Being in Christ - PH72-01

Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 3:9-11

The Effects of Satan's Distortion of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

1. Emotions

   When the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is distorted, it leads believers away from living by the principles of Bible doctrine to living by emotions. It is the habit of charismatics to talk about living above the mere letter of the law, by which they mean that they are not interested in doctrine. They very often will badmouth the concept of learning doctrine, and they consider themselves above such simplistic limitations. They feel that they have advanced to a higher stage of spiritual life by something that they feel. So the distortion of the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit has led many Christians away from doctrine, to depending on their emotions for divine guidance. They will never get it that way. Instead, Satan takes hold of those emotions and leads them away from God.

2. Frustration and Despair

   It creates a frustration and a despair in Christians who think they have not received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Many Christians in the charismatic movement are spiritually humiliated because they do not speak in tongues. So they feel that they have not entered that high level of relationship with God the Holy Spirit. Most charismatic preachers themselves will tell you that you must speak in tongues. That is not an option, but that is essential if you are in any way to have a relationship with God. So those who don't have this are humiliated.

3. Division

   Next, a false doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit creates great division among Christians as they indulge in satanic counterfeit experiences, which are then attributed to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Christians who know the truth cannot walk in sympathy with those who are distorting this doctrine, and are actually engaging in satanic counterfeits such as the tongues counterfeit or the healing counterfeit. So it creates divisions among those who actually are Christians – who are in the body of Christ.

4. Christianity is Discredited

   Fundamental Christianity is discredited in the minds of the general public by the physical convulsions, the gibberish speaking, and the emotional orgies which are associated with the so-called baptism of the Holy Spirit. The charismatics and the Pentecostalists have greatly discredited Christianity by their complete lack of control, which is completely out of keeping with the nature of the Christian life. The Christian life makes you stable. It doesn't make you someone who has gone into convulsive orgies. This is where the contemptuous term "the holy rollers" originated. And you won't fully appreciate this unless you have been in a meeting where all the stops were pulled out, and the holy rollers were really rolling. It is a sight to behold.

5. Pride

   False doctrine of the baptism of the spirit produces the offensive attitude of spiritual pride in those who have developed gibberish tongues. They are pleased by the idea that they have been selected above others by God. This is a common complaint of pastors who have made the mistake of thinking that if they have charismatics in their church, they should welcome them, and tolerate them, because they, after all, can't create any problem. But they discover that they create a fantastic problem, because these people have a spiritual snobbery that is absolutely unbelievable – thinking that they have received something of a select nature from God that others do not have.

6. Gibberish

   This doctrine, when distorted, will introduce pagan practices of ecstatic gibberish into Christianity. God never communicates through ecstatic gibberish. God never leads you to pray through ecstatic gibberish. This was commonly the practice among heathen groups and is, to this day, in primitive societies, still performed. In other words, if you were in some jungle area in some part of the world where a primitive society was practicing its religion, you would hear exactly the same kind of tongue speaking that you hear down the street from your house in the charismatic church. It would be identical. And you would hear the same kind of jumping and jiving and rolling around and hollering and everything else. It is exactly the same. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference. If you closed your eyes, you'd think you are back home. I don't mean home here. I mean wherever you fool around with that stuff.

7. Demonic Influences

   It opens the individual Christian to demonic influences in the form of visions, voices, and inner urges. The charismatics are very fond of speaking about their visions, and we have described some of those to you – about the voices they hear. But the biggest thing is that inside urge – that compulsion. They love to talk about that over-mastering compulsion to do something, to go someplace, or to say something. These people think that God is leading them in this way, when it's the devil who is leading them in this way.

8. Doctrinal Confusion

   It confuses the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the filling of the Holy Spirit, and thus neutralizes the power of the Spirit of God in the believer's life. If you do not know the difference between the filling of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, your spiritual life will come to a standstill.

9. The Completeness of Grace

   It obscures the completeness of the salvation by grace, with all spiritual blessings immediately possessed. It makes you, instead, think that you have something that you must add to your salvation. This doctrine, when distorted, will rob you of realizing how complete is the work of God in your behalf.

10. Legalism

    It blurs the distinctiveness of the church age from the dispensation of the Jews. If you do not distinguish the church age from the previous ages, then you get into legalism, and the charismatics are shot through with legalism. That is the approach of works to pleasing God.

11. Eternal Security

    It denies the eternal security of the believer as one who is permanently joined to Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Because the charismatics look for the baptism of the Holy Spirit after salvation, they do not know the comfort of the fact that they have been placed in Christ, and out of Adam forever.

12. Position Truth

    It confuses positional truth with experiential truth. That's where we get the idea of sinless perfection. We are perfect in Christ in our position. We are not perfect in our experience. Yet, when this doctrine is distorted, it confuses those two.

13. Water Baptism

    It confuses the meaning of water baptism. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, if not understood, will cause you to think that water baptism is part of being saved.

14. The Death of Christ

    It confuses the relationship of the believer to the death of Christ on the cross.

15. Holiness

    It distorts the basis of personal holiness in the life of the Christian to something which he himself achieves. To be in Christ means to have all spiritual blessings and all spiritual capacities immediately yours. All you have to do is enter into them through the Word of God. But when this doctrine is distorted, the impression is given that you must do something to achieve holiness.

Now Paul goes on in verse 9 to expand why he prefers his present status in Christ to his former celebrityship. Furthermore, he explains specifically the things that he enjoys as one who is in Christ. In Philippians 3:9, after saying, "And be found in Him, he says, "Not having my own righteousness." The word "having" is the Greek word "echo." "Echo" has a negative with it – the negative "me" which means "not." This indicates something that those in Christ do not have. This is present tense. It is continually lacking in those who are in Christ. It is active. It is their personal condition. It's participle, which means a principle is being stated for us here.

Righteousness

He is really saying, "I'm glad that I do not have the righteousness." The word "righteousness" is understood. "Which is of the law." The word "of" is the Greek preposition "ek" which means "out of." The "law" is the "nomos" which refers here to the Mosaic Law. There is no definite article. It is not "the law." So therefore he is referring to the quality of legalism in general. Paul did have a legal righteousness at one time. When he was a celebrity in Judaism, head and shoulders above all of his compatriots, he had a fantastic legal righteousness. No one could approach him. No one was better than he in legal righteousness. But his celebrityship as a righteous person with the legal righteousness from keeping the Mosaic Law was something that was taking him straight into hell.

In Christ

Paul said that instead of this kind of legal righteousness, a different kind of righteousness is what he esteems – that which is through the faith of Christ. The word "but" is the Greek word "alla," and it is opposing this previous "me." He says, "I don't have a legal righteousness, but I want to tell you what I do have. I'm going to introduce to you, on the other hand, something else – a different kind of righteousness, and the kind of righteousness that I now value."

Faith

So Paul says, "I once had a righteousness that was the result of my efforts in keeping the Mosaic Law. He did keep it, and he kept it well. Anytime he broke a rule, he brought the offering. Therefore, he said, "I am blameless. Anytime I broke a rule, I took care of it right away. I am blameless. You couldn't lay anything to my account. And I thought, 'God, you're really pleased with me. I'll certainly have eternal life.'" Then on the Damascus road, he discovered how wrong he was. Suddenly he realized that the righteousness he needed had to come to him, not through something he did, but through something he believed, and through someone that he believed in, namely the Lord Jesus Christ.

So here he refers to this second righteousness as a trust in Christ as Savior on the basis of what Christ did on the cross for our sinfulness. Once he had legal righteousness. That's worthless. If that's all you have, it's still worthless. Then he came to a righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ, and this righteousness is one with which God is satisfied.

So he says, "But that which is through faith of Christ, the righteousness," and again, he has the same word "dikaiosune," that we had earlier – the word for doing what is right. But this one says, "Which is of," and again, it uses the Greek word "ek," which means "out of" or "out from:" "This one which is out from God." "God" is "theos." So you can have a righteousness which is from man (yourself), or you can have one which is from God. That's what he's saying in a very simple way. The Greek makes it very clear that he's giving you these alternatives.

But the one that you get from God, you have to get "By." That is the Greek preposition "epi." That means "on the basis of." And again, it's on the basis of faith "pistis" – trusting by believing in authority. The authority here is what Bible doctrine has to say concerning salvation by grace, such as we have expressed in Ephesians 2:8-9. God imputes His absolute righteousness to the unbelieving sinner – to the one who believes the gospel (2 Corinthians 5:21).

So salvation in the Bible, without exception, comes only by faith in Christ as one's Savior. No human good works; no rituals; and, no legal righteousness are ever required or accepted. This particular truth has to be made very clear to people, because it is the natural inclination of the human heart to want to approach God the way Paul did – with legal righteousness. Therefore, it is very wrong if we give people who are unbelievers a chance to practice legal righteousness.

That's why there is always a danger when people are invited to walk down an aisle to be saved. Some of you did exactly that, and you discovered that nothing happened. It was a ritual that you performed because somebody gave you the idea that this was somehow connected with being saved. In other churches, you would find water baptism added as a ritual to perform for salvation. In some, you must take the Lord's Supper.

I have sat in services in churches where people have been given the Lord's Supper, and I'll be, if the preacher didn't stand up at the end, when the Lord's Supper had been taken, and said, "Go and sin no more," and he would usually make a cross in the air. What does that make you tend to think? I've just taken the Lord's Supper, and somebody stands up and says, "Go and sin no more." What do you think that I think has happened to me just then? I'll say, "When I took that bread and I drank that wine, my sins were washed away. I'm clean now." That's exactly the thing that the apostle Paul says, "Don't do that to people. That will take them into the lake of fire." Paul says, "I know, because I was the best of the lot when it came to legal righteousness. And what a shock it was to me to discover the truth. And I look back upon it with horror to think that I might have died in that condition, so that my spiritual death was irreversible."

So what Paul is saying in verse 9 when he says, "I'd rather be found in Christ," the first thing we want to make clear is that that means that he then is not hamstrung with a legal righteousness of trying to make points with God, but that he has the refreshing experience of something that comes to him just by believing God. It comes by faith, and that is the only way that he can receive a righteousness that is absolute and complete. It's one that God has produced.

Now, I don't care whatever problems you have in life today, or whatever difficulties you've struggled with this week, don't ever forget that you have the best already. God has done the hardest thing for you. The hardest thing was to take a sinner into heaven, where everybody has to be as perfect as Jesus Christ. That has already been done. Anything else that you have in life is a very secondary problem to that. If God can take your soul to heaven, He can solve everything else. Such is the blessing of what Paul describes as being in Christ.

Knowing Christ

So now we're stepping up a little with our relationship to the Son of God. We have trusted in Him, and we've accepted the salvation He has given us. Now we're entering into a relationship of experience with Him. It is in the aorist tense where it is viewing all of our experiences of life as a whole as those which cause us to know Jesus Christ better. It's active. It's Paul's personal knowledge. It's infinitive, which expresses his purpose. Paul's purpose here is to know Jesus Christ. He's going to tell us in two specific ways that he wants to know Him. "Him" is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the desire of an experiential knowledge. The only way a person comes into an experiential knowledge with Jesus Christ is again by the faith route – by faith in the Word of God.

The way you learn about Jesus Christ is the same way you learn about a lot of people. If you meet somebody that you've never known, that somebody else knows well, you'll ask this person about that individual, and you'll ask them several questions. As a result of questions, you'll get information, and that information will give you an experience by information of knowing this person. Then when you deal with this person directly, that experience is expanded and confirmed. So we get to know Jesus Christ, first of all, from a knowledge of the Word of God. Then, on the basis of our faith in doctrine, we act upon that, and we discover that this is exactly the way God works.

It's foolish to try to teach people how to be related to God by a string of illustrations. There are some Bible teachers that can't say three sentences relative to the Bible before they have to say 15 sentences relative to an experience they had as an illustration. They'll say three sentences out of the Bible, and then they'll say, "Now, I remember, years ago, I was talking to this man," and pretty soon, as you start adding up how much of the Bible you heard explained, you discover, "You know, three-quarters of that service was this guy's experiences."

Who cares about your experiences? Who cares about the time you walked through the door and your lovely wife met you there with a pie in the face. Who cares? All we want to know is what the Word of God says. Yet, we have so much of this being put out in the way of experiences that are going to prove something about your relationship to God. They'll teach you nothing. But if you learn doctrine, then you will know Jesus Christ, and you will know how to deal with Him. You'll know what you can expect of Him. You'll know what you can ask Him to do. You know what He will do. You'll know how far you can trust Him. That's the only way you'll get to know Him.

So faith in Bible doctrine leads us first to salvation, and then it leads us to personal sanctification. That's what Paul is talking about in verses 10-11. He's talking about personal sanctification in your experience, the setting apart of your life to God. Jesus Christ is not known through your emotions or through the experiences of other people. He's only known through your positive response to sound doctrine.

Resurrection

Power

Up to the time that he went to the cross, and the sins of the world were poured out on Him, He was a victim of sin. He took our sin. He bore it. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit turned away from the Son of God. He was abandoned in that moment as He bore the sins of the world. Now, this refers to the fact that, after He died for sin, He arose from the dead, which indicates that he was victorious over Satan. Satan, as Genesis 3:15 said, would be mortally wounded by the Savior. This happened at the cross. Now, when Jesus Christ comes back to life from the resurrection from the dead, He comes in a victorious power that is now available to every believer over sin. The apostle Paul describes that power in this way. This is resurrection power.

In Romans 6:4-11, the apostle Paul says, "Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death. That as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we should walk in newness of life (the power of resurrection). For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this: that our old man is crucified with Him; that the body of sin might be destroyed; that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death has no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise, reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

So what this passage is saying is that we, as Christians, have the power to live victoriously above sin; above all those problems we have; and, above all those bad characteristics we have. We have the capacity within ourselves to overcome those to the degree that it took to raise a dead person to life. That's the kind of power, Christian, you have as of this point in time. Paul said, "I want to know Jesus Christ in my experience in this resurrection power, that was His over sin." He was no longer the victim of Satan. He was no longer the victim of sin.

This power over evil comes to us because we have certain church age relationships to God the Holy Spirit. Paul wants to experience the sin-overcoming spiritual life power of Christ, so that sin would not have dominion over him. In Romans 6:13-14, Paul says, "Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." That's what he's talking about – a power where sin will not have dominion over us.

So when sin does have dominion over us, it is not because God has not given us the power to overcome it. So don't go around excusing yourself and saying, well, "I can't help it. That's just the way I am." That may be just the way you are, but you are also filled with the power of a resurrected life of victory over sin. God has not designed losers for His family. We make ourselves that.

Suffering

Therefore, in 2 Corinthians 1:5-7 we read, "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ." Whether we be afflicted, it is your consolation in salvation which is effectual in the enduring of the same suffering which we also suffer. Whether we be comforted, it is your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you also be of the consolation." We are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, but we are also going to be partakers of the blessings of the Lord Jesus. Paul wants to know Jesus Christ in suffering.

While the Lord Jesus was here on the earth, He was the object of all demonic attack. Once he returned to heaven, He is no longer available to this demonic attack. Now the suffering transfers to us, the Christians, who are left here on this earth. So Paul says in Colossians 1:24, "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind the afflictions (the 'pathema') of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church." Paul now is suffering in behalf of Christ the things that Jesus once suffered at the hands of the demonic hosts.

So this word does not refer to something we do to earn salvation. But what he is dealing with is something that we experience because we are God's people, and because we're doing His work. In Acts 9:16, the Lord told Paul what great things he would suffer for Him. Paul certainly did, in his experience. Just read 2 Corinthians 11:24-31, 2 Corinthians 4:8-12, and 1 Corinthians 4:10-13. All of these amply discuss for us and illustrate how much suffering Paul went through. Suffering with the Lord, however, means glorification as well.

Conformity

So Paul's life was to be a pattern of daily dying. In 1 Corinthians 15:31 and 2 Corinthians 4:10, he tells us about his daily dying – death. The word "death" is "thanatos," which refers to the physical dying of Jesus Christ on the cross. So the apostle Paul said in verse 10, "I want to know Jesus Christ in a personal day-by-day way in my experience. I want to know the power of His resurrection in my victory over sin, I want to know Him in the fellowship of suffering. I want to be able to enter the angelic conflict, and take in stride my role of being a soldier of Jesus Christ.

In other places, Paul explains all this in greater detail. You'd have to get all those tapes that we had when we studied about the Christian warfare, and the Ephesians passage that explained all the different parts of the soldier's armor. This is what he means, that this is the thing that he wants to be a participant in.

Then verse 11 tells us that he wants to do one thing else. Remember that all of this is in contrast to when he was a celebrity in Judaism. He says, "There is one other thing I want: I want to secure a place in the resurrection." Verse 11: "If by any means I might attain onto the resurrection of the dead." "If by any means" does not express doubt. It is simply expressing a modest self-confidence. It is kind of an expression of humbleness on the part of Paul. But the Bible has plenty of records left by the apostle Paul, such as 2 Timothy 1:12, that express his confidence in salvation; in eternal life; and, in his resurrection. This expression, "if in any way," expresses simply an ultimate goal that he is seeking. It doesn't reflect any doubt. Paul doesn't know whether he's going to come to his resurrection body through the rapture or whether he's going to die first.

But, in any case, he says, "If by any means I might attain." The word "might attain" is "katantao." "Katantao" means "to reach a goal." This is how you would describe somebody who's in a foot race, and coming across the goal line. It means to arrive at some goal. The goal here that he is speaking about is the goal of finding that he has a body that is sinless; free of all souls; free of all pain; and, free of all defects, and that he has, in his soul, been completely released from sin. It is aorist which speaks of the point of his resurrection. It is active. It is Paul's experience. It is subjunctive, because it's potential for believers.

"That I might attain (reach the goal) unto." "Unto is the Greek word "eis," which means "into." "I want to go into" something, and that is a resurrection. But it's not the same word we had before. It's a very interesting word: "exanastasis." This is called a "hapax legomenon" in Greek grammar because it's the only time this word is ever used in Scripture. "Hapax" means "once." "Legomenon" means "word." This is the one time the word is used. Anytime you get a "hapax legomenon," you have to say, "Now, God the Holy Spirit, what were you trying to say that was so important that you took one word and said, 'I'll never use this word again in the New Testament?'" It's used only once. Here it is. "Exanastasis" comes from two Greek words. The first part, "ex" means "out of." Then "anastasis" is what we have looked at before – the concept of resurrection – the "standing up" part.

What this is saying is "The out of resurrection," or "The out of the standing up resurrection." This is not the simple word "anastasis" like is used in 1 Corinthians 15:12 or that we used previously. "Ex" means an "out of something else resurrection." Out of what? Well, what he's talking about here is an out of what he calls "the dead." "Of the dead" is again "ek." He repeats this word "ek." It's such an emphasis here. "Out of the dead," and "the dead" is the "nekros" – those who are corpses. The word "nekros" means "for the corpses."

Now, here is what Paul is saying: Here is a graveyard. This graveyard here is filled with corpses. Right here is a nice corpse named Paul. Now, the apostle Paul says, "I look forward not just to resurrection," but he says, "I look forward to that magnificent experience due only to those who have experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and thus have been a part of the body of Christ, and therefore are part of church age saints." The only way you could get to be a church age saint is through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Paul says, "I want to be part of that resurrection which comes out of the mass of humanity." So he uses this word twice" "the out of, out of." He attaches it to resurrection. "The out from the out resurrection is what I want to be part of."

The Rapture

You see, it's nice to be raised. These Old Testament people are going to be raised, and that's great. But the apostle Paul says, "What I'm looking forward to is infinitely greater. I am going to be the one who rules with Jesus Christ – not these Old Testament people. I am the one who is related to Him like a wife is to her husband – not these Old Testament believers." So the apostle Paul says, "When I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit that placed me in Christ, that gave me the greatest position in all the world. That set my eyes on the greatest thing in all of life – to be part of the out resurrection from among the dead." So Paul is looking for the rapture that you read about in Revelation 20:5 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, that of which you and I will have a part.

Now, we should, at this point, put together exactly what happens in the series of resurrection. Exactly what does the doctrine of resurrection teach us concerning all these different people and their relationships? And we will take that up next time, because that in itself will clarify exactly what the apostle Paul was rejoicing in.

So Paul said, "Finally, for my great hope, that ultimately I might attain (I might cross the goal line into) the resurrection from among the mass of human corpses, that peculiar particular wonderful resurrection of the rapture of those of us who are part of the body of Christ." That is a very great destiny. You and I share it with him.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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