to be saved, and even the Scriptures do not and cannot tell it all. The holy Ghost alone can tell us everything we need to do, day by day, to be saved in the end. The Spirit leads God’s children every hour, giving them the right answers, leading them through this life. That is what Paul and Silas explained to the jailer after he took them to his house; that is what all God’s prophets told Israel; and that is what Jesus taught his disciples.

Nobody can remember all the things we are required to do to obtain salvation, of course, but the Spirit does remember them, and if we walk in the Spirit, it will unfailingly lead us to do what is right in every circumstance. Jesus promised his followers that “the Comforter, the holy Spirit, which the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will bring to your remembrance everything that I have told you” (Jn. 14:26).

On the other hand, without the Spirit, even if a person were to memorize all that the Bible says we must do to be saved, he cannot do it. It is impossible for man, but not with God. Jesus said so (Mk. 10:26–27), as did Paul (Rom. 8:6–7). “Walk in the Spirit,” Paul exhorted the saints, “and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). With the sweet Spirit of God in us, we can do anything He requires, and by following that Spirit, we will be saved.

The ONE HOPE of salvation is the third of the Seven Pillars of the New Testament of Jesus Christ.

Pillar #4: One Lord

Jesus told his disciples they did well to call him Lord.

John 13

13. [Jesus said,] “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’, and you speak rightly, for I am.”

Jesus told his disciples that when the Spirit came to them, they would be able to testify of him.

John 15

26. Now, when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth which comes out from the Father, he will testify of me,

27. and you also will testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

Note: Under God’s law, it takes two witnesses to establish anything, and concerning His Son, God has given us His witness from heaven: the Spirit. Even if all the human voices in the world agreed that Jesus is Lord, that is still just one witness, the human witness. What about God’s witness, the Spirit? Only when that witness is added to ours does our testimony mean anything in heaven. Has the Spirit spoken through you, yet? If not, your testimony, being alone, is insufficient.

It is the Spirit that enables anyone to know and to testify that Jesus is Lord.

1Corinthians 12

3. I give you to know that . . . no one is able to say, “Lord Jesus,” but by the holy Spirit.

That confession, made possible by the Spirit, means that one is on the way to eternal life.

Romans 10

9. If you confess with your mouth [and you can only do that with the Spirit], “Lord Jesus”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

Note: If the holy Ghost has testified through us, then both we and the Spirit have testified, confirming that our faith and our conversion are real. If we believe and keep going with Jesus, we will be saved. That is the good news!

The Spirit is God’s testimony that Jesus is Lord, and to refuse it is to condemn God as a liar.

1John 5

6b. The Spirit is the witness because the Spirit is truth.

. . . .

9. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God that He has given concerning His Son.

10. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness within him; he who does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar because he has not believed in the witness that God has given concerning His Son.

Note: When Paul met the twelve Ephesian disciples in Acts 19, he found that they believed in Jesus but had not yet received the Spirit from him. They hadn’t received God’s witness to the Son. All they knew was what Apollos taught them, and Apollos knew nothing about the baptism of the Spirit. Apollos was well-versed in the Old Testament, and using them, he had convinced those twelve Ephesian Jews that Jesus was their Messiah. So, they believed that, but they had not even heard about the holy Ghost, the proof that Jesus is Lord. Paul corrected their thinking, baptized them with John’s baptism in water, which always included the message about Jesus’ baptism with the Spirit, and then, when “Paul laid his hands on them, the holy Spirit came upon them, and they started speaking in tongues and prophesying” (Acts 19:6).

God made Jesus Lord.

Acts 2

36. Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Messiah – this Jesus whom you crucified!

This fulfilled the prophecies given in Psalms.

Psalm 89

27. I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of earth.

28. Forever will I continue my lovingkindness toward him, and by him will my covenant be confirmed.

God will make every person who has ever been born on earth and every creature in heaven to bow down and confess that Jesus is Lord.

Philippians 2

9. God highly exalted him and bestowed upon him a name that is above every name,

10. that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of heavenly beings, and of earthly beings, and of those under the earth,

11. and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Note: I advise people to repent now and confess Jesus is Lord while it will benefit them. Everybody is going to do it, eventually.

If we are in Christ, God has revealed His secret to us.

Psalm 25

14. The secret of Jehovah belongs to those who fear Him, and He will reveal His covenant to them.

2Corinthians 4

6. The God who commanded light to shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Note: The Creator who said in the beginning, “Let there be light”, also commanded His light to shine in our souls and gave us a new beginning. Jesus said that only those whose hearts God has touched can come to him and that every person who has heard from God comes to him (Jn. 6:44–45). Everybody who really hears from God goes to the Lord Jesus.

Whatever other lords there be in creation (and there are a lot of them, just as there are other gods), Jesus is the head of them all.

Revelation 19

11. Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! And the one sitting on it is called “Faithful and True”, and he judges and makes war in righteousness.

12. His eyes were a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he has names written, and a name written which no one knew except himself,

13. and he was clothed with a blood-stained garment, and his name was called “the Word of God”.

. . . .

16. And on his garment and on his thigh, he had a name written: “King of kings and Lord of lords”.

Jesus is the ONE LORD of all (Acts 10:36). This is the fourth of the Seven Pillars of the New Testament of Jesus Christ.

Pillar #5: One Faith

It will aid our understanding of the One Faith if we first consider the following biblical facts.

“The life of God” is mentioned 0 times in the Old Testament.

“The life of God” is never mentioned in the Old Testament because men had no idea that God had a different kind of life from what they already knew.

In the New Testament, Paul mentions “the life of God”:

Ephesians 4

17. This I say then, and testify in the Lord, that you are no longer to live the way other Gentiles live, in the vanity of their mind,

18a. having their understanding darkened, being aliens to the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.

Those in this covenant who have received God’s Spirit are not ignorant, aliens to the life of God, for the Spirit is life itself, eternal life (cf. Rom. 8:10). However, God’s life – and nothing that is a part of God’s life – was known to man before Jesus paid the price for it to be revealed.

“The kingdom of God” is mentioned 0 times in the Old Testament.

No one on earth understood the kingdom of God before Christ baptized his followers into it on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, and even then, it had to be revealed. Paul was the one who saw it most clearly, and he wrote, “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). Until the revelation of the Son, people thought God was righteous the same way men were righteous, only more so, and they thought God’s kingdom was like earthly kingdoms, only bigger.

In the New Testament, Jesus was the first to mention the kingdom of God:

Matthew 6

33. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Note: That unknown kingdom, Jesus told his followers to seek first of all. But no one could seek it until they realized it was there. Only then could they make it a priority, along with the righteousness which is in it.

“The righteousness of God” is mentioned 0 times in the Old Testament.

Before Christ came, the righteousness of God was not revealed. To be sure, the Old Testament says God is righteous, but men thought God was righteous with the same kind of righteousness they knew about. They didn’t know that God’s righteousness was altogether a different kind of righteousness from man’s.

In the New Testament, Paul is the first to mention “the righteousness of God”:

Romans 1

17. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

“The peace of God” is mentioned 0 times in the Old Testament.

The Old Testament never provided the peace of God to man because that is something only the Son of God can do. The night before he died, Jesus promised that peace to his followers:

John 14

27a. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you the way the world gives.

Note: The world’s kind of peace is just the cessation of fighting; it is not eternal, and it does not touch the soul. It is completely different from the peace Jesus gives.

In the New Testament, Paul is the first to use the phrase, “the peace of God”.

Philippians 4

7. “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

———

The One Faith

The Son of God brought God’s life to man, and with it, the understanding of God’s kingdom and righteousness. Knowledge of the above facts helps us see that the Faith revealed by the Son is as unique as is the life, the kingdom, and the righteousness of God.

“The Faith” is mentioned 0 times in the Old Testament.

“The Faith” is mentioned forty-four times in the New Testament, beginning with Peter on the day of Pentecost in Acts 3. Concerning a lame man who had been healed, Peter said,

Acts 3

16. The Faith that came through [Jesus] gave him this perfect soundness in the sight of you all.

The following are other New Testament verses which speak of the Faith of Christ:

The Faith was not available under the law of Moses.

Galatians 3

23. Before the Faith came, we were held in custody under law, locked up together until the coming Faith was revealed.

The Faith was a mystery as long as the Son was hidden.

1Timothy 3

9. holding the mystery of the Faith in a clear conscience.

Colossians 1

26. the mystery that was hidden from the Aeons and from generations of men, but now is revealed to His saints,

27. by whom God has willed to make known among the Gentiles what is the richness of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Note: Righteous people had faith in God before He sent His Son to earth, but the Faith revealed in the New Testament did not exist until then. That Faith is faith in God’s Son, Jesus.

The Faith is something all New Testament believers obeyed, whether Jew or Gentile.

Acts 6

7b. A large number of the [Jewish] priests were becoming obedient to the Faith.

Acts 16

5. So it was that the [Gentile] Assemblies [in cities of Asia Minor] were being established in the Faith and were increasing in number daily.

The Faith is something that is preached.

Galatians 1

23. They kept hearing that “the man who used to persecute us is now preaching the Faith he once tried to destroy.”

Romans 10

14. How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

15a. And how shall they preach except they be sent?

Unity in the Faith is something to which saints attain.

Ephesians 4

13. until we all attain to the unity of the Faith, and the true knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

Note: There is a unity of the Spirit which we can feel with children of God whenever we meet them. That is the bloodline of Christ. We can feel our kinship in Christ with others in the family of God. The Father wants us to continue in that unity until we all attain to unity in the Faith, which is the true knowledge of God.

The Faith will save those who continue in it.

Colossians 1

21. And you, who by disposition were once alienated and enemies of God with evil deeds, he has now reconciled

22. through death in his fleshly body, to present you holy and faultless and blameless before Him,

23a. provided that you continue in the Faith, established, and stable, and unmoved from the hope of the gospel which you have heard.

Paul continued in the Faith.

2Timothy 4

7. I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the Faith.

8. As for the future, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will grant me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all those who love his appearing.

Note: When we keep the Faith, a longing arises in our hearts for Jesus to return; we begin to “love his appearing.” Keeping “clean hands and a pure heart” creates that desire. When John wrote,“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ ” (Rev. 22:17), he meant that the heart of those who are prepared by the Spirit to be the Bride of Christ says, “Come!”

Those who depart from the Faith will not be saved.

1Timothy 4

1. Now, the Spirit is saying explicitly that in the latter times, some will fall away from the Faith, following after deceptive spirits and doctrines of demons.

2Corinthians 13

5. Put yourselves to the test, whether you are in the Faith; prove your own selves! Or do you yourselves not know that Jesus Christ is in you – unless you are reprobates?

Note: To be reprobate means that the Spirit has departed from a person, for he has been rejected by God and cast out of His kingdom. Such souls then suffer what Peter called being “tartarized” (2Pet. 2:4).^[4] Many of God’s children are in a backslidden state, but they have not been tartarized. They may still repent. If someone is tartarized, Christ is no longer in him, and he cannot repent.

2Timothy 3

8. Like Jannes and Jambres, who withstood Moses, so these men also withstand the truth, men whose minds are corrupt, reprobate concerning the Faith.

Note: God is very patient. He will never cast out of His kingdom a child of His just because he stumbles in his walk of faith. He will wait for years for His children to learn righteous-ness. A great example of this is the men in Ephesus whom Paul mentioned (1Tim. 1:20a; 2Tim. 2:17–18) who had wandered far from the truth and were damaging the body of Christ. They were teaching God’s children that there would be no Second Coming, for Jesus returns, they said, every time someone receives the Spirit. Remarkably, some still teach that bizarre doctrine. One such man whom I met, referring to the many times people have received the Spirit, told me, “Jesus has come back thousands of times.” With his crafty use of Scriptures, he had persuaded some of God’s children to follow him in that foolishness. Likewise, the false teachers in Ephesus had also “overthrown the faith of some” (2Tim. 2:18). And yet, God was patient with them. We know they were not yet reprobate because Paul said he had turned them over to Satan “that they may be taught not to blaspheme” (1Tim. 1:20b). And if they could still be taught, they must have still had hope.

We are told nothing else of those men. I hope they repented, but if they refused God’s stern correction and did not return to the Faith, they lost their souls.

The Faith must be defended.

Jude 1

3. Beloved, making all diligence to write to you concerning the common salvation, I felt constrained to write you, exhorting you to earnestly contend for the Faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Note: The Faith was delivered to the saints “once for all” (Jude 1:3). The Faith does not evolve. The Faith does not develop. The Faith was perfect when it came, and it remains perfect now. What comes from man evolves. That has been the history of all man’s religions; they constantly change. But God’s word does not evolve. God’s word is perfect to start with because He is perfect; every word He speaks is pure and complete. Therefore, any doctrine that is not identical to the doctrine Paul taught cannot be of God.

The Faith of God is precious.

2Peter 1

1. Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who have received with us the same precious Faith in the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:

2. Grace and peace be multiplied to you by the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

The Faith was first preached at Jerusalem by Peter.

The Faith was first preached, not by Jesus, but by Peter on the day of Pentecost. The Faith offers sinners remission of their sins, and that remission did not exist until after the Spirit came, and that did not happen until after Jesus died, rose, and ascended into heaven to offer himself to God as a sacrifice for man’s sins and the Spirit came. Jesus said that remission of sins had to be preached first in Jerusalem (Lk. 24:47), and there, on Pentecost morning, Peter delivered the first sermon ever to people who could receive remission of their sins (Acts 2). Jesus began his ministry in Galilee (Mt. 4:12); he traveled to Jerusalem several times and preached there, but his message was only that the kingdom of God was at hand (e.g., Mt. 4:17). He could not preach that sinners could receive remission of their sins if they would believe the gospel and repent.

Peter was the first to preach such a sermon, and Jesus’ sacrifice of himself is what made that sermon possible. No one in history ever received remission of sins until Jesus paid the price for the soul-cleansing Spirit to come. We saw this happen to the first Gentiles who received the Spirit when they believed Peter’s preaching about Jesus and heard him mention “remission of sins”:

Acts 10

40. “God raised up this man [Jesus] on the third day, and He permitted him to be seen.

. . . .

43. All the prophets bear witness to him, that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives remission of sins.”

44. While Peter was still saying these things, the holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the Word.

45. And those of the circumcision who believed, as many as came with Peter, were astonished because the gift of the holy Spirit had also been poured out on the Gentiles!

46a. They knew this because they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God.

Forgiveness was not remission of sin.

Before the New Testament, God provided for atonement to be made for sin with animal sacrifices, and sins were forgiven based upon those sacrifices being properly made. Nevertheless, though forgiven, those sins remained on a person’s record, “for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). During those ancient times, God patiently tolerated man in his helpless state (cf. Acts 17:30), or as Paul said it, sins were overlooked “through the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3:25b–26a).

Under the animal sacrifice system, sins were forgiven, but only on the condition that the Son would come and pay the debt for man’s sin. And so, the Son of God was sent from heaven to become a sacrifice for sin, and “he, having offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:12). God’s acceptance of His Son’s sacrifice made it possible for sins not merely to be forgiven, as before, but to be utterly erased from a person’s record. The Son’s sacrifice covered all of man’s sins from the beginning of time, provided those sins had been repented of and forgiven when a proper animal sacrifice had been made. Not only did Jesus die for the sins of the present time, but also “for the redemption of transgressions that were under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:15).

One reason Abraham and, no doubt, all other ancient men and women, were glad to see Jesus’ day (Jn. 8:56) was that they sensed their sins, though forgiven by God, would finally be erased by God from their record. That erasure, that washing of the soul, is remission of sins. That mercy is found only in the Faith of Christ, and Peter was the first to preach it.

The ONE FAITH is the fifth of the Seven Pillars of the New Testament of Jesus Christ.

Pillar #6: One Baptism

In all of human history, God has ordained but two baptisms: the baptism with water He anointed John the Baptizer to perform for Jews who believed his preaching and the baptism of the Spirit He anointed Jesus to perform for those who believe his gospel. Every time John performed his baptism, he told the ones he baptized to look for Jesus’ baptism with the Spirit (e.g., Mt. 3:11). The time for John’s baptism has long passed now, for it was intended only for the Jews (Jn. 1:31), and only for a time, as John said: “He [Jesus] must increase, and I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). John’s baptism was never for Gentiles. That is why Paul, who was sent to the Gentiles, said there is only one baptism (Eph. 4:5) and that Christ “did not send me to baptize”, that is, with water (1Cor. 1:17). Since the time when Peter’s gospel for the Jews came to an end, Jesus’ baptism has been the only baptism that means anything to God. And it means everything to us.

Both Jesus and Peter taught that no one will be saved without being baptized (Mk. 16:16; 1Pet. 3:21a). So, the absolute necessity of baptism cannot be questioned. The only issue, then, is which baptism is it that we must receive? Is it John’s baptism in water, or is it the baptism of the Spirit that Jesus ministers from heaven? Peter answered this question when he said that the baptism which saves is not the one that washes dirt from the body but the one that came “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Pet. 3:21b). That is obviously the baptism of the Spirit, which came to man after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. No one can be clean in God’s sight who has not received this baptism, purchased at the fearful price of Jesus’ life, and no one will be saved in the end who has not received it.

Inasmuch as John’s baptism is no longer in effect, it is impossible to practice it, and since Jesus’ baptism is the only other baptism that God has ordained, we must conclude that all forms of Christian baptisms are irrelevant to life in Christ. That being the case, it would be a waste of time to discuss them, either their origins or the doctrines associated with them. The simple truth is that since baptism saves, and Jesus’ baptism is the only one any longer available, we must receive Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit, or we will be damned.

To demonstrate how easy a task it is to discover what the New Testament says about the baptism of Jesus, I will take the Reader book by book to show how few times, in spite of its importance, Jesus’ baptism is mentioned.

In Matthew, baptism is mentioned 22 times.

John the Baptizer and/or his baptism: 13 times

Jesus’ baptism: 9 times

Other references to baptism in Matthew: 0 times

Here are the 9 references to Jesus’ baptism:

Matthew 3

11. I baptize you with water upon repentance, but after me is coming one who is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to remove. He will baptize you with holy Spirit!

Matthew 3

14. But John tried to stop [Jesus], saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”

Note: John did not understand that Jesus’ baptism was impossible before Jesus purchased it for mankind with his blood. Nevertheless, John, being a prophet, knew that Jesus had a baptism that he needed.

Matthew 20

22. Jesus answered and said [to James and John], “… Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with?” They said to him, “We are able!”

Note: This cannot be a reference to John’s baptism because Jesus knew that James and John already had that one. Instead, Jesus was asking them, “Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of the Spirit that I am baptized with?”

23a. He said to them, “You will surely drink my cup, and you will be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with.”

Matthew 28

19. Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit.

Note: Which baptism was Jesus talking about, John’s or his? The disciples no doubt thought he was talking about a baptism in water, like John’s, for that is the only kind of baptism they knew about. But here, Jesus would not have been telling his disciples to go to the Gentiles with John’s baptism, for the gospel Jesus revealed to Paul for the Gentiles (Gal. 1:11–12) excluded John’s baptism, and every other ceremony besides. Moreover, though Jesus knew that his gospel would eventually go beyond Israel’s borders to the Gentiles, he never sent his disciples to evangelize them; that was Paul’s calling (Gal. 2:7–9; 1Tim. 2:7; 2Tim. 1:11).

Here are the 8 references to Jesus’ baptism:

Mark 1

8. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with holy Spirit!

Note: This is not new. John made this same statement in Matthew 3:11.

Mark 10

38. Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with?”

39. Then they told him, “We are able!” And Jesus told them, “You will surely drink the cup that I drink, and you will be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with.”

Note: The same conversation is in Matthew 20:22–23.

Mark 16

16. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe [and is not baptized] will be damned.

Note: The disciples probably assumed Jesus was speaking of a baptism like John’s, for Jesus’ baptism was as yet unknown. But his baptism of the Spirit is what Jesus was talking about. No one will be saved without being baptized with the holy Spirit.

Here is the 1 reference to Jesus’ baptism in Luke:

Luke 3

16. John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to loosen. He will baptize you with holy Spirit and fire!”

Note: This is not new. John made the same statement in both Matthew and Mark.

Here are the 2 other references to baptism in Luke:

Luke 12

50. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it be done!

Note: Here, Jesus is talking about his coming arrest, torture, and crucifixion, calling that horrific suffering a baptism.

Here is the 1 reference to Jesus’ baptism in John:

John 1

33. [John the Baptizer said,] “I did not know him, but the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘Upon whomever you see the Spirit descend and remain on him, he is the one who baptizes with holy Spirit.’”

Note: This is not new. John the Baptizer also prophesied of Jesus’ baptism in the other three gospels. So, excluding repeated statements, in the four gospels, there are only five references to Jesus’ baptism. That is surprising enough, but even more surprising, considering the great importance of Jesus’ baptism with the Spirit, is how few references to Jesus’ baptism there are in the rest of the New Testament books:

Here are the 2 references to Jesus’ baptism in Acts:

Acts 1

5. John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with holy Spirit not many days from now.

Note: Jesus is telling his disciples exactly what John said in the four gospels, so this statement is not new. What is new is that it was about to happen to them.

Later, in Acts 10, Peter went to the house of a Roman centurion named Cornelius, and Jesus surprised everybody by baptizing Cornelius and those with him with the Spirit, even though they were uncircumcised and had not first received John’s baptism. That was a first, and it was utterly unexpected by Peter and his six Jewish companions. They were flabbergasted when the Spirit fell on Gentiles, and they began to speak in tongues and magnify God. Then something came to Peter’s mind:

Acts 11

16. Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how he used to say, “John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with holy Spirit.”

Note: That statement is not new. As we have seen, John the Baptizer made that statement often. So, in Acts, there is no new information about Jesus’ baptism, even though it is the experience of new birth, which is central to the New Covenant. In Acts, there are several accounts of people receiving Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit, but those stories do not include the word baptize or baptism (e.g., Acts 8, 9, 19); therefore, those scriptures are not included here.

Here are the 3 references to Jesus’ baptism in Romans:

Romans 6

3. Do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

4. We were buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we might also walk in the newness of life.

Note: This is new. Paul reveals that believers are baptized with the Spirit into Christ and that, spiritually speaking, we partake of (that is, receive the benefits of) Jesus’ death when we are baptized into him.

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Here are the 3 references to Jesus’ baptism in 1Corinthians:

1Corinthians 12

13. For with one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and all were given to drink of one Spirit.

Note: The body of Christ is the family of God on earth, and nobody belongs to God’s family without having God’s Spirit (Rom. 8:9b), which is received when one is baptized with it.

1Corinthians 15

29. Otherwise, what shall they do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not at all raised, then why are they baptized for the dead?

Note: Based on this verse, Mormons teach that believers can be water baptized for dead sinners so that they can be made worthy of salvation, though dead. That is nonsense. We cannot be baptized with water baptism for dead people, and we certainly cannot receive the baptism of the Spirit for them. What Paul was talking about is believers being baptized with the Spirit in preparation for being raised from the dead, for the Spirit is what will raise us up (Rom. 8:11).

Here are the 2 other references to baptism in 1Corinthians:

1Corinthians 10

1. I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,

2. and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

Note: It is new for Paul to say that Israel was “baptized unto Moses”, but that helps us understand that when believers are baptized with the Spirit, they are baptized unto Christ. This means that the Israelites were confirmed as believers in Moses when they followed him through the Red Sea and, so, believers are confirmed as believers in Christ when they follow him into the baptism of the Spirit.

Here is the 1 reference to Jesus’ baptism in Galatians:

Galatians 3

27. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Note: This is one of three times Paul plainly said that Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit is how we enter into (the body of) Christ.

Here is the 1 reference to Jesus’ baptism in Ephesians:

Ephesians 4

5. [There is] one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Note: That is Paul’s gospel, not Peter’s. Peter’s gospel for the Jews included both John’s baptism and Jesus’ because God at that time required the Jews to continue in the law (cf. Gal. 2:7–10), of which John’s baptism was a part. The only baptism Jesus sent Paul to preach to the Gentiles was the baptism of the Spirit.

Here is the 1 reference to Jesus’ baptism in Colossians:

Colossians 2

12. [You are] buried with him in baptism, in which you also are raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Note: The beginning of this reference to baptism is not new. Paul said in Romans that we are buried with Christ in baptism. But here, he adds that we are also raised up with Christ by the baptism of the Spirit. Paul was consistent in teaching that believers receive the benefits of Jesus’ suffering and resurrection when we are baptized into him.

Here is the 1 reference to baptism in Hebrews:

Hebrews 6

1. Therefore, leaving the matter of the beginning of Christ, let us press on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God,

2. of doctrine concerning baptisms, and laying on of hands, and resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment.

Note: This author is exhorting believers to grow beyond the teaching about the two baptisms God ordained, John’s and Jesus’. He is not promoting the practice of multiple baptisms.

Here is the 1 reference to baptism in 1Peter:

1Peter 3

21b. Baptism now also saves us (not a removal of filth from the body, but a pledge to God from a good conscience), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Note: That there is a baptism that saves us is not new. Jesus said the same in Mark 16. What is new is that Peter makes it clear that the baptism which saves is not a baptism of water which can only wash dirt from the body, but the baptism which was made available by the resurrection of Jesus. That can only be Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit.

Summary

In the four gospels, excluding references which repeat previous references, there are only five verses which mention Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit. Nevertheless, from those few verses, we may learn these truths:

• John the Baptizer foretold Jesus’ baptism.
• Jesus was baptized with the Spirit.
• Jesus told his disciples they would receive his baptism.
• Jesus ordained his disciples to baptize others with the Spirit.
• Only those who are baptized with the Spirit will be saved.

From the book of Acts through Revelation, excluding references which repeat previous ones, there are, again, only five verses which mention Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit. Nevertheless, from those five verses, we may learn the following immutable truths:

When one is baptized with the Spirit,

• he is baptized into Christ
• he is baptized into Jesus’ death and buried with him
• he is baptized into the body of Christ
• he is baptized in preparation for resurrection from the dead
• he is baptized with the only baptism that counts
• he is raised with Christ.

So, with only ten unique verses in the New Testament which speak of the baptism of Christ, learning what the Bible teaches about his baptism is a very manageable exercise; it is not a challenging, mystical puzzle. Anyone who sincerely wants to know the truth about Jesus’ baptism can find out what the Bible says. Please do not think you lack the expertise to learn the truth. It does not matter if you do not know Greek, or church history, or if you have no theological training. Jesus and you, working together, can understand perfectly the simple truth about baptism.

The ONE BAPTISM of the Spirit is the sixth of the Seven Pillars of the New Testament of Jesus Christ.

Pillar #7: One God

and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all.

The term “god” is not a name; it is a title.

There are a lot of theories about “god”, but to discover the truth, the first fact we need to know is that the term “god” is not a name; it’s a title. We pray to God, but so does the whole world, for “there are many gods and many lords” (1Cor. 8:5). The important thing is that when we pray, we pray to the right God.

Since “god” is a title, not a name, it is something which God could, and did, apply to certain of His creatures to whom He gave authority.

“God” is the family name.

Ephesians 3

14. For this reason do I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

15. of whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named.

“God” is the surname of our brotherhood: the family of God, the household of God, children of God, etc. If you are a child of God, you bear the family name, for the Spirit brought the precious name of Jesus into your heart when you received it (Jn. 14:26; Eph. 3:17). Let us not bear that sacred name in vain!

God applied the title “god” to Moses.

Exodus 7

1. And Jehovah said to Moses, “See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.”

Note: When God made Moses a god over Pharaoh and Egypt, Moses remained a man. That promotion did not mean that Moses became part of a trinity of divine persons. It meant only that God had anointed Moses with great authority.

God applied the title “god” to the judges in Israel.

Exodus 22

8. If the thief is not found, the owner of the house shall be brought to the gods to determine whether or not he has put his hand to his neighbor’s property.

9. For every type of transgression concerning an ox, a donkey, a sheep, or clothing, or any lost item that one claims is his, the case of both parties shall go to the gods. Whoever the gods condemn shall pay double to his neighbor.

Note 1: God gave great authority to some men in Israel to be judges and called them gods just as He did Moses. They were not gods over Pharaoh and Egypt, as Moses was; they were gods only within Israel, and their judgments were enforced and inescapable. Concerning those judges, God gave this admonition to Israel:

Exodus 22

28. You shall not revile the gods, nor shall you curse the ruler of your people.

Note 2: God’s people must not revile those whom God anoints with authority to rule. This includes the authorities that God has ordained among men. Paul said that if we resist even the earthly authorities ordained by God, we will receive damnation (Rom. 13:1–3). Much more certain, then, must that damnation be if we resist those He has anointed with authority in His kingdom.

God applied the title “ god” to all his servants, even if they became unjust.

Psalm 82

1. God presides in the Assembly of God; He judges among the gods.

2. How long will you judge unjustly and respect the persons of the wicked? Selah.

Note: God requires those He ordains to be faithful, and He holds them accountable for the judgments they make (1Cor. 4:2). Some of the gods in Israel, those entrusted with authority among God’s people, were unjust (cf. Isa. 5:7):

Psalm 82

6. I have said, “You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.

7. Nevertheless, like men, you will die, and you will fall like one of their princes.”

Note: Some might think that the Psalmist was not talking about human beings, but Jesus said he was. In John 10, Jesus revealed that the above verses applied to those to whom the word of God had come:

John 10

33. The Jews answered him saying, “We’re not stoning you because of a good work, but for blasphemy, in that you, being a man, are making yourself a god.”

Note: These men were accusing Jesus of puffing himself up to be someone in great authority in Israel, thus making himself a god.

34. Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said you are gods?’

35. If He called them ‘gods’ to whom the word of God came – and the Scripture cannot be contradicted –

36. are you telling the one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?”

Note: Jesus was asking them, “How can I be puffing myself up to be a god when God sent me to do what I am doing?”

God applied the title “ god” to invisible powers that rule the universe under God.

Note: A number of translations have “angels” in verse 5, below, and that may, in fact, be what the author was thinking. But in the original Hebrew, the word is “gods”.

Psalm 8

3. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place,

4. what is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man, that you visit him?

5. Yet, you made him a little lower than the gods, and you crowned him with glory and honor.

Note: God has set angels over nations of the earth (cf. Dan. 10:13), and in that regard, they are gods. Satan is their head; therefore, as Paul said, he is “the god of this world” (2Cor. 4:4). Jesus mentioned Satan and his angels in Matthew 25:41, as John did in Revelation 12:7–9. Paul also acknowledged these invisible ruling powers in Ephesians 6:12. Satan and his angels were all cast out of heaven (cf. Jn. 12:31), but they have not yet been removed from their earthly office; they reign to this day over the nations of earth and will do so until Jesus returns.

God applied the title “ God” to His Son.

The following is a prophecy concerning the Son given to David a thousand years before the Son was revealed. No one, including David, knew at the time that God was speaking of His hidden Son:^[5]

Psalm 45

2. You are fairer than sons of man; grace has been poured into your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever.

. . . .

6. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom.

7. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore, God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.

Note: We know that the above verses from Psalm 45 are about the Son because they are quoted as such in the New Testament:

Hebrews 1

7. Of the angels, it says, “He who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a fiery flame.”

8. But to the Son, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness.

9. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore, God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.”

Note: Notice in verse 9 (verse 7 in Psalm 45) that the one here called “God” has a God. The Son’s God is the One who anointed him to be God. This explains why, after his resurrection, the Son told his disciples, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” (Jn. 20:17). God the Father is greater than God the Son, just as the Son confessed when he was here among us (Jn. 14:28); otherwise the Father could not have made the Son anything.

If somebody were to ask me, “Is Jesus God?” I would have to say yes, for God has made the Son God over all creation. “All power”, Jesus said, “in heaven and on earth is given to me” (Mt. 28:18). However, the Son has no power at all over His Father, who gave the Son all the power he has. When Peter said Jesus is “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36), there is, as Peter also said, an obvious exception to that: the Father who made Jesus Lord of all (Acts 2:36).

Paul made this truth crystal clear in his first letter to the Corinthian saints:

1Corinthians 15

24. Then comes the end, when he [the Son] will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has done away with all government, and all authority, and power.

25. For he [the Son] must reign until He [the Father] puts all his enemies under his feet.

26. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

27. For “He has subdued all things under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are subdued”, it is obvious that He who subdued all things under him is an exception.

28. And when all things are subdued under him, then will the Son himself submit to Him who subdued all things under him, that God might be all in all.

Note: The word of God has come to all who believe in His Son; otherwise, they could not have believed (cf. Jn. 6:44). Therefore, according to Jesus (Jn. 10:35), they all qualify to be called gods, in comparison to worldly men. The entrance of God’s word elevates believers above the ordinary course of human life and makes them gods, able to make righteous judgments.

Judging

When God’s children walk in the Spirit, the world cannot judge them any more than they can judge God Himself (1Cor. 2:15b), for people of this world do not know God’s children any more than they knew His Son when he walked on earth (1Jn. 3:1). The word of God lifts His children out of the spiritual darkness of this world, far beyond the world’s capacity to judge. They can judge the world, but not vice-versa:

1Corinthians 2

15. A spiritual person judges everything, yet he himself is judged by no one.

The “everything” that God’s children can judge, provided they develop the mind of Christ, includes much more than matters in this life. Paul said that God’s children will judge angels (1Cor. 6:3), for the word of God creates believers as beings who are superior to them (cf. 1Pet. 1:12). Men in their natural state may have been created “a little lower than the gods”, as we saw in Psalm 8, but when they are created anew in Christ Jesus, the gods are lower than they are.

Only the saints are equipped to rightly judge matters within the Assembly of God, but they can do this only if they grow in the knowledge of God after they receive His Spirit. One must develop the mind of Christ in order to rightly judge the family of God. The Corinthian Assembly had no one mature enough in Christ to make such judgments, and Paul was very disappointed in that. He wrote, “I say this to your shame. Is it really so, that there is not a single wise man among you who is able to judge among his brothers?” (1Cor. 6:5). As a result of this lack of spiritual growth, some of those saints were feeble and sick, and had even fallen asleep (1Cor. 11:30). If we who believe would grow in Christ to be able to judge among ourselves, we would not have to be judged by God (1Cor. 11:31). Still, if we are judged and chastened by our heavenly Father, that judgment comes so that we will not be condemned with the world (1Cor. 11:32).

Let us grow into the mind of Christ and out of our former carnal mind “until we all attain to the unity of the Faith and the true knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13). Our old way of judging things is wrong. As Paul said, “To be carnally minded is death” (Rom. 8:6a). That is where the whole world is – in death. But “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6b), and in that mind, we are able to make righteous judgments, which is what Jesus commanded us to do:

John 7

24. Do not judge by appearances, but judge righteous judgment!

Note: Of course, when Jesus said that to his disciples, no one could obey him and judge that way because the Spirit had not yet come. But Jesus knew it was coming, and he said much that he said so that they would remember he said it when the Spirit came:

John 14

25. “I have spoken these things to you, being with you,

26. but the Comforter, the holy Spirit which the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will bring to your remembrance everything that I have told you.”

Note: If the disciples had been spiritually minded when they walked with Jesus, they would not have fled in fear and forsaken him, as they all did the night he was arrested (Mk. 14:50).

The Father is God over His Son.

Jesus feared God.

Hebrews 5

7. This man, in the days of his flesh, offered with strong crying and tears both prayers and supplications to the One who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his fear of God.

Note: Not only did Jesus fear God, but he cautioned his disciples to fear Him, too:

Luke 12

4. I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, but after that, have nothing more they can do.

5. But I will warn you whom you should fear. Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into Gehenna. Oh, I tell you, fear Him!

Note: We fear God for the same reason we love Him, that is, because of who He is. All wise men know to both fear and love the Father. The fear of God is clean (Ps. 19:9b). The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10) and knowledge (Prov. 1:7). The fear of God is to hate evil (Prov. 8:13); it is what all men need, for it is only by the fear of God that they will separate themselves from evil (cf. Prov. 16:6).

Jesus obeyed God.

John 15

9. I have loved you the same way the Father has loved me; stay in my love.

10. You will stay in my love if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and stay in His love.

Note: Jesus obeyed God because he feared God. God gave commandments to our God, Jesus, and he obeyed those commandments. And Jesus has authority from God to give commandments to others. The beginning verses of Revelation show us the order of God:

Revelation 1

1. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his slaves what must soon happen, and he made it known by sending his angel to his slave, John.

. . . .

10. I [John] was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,

11. saying, “What you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven Assemblies: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamon, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

Note: God gave a revelation to His Son Jesus, whom He called God, and Jesus then gave that revelation to another god, an angel, who gave it to John, a god among the saints on earth, who then passed that revelation on to the gods of the Assemblies in Asia.

Jesus prayed to God.

Mark 1

35. And very early in the morning, while it was yet dark, he got up and went out, and he went away to a secluded place, and there he began to pray.

Luke 22

41. Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw distant, and falling to his knees, he began to pray.

God is the only one who is good.

Mark 10

17. And as [Jesus] was going out to the road, one ran up to him and fell on his knees, asking him, “Good teacher, what shall I do, that I might inherit eternal life?”

18. But Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except One, that is, God.”

Note: One expression of God’s goodness is that He loves to share His goodness. He made Jesus good, and Jesus, being like his Father, makes others good. The book of Acts tells us that Barnabas was a good man (Acts 11:24), for Jesus had touched him with the goodness of God. All God’s children have been touched by Jesus with that goodness. There is only One who is good, and if anyone is good, his goodness came from God, whose goodness is shared only through Jesus.

Sharing in the goodness of God is what Jesus was talking about when he said, “As the living Father sent me, and I live by the Father, so also, he who eats me shall live by me” (Jn. 6:57). Jesus ate the word of God and took in the goodness of the Father, and we must eat what Jesus ate and live on what he lived on if we would be good. And Jesus offers that heavenly manna daily to all God’s children. He told the Assembly in Laodicea, “Behold, I have been standing at the door, and I am knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter in to him and dine with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

God raised Jesus from the dead.

Acts 13

29. And when they had fulfilled all that was written about him, men took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb.

30. But God raised him from the dead.

Note: That God raised Jesus from the dead shows that the Father is greater than the Son. Jesus trusted his Father to bring him out of the grave. Before Jesus died, he said that God had given him the power to lay down his life and to take it back up again:

John 10

17b. I lay down my life, that I might receive it again.

18. Nobody takes it from me; I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I received this commandment from my Father.

Note: It was God’s power that raised Jesus up, and he gave God the glory for it.

Jesus ascended into heaven to God.

John 20

16. Jesus said to her, “Mary.” And turning around, she said to him, “Rabbi!” (which means “Teacher”).

17. Jesus said to her, “Don’t cling to me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.’”

Note: When Jesus ascended, he ascended to his God to offer himself to God as a sacrifice for our sins. If God had not accepted him, we would still be hopeless. But God did accept Jesus’ sacrifice, and then poured out His Spirit on believers as proof that it was done.

Jesus is now sitting at God’s right hand.

Hebrews 12

2. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured a cross, despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Note: God honored Jesus to sit on the throne beside Him (Ps. 2:5–6); otherwise, Jesus could never have sat there. The glorious, heavenly event of Jesus’ exaltation to sit at God’s right hand was prophesied by David:

Psalm 110

1. Jehovah said to my Lord [the Son], “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”

Note: With a question which the Jewish elders could not answer, Jesus revealed that prophecy to be about him, Israel’s Messiah:

Matthew 22

41. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus put a question to them,

42. saying, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”

43. He said to them, “How is it, then, that David, by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’, saying,

44. ‘Jehovah said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool”’?

45. Now, if David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

46. And no one could answer him a word, neither dared anyone from that day to put a question to him any longer.

Whatever other gods there be, God is over them all.

Deuteronomy 10

17a. [Moses to Israel] Jehovah your God, He is the God of gods.

Psalm 136

2. Give thanks to the God of gods. For His mercy endures forever!

Note: As we have said, “god” is just a title, and many have been given the title “god” by God Himself. Some of the gods have been faithful to their calling, and some have been unfaithful. The god we call Jesus has always been faithful, so much so that one of his names is Faithful (Rev. 19:11). Some of the gods in heaven and on earth have been unfaithful, and for that, they will pay a heavy price in the Final Judgment. For the faithful servants of God, on the other hand, will be an exceedingly great reward.

The ONE GOD is the seventh and last of the Seven Pillars of the New Testament of Jesus Christ.

THE ONE FAITH IS THIS:

THE ONE LORD ’ S ONE BAPTISM OF THE ONE SPIRIT OF THE ONE GOD PUTS US INTO THE ONE BODY AND GIVES US THE ONE HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE.

Ephesians 4:4–6

My wise and godly father, George C. Clark, Sr. (1901–1989), taught me about the Seven Pillars of the New Testament. Nearly a century ago now, he wrote a small gospel tract on the subject which I have decided to include here, in his honor.

Seven Pillars

In the Epistle of James (1:5) we find these inspiring words: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

Now this was precisely what the Apostle Paul did. Therefore, God gave him wisdom to know what the seven pillars are, upon which “the household of faith” stands. Listen now, my dear friend and reader, to what this eminent and distinguished apostle has to say about these seven essential, indispensable pillars of truth:

“There is one BODY, and one SPIRIT, even as ye are called in one HOPE of your calling; one LORD, one FAITH, one BAPTISM, one GOD and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” —Eph. 4:4–6.

Here, we have before us the seven spiritual pillars holding up the real church of Pentecost––a church not made up of sects or creeds but by born-again Christians. These seven pillars are synonymous with the seven “ones” used by Paul in the foregoing scripture and constitute the ONENESS as taught by the Pioneer Tract Society. Suppose we take time now to list the seven ones (pillars) in the order as given here by this particularly favored apostle­ Paul:

(1) First pillar—One Body

(2) Second pillar—One Spirit

(3) Third pillar—One Hope

(4) Fourth pillar—One Lord

(5) Fifth pillar—One Faith

(6) Sixth pillar—One Baptism

(7) Seventh pillar—One God

We shall deal with each of the foregoing seven “ones” under a separate head, starting with the

ONE BODY.

Regardless of sect or creed, we must admit there is but ONE real BODY of Christ, whether its mem­bers be scattered among the various religious bodies and denominations, as taught by some; or whether its members be in one organization or denomination, as taught by others.

To break this deadlock, we must ascertain just how we become members of this one body, which is the real church. Are we born into it, or are we taken into it by “the right hand of fellowship”? This question will be answered later in this message.

We shall now pass on to the second ONE; namely, the

ONE SPIRIT.

How many spirits did Jesus promise to send His followers? Is His Spirit separate and distinct from the Holy Spirit, or is His Spirit and the Holy Spirit the selfsame Spirit? These questions, also, will have been answered by the time we finish this tract.

We are ready now for our third ONE, the

ONE HOPE.

All Christians, practically, agree that this ONE HOPE is for eternal life, which comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is, however, much discus­sion as to how one comes into possession of this ONE HOPE. This, too, will be brought out clearly in our final analysis.

Next in order is the

ONE LORD.

Surely, we have nothing here to argue about; yet, for the benefit of those who are confused concerning the Godhead, let us say just here that Jesus, God’s only Begotten Son, is the ONE LORD or HEAD of God’s Church—the one body which should be operating under the

ONE FAITH.

Throughout the New Testament we are commanded to “earnestly contend for the [One] faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Moreover, Paul tells us “He [Christ] gave some, apostles, and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the [one] body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the [one] faith.”

As we shall soon see, this ONE FAITH, or fifth one of these seven ones, is only realized as we grasp the other six ONES, four with which we have dealt (not including No. 5) and two with which we are yet to deal.

Now for number six, the ONE that is greatly misunderstood, the

ONE BAPTISM.

Is this one baptism to be by water or by Spirit? Perhaps we shall find out within a few minutes; so, keep on reading as we turn now to the last one of these seven ones, which, as we have stated, form the foundation for all teachings of the Bible—the Book of the

“ONE GOD

and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all,

and in you all.”

This takes us through the seven “Ones”; yet, there must be some “rightly dividing the Word of Truth” if we are to understand what we have been over.

Now, reader, I shall set these seven “Ones” with their definitions before you as they come in our text:

(1) ONE BODY—the true church of God, the one and only body of Christ

(2) ONE SPIRIT—the Holy Ghost, the true and living Spirit of Christ

(3) ONE HOPE—a trust or reliance for eternal life, through Christ’s blood

(4) ONE LORD—Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world

(5) ONE FAITH—the acceptance of the four preceding and the two following “ones”

(6) ONE BAPTISM—the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, according to Acts 2:4

(7) ONE GOD—Jehovah, the Father of all, “who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”

Paul tells us in 1Cor. 12:13 that “With ONE SPIRIT are we all baptized into ONE BODY.” This not only answers the question of how one becomes a member of the real body of Christ, but it also shows the one true baptism and links three of the seven “Ones” together, namely, ONE BODY, ONE SPIRIT, and ONE BAPTISM. In other words, the (one) baptism of the (one) Holy Spirit places us into the (one) body of Christ, which is the true church of God.

Now, let’s consider ONE LORD and ONE GOD. Are they the same? In Spirit, yes. They are one in the same sense that we (the members of Christ’s body) are one (Jn. 17:22). In other words, you can’t receive one of them without receiving the other; and to receive both of them, you must receive the Holy Spirit, for “these three are one” in spirit (1Jn. 5:7).

The ONE HOPE is, as we have previously stated, a trust or reliance in God’s Word for eternal life through the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readers, I ask you to “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the (one) Faith; prove your own selves” (2Cor. 13:5). If you have the Holy Ghost and have accepted the teaching that with one Spirit we are all baptized into the one body (the Church) through the blood of our (one) Lord Jesus Christ, whom (one) God the Father sent to be the propitia­tion for our sins, then you have the (one) hope of eternal life and are in the (one) Faith.

^[1] Jesus used Gehenna as a reference for the Lake of Fire. See What the Bible Really Says About Hell at GoingtoJesus.com.

Footnotes

^[2] For this testimony, see Suffering and the Saints at GoingtoJesus.com.

^[3] For more on this, see God Had a Son Before Mary Did at GoingtoJesus.com.

^[4] For more on this subject, see What the Bible Really Says About Hell at GoingtoJesus.com.

^[5] For more on this, see God Had a Son Before Mary Did at GoingtoJesus.com.