“You have the words of eternal life” Peter said to Jesus; “words” here is rhema, the proceeding word, the anointed word, the word for now. It comes from the logos, which is the whole counsel of God’s word, but the rhema is the word for the moment that is coming from the One speaking to us from heaven. It is the task of the Holy Spirit to guide believers into all truth. The body of Truth is the word but we must also have the soul of truth, which is the Spirit.
The mystery of lawlessness works to rob believers of the truth. He does this by means of the spirit of the world coming into the meeting places and changing the attitudes and values of God’s people so that they are more amenable to the attitudes and values of the world. Concurrently, the spirit of anti-Christ works to distort the scriptures so as to lend authority to the changes that are taking place in the hearts and minds of God’s people.
A good example of this is the embrace of homosexuality by Christian Churches. The spirit of the world tells them that this is quite normal and the spirit of anti-Christ tells them that tolerance is the same as grace.
The very thing that Paul deplored – that sin may increase so that grace may abound – is what is taking place in today’s Christianity. The whole focus is on forgiveness of our sin; there is no like significance attached to the necessity for obedience, faithfulness, righteousness or holiness, in which the scriptures are equally explicit. This is the “different gospel” of which Paul spoke (2 Corinthians 11:4); it features “another Jesus”, but a “different spirit”; it is the doctrine of demons.
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