Interesting Note: Moralizers are the new Judaizers

[Aquila]

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Moralizers are the new Judaizers!.

May 29, 2013 at 8:26pm



Over the last month or two, I believe things have changed. We are now in a deeper level of persecution of the gospel, otherwise known as grace. We have gone up a notch or two. I believe firstly that this is due to those who have had a superficial agreement with the message losing their nerve. When something has not grown out of real transformation, it will be more lightly held. That means that it is more vulnerable, and more likely to be affected by storms that will come.



When you lose your nerve, you retreat back into the familiar, even if aspects of it are distasteful. Numbers 11 speaks of this happening with the Israelites when they were sick of the new way of God’s provision and hankered back to the old way: “5 We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic”. So one group who are likely to lose their nerve are those who have come out of glory – of the constant carrots dangled about supernatural experiences, breakthrough, revival etc. They remember those things and they sound good in the face of the revelation of grace without it having taken root in them, but with the persecution that goes with it! One of the biggest incentives for folks to lose their nerve right now is the barrage of criticism from respected Christian leaders against the “deceptive message hyper grace”. If you have been transformed by grace, these things are like water off a duck’s back, but if you have mental assent to the gospel of grace, you will be easily rattled by their self motivated ranting!



God gave us a promise in our church over 3 years ago now. It was Joshua 1; “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” We took it on board, but at that time, we had little clue as to what it would mean! Thank God when grace came, we experienced such a depth of transformation that we could never deny it or go back to our Egypt!



So since the message has gone out against grace from some leaders, I have seen some people begin to wobble in their position, even though some of those very ones had previously testified of how wonderful the message was! In our own church, we have seen it.



The method used by these leaders has been very clever and cunning. Their attacks for the most part have been centred on two areas: That grace leads to sin, and that grace people aren’t gracious. They are both a twisting of the message – the creation of a straw man argument, making it something that they said, not that grace people said, and then arguing against their own creation! The second method – saying we are not gracious, is the age old argument of dead religion: Your behaviour is not good enough! All the while, in their notes, they are extremely ungracious themselves, but their reputations give them the moral high ground in many immature people’s minds.



Jesus did not die to give us motivational pep talks on conduct improvement or sin management! He died and rose to give us new lives, not lived by external standards, but by inner life radiating out – called fruit in the Bible. He removed forever the separation from God that was formed in the human mind and heart by wrong understanding of his heart, and which has been used by church leaders for centuries to maintain control over their members. The effects of this is to reduce the gospel to a message of moral improvement.



In the days of the early church, Judaizers infiltrated groups of believers and tried to take them back to rituals and law. We are not under the law, but what is happening in our day is that we still have this same spirit alive and active in the church, but these days it is moralizers rather than Judaizers! Moralizers are the new Judaizers!



The moralizing of the gospel says that what God expects of humanity is moral improvement. So this is what is behind the message of the current opponents of grace – to put fear of bad conduct into vulnerable people – create a new straw man that is not the gospel, and argue against it.



The essence of the gospel is relationship. The Godhead formulated the New Covenant in relationship within itself. Jesus operated out of relationship with the Father and brought us into relationship with the Godhead. We exchanged our life for his. He lives in us, living out through us. It’s about new life, not standards. This applies to both of these straw man arguments – the licence to sin complaint is ludicrous, as Paul says. “Shall we sin that grace might abound? Of course not!! It’s ludicrous on two counts...intentionally doing wrong is not the fruit of the gospel, and when we blow it, it is not counted against us! This life – the tree of Life, the real gospel – has nothing whatsoever to do with sin management or behaviour modification. Sin is gone. God does not see it. He has reconciled the world to himself in Christ and does not count our sins against us. That’s Bible.



Jesus said he came to judge no one. Why do we then judge each other and say “you must be gracious just as God is gracious”. We are all works in progress. We all have different roles that God has given us. We are all mature adults capable of strong speech and passionately held views. It is ludicrous to level claim of “you are not gracious” to those who react passionately to the lies of religion. Passion is good. Do not be intimidated by those losing their nerve right now, or by the moralizers. Continue to speak your heart. Don’t let people who are still in religion take your union with Christ and make it into moral rules and then hold you accountable to them! It is only going to get worse folks! We are just at the beginning stages of the persecution of the grace gospel. Stand your ground. Don’t give in to religious intimidation! Don’t give in to the moralizers! Be bold and courageous! Unconditional love has transformed you! Make sure you keep it unconditional and don’t be like the Galatians and allow intimidators to take you back into what you have been delivered from!