Why are UPC church's so sectarian?

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

Between my second and third year of Bible College I spent the summer helping out in a Home Missions work in St. Johnsbury, Vt. I had a lot of free time so I spent the summer with a concordance and my Bible and no other reference books that could influence my interpretation of Scripture.

That summer God showed me something I had not fully understood up to that point. He showed me that He chose Israel to be His people and declared them holy. Then because they were His holy nation (because they had been separated unto Him by covenant) He gave them instruction that would govern this holy relationship with Him and maintain their distinction as the people of God.

He showed me that I was holy because He had called me, like Israel, into a covenant relationship with Him through faith in Jesus Christ. I saw that I was holy because of the righteousness I had been given in Christ. I could do nothing to become holy. I could only embrace the holiness I had received in Christ and begin walking according to the instruction of the Word under the guidance of the Holy Spirit which I had been given for that very purpose.

It's wonderful when a person understands this truth!

1 Corinthians 10:1-5 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; A type of water baptism

3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. A type of Spirit baptism

5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

We have a couple of other things in common with the Isrealites in the wilderness besides holiness.. .....The process of leaving Egypt (sin) and the baptism in the cloud and sea as well as the Spiritual baptism by drinking a type of living water.