by Jacob Ninan
Conspiracy theories are sometimes floated by those who get their thrill from watching gullible people fall for them! There are others who create them because they have suspicious minds and assume that there must be something sinister behind every new thing. But knowing that such things happen should not make us dismiss actual conspiracies that are at work, especially when they affect our spiritual lives.
The Bible talks about a conspiracy from Satan to blind people's spiritual understanding so that they will not be able to see the truth of the Gospel of God that He has prepared for their salvation (2Cor.4:4). Once we 'see' the Gospel, we can understand that it is so simple that everyone can understand it. But Satan sometimes tries to give it the look of being a mystical, unknowable, inexplicable thing that just confuses people instead of helping them to experience it. At other times he paints it up as if it is something ridiculous or silly in the sight of thinking or knowledgeable people. But perhaps his most successful strategy has been to present lookalike gospels in different forms that appeal to different tastes and make people believe they have the real one.
Every religion, including many common forms of nominal Christianity, teach salvation by works, telling people that they have to perform certain things in order to find favour with God. In other words, people have to earn their salvation by following certain rules or practices. But God sent His Son into this world proclaiming the Gospel of salvation which is through grace. To understand grace, first we must see that no one can be saved by works, no matter what they do, because the penalty for sin is death, and every single one of us is guilty of sin. It is then that we can appreciate salvation as a gift that God is willing to give us, fully recognising that we do not deserve it at all. Now that Jesus has taken the penalty for the sins of the whole world, we can receive forgiveness for the asking, if we go to God believing what Jesus has done for us and turning away from our sinful life.
This much is fairly well known among Christians. But there are many false lookalikes.
Entirely of God
Starting from the point that salvation is given by grace and received through faith (Eph.2:8.9), people try to reject anything that can be thought of as works. Some of them go to the extent of teaching that salvation is entirely a work of God, who decides who should be saved, and then forces those people to be saved without any choice on their part! Then faith is only to accept what God has already done. Some of them imagine that to have faith as a necessary element of receiving salvation will be a work on man's part and therefore to be avoided! But this is a total misunderstanding. When God offers salvation by grace, we receive it by faith. That is our response. Those who do not believe cannot receive this grace, and that is what is happening to a very large number of people. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, but still only a few are being saved (1Jn.2:2;Lk.13:23,24).Just believe
This is to teach that since Jesus completed salvation on the cross, all we have to do is to receive it by believing that it already includes us. Accepting and believing facts are one part of faith. But there are other aspects to believing which are included in the Greek word pisteuo that are not obvious from the English word 'believe' such as 'trust in', 'rely on', and 'cling to'. These describe the response of a man who recognises his own inability to save himself and relies on the Saviour to save him. A lot of people imagine they are Christians just because they accept facts about Jesus.A walkover
The wrong emphasis here is on us having nothing to do, but just walking over to receive the gift. This looks like a description of grace, but what is missing is the proper response from our side. Jesus came to save only sinners and not the righteous (Mk.2:17). Actually everyone is a sinner, but only a few will admit it, and it is only those who will be saved. First of all we must see ourselves as worthy of death for our sins, and then see what Jesus is offering us through His death. The preaching of the Gospel has been so watered down by many that as a result many are assuming that they have become Christians simply because they walked over to Jesus.Through baptism
Some people wrongly believe that when a baby or an adult is 'baptised' in the name of Jesus, he becomes a child of God, through a doctrine known as baptismal regeneration. Obviously, this misses the whole point of people recognising themselves as sinners in the sight of God, repenting and receiving forgiveness. It is a matter of one's heart and cannot be made into a mechanical act. Baptism is something that is only meant to be a way of giving testimony by someone who has already been born again by grace through faith.Through the mass
There are churches which teach that during communion/mass, the bread and wine miraculously transform into the physical body and blood of Jesus. So they believe that those who 'receive Jesus into their hearts' in this way have Christ in them. This is again replacing the need for repentance and faith in the heart with an outward ritual.So far we have been looking at the way a man can become accepted by God, and how many ideas have become substitutes for repentance and faith. This is only the first part of salvation called justification in which God wipes us clean with the blood of Christ, causes us to be born again and to receive a new heart. The next step is called sanctification whereby the righteousness of Christ that has been credited to our heart through justification becomes actually ours in an increasingly practical way. In other words, this is how we can become more and more like Christ in our character. Here again, there are many lookalikes planted by Satan into Christianity.
Transformed in eternity
What this says is that irrespective of how we actually live here on the earth after we have been born again, one day when we stand before God in eternity, we will all be instantly changed to become like Him, misquoting 1Jn.3:2 and 1Cor.15:52. These verses are actually referring to our receiving a new glorified body like that of the resurrected Christ. This body will be a spiritual body (1Cor.15:44). But sanctification is what happens now, and it is a transformation of character. When it comes to character, it is not that in whatever way we live, we will all suddenly become godly!Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit
John the baptiser announced that Jesus would baptise people in the Holy Spirit (Matt.3:11). It was for this that Jesus asked the disciples to wait in Jerusalem after His resurrection (Acts.1:8). What they were to receive was power to be His witnesses everywhere. Some people who experience this power, imagine in their moment of ecstasy, that their sin nature has been taken away and that they had been entirely sanctified. No. Sanctification is a lifelong process of growth and not instantaneous.Through an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit
These people assume that since God has begun a work in them, He will also complete it by Himself! But, just as God did not begin His work without our cooperation, neither will sanctification take place all from God's side. There are several verses that show the work of God in sanctifying us (1Th.5:23). But there are other verses that tell us what we must do in order to be sanctified (Rom.6:19). We must cooperate with God as He works in us.Beholding the glory of God
Misquoting 2Cor.3:18, some people believe that when they see the glory of God in their mind as they meditate on the word of God, that will mysteriously transform their character to become like Jesus. But when we put other passages along with this and take an overall look, we can see that the more we see the glory of God in His character, as we meditate on His word, the more earnestly we will begin to seek God to actually become like that in our own character.Ignoring sanctification
This is where the majority of Christians seem to be in. They assume that once God has made them His children, the next stop is only in heaven where they will be instantaneously transformed. Therefore they are not looking for any sanctification right now. They do a little bit of reading the Bible, praying and attending church, but for the rest, they live just like non-Christians to enjoy this life.Obedience is missing
It is Satan's ploy to take away obedience in the processes of both justification and sanctification. What should happen for justification is that when we hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ we become convicted in our heart that we are actually sinners living under the wrath of God (Acts.2:37). Then the Gospel tells us what we must do to be saved, that is, to repent from our sins and to place our trust in the sacrifice of Jesus for us. It is when we 'obey' this, that we get to experience the beginning of salvation (Rom.6:17,18). Imagine if we hear the good news that Jesus has come offering us salvation and we just say, "Thank You very much!" without even realising what we deserved from God as sinners and without a desire to stop sinning from then onwards! The proof that we have not understood the Gospel rightly, and that we have not begun to experience salvation, will be that our lives are not being changed in essence or in direction.A similar deception happens in the process of sanctification. If we don't learn to obey God now in our daily life situations, by doing what He wants us to do and rejecting what we used to do or feel like doing, we are not going to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus (Rom.6:19).
Satan has made many Christians to equate obedience to legalism. (He has even misdirected parents to avoid teaching children to obey, by making them believe that obedience is slavery!) To be legalistic is to depend on keeping the Law to gain acceptance from God. But there is a new obedience that comes from the heart of faith that a believer has received, which prompts him to become more and more pleasing to God, in return for what all He has done for him (Rom.12:1). No, obedience is not a bad word. Understood in the right way, and practised in response to faith, it is what will lead us closer to God.