John 1:7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness
of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
John the Baptist, like the Holy Ghost through the Spirit,
pointed toward Christ that all men should believe in Christ and be saved. It is
not God’s directive will that any man or woman should perish and go to Hell.
Matthew 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these
little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold
the face of my Father which is in heaven. 11
For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. 12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep,
and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and
goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? 13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say
unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which
went not astray. 14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one
of these little ones should perish.
1Timothy 2:1 ¶ I exhort therefore, that, first of all,
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all
men; 2 For kings, and for all that are
in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and
honesty. 3 For this is good and
acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4
Who will have all men to be saved,
and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
2Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise,
as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but
that all should come to repentance.
So, Calvinists are wrong, in the assumption that God created
certain people for the sole purpose of destroying them in eternity. But, those
opposed to Calvinism often take free will to an extreme degree. You have the
choice of whom you will follow and you make that choice, even as a believer, a
dozen times a day with each decision of moral weight. But, you have no control
over the outcome of your decision, only God does. If you follow your flesh sin
will take you, as preachers say, farther than you want to go, make you stay
longer than you want to stay, and make you pay more than you want to pay.
If you choose to follow God you may find yourself being led,
like Moses, to things you never even imagined. Just measure all things that you
think God has laid on your heart against the clear words of the Bible rightly
dividing the word.
But, back to the verse, John the Baptist came to preach
Christ, and he did.
John 1:8
He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
John the Baptist, in type like any Pastor today, was not to
be the object of veneration and adoration but to point toward the Lord Jesus
Christ, to bear witness of Him. The Holy Ghost, the third part of God, does
similar work.
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever…26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from
the Father, he shall testify of me:
There was a heresy that the Bible calls Nicolaitan, composed
of two Greek words that mean, ‘victory over the laity’. On a basic level when
you elevate the pastor’s office to an almost God-like status and make a pastor
someone who cannot be questioned or is not subject to the same commandments and
moral principles as God applies to everyone else in the congregation you fall
into this heresy. A pastor who allows himself to be venerated and set apart
from the congregation in that God’s standards don’t apply to him is guilty of
supporting this heresy, which Jesus hates. In certain cultural contexts in
American history pastors’ marital infidelities were ignored and moral sins
against God committed by pastors were overlooked as if it was the pastors’
privilege to thumb their noses at God’s moral commands for Christians.
Recently, it was said by members of a pastor’s congregation, after he had
confessed to a crime of abuse, that they were still following him because he
was the, ‘man of God.’ Nicolaitanism is
one of the primary weaknesses of Christian fundamentalism.
1Peter 5:1 ¶ The elders which are among you I exhort, who
am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a
partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: 2
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof,
not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3 Neither
as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.
The legend that Nicolaitans were followers of Nicolas of
Antioch in Acts 6:5 is unsupported by the Biblical text. When a word is not
defined in the Bible it would be best practice to determine of what the word is
composed and apply that. The words in the following verse 15 of the second
chapter of Revelation confirm that these heretics existed in the same church
alongside those who committed idolatry and fornication, but it does not say, by
the construction of the sentence, that they were one and the same.
Revelation 2:6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the
deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate…15
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which
thing I hate.
The preacher points to Christ. He is not Christ’s substitute,
the vicarious Son of God on earth, with the congregation being mere props in
the pastor’s own ‘Passion Play.’ Like all Christians, he is to follow Christ
and display Christ to the world. But, as this is something all Christians are
called to do this does not elevate the person of the pastor to a point where,
as a child was reported to say in wonder and awe when Jack Hyles stopped to tie
his shoe, “God just tied my shoe.”
I have read but have not confirmed that Cyprian, a church
father, in the third century, first said that to obey the pastor is to obey
God. This is perhaps because he took the following verse to an extreme,
removing it from the spiritual world and into the physical world where some
church-goers among fundamentalists will even ask their pastor if they can take
a vacation.
Hebrews 13:17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and
submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give
account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is
unprofitable for you.
The verse, written to the Jewish Christians in the early
church and most applicable doctrinally to the
believing Jews in the Tribulation after the Gentile and Jewish church is
removed, is a reference to spiritual matters not what color car you can buy or
what color you should paint your kitchen.
But, we must remember that in times of political chaos in
Europe at the end of the Ancient world and in the beginning of the so-called
Medieval period a priest or a pastor was the only consistent human authority in
spiritual or physical
affairs. So it is today in places like Liberia, which has suffered from two
devastating civil wars. The pastor guides and exhorts the congregation to
follow Christ in all behavior but the importance of pastoral guidance in the
recent Ebola outbreak cannot be overstated. In certain cases, it was pastors
whose congregations followed their instructions who kept them from the
practices which spread the disease.
Still, every pastor must remember that he, like John the
Baptist, is not the congregation’s Messiah, but bears witness of their Messiah,
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. If a pastor says something that cannot be
supported by scripture then he is under the same restrictions and condemnation,
if he persists, as any other heretic.
Acts 17:10 ¶ And the brethren immediately sent away Paul
and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of
the Jews. 11 These were more noble than
those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of
mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
John the Baptist paved the way for the appearance of God in
human flesh.
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