Are we Living in Religious Babylon Today?
Ephesians 4:4-6 (4)There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; (5) one Lord, one faith, one baptism; (6) one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
One Body
Ephesians is written to a local congregation of Christians but deals with the body of Christ. The body of Christ is usually associated with the all Christians who have been saved and who will be saved through all time rather than with a local congregation. Neither is the body the manifestation of the visible church as seen all over the world at any point in time. That is not to say that the a local congregation does not have some body characteristics as seen in 1 Corinthians 12:27. But the local church is part of the the full body of Christ. The body includes the original apostles and prophets which are not part of local congregations today.
In Ephesians 4, verse 4 deals with the work of the Holy Spirit. Verse 5 deals with the work of the Lord while verse 6 deals with the work of God the Father. Verse 5 has been bothering me. It says there is one Lord. We who believe in the Lord believe that. There is one baptism and I take that to be water baptism after we are saved so that we can please the Lord. But there is also one faith. This is not saying that there is more than one way to believe or that there are different kinds of believing. This is saying that there is one body of truth that we believe.
One Faith
Where do we find that ONE FAITH? Well obviously, we find it in the Bible. How come is it then, that we who call ourselves Christians are so divided over the basic doctrines of the Bible? We are divided on how to be saved. Some think that we do good to get saved, others think we get saved to get good. Some think that God chooses certain people to be saved and others think that God chooses the saved to be His people. Some think we can lose our salvation and some think our salvation is secure because it depends on what Christ did for us and not what we do for Christ.
Christians are divided on the doctrines of baptism, the doctrines of church order, the doctrines of prophecy, and I could go on and on. So what are we to do? Should we throw up our hands and admit that we cannot know the will of God? Should we admit that because of the confusion we cannot have heartfelt convictions?
Confusion came into this world when men began to seek God in their own way back in Genesis 11. They built a tower in Babel that was their way of worshiping deity. God saw the tower and said, “ENOUGH!” He confused their languages and scattered those who were living in Babylon through the earth. But sin and confusion has always been linked in the Bible.
The Guidance of the Holy Spirit
I personally believe that God gives us the means to know and understand the Bible. He tells us that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth (John 16:13). That means that an unsaved person is not going to be one who can be guided by the Holy Spirit since the Holy Spirit only indwells those who are born of the Spirit (John 3:8). Much of our Bible interpretations today come from people who have never given evidence of having been born of the Spirit. They were never convicted of their sin, they never saw their lost condition, they never realized that they could do nothing to save themselves. They never realized that all they could do was believe God when He said that Christ died for sinners (Romans 5:6-8).
But even we who are saved come to the Bible with issues that keep us from fully understanding the Biblical record. We are from different backgrounds. We all have different prejudices. And there are areas where the old adage is true, “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up.” That is why we constantly harp on that word “repentance.” The Holy Spirit will use the Word of God to change our minds where we are wrong if we are open to the teaching of the Holy Spirit. I believe that when we come to the Lord in a prayerful attitude, when we are open to the realization that our prejudices may be wrong, when we read the Bible in context and compare Scripture with Scripture, the basic truths of Scripture will open up to us personally. We may not be able to convince others that we have found the truth, but that is not important if we can convince God. I have followed these principles for years, and it has caused me to change my mind on several important issues. And I have found that simple people who love the Lord are often closer to a spiritual interpretation of Scripture than those who think that they have read and studied everyone on an issue. God can and will guide all of us into all Truth.
Warning
We are all going to given an account to God one day and I want us to be able to give that account with a good conscience. Let us believe that if we want to know the Truth on any issue, the Holy Spirit will guide us into that Truth. Authors and preachers may help us but ultimately we have to be convinced that “God says” what we believe and that we aren’t depending on what man says.
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of November 8, 2015