As a matter of fact, while we're talking isms, the Acts-28-ism to Universalism is not a very big leap.
Actually, it's barely a step, more like a slight lean.
And it's why a lot of 28ers are Universalists.
Step 1, get rid of hell.
Step 2, deny free will.
Get rid of hell and deny free will and voila, you're a Universalist.
It's a natural progression.
Today we continue in the book of Romans.
Glad you're back.
This is part 2.
Part 1 we covered verses 1-4.
Today we'll be looking at verses 5-7.
We're traveling through verse by verse, untangling and undoing some doctrinal fallacies.
In part 1, we addressed how the gospel of God is not an isolated gospel all by itself.
In the land of preacher confusion, that's what some are teaching today, to the detriment of the body of Christ.
Paul did not preach multiple gospels.
And in our last session, we proved it.
We proved it with Scripture.
We also talked a little bit about the Roman audience and who they were.
Much of the confusion has come from the Acts 28ers position of who the one new man in the book of Ephesians is.
The one new man is not Gentile and Gentile.
It's Jew and Gentile.
Which by the way, is a picture of Paul's overall audience in all his epistles.
If you get nothing else out of this today, get that.
If you're reading Romans, you're reading about the one new man.
If you're reading Corinthians, you're reading about the one new man.
Ephesians, Colossians, yes, the one new man.
Jew and Gentile, not Gentile and Gentile, as taught by the 28ers.
And others, who don't necessarily call themselves 28ers, but they've adopted some of the doctrine.
And then those, they come along and start listening to these teachings, and they're not aware that what they're hearing taught isn't pure, clean, mid-acts, but some sort of muddy hybrid.
This Roman study we're doing will eventually give us some in-depth knowledge of how this one new man was constructed, how he was built.
Let's start with a bit of history.
One thing that helped me, and I hope it helps you, is to understand that there was already a large number of Jews who lived in Rome around 150 B.C., not A.D., B.C.
Jews in Rome with their own established community.
In fact, there's still a Jewish community there today, and it's said to likely be one of the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the world.
You see, although Jews were exiled from Rome more than once, they always returned.
They returned to their community.
Think about what this means.
It means this Jewish community already existed for around 200 years or more by the time our apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans.
I find it interesting that even though Paul had yet to preach his My Gospel in Rome, he sends salutations to people there that he already knew.
In chapter 16, verse 5, he saluted Eponatus and called him, quote, Of the first fruits of Achaia.
That would be from the same time Paul was in the area in and around Corinth when he first met Priscilla and Aquila.
In addition, Paul salutes at least three more people there in chapter 16 that he considers kinsmen, Jews in the flesh.
So it's likely that these who Paul called by name are those he knew from Corinth.
And there's a list of people from Corinth at the end of the letter, and they themselves send salutes to those of Rome.
So were there Jews in Corinth?
Obviously, as Paul said, my kinsmen, Jews in the flesh, and they became part of the church at Corinth that Paul established.
What does this have to do with the little flock?
Nothing, not a thing.
Were there Gentiles at Corinth?
Yes.
Were those Gentiles Israel blessing Greeks, as some like to say?
No, not a shred of evidence, none whatsoever.
It's an invention of man.
So now ask yourself, ask yourself these same questions about all the intended locations for Paul's epistles, answer them the same way, and you'll eliminate a ton of confusion as to why Paul referenced Old Testament scriptures, spoke of the prophets, and talked about Jewish things sometimes, especially regarding the book of Romans.
The word Jew has never automatically meant little flock.
But for some strange reason, there have been doctrines created to imply that Jews could only be saved by the kingdom gospel, and Gentiles could only be saved by the gospel of Christ.
That's not true.
That's never been the case, regardless of some who choose to bend terminology and twist scriptures.
Just because salvation was of the Jews never meant a Gentile couldn't be saved through it.
Likewise, just because salvation is now of the Gentiles does not mean a Jew cannot be saved through it.
This has never been the case.
It's not the citizenship of Israel, or lack thereof, that determined whether or not a person was a part of the earthly kingdom or the heavenly kingdom.
You see, it was the gospel they were first presented with and believed.
That's how that worked.
Today, we'll spend some extra time in verses 5-7 because the audience that some assign to the word all in verse 7 is incorrect.
Verses 1-7 is one complete sentence, and the confusion abounds when some decide to limit the all in verse 7 to being all of you kingdom saints, or all of you Gentiles, or all of you Greeks.
But Paul does not limit the all to anyone except those that are in the city of Rome.
Interestingly enough, these limitations placed on the word all come from the same exact methods that are employed by Acts 28ers who separate Paul's letters and gospels between different groups of people.
Over the years, we've heard some odd claims made by some in mid-Acts, and we wondered where did they came up with that?
We searched it and discovered that it was something being taught by the 28ers.
And there's a limited forgiver pastor up around Knoxville, Tennessee area.
Years ago, he decided that anyone who believed that sins were forgiven at the cross must have some connection to Acts 28ism, or maybe they're already there.
And some, steeped knee-deep in their lucid ignorance, they agreed with him.
But the truth is, you'll be hard-pressed to find many, if any, writings from the originators of Acts 28ism that say anything on the subject of reconciliation.
Hardly anything at all.
The fact is, if anyone still cares about facts, the fact is, what you'll mostly find is them railing against mid-Acts believers over their dispensational boundaries.
And hardly any talk about the gospel at all, unless they're trying to prove that Paul preached a bunch of different ones.
They'll also attempt to use Scripture outside of Paul's epistles to prove their theory that he preached the kingdom gospel during the Acts period.
For example, the exact same method that 28ers use to claim Paul's Acts epistles are talking to kingdom saints is the exact method employed by today's pre-Trib rapture deniers.
Yeah, they're popping up everywhere.
And those who believe the kingdom saints are in the body of Christ, them too.
Exact same scripture references.
Exact same argument.
They both claim Paul's mentioning of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, they say it's identical to that of Matthew 24 and the 7th trumpet of Revelation.
And their arguments aren't just similar, they're almost word for word.
The only difference is the 28ers still hold to pre-Trib rapture of sorts of believers being the, quote, Appearing with him found there in Colossians.
Same argument, different outcomes.
Both are incorrect.
Go figure.
The pre-Trib rapture deniers, they have to believe.
They have to believe that every believer throughout all dispensations are in the same body and of the same church, or else their pre-Trib denial theory, it don't work.
The substance of the arguments from both groups are identical.
28ers will Greek you into oblivion with their seemingly scholarly scriptural interpretations.
You'll see them talking about eons and trying to redefine the words forever, everlasting, and eternal.
Hey, just like the universalists do.
As a matter of fact, while we're talking isms, the Acts 28 ism to universalism, it's not a very big leap.
Actually, it's barely a step.
More like a slight lean.
And is why a lot of 28ers are universalists.
Step one, get rid of hell.
Step two, deny free will.
Get rid of hell and deny free will and voila, you're a universalist.
It's a natural progression.
And if you think about it, universalism is just the next logical step for the 28er who isn't concerned with what Paul says regarding the ministry of reconciliation.
Because as far as they're concerned, that wasn't written in one of their epistles and doesn't apply to them anyway.
So, contrary to the popular limited forgiver false claim, for we Bible believers who believe God was in Christ on the cross, not imputing sins, that belief is in no way a stepping stone or a gateway drug to Acts 28 ism or universalism.
That fear mongering is baseless.
If you want to identify the path that leads to universalism, look no further than your Acts 28ers and all of the muddy hybrids.
Universalists believe that a soul has to be purified in fire in order to be made fit for the salvation that comes to them in the end.
A clear admission that they do not believe the cross work worked.
You can't believe sins are forgiven while at the same time believe they will be forgiven.
That's void of logic.
They were either forgiven on the cross or will be forgiven in the refiner's fire.
But not both.
Every time a universalist brings up reconciliation, I can't help but laugh because they don't believe it.
They're still limited forgivers and there's no getting around that.
If you can't see the real life example of a man in Connecticut who started out as a
mid actor, limited forgiver, Acts 28 leaning, grace pastor, who eventually slipped fully into Acts 28ism only to then jump head first into universalism a few months later, I don't know what more of an example you need, of the dangers of adhering to any of the Acts 28 doctrine.
Those of you who promote Charles Welch and Bullinger, you should really think long and hard about what you're inviting in.
Acts 28ism one day, universalism the next.
So just as Paul, our pattern, just as he did when he wrote Romans, in this study we'll use his words, the commandments from the Lord, to call out these false doctrines and reveal their origins.
Okay, Romans chapter 1, verse 5, By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name.
Paul, once again, confirms his apostleship as he did in verse one.
We covered that last time.
It's important that he establishes this to his audience there in Rome, whom he's yet to meet.
He received grace and apostleship for the purpose of preaching the faith to be obeyed by the hearers among all nations.
The same faith he refers to in verse one, Paul's gospel, the gospel of God.
He was called to be an apostle separated into the gospel of God.
In verse 5, he says he received apostleship by Christ for obedience to the faith among all nations.
No reason to assume that Paul was talking about two different things here.
He's proving that Jesus was God in the flesh.
He's talking to some Jews who knew the scriptures and the law of Moses, as we'll see later.
And he's justifying God before those who either rejected Christ or had never heard of him until hearing Paul's gospel.
Verse 6, among whom are ye also called of Jesus Christ?
Paul tells them they're called of Jesus Christ among all nations.
His mystery information that went to all nations also included those of Israel who were not part of the little flock.
Salvation is no longer of the Jews.
Salvation is of all nations, including the Jews dwelling there.
Verse 7, To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Roman audience is Jews in the flesh and Gentiles.
These Gentiles are not special Greek Gentiles that bless Israel and feared God, as said by the 28ers.
They claim Paul wrote to different types of Gentiles.
They say earlier on he wrote to a group that he proselyted into Judaism and they were Jewish, even though they're called Greeks.
And a second group they call far hence heathens, or you'll hear them use the term Gentiles like us.
Regardless of the moniker they use, this teaching comes from Acts 28-ism, though most who teach it would never claim to be a 28er.
It was apparently picked up by some who were mid-Acts and they picked it up because it seemed to answer some of the tough questions.
But there's no denying that the idea of Paul teaching multiple gospels is an Acts 28 invention in order to explain away some of Paul's letters where he addressed Jewish beliefs or spoke to people who were clearly of Jewish background.
And some 28ers believe the church Paul preached to in Acts are not in the same body that those of us today are.
And they say the body of Christ's church didn't begin until after the book of Acts.
In other words, that's two bodies of Christ.
And other Acts 28ers, they'll say Paul taught the kingdom gospel during Acts and anyone saved then became a member of the little flock.
They say that when the term Gentile is used in Paul's Acts epistles, it really means Jews from other nations.
It gets confusing.
We'll try not to lose you as we attempt to untangle the spaghetti theology.
Apparently someone along the way, some mid-Acts teachers, thought the 28ers had a point.
But rather than accepting the nonsense of two different bodies, or Paul adding members to the little flock, they decided to take this information and make it something of their own.
And the idea of the Acts 9 belief of there being different types of Gentiles in the same body was born.
Multiple gospels preached by Paul became a widely accepted teaching among mid-Acts believers.
And in certain verses, they changed the word Greeks to mean Jewish proselytes, which aligns with the 28ers narrative of the term Greek, meaning God fears.
All these faulty teachings have one thing in common.
They've chosen to define audiences in scripture to fit their own headstrong ideas.
Rather than just believing God's word is perfect, leave it alone because it doesn't need tweaking.
We don't need a decoder ring to understand who Paul's talking to or for what purpose he speaks to them.
We just need to believe God, to consider what Paul says within the context of the words he wrote.
Regardless of how these 28ers or 28-ish positions define these terms, none of them make sense in light of the one new man of Ephesians 2:11, Wherefore remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands.
Think about that.
That's not hard.
Gentile and Jew, one new man.
Verse 12, That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
You see, Israel was a nation and anyone without citizenship was an alien concerning Israel.
Just like anyone who is not a citizen of the United States is an alien concerning the United States.
So we're still just talking about plain old Jews and Gentiles here in these verses.
Verse 13, But now in Christ Jesus ye, who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
This verse is not talking about being made nigh to Israel.
It's talking about being made nigh to God.
Get that.
That means having access to Him.
Access that was previously denied outside of Israel.
All Gentiles were aliens from Israel and strangers from their covenants because the Gentiles were without God in the world.
They had no hope.
Israel is the one that was already nigh.
This verse is talking about what the cross did in order for the Gentiles to now have direct access to God, just as Israel did when in obedience to Him.
Verse 14, For He is our peace, who hath made both one, Jew and Gentile, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, the Jew and Gentile.
This verse tells us how the cross made it possible for the once far off, far off from God, Gentiles, how they could become nigh to Him.
But the very last word of this verse should really tell us something.
Us.
Paul is the one writing this.
And he says the middle wall of partition, which separated Israel from the Gentile nations, he says was broken down between us.
That should settle it.
Paul, a former Jew, law-keeping Hebrew of Hebrews, includes himself.
So how does Paul include himself here if the one new man is made of Gentiles and Gentiles?
Paul's a Jew.
The 28ers got it wrong.
Grasping this will increase your understanding.
You will no longer have to approach Paul's epistles like a blind man who can't see and identify the makeup of the audience.
Verse 15, Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.
So the 28ers claim, yeah, the one new man is in Ephesians, but you can't find him outside the prison epistles.
Yet we find him standing very tall in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 13, For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be, listen, Jews or Gentiles.
Gentiles or Gentiles?
No, Jews or Gentiles.
Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, that's the one new man.
Whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one spirit.
So there goes the 28ers and the hybrids.
There goes their claim, taking a big face plant.
Christ abolished the law that separated the Jew from the Gentile, the circumcision from the uncircumcision.
That is the only way the middle wall of partition could be broken down between them.
This is clear, but we'll continue.
Drop down to verse 17.
Watch verse 17, And came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh.
Here they will misuse and twist up the verse.
The you which were afar off is anyone who previously did not have access to God without going through the nation Israel.
This is not a geographical location issue, as they say.
No, all Gentiles were afar off.
They were all afar off from God, and in order to become nigh, they had to become a citizen of Israel.
And if a citizen, then they were no longer called Gentiles.
They were not called Greeks either, because Greeks were just plain pagan Gentiles.
Verse 18, For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
There it is, access.
Through Christ, both Jews and Gentiles now have the same access unto the Father by the Spirit.
It does not matter if you are a citizen of Israel or not.
Verse 19, Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.
No longer is salvation of the Jews.
No one can become a citizen of Israel to gain access to God today.
It won't work.
So what is, quote, Ye are no more strangers and foreigners?
What does that concern?
The household of God, which true Israel also happens to be a part of, by the way.
By the cross and through the gospel, we are fellow citizens together and no longer strangers and foreigners to the household of God.
That's because we're adopted sons and daughters.
Not adopted sons and daughters of Israel.
Adopted sons and daughters of God.
Both Jew and Gentile can now become saints together and dwell in the same household as the one new man, the new creature.
And this very simple passage explains the way and means of how this happened.
By the cross.
Not at the cross.
At the cross, that's where the world's sins stop being imputed.
But by the cross.
When you figure this out, the imaginary idea of needing to have Paul preaching multiple gospels simply vanishes.
Furthermore, think about this.
If Paul preached multiple gospels, then 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 isn't your gospel.
As a matter of fact, if either the Acts 28ers or the Acts 28-leaning mid-actors, if either of them are right, then only about the last four to seven of Paul's letters really even concern you at all.
So much for this Book of Romans study.
You better get out of this book, thinking that anything you read is applicable to you.
Get out of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians pretty much out of the question.
Stay out of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, where Paul comforts those that are not appointed to wrath.
If Paul wrote a letter outside of prison, then it wasn't for you, according to the 28 doctrine.
Some of them take 1 and 2 Timothy out of the equation, too.
So you don't get to figure out how to establish an assembly or train up evangelists.
And the instruction to rightly divide the word of truth, that's not for you either.
But obviously they cherry-pick, see.
They'll have you rightly dividing the Bible, rightly dividing Paul's epistles, and then rightly dividing again, until you've divided yourself completely out of most mid-acts' beliefs.
That's the full circle of ignorance, the full tornado.
That's the conclusion, that's where you'll be left once you start down this faulty pathway.
Look, a Greek is still just a Gentile, or else they'd be called a Jew.
They wouldn't be called a Hebrew, because that term describes the bloodline generations of Israel.
But these Jews of Israel practiced a religion that anyone from any nation could become a part of, as long as they were obedient to that faith.
In time past, when Gentiles believed in God, the God of Israel, and practiced their faith, they became a part of Israel, not a part of Greece.
My wife once had a heavy-Acts 28-leaning mid-actor tell her that Cornelius, an Italian, by the way, was really a Greek, just because he blessed Israel and feared God.
Even though the scriptures, you know, not that they matter, but the scriptures clearly say he was of the Italian band.
I think God would have called him a Greek if he was a Greek.
So don't get caught up in this lazy way of explaining things.
It just, what it does is categorize Paul's letters into the, He wasn't talking about you there, or, He was preaching a different gospel here.
That's not a good category.
It may seem like a simple explanation at the onset, but you're going to run into problems when you take these claims to their logical conclusions.
There are some questions you won't be able to answer without making more stuff up along the way.
Like a snowball rolling down a big hill, your bad doctrines will just keep growing and picking up more stuff along the way.
You'll eventually have to abandon your claims or make up more stuff to verify them.
You can't get around it if you're a serious Bible student.
If your premise is wrong, you're going to draw wrong conclusions.
28ers get all bothered when Paul uses language like the law and the prophets and the prophesied Messiah.
But listen, when Paul is preaching the gospel to unbelieving Jews, why would he not talk about the law and prophets?
Why would he not talk about the prophesied Messiah?
What better way to prove that Jesus was the fulfillment of Israel's prophesied salvation?
Do you think they would not need to know that?
Exactly what do you think those of Berea were searching the scriptures for when Paul preached to them?
Why would he not come to them with his gospel in a way that they would understand and believe?
You see, he met people where they were.
If Paul came to unbelieving Jews with a gospel about some guy that was put to death in Jerusalem that wasn't anywhere in the prophecies, why would those Jews of Berea have believed him?
They would think Paul was not even talking about the same God they claimed to worship and reject him immediately as cut off from their nation, a false prophet, or someone who had gone mad, possessed by the devil.
If they called Jesus a blasphemer, what do you think they would do to Paul, whom they might assume is teaching them to forsake their God and worship this new one?
The idea that Paul wouldn't talk to unbelieving Jews about their Jewish prophecies and relate his gospel to the faith of their forefathers in order to win some is just about the most ridiculous idea that anyone has ever come up with.
So, while Paul did preach to different kinds of people with different religious backgrounds, he most certainly preached the same gospel.
He did so by meeting them exactly where they were.
To the Jews he became as a Jew, to those under the law as under the law, to those without the law as one without the law.
He became all things to all men so that he may win some.
And that is our pattern.
That's our pattern for sharing the gospel today.
This is the practical example for us in the book of Romans.
We meet people where they are, not where we think they should be.
Some just learn a new thing and then parrot the script, never digging down beneath the surface and proving all things, but they just accept what they were fed and continue to stay with the narrative.
They end up contorting the word to their own destruction.
As the saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
I'll conclude with this.
Much like Universalists, the Acts 28ers remind me of a group that Dr. Luke wrote about.
You'll find it in Acts chapter 17 verse 21.
Luke wrote, For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
And that describes many today.
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