The Nugget:
1Th 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
My Comment:
We must carefully check on all claims made about what the Bible teaches. Any claim must be backed by direct reference to the Bible.
We must be most careful about accepting as true what we have always been taught by others about what the Bible teaches.
This can be a very painful and shocking exercise at times. I remember when I first experienced the problem of learning that what I thought was true turned out to be wrong! I was studying Ephesians 5:18. I discovered that the expression used there translated “but be filled with the Spirit” in the King James Version ought rather to be rendered “but be filled by the Spirit.” This is a shocking difference, and if you don’t sense the significance of this difference, read the note I have written for this verse in either The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or in The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury and you will get the point. At the time I first saw this, I laid out on the living room floor of my apartment all the book resources I had that touched upon this verse. After laboriously reading all of them, I was convinced that the best evidence requires this change from “with” to “by” and means we are not filled with the Holy Spirit like a cup is filled with milk, but rather we are filled by the Holy Spirit with gifts for service to others.
Very recently one of my Facebook friends posted the following striking comment taken from A. W. Pink:
“Not all of the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon the wicked world give such a demonstration of God’s hatred of sin as the wrath of God let loose upon his Son.” A. W. Pink
Now I must say that I have found many things written by Mr. A. W. Pink very helpful, especially his earlier writings. I have cited Mr. Pink at least twice in my book, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, at Leviticus 23:17 and at Isaiah 53:7. There may be other citations that I do not recall. I have found his commentary on the Gospel of John helpful. One of my favorite works of his is a relatively small volume on The Divine Inspiration of the Bible and another titled Interpretation of the Scriptures. I have many more of his titles in printed book form. So, I am not attacking the person, but the statement made by the person when I address what is said in the quotation immediately above.
The idea that God the Father “let loose upon His Son” the “wrath of God” is not found anywhere in the Bible that I can find.
This is a popular but very mistaken view of what transpired when Jesus was on the Cross. Nowhere in the Bible does the Bible state that Jesus was punished for our sin. If Jesus paid the penalty, to whom was the penalty paid? Chapter and Verse Please!
The words “penalty” and “paid” are nowhere in Scripture associated with the work Christ did on our behalf on the Cross, so far as I have been able to find using Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible.
If it were true that Jesus suffered the wrath of God for us, that God the Father poured out His wrath upon His Son, that would divide the Trinity. The thought is blasphemy, and not the Gospel presented in the New Testament.
As for the penalty for sin, God established just what that penalty was from the very beginning (see Genesis 2:16, 17). The penalty for sin is and has always been spiritual death.
Those who leave this life in the state of spiritual death will suffer for all eternity the punishment originally prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). That dreadful punishment takes place in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 21:8).
The more accurate view of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ is to affirm that He voluntarily (John 10:18) bore our sins (1 Peter 2:24) as both our Priest and the Sacrifice, thus Priestly-Sacrificial Atonement, for He Himself is declared to be both the Sacrifice and the Atonement for our sin in 1 John 2:2, “And He, Himself, is Atonement concerning our sins; but not concerning ours only, but also concerning the world as a whole” (Lavender New Testament).
Daily Bible Nugget #453, 1 Thessalonians 5:21
The Nugget:
1Th 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
My Comment:
We must carefully check on all claims made about what the Bible teaches. Any claim must be backed by direct reference to the Bible.
We must be most careful about accepting as true what we have always been taught by others about what the Bible teaches.
This can be a very painful and shocking exercise at times. I remember when I first experienced the problem of learning that what I thought was true turned out to be wrong! I was studying Ephesians 5:18. I discovered that the expression used there translated “but be filled with the Spirit” in the King James Version ought rather to be rendered “but be filled by the Spirit.” This is a shocking difference, and if you don’t sense the significance of this difference, read the note I have written for this verse in either The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or in The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury and you will get the point. At the time I first saw this, I laid out on the living room floor of my apartment all the book resources I had that touched upon this verse. After laboriously reading all of them, I was convinced that the best evidence requires this change from “with” to “by” and means we are not filled with the Holy Spirit like a cup is filled with milk, but rather we are filled by the Holy Spirit with gifts for service to others.
Very recently one of my Facebook friends posted the following striking comment taken from A. W. Pink:
Now I must say that I have found many things written by Mr. A. W. Pink very helpful, especially his earlier writings. I have cited Mr. Pink at least twice in my book, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, at Leviticus 23:17 and at Isaiah 53:7. There may be other citations that I do not recall. I have found his commentary on the Gospel of John helpful. One of my favorite works of his is a relatively small volume on The Divine Inspiration of the Bible and another titled Interpretation of the Scriptures. I have many more of his titles in printed book form. So, I am not attacking the person, but the statement made by the person when I address what is said in the quotation immediately above.
The idea that God the Father “let loose upon His Son” the “wrath of God” is not found anywhere in the Bible that I can find.
This is a popular but very mistaken view of what transpired when Jesus was on the Cross. Nowhere in the Bible does the Bible state that Jesus was punished for our sin. If Jesus paid the penalty, to whom was the penalty paid? Chapter and Verse Please!
The words “penalty” and “paid” are nowhere in Scripture associated with the work Christ did on our behalf on the Cross, so far as I have been able to find using Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible.
If it were true that Jesus suffered the wrath of God for us, that God the Father poured out His wrath upon His Son, that would divide the Trinity. The thought is blasphemy, and not the Gospel presented in the New Testament.
As for the penalty for sin, God established just what that penalty was from the very beginning (see Genesis 2:16, 17). The penalty for sin is and has always been spiritual death.
Those who leave this life in the state of spiritual death will suffer for all eternity the punishment originally prepared for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). That dreadful punishment takes place in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 21:8).
The more accurate view of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ is to affirm that He voluntarily (John 10:18) bore our sins (1 Peter 2:24) as both our Priest and the Sacrifice, thus Priestly-Sacrificial Atonement, for He Himself is declared to be both the Sacrifice and the Atonement for our sin in 1 John 2:2, “And He, Himself, is Atonement concerning our sins; but not concerning ours only, but also concerning the world as a whole” (Lavender New Testament).