SCRIPTURAL SMALL-MINDEDNESS (10)

Reverend Chris Okotie, the erudite founder of The Household of God Church.

(…continues from part 9…)

10)          “I admire your Pastor – Rev. Chris Okotie – a  lot, but one thing he teaches that gets me very, very angry with him is that ‘once saved always saved’ misinformation,” Pastor S.O. tells me. My pastor friend, S.O., having been raised through the teachings of Christ Apostolic Church – from his early Christian life – and The Redeemed Christian Church of God, where he became a Pastor, these being two of the so many churches that believe and teach the possibility of losing the Christian salvation; they will not give themselves to the study of the Bible to understand the quiddity of the soteriology. I remember the first time I asked Pastor S.O. to give me a Scripture to prove that a Christian can lose his salvation he readily quoted 2Timothy 4:10, “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.” And after quoting it he said, “That’s how I know that salvation can be lost; because it says that, Demas, loving the world, went into it: lost his salvation.” This is why many churches, especially those whose ninety percent of their sermocination centres on “righteousness,” continue to drum it into the ears and souls of their members not to do things that lead to loss of salvation. What they believe is that one must observe and maintain his righteousness in order not to miss heaven. The question is: are we righteous by our deeds? What does the word of God say?

God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself

                “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20) Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21) For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2Corinthians 5:19-21). God was right inside, by and through Jesus ‘reconciling’, which is the Greek katallasso (ka-tal-las’-sō): ‘1. to change mutually. 2. (figuratively) to reconcile.’ The reconciliation to Himself is the ‘world’ which is kosmos (koz’-mos): ‘1. Orderly arrangement, i.e. decoration. 2. (by implication) the world including its inhabitants; {literally or figuratively (morally), by implication “world” in a wide or narrow sense}’. Only God, the sinless One, can author the soteriology. Sinless Christ Jesus must be of the Divinity to carry out the katallasso. There in Eden God created souls for Adam and his wife; souls that suffered corruption and died. But here in 2Corinthians 5:19-21, katallasso removed the sinfulness, and the mutuality garbed the born again with the eternal holiness of Christ. The old nature is dead. Man cannot maintain this divine exchange, only the Institutor of soteriology can and responsibly ensures the sustainability of the katallasso.

                The soteriological quiddity is incontestably of the Divinity. 1Corinthians 3:11 “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” The foundation of the Christian salvation is the eternality of Christ the Lord of glory, which is, and which was, and which is to come; the Almighty. To lose this Christian salvation is an indictment on the finished work of the Golgotha sanguineousness. The Christian who fails to do well will only suffer from not being accorded celestial elevation. 1Corinthians 3:15 “If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” Should one lose one’s Christian salvation, then the Bible is fraught with contradictions: for it says, “but he himself shall be saved.”

Yahweh Tsidqenuw

                Now when it comes to righteousness, the LORD is our righteousness as the Bible attests to in Jeremiah 23:6, “In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” The Hebrew for ‘LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ is Yhvah Tsidqenuw (ye-ho-vaw’ tsid-kay’-noo) ‘1. Yahweh (is) our right. 2. Yahweh-Tsidkenu, a symbolical epithet of the Messiah and of Jerusalem.’ Who is this LORD? He is Jesus Christ our Saviour. As long as Jesus cannot lose His Divine righteousness, we remain righteous, spiritually, before the thrice holy God the Father. Amen!

                Getting born again is a conscious effort on the part of an individual. Get born again. Say this sinner’s prayer.

“Dear heavenly Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I believe that You raised Him from the dead. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I receive Him now as my Lord and my Saviour. I give God all the glory. Amen!” 

(…to be continued…)

Read part 9 here

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