The Gospel of Christ not only differs from all other systems of religion in the superior excellence of the truths it reveals, but also in the directions it gives for the propagation of its doctrines. Other systems seek to advance themselves by invoking the aid of the secular power, and by forcing men, against their convictions, to accept a theory repugnant to their views.

They have thus succeeded in thronging their temples with hypocritical worshippers, bound to their altars through fear and slavish dread. They pride themselves in that members of their church are the true worshippers of God. They have a security based on a false authority or a hope based on false promises, not realizing that they are on the broad way that leads to destruction.

These systems, in order to maintain themselves, find it necessary to condemn all who differ from them, either in their articles of belief or mode of worship. But the Gospel of Christ, though it is the infallible truth of God, expressly prohibits a resort to any such measures for its advancement. It not only teaches its adherents to utterly abandon the use of carnal weapons for its propagation, but it also charges them not to condemn those who differ, based on the teaching of the apostle who expounds Christ’s doctrine of sovereignty…

‘For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?’ [1 Corinthians 4:7 KJ]

The teaching of the Savior has been violated, however, even by his professed followers. In the name of the meek and lowly Jesus, men have gone forth with oppression and persecution to advance their own opinions and crush out the liberty of thought and those rights of conscience given to man by His Maker.

Even the Pilgrim Fathers of colonial American, who fled Europe and its religious persecutions under the name of conformity, had to be taught this lesson. From whom did they learn religious liberty and the rights of conscience? Who was it that gave us the doctrine of religious freedom expressed in the First Amendment?

God says to His Anointed that the nations belong to Him. He is King over the Church [Hebrews 12:22-24], having purchased her with His own blood.

‘Ask of Me, and I will give You
            The nations for Your inheritance,
            And the ends of the earth for Your possession.’

The purpose of the Gospel is not to make America a righteous nation, but to call the redeemed to faith. The redeemed must come to the Redeemer from all the nations and from every generation.

            ‘Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.’

We have enjoyed the good Providence of God as the fruits of the work of our faithful forefathers. The system they put in place and blessed of God was a product of Gospel preaching where the revealed wisdom of God had its sanctifying influence over the whole culture. We as a culture have exchanged revealed truth for a hodgepodge of secularism and false religions that demean the name of Christ.

Apart from revealed truth we should not expect the system to be sustained. The truth of which I speak was laid out in the first systematic theology of the Christian religion in Calvin’s Institutes. That great work that broke the back of the apostate church in that day and influenced our founding is now disparaged or ignored by the culture and is an embarrassment to the churches. Now the Protestants are the apostate church of this day.

Much can be learned from contraries. Just as something of heaven is to be known from the consideration of hell, so something of the excellency of spiritual freedom may be known from the consideration of man’s natural bondage; the bondage to sin, to Satan, and to the law of God. All which is a universal bondage of the soul, a cruel bondage, a willing bondage, a bondage out of which we are not able to redeem ourselves by ransom, or to deliver ourselves by our own power. But Christ here tells us that there is a true and real freedom that He has purchased, and into which He has brought all those who are true believers.

The nature of this freedom is a spiritual and heavenly freedom revealed in the Gospel and conveyed to the saints of God as the great dowry of Christ to His Church and Spouse. Two great things Christ has entrusted to His Church are faith and liberty. Just as we are to contend earnestly for the maintenance of the faith [Jude 3], so also for the maintenance of Christian liberty, and that against all who would oppose and undermine it: ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free’ [Galatians 5:1]. And again, ‘Ye are bought with a price, be not ye the servants of men’ [1 Corinthians 7:23].

The freedom into which Christ brings believers is a spiritual freedom contrasted with their former bondage. Wherever the Lord’s jubilee is proclaimed and pronounced in a man’s soul, he will never hear again of a return to bondage. He will never again come under bondage to Satan, the law or anything else. This is implied by Christ in the words, ‘The servant abides not in the house for ever; but the Son abides ever’ [John 8:35].

The cavilers say that the term is not in the Bible, but this verse and the apostolic interpretation is in the Bible…

‘Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness’ [Genesis 15:6 quoted in Romans 4:3].

Is there any other verse in the Bible which demonstrates the unity of the revelation of the everlasting gospel? In his letter to the Romans the apostle expounds the doctrine of justification and he uses the example of Abraham…

‘Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification’ [Romans 4:23-25].

What is the source of righteousness and how is it obtained by men? These are the great questions that the apostle answers.

The apostle first demonstrates the need for the doctrine in his declaration that all men are under sin, therefore no man can be justified by the works of the law. Then he reveals to us the wisdom of God…

‘Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace’ [Romans 4:16].

Now this is the heart of the Gospel. Sinners do not earn entrance into the kingdom of heaven, but God has provided a way for grace to be shown in order to magnify His glory. The promise of salvation comes by faith in that it might be a matter of grace. This is the opposite of works.

What is common among all man made religions is that this doctrine is denied to some extent. They say we must work to merit righteousness. We say that the justified man will work the works of righteousness for this is God’s purpose in the justification of sinners, but he knows that this adds nothing to the imputed righteousness wherein he stands before God clothed in the righteousness of Christ; a righteousness obtained by faith alone.

The distinction is huge because it separates the wisdom of God from the wisdom of man. Lost men profess to be wise, but they have become fools. The eternal wisdom of God revealed in the Gospel is the only way of salvation.

What a good statement to illustrate the complete blindness of the natural man to the things of God for ‘the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ [1 Corinthians 2:14].

Mr. Harris fails to mention that lost men, as opposed to saved men, presume that the testimony of Jesus Christ is false. They sit in judgment over His revelation and are unconvinced of its truthfulness. He does not meet their expectation of God. His Gospel is not good news to them. His message of freedom from the slavery of sin is of no concern. They feel no such bondage. They freely do as they will. Life is good so they think. Such is the deceitfulness of sin.

What does a dead man know of life? Even so, what can the spiritually dead know of being born of the Spirit. The veil of blindness is removed in Jesus Christ. The same God who commanded light to shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God clothed Himself in flesh and became of no reputation to redeem all the covenant people with His own blood.

The justice and mercy of God are resolved in Christ. Yes, we boast, but our boasting is not in ourselves. Our confidence rests in Him who is risen from the dead and ever lives to make intercession for us. No longer is sin our master for He made us to hate our sin and released us from its captivity.

Let us consider the Christian’s character before we consider his conduct. The only man who is at all capable of carrying out the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount is the man who is clear in his thinking with regard to the essential features and characteristics of the Christian as describes in the Beatitudes.

Is it right to say that all Christians are to manifest all the Beatitudes? Is it right to say that some are meant to be ‘poor in spirit’ and some are meant to ‘mourn’ and some others are meant to be ‘meek’ and ‘peacemakers’ and so on? Let us make the case that every Christian is meant to be all of them and to manifest them all at the same time. Now we did not say that they would be manifest to the same degree in every believer, but that they will be manifest to some degree.

When we analyze the Beatitudes each one of necessity implies the other. For example, we cannot be ‘poor in spirit’ without ‘mourning’; and we cannot mourn without ‘hungering and thirsting after righteousness’; we cannot do that without being one who is ‘meek’ and a ‘peacemaker’. Each one of these in a sense demands the others. It is impossible to manifest one of these graces, and to conform to the blessing that is pronounced upon it, without at the same time showing the others also. The Beatitudes are a complete whole.

None of the Beatitudes refers to what can be called a natural tendency. This is the glory of the gospel. The proudest man by nature will become a man who is poor in spirit under the influence of grace. The Beatitudes illustrate the essential and utter difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. They belong to two entirely different realms.

The first and last Beatitude promise the same reward, ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. What does it mean? Jesus starts and ends with it because He is saying that the first thing the Christian has to realize is that he belongs to a different kingdom.

We are not only different in essence, but we are living in two different worlds. We are in the world; but not of it. We are citizens of another kingdom.

“For I, the LORD…will make with them an everlasting covenant.
  Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles,
  And their offspring among the people.
  All who see them shall acknowledge them,
  That they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed.”

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, 
My soul shall be joyful in my God; 
For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, 
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness… 
For as the earth brings forth its bud, 
As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, 
So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. [from Isaiah 61]

This theology was invented in the mid 1800s [Re. John Darby]. It gained popularity with the publishing of the Scofield Bible in 1909. Since this is the means that the Dispensational Theology came to be known, it is absurd to imply that its influence was felt in colonial America.

Built on the pretense of literalism, the opponents of Scofield were labeled as theological liberals. The OT imagery of the Messianic Kingdom like Isaiah 35 and 61 was lost to them. In a book of symbols the period of time of 1000 years lost its significance of completeness as in all the ‘given ones’ will enter the kingdom and none of them will be lost.

For our purposes the Covenant Theology holds that the promises made to Abraham are fulfilled in the NC Church. There is only one people of God made up of both Jew and Gentile. The millennium is here now in the Gospel age. The age to come is the eternal state where the redemption purchased by Christ is fully realized.

Dispensational Theology holds that the promises made to Abraham are yet to be fulfilled in the modern state of Israel. There are two peoples of God: Israel and the Church. The millennium is to be realized in the age to come. Both sides agree that the binding of Satan occurs during the millennium.

Now my complaint is not with the historic premils, but with the dispensationals who hold to an unbiblical view of the Church as being something less than the ‘fulness of Him who fills all in all’ [Ephesians 1:22-23]. Also, they disregard the preeminence of Jesus Christ as the final authority on OT interpretation. The OT means what He and His apostles say it means.

It is my opinion that the colonials’ view of the kingdom led to the Revolution and that if they had been dispensationals there would have been no Revolution. The influence of Scofieldism today in America makes us content to live under tyranny waiting for the kingdom to come.

From his influence over colonial America after the Great Awakening in the generation of the Revolution we make the general statement that many shared his belief that the Gospel message going forth in power in the New World was evidence of the ‘binding of Satan’ as taught by Christ in Matthew 12 and in His Revelation in chapter 20.

In Revelation 20:3 the extent of this binding is specifically stated, ‘That he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished’.

From this we can discern that the nations were once deceived and will be deceived again, but for a period of time of 1000 years the deception would cease. Note that the object of this deception is the NATIONS.

The references to Satan deceiving individual men as in 1 Peter 5:8 and 2 Tim 2:26 should not be used as proof texts to refute the doctrine that ‘the binding of Satan’ has reference to the Great Commission…go to all NATIONS and make disciples because Christ is ruler over heaven and earth. This is the great change that is the NC. No longer is God limiting the revelation of Himself primarily to the nation of Israel. He is extending dominion over all nations with regard to building His kingdom. This is the teaching of Matthew 12:22-30.

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go thereforeand make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. [Matthew 28:18-20]

The first statement of this manifesto defines the authority in the universe. Christians are at the work of making disciples to the end of the age because Christ has all authority to make the work effectual. We are not waiting for His reign in the age to come. His kingdom and authority were established at His resurrection. His kingdom is realized now in the spiritual realm where ever His people are ruled by His Word and Spirit.

'Christ must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy is death' [1 Corinthians 15:25-26].

Now if we had this view of Christ that the Reformers had and the colonial Americans had there would be no political parties advocating lawlessness and fiscal irresponsibility.

Now what is the difference between religion and truth?

Religion is man’s attempt to reconcile himself to God. It is born of perversions in Biblical Theology. It is man centered in that the question is, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” [John 6:28]

Truth is revealed in the Gospel. God reconciles Himself to man through Jesus Christ. He is the chosen mediator between God and men. He has dealt decisively with our great enemies of sin and death.

Truth is God centered and recognizes that God is sovereign over His creation and does as He wills, including the overruling of men’s sin to work His purposes and the overruling of men’s will in regeneration to make him willing to come to Christ. [Psalm 110:3]

Jesus tells us plainly that unbelief in Moses is consistent with unbelief in His words. Why is this?

Moses addresses the ultimate questions. Who is man and how and why does he exist? What happened to man? Why is he both good and cruel? What happened to the world? Why is their suffering and death? Is their hope of redemption for men and the world?

Moses tells us what we cannot know apart from revelation. If we reject him and adopt another view of origins and the condition of man, then the gospel of Christ will be so much nonsense in the pool of the man-made religions.

Our conscience bearing witness to the Law is part of what it means that man is an image bearer of the living God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

The image is marred as evident by the many examples of the depravity of man, but not beyond redemption as evident by the work of Christ bringing men to Himself.

The personal nature of man separates him and distinguishes him from all other life. The impersonal to the personal is as huge a barrier as the non-living to the living. The naturalist has no idea of the origin of life, nor any idea of the origin of the personal.