Hi, I'm David Bercot, and today we're going to be talking about five Bible verses that are nearly universally misunderstood by Christians today. When I say nearly universally misunderstood, I don't mean that everyone misunderstands them. However, the vast majority of Christians do. Furthermore, I'm definitely not saying that only I, David Bercot, correctly understand what each of these verses mean, and that everyone else has it wrong. In fact, for much of my life, I too misunderstood most of these verses.
So we're all in this together. And perhaps you've understood them correctly most of your life. So perhaps you've been way ahead of me. So this isn't about what I personally think these verses mean. I'm not the measuring rod here. The measuring rod we're going to be using today is how the early Christians understood these verses. What they thought means a lot, because the meaning of many of these verses turns on the meaning of the underlying Greek. And Koine Greek was their native language.
It's what they spoke on a daily basis. Furthermore, they lived in the same culture as the apostles, and even more importantly, they had received the faith from the first century Christians, from those who were taught by the apostles. But now the nice thing, as we'll be seeing, is that the early Christian understanding of these verses also best fits what the rest of the Scriptures teach. So it's not the early Christians versus the Bible, the two fit hand in glove. And then there's an added bonus.
The early Christian explanation also makes the most sense logically. So it's a win-win-win situation. The first passage we're going to look at is Romans 8:35. It says, " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? " I'm going to tell you upfront that we're going to be spending a lot more time on this passage than on the other four. And there are several reasons for this.
The first one is that this text is one of the main proof texts used to support the wrong doctrine of unconditional eternal security. Second, the wrong understanding of this verse is so deeply entrenched because of what all of the commentaries say that even Christians who don't believe in unconditional eternal security nevertheless nearly always still misunderstand this verse. I know that from experience because I was one of those very people.
I didn't believe in unconditional eternal security, but I was reading this verse incorrectly. This passage is of special interest to me because I remember discussing it with my pastor way back when I was in my mid-30s. At that time, I belonged to an evangelical church that was very adamant about unconditional eternal security.
Now, I tried hard to see this doctrine in the New Testament because I wanted to be in harmony with our church, but it seemed apparent to me that that teaching simply isn't there in the New Testament. So I spoke with our pastor about my struggles with this doctrine, and the key passage he quoted to me was this one. Romans 8, he quoted 35 through 39. In fact, we opened up our Bibles and he read it to me.
That passage ends with Paul's words, " For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Well, when he got through, I pointed out that the passage doesn't say that I can't sever my relationship with Christ. It only says that no third party can cause Christ to stop loving me.
And he responded, " Oh, I suppose I can do something that even an angel can't do. " Well, I didn't say anything further, but I remember as I was driving home that I thought to myself, " That isn't an honest argument. " If Paul were saying that nothing we can do can cause us to be rejected by Christ, why wouldn't he have said, " Even if I commit murder or adultery, or I rob and slander others, nothing will separate me from the love of Christ. " But Paul didn't say anything even remotely like that.
So when I first read the early Christian writings shortly after the pastor and I had our discussion, I saw that they were not understanding Paul in the way that he and the other evangelicals were quoting this passage. So that was reassuring. However, I didn't realize that I myself was still misunderstanding the passage until about 30 years later, when I reread the early Christian writings cover-to-cover for a second time.
And then this second time, I also read a number of early Christian works that aren't included in the Ante-Nicene Fathers set, such as Origen's Commentary on Romans. And that's when the light bulb finally came on in my brain. So I'm going to now explain to you what I finally realized, and that is the key to understanding this passage correctly is to recognize that the expression, the love of Christ, or the love of God, that these are both ambiguous expressions. That is, they can mean one of two things.
They could refer to Christ's love for us, or God's love for us, or they can refer to our love for Christ, or our love for God. Let me give you an illustration. Let's suppose I told you, what motivates me to go to work each day is the love of my wife. Now that could mean one of two things, couldn't it? It could mean my love for my wife is what motivates me to go to work each day. Or it could mean that what motivates me to go to work is my wife's love for me. It's the same with the expression " love of Christ.
" It can mean His love for us or our love for Him. And interestingly, this ambiguity is there in both the English and in the Greek. In other words, this isn't one of those situations where we can say, well, let's go and see what the original Greek says. What the Greek says is ambiguous. It can mean our love for Christ or His love for us. So anytime we come across this expression in Scripture, the love of Christ or the love of God, how do we know which one it means? Our love for Christ or His love for us?
Well, the answer is we have to look at the context. What does the Bible writer say right before that phrase and right after it? For example, let's return to my illustration where I made the statement, " What motivates me to go to work each day is the love of my wife. " Now, let's say right after saying that, I followed it up with the words, " I love her so much, I would do anything for her.
" If I followed it up with those words, you would know that the expression " the love of my wife " referred to my love for her in that situation. On the other hand, if I followed up the statement with the words, " She loves me so much, it inspires me to get up in the morning and go to work even when I don't feel like it. " Well, if I added those words, you would know that I had been referring to her love for me, right?
Now, returning to those expressions, " Love of Christ " and " Love of God, " I did a New Testament phrase search, and I found that in the New King James, those two expressions appear a total of 14 times. And guess what? The results are split nearly evenly. Seven of those 14 times, when the New Testament writer uses the phrase " love of God " or " love of Christ, " he's talking about our love for God, or our love for Christ.
But six of the 14 times, the Bible writer is talking about God's love for us, or Christ's love for us. And then one of the times, it's simply unclear which of the two meanings the Bible writer had in mind. It could be interpreted either way. But the key each time is looking at the context. For example, let's read 1 John 5:2 through 3. John says, " By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments.
For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. " So he uses the expression " the love of God. " Does that mean God's love for us or our love for God? Well, from the context here, it's clear that John's talking about our love for God, because he says we show we love Him by keeping His commandments.
On the other hand, earlier in the same letter, John wrote in 1 John 4:9, " In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. " Now here when He uses the expression the love of God, He's talking about God's love for us because He follows it up by saying that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world.
So with that background in mind, let's now examine the subject passage to see if the context reveals whether it's talking about our love for Christ or His love for us. Paul begins the passage by saying, " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? " Does that mean Christ's love for us or our love for Christ? Well, that statement offers no clue. It could mean either one.
I know most of us have read this passage many times, and in our minds, we think we already know, but I mean, if you were looking at it with a blank slate just at that sentence, you would not know. But now let's look at the second part to see if it gives us a clue. Paul says, " Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? " Now, if you read the Scriptures a lot, like I know many of you do, that sentence right there should make you think of another passage from Paul.
I'm thinking about 2 Corinthians 6:4 and 5. There, Paul writes, " But in all things, we commend ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings. " Very similar to the list in Romans 8, although just a little bit longer.
So in both Romans 8 and in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul is describing the various kinds of trials that he and the other apostles and many other Christians had suffered because of their ministry on behalf of God. Now, as I've mentioned, the conventional evangelical explanation for this verse is that Paul is telling his readers that God's love for us has no conditions. No matter what we do, it will never cost us our salvation, assuming we've been validly saved in the beginning.
And as I said, that's perhaps how you've always understood that passage. But I would have to ask, has it never occurred to anyone that if that is the point Paul is trying to make, that he's presenting an incredibly weak argument? I mean, if that interpretation of the verse were true, it would mean Paul is saying that Christ is so wonderful that even if we suffer persecution for His sake, He still loves us. Even if we experience hunger because of Him.
That's not going to cause Him to stop loving us, even if we're threatened with death because of serving Him. Nope, He still loves us. Now, what kind of argument is that? What kind of Lord would he be if he did stop loving us because we suffered tribulation or persecution or famine or the sword on his account. Do you see the absurdity of that explanation? Now, don't ask me why I never saw the obvious.
I'm sure it was because, like most of you, this verse had always been explained to me that it was talking about Christ's love for us, not our love for him. So, I accepted the interpretation I had heard from the time I was a small boy, and I never questioned the obvious absurdity of it. And so for me, it was one of those epiphany moments when I was reading Origen's Commentary on Romans. This was just a few years ago, and I came across this passage.
Origen writes, " If the soul has ascended to this state of perfection, so that it loves God with all its heart, and with all its mind, and with all its strength, and loves its neighbor as itself, what room will there be for sin? " After all, it is on this account, as well as that in the law, that love is said to be the first commandment. And in the gospels, love is commanded above everything else. For the apostle Paul had ascended to this degree of perfection.
And standing in it, he confidently said, " For who will separate us from love for God, which is in Christ Jesus, will affliction, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? " And again, but I am certain that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor angels, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from love for God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Origen continues, from all of this, it is plainly showed that none of these things listed by the apostle can separate us from our love for God when we have ascended to that peak of perfection. " End quote. When I read that, I suddenly realized that Origen was understanding Romans 8 to be talking about a committed Christian's love for Christ and His love for God, not the other way around. Well, I went back and reread Romans 8 several times. And of course, after rereading it, it made total sense.
In fact, it was the only interpretation that made any sense. Paul is not making a theological statement here. He's making a triumphant, bold declaration on behalf of himself and similarly committed Christians that nothing is going to quench our love for Christ. Nothing will separate us from our love for Him. Paul is also making a bold statement of defiance against Satan and against Satan's invisible agents and against Satan's earthly agents.
He is saying that no matter what Satan brings against us, he will not prevail against God's people. Justin Martyr made a similar declaration in one of his apologetic works. He wrote, " It is evident that no one can terrify or subdue we who have believed in Jesus throughout the world. For it is plain that though we are beheaded and crucified, thrown to wild animals, and chains and fire and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession.
But the more such things happen to us, the more do others and in larger numbers become faithful and become worshipers of God through the name of Jesus. Now, I don't think anyone would imagine that Justin Martyr is making a theological statement that it's impossible for a Christian to deny Christ. No, he's making a bold declaration that no matter what tortures the world brings against Christians, the world will not succeed. Christians as a group will not deny Christ.
Of course, some individual Christians do deny Christ, but not Christians as a whole. Paul is making a similar declaration in Romans 8. Now I've mentioned that the light bulb in my head suddenly lit up upon reading Origen's discussion of this passage in his commentary on Romans. So I was curious, was this just Origen's take on this passage? Or was this understanding truly the historic faith? So I started searching to see how other early Christians understood this verse.
And you know, I could not find even one early Christian teacher who interpreted this verse to be talking about Christ's love for us. Instead, they all understood it to be talking about our love for Christ. They all recognized it as a bold declaration that Paul was making about his love for Christ, and by inference about the love that most New Testament Christians had for Jesus. And that should come as no surprise.
Once we clear out of our heads what we've always been taught, once we read this passage with a blank slate, it's really the only understanding that fits the context. I'll read to you a few examples from the early Christians.
Around the year 250, during a time of persecution, a group of Christians who were in prison because of their faith wrote a letter to the church in Carthage in which they said, " What more glorious or blessed thing can happen to any man than to confess the Lord God in death itself before his very executioners?
What is more glorious than among the raging and varied and exquisite tortures of worldly power, even when the body is wracked and torn and cut to pieces, to confess Christ the Son of God, with a spirit that is still free. For as to this battle, our Lord, as with the trumpet of his gospel, urges us on when he says, " He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loves his own life more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. And again, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness ' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And again, you shall stand before kings and powers, and brother shall deliver up brother to death, and father the son. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And again, he says, " To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne. " Moreover, the apostle says, " Who shall separate us from love for Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for your sake, we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay in all these things, we are more than conquerors for him who has loved us. " John Chrysostom wrote, " If some of us are ungrateful to God, the same was not true of Paul.
He was so alive through the Spirit, and he was so on fire with love for God as to utter those words worthy of His Spirit and to cry aloud with the words, " Who will cut us off from love for Christ? " See the point of his remark. See the passion of his overwhelming desire. See his burning love. He says, " Who will cut us off? " What is there he says that has the power to deprive us from loving God? Is there anything visible? Anything invisible? No.
Then in his wish to enumerate everything individually and to make clear to us all the irrepressible love he had for the Lord. He added distress, hardship, hunger, persecution, nakedness, danger, the sword. What is there, he says, of all the problems besetting us that could separate us from our love of God? Daily distress? Not at all. Hardships. Neither of these. Persecution by no means. Hunger. Not even that. He says the onset of death itself could not succeed in achieving it.
So as you can see, his desire for God and his burning love elevated his thinking from material things to spiritual ones, from present things to future things, from visible things to things that are unseen. That is what faith is like after all. And that is what love for God is like. Tertullian wrote, " In his epistle to the Romans, Paul says, " We glory in tribulations also, being sure that tribulation works patience, and patience works endurance, and endurance hope, and hope makes us not ashamed.
" And again, Paul writes, " And if children then heirs, heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we suffer with Him so that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this age are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Therefore, afterwards he says, " Who shall separate us from love for God? Shall tribulation or distress, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long.
We have been counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For we are persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from love for God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Tertullian continues, likewise in recounting his own sufferings to the Corinthians, Paul declared that suffering must be endured, saying, " In labors more abundant, in prisons very frequent, in deaths often, of the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes, less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.
And if these severities seem to us to be more grievous than martyrdoms, yet once more, he says, " Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses for Christ's sake. " End quote. So like the other early Christians, Tertullian understood Paul to be talking about our love for Christ. But the reason Paul and the other New Testament Christians were willing to suffer so much out of their love for Christ was because Christ first loved us.
We are in no way minimizing the amazing love of Christ and His Father for us. There are plenty of passages in Scriptures that talk about their love. But this particular passage is talking about our love for Christ in response to His marvelous love for us. Cyprian wrote, " We must commit to walk in His ways and to fear His commandments. The Father corrects and protects us if we will stand fast in the faith during both afflictions and perplexities.
That is to say we must cling closely to His Christ, as it is written, " Who shall separate us from love of Christ shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? " He continues, " None of these things can separate true believers. Nothing can tear away those who are clinging to His body and blood. " Persecution of that kind is an examination and searching out of the heart. God wills us to be sifted and tested, for He has always tested His people.
And yet in these trials, help has never at any time been lacking to believers. Caesarius of Arles, in commenting on this passage, writes, " Spiritual souls are not separated from Christ by torments. Nevertheless, carnal souls are sometimes separated even by idle gossip. The cruel sword cannot separate spiritual souls, but worldly affections remove carnal souls. No difficulty breaks down spiritual men, but even flattering words corrupt the carnal. Well, I could go on and on.
Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Jerome, and even Augustine. They all understood this passage in the same way. For example, in explaining this passage, Augustine writes, " Here, Paul is exhorting his hearers not to be broken by persecution. For perhaps they had been living according to the wisdom of the flesh. " As I've said, I have not been able to find even one early Christian who understood this passage in Romans 8, the way it is popularly expounded today.
That is, in the sense that nothing can separate us from Christ's love for us. And in fact, I was so curious about this matter. I didn't just stop with the early Christians. I kept searching into the late patristic period, into the early medieval times, and into the High Middle Ages. People like Cyril of Alexandria, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas, they all understood this passage the same way as did the early Christians. So when did it all change? And who's responsible?
Well, the first commentator I have found who set forth the modern evangelical understanding of Romans 8 was John Calvin, and that was in the mid-1500s. Of course, since Calvin taught absolute predestination that nothing we do can affect our salvation, well, his innovative interpretation of Romans 8 fit right into his doctrine. And then once Calvin paved the way, most Protestant commentators after him followed suit, John Gill, Matthew Henry, et cetera, on through today.
Each commentator typically copies what previous commentators have said, sometimes adding a little or taking away a little. And so pretty soon every Protestant or evangelical commentator was explaining this passage incorrectly. And so most of us like myself grew up being told that this passage is talking about Christ's love for us and that nothing we do can separate us from it. And just as it is in so many other areas, the historic faith got ignored and forgotten.
And that's even though the modern interpretation makes Paul's argument illogical. And more importantly, even though the modern interpretation is unscriptural, it flatly contradicts Jesus Himself. Because Jesus said John 14:21 and 24, he says, " Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.
" So Jesus tells us that if we want to be loved by Him and His Father, we must keep His commandments. He did not tell His disciples that nothing could separate them from His love. Again, in John 15 verses 9 and 10, Jesus said, " As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. So once again, Jesus has expressly told us that we must keep His commandments to abide in His love.
To abide in His love means to remain or to continue in His love. Jesus did not say that nothing can separate us from His love for us because obviously disobedience can. Jude exhorts us in Jude 1:21, " Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. " Obviously, Jude would have had no need to exhort us to keep ourselves in God's love if such a thing were automatic.
So the early Christian understanding is the only interpretation of Romans 8 that harmonizes with the rest of Scripture. Furthermore, as we've already discussed, it is the only interpretation that makes logical sense. If Paul had wanted to say that none of our sins can separate us from Christ's love for us, then he would have listed various sins that humans commit.
But because he was saying that nothing can separate Christians as a whole from their love for Christ, he lists the various trials and persecutions that he and other New Testament Christians had endured on behalf of Christ because of their love for Him. Now let's move on to the next verse that is widely misunderstood today, particularly by evangelical Protestants. And this verse is 1 Corinthians 6:12, which reads, " All things are lawful for me, but all things are not profitable.
All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. " Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. Today, millions of evangelical Protestants grab this verse and declare that there are no laws or commandments for Christians. Of course, if you press them on it, they always fudge a bit.
They'll readily acknowledge that it's not lawful for a Christian to murder, to steal, to commit adultery, to engage in homosexual acts, or a lot of other things. But they will nevertheless argue that none of those things will affect our salvation. They'll say God doesn't want us to do them, but they aren't really laws, as there is no penalty that affects our salvation. Now, we've just been talking about the importance of reading Bible verses in their context.
And just two verses before Paul had written, " Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. " So, obviously, all things are not lawful for Christians, not if we want to inherit the kingdom of God.
Furthermore, all throughout the New Testament, we read of commandments for Christians. In fact, as we just read a few minutes ago, Jesus said in John 14:15, " If you love me, keep my commandments. " So how can we keep His commandments if there aren't any commandments for Christians? So although the early Christians nearly always took Scripture literally, they didn't do so when taking a passage literally would mean having to contradict what other parts of the New Testament teach.
So it is not surprising that not a single early Christian writer took Paul's words in this verse literally, since to do so would have forced them to ignore everything else Paul said, as well as what Jesus said, and what the rest of Scripture says. So what did Paul mean when he wrote this to the Corinthians? Well, among the early Christians, there were two different views. Actually, the difference between those two views isn't particularly significant because they both end up in the same place.
Let's start with view number one. Under this view, Paul was saying that all things are in our power, since we have free will, and since we don't live in a situation like the Jews did under the Mosaic law. Under the law, if an Israelite committed immorality, he was stoned to death right then and there. But under Christ's reign, if you live immorally, the congregation is not going to physically punish you. If you're unrepentant, you will be put out of the church, but you aren't going to be stoned to death.
So under Christ's rule today, all things are under our power, but not all things are profitable in the sense that they might cost us our eternal life if we do them. As you've no doubt noticed, I'm quoting from a translation which uses the term " profitable. " The original King James used the expression, " All things are not expedient. " And that was a fine translation back in 1611. But the word " expedient " has changed meaning since that time, making it a poor choice of words in today's English.
Okay, so now Irenaeus would have been one of the early Christians who held to this first view, this view that Paul was meaning all things are under our power, but they are not profitable since they could cost us our eternal life. Irenaeus writes, " No doubt if anyone is unwilling to follow the gospel, it is in his power to reject it. But it is not profitable. For it is in man's power to disobey God and to forfeit what is good. But such conduct brings no small amount of injury and mischief.
And on this account, Paul says, " All things are lawful to me, but all things are not profitable. " And again, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And again, he writes, " Such were some of you, but you have been washed, but you have been sanctified in the name of our Lord.
" If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more to the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things and to abstain from others. But because man is possessed of free will from the beginning, admonition is always given to him to hold fast to the good, which we do by means of obedience to God. And again, that was Irenaeus. You can find that in volume 1, page 520 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Origen writes similarly, he says, " I think the phrase it is lawful is sometimes used by the apostle in the sense of it is possible. " For example, this is the case in the passage where he says, " All things are lawful for me, but all things are not profitable. " Those things which are in our power, that is, we have the power to do them, he says, are lawful for us. And that's in the Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 4, page 286. So that was the first view of what Paul meant when he said, " All things are lawful.
" Now, the second view was that Paul was limiting his remarks to the things that are not forbidden to Christians by any specific commandment or principle. Under this second view, Paul is saying that among the many things that are not forbidden to us, that is, among the many things that are lawful for us to do, all of them are not profitable, either to us or to others. Although something may be lawful for us to do under the Scriptures, it either does not edify us, or it does not edify others.
For example, John Chrysostom writes, " It cannot be said that Paul speaks here with regard to things that are forbidden, for such cannot be said to be lawful. " Rather, he speaks of things that seem to be indifferent. For example, " You are at liberty to eat, " he says. " Well then, remain in such liberty, and take heed that you do not become a slave to your appetite. For he who uses it properly, he is the master of it.
But he that exceeds the proper measure is no longer its master, but its slave, since gluttony reigns paramount within him. For you do not have power even over your own belly so long as you are a glutton. Rather, it has power over you. And the same we can say of wealth and many other things. Well, this second view makes sense as well, and it fits Paul's specific application to food. Christians have authority to eat every kind of food except for blood.
But when we overeat or become slaves of our appetite, then the thing that would otherwise have been lawful is no longer profitable. It becomes sin. The Cyprian applies Paul's words similarly to John Chrysostom. He writes concerning the conduct of certain Christian virgins in his days. He says, " Not everything that can be done should be done, nor should the broad desires that arise out of the pride of the world be extended beyond the honor and modesty of virginity.
" Since it is written, " All things are lawful, but all things are not profitable. All things are lawful, but all things do not edify. " If you arrange your hair sumptuously and walk so as to draw attention in public and attract the eyes of youth upon you, you cannot be excused in the pretense that you are chaste and modest in your mind. Your shameful dress and immodest adornments accuse you.
Nor can you be counted now among Christ's maidens and virgins since you live in such a manner as to make yourselves objects of desire. That's in volume 5, page 432 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Yes, there is no specific commandment in the New Testament on how a Christian woman should walk. So in that sense, walking in an immodest gait is, quote, " lawful, " but it is not profitable. It is unprofitable to those whose attention it attracts.
And it is unprofitable to the sister who walks in that manner, as she will certainly have to account to her Lord for her conduct. Actually, the two different early Christian interpretations of this verse are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I find that sometimes the same early Christian writer will apply Paul's words in that first sense, and then later in another work, they'll apply it in the second sense. And I think something can be said for both interpretations.
However, the one thing you will never find any of the early Christians saying is that Christians are not under any laws. Such an interpretation would contradict not only the very words of Paul, but the express words of Jesus Himself. The two verses we've just discussed were understood correctly by most biblically literate Christians until the time of the Reformers. However, the next one we're going to look at has been misunderstood by multitudes of Christians, probably within decades after John wrote it.
This verse is John 1:1, which reads in our Bibles, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. " The way that verse is translated in our English Bibles, it seems to be saying that the Word is with Himself. He is with God. At the same time, He is God. So John seems to be talking in circles. As a result, most Western Christians misunderstand this verse in one of two ways. Either they understand it in what is known theologically as modalistic monarchianism.
Sorry to use such a big word, or sometimes as Sabellianism. In more popular terms today, it's known as Jesus-only theology. Since John said that Jesus is with God and that Jesus is God, then a lot of people think Jesus and the Father must be one and the same person. They say that the terms father and son are only two different modes of the same being. Now, very few churches today have adopted Sabellianism as their official theology. In fact, nearly all churches would officially reject it.
There are, however, some Pentecostal churches that teach it as their official theology. But in real life, if you ask the typical non-theologically educated Christian to explain John 1:1, the explanation that he or she is most likely to give you is the Jesus-only one. Oh, Jesus and the Father are one and the same person. They're both God. At least that's been my experience from the discussions that I've had.
On the other hand, those Christians who are a bit more knowledgeable reject that interpretation, but they embrace something that is not correct either. Based on John 1:1, they embrace a view of the Trinity that is not the historic faith, and it is not scriptural. They recognize that Jesus is a different person than the Father, which is good, but they embrace a Trinity where there is no headship of the Father, and where Jesus is not truly begotten from the Father.
For example, if you go on the internet and do a search for images of the Trinity, you're going to find this misunderstanding illustrated everywhere. The most frequent thing you're going to find if you do such an internet search is a diagram of the Trinity, which expresses the Trinity as a triangle. Each side of the triangle bears the name of one of the divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There's no headship. There's no underlying source of the Trinity.
The Father stands in no different position than the Son and the Holy Spirit. And then sometimes, if you do an image search, like I mentioned, you'll find, instead of a triangle, you'll find three interlinking rings or circles. And it's the same concept. It's the same misunderstanding of John 1:1. Now, the problem partially lies with our English language. And before English, it lay with the Latin language. In fact, probably it lies with most languages other than Greek.
And that is, in most languages, in normal speech, we do not put an article before a person's name. For example, we say Paul or Jesus. But in Koine Greek, they often said the Paul or the Jesus. I don't mean that they used the article " the " just when they were talking specifically about the Apostle Paul or about Jesus Christ. I mean, they frequently used it when they were talking about anybody named Paul or anyone named Jesus. Likewise, where we say God, the New Testament writers typically say the God.
Although, once again, not always. It's not a uniform rule. Now, all of this becomes significant in John 1:1, because in the literal Greek, the text reads, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and the Word was God, no the there. " And then verse 2 says, " He was in the beginning with the God. " So what is the significance in John using the article " the " with the name " God " when he says the word was with God, but he doesn't use it when he says the Word was God.
Well, Origen gives this explanation. He writes, " We notice John's use of the article in these sentences. " He's talking about John 1:1 and 1:2. " He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek language. " In some instances, he uses the article, and in some instances, he omits it. He adds the article to the Word, but to the name of God, he only adds it sometimes. He uses the article when the name of God refers to the unbegotten cause of all things.
But he omits the article when the Logos or Word is named God. In summary, Origen says that John uses the article " the " when he is talking about God the Father. But when John refers to the Logos or the Word as being God, he doesn't use the article. Origen continues his explanation. Now, there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two gods, and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked.
Either they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of his own besides that of the Father. And so they make Him, whom they call the Son, to be the God in all but the Name. Okay, I'm going to interject here for a moment. So, even in Origen's Day, Christians were stumbling over this verse. Some of them had fallen into this error known as Sabellianism, or Jesus only, saying that in reality, Jesus and the Father are one and the same person. Origen continues.
Or they denied the divinity of the Son, giving him a separate existence of his own and making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are separable from each other. So then others in Origen's Day swung to the other extreme and denied the essential divinity of Christ. They saw him as some sort of supernatural being, but not in a fully orthodox sense. Today, we see this type of overreaction in the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Well, Origen goes on to explain why both those groups of persons were in error. He writes, " To such persons, we have to say that the God, on the one hand, is autotheos, that is God of Himself. " This is why the Savior says in His prayer to the Father that they may know you the only true God. But that all beyond the autotheos is made God by participation in His divinity.
The Word of God who was in the beginning and who by being with the God is at all times God Himself, not possessing that of Himself, but by His being with the Father and not continuing to be God, if we could possibly think of that, except by remaining always in uninterrupted contemplation of the depths of the Father. So Origen is saying that in John 1:1 and 2, when the Apostle John speaks of the Father, He calls Him the God. That is because the Father is autotheos, a Greek term that Origen coined.
The word Theos is the Greek word for God, and Auto means of itself or of himself. It's where we would get the word automatic. A transmission that of itself makes all of the changes. You don't have to do it manually. So, Origen is saying that the Father is God of Himself. He is unbegotten. He depends upon no other for his existence. But the Apostle John does not use the article " the " when referring to Jesus, the Word. And he does this in order to distinguish him from the Father, because Jesus is not unbegotten.
He is begotten from the Father. His existence and His divinity come from the Father. But please don't misunderstand Origen. He is not saying that everywhere in the New Testament, where the word " God " appears without the article, it is referring to Jesus, nor is he saying that every time the word " God " appears with the article in front of it, it's referring to the Father. He is only saying that John uses those distinctives here in John 1:1 and in John 1:2.
In order to distinguish between the unbegotten God, the Father, and the begotten Son, who is also fully divine. In fact, in some ancient Greek texts in John 1:18, the Son is called the Only Begotten God.