In this day when there are as many doctrines as there are tree stumps and when every man is doing what is right in his own eyes, the "every wind of doctrine" of which Paul spoke seems to be blowing from our pulpits at hurricane force. It is the authors' intent to look at some of these "winds" from the pulpits using the Scriptures as a backdrop. We'll begin by considering just what a doctrine is.

The dictionary defines doctrine as a set of rules, a theory, or a belief that is practiced or taught. (In our culture the highest title we bestow upon an educator is that of a doctor which stems from the Latin word doctour that identified a teacher or a learned man.) The Hebrew word for doctrine in the Old Testament is leqach meaning mental instructions taught or received, while the New Testament word is didache derived from the Greek verb dao which means to learn or to teach. For the most part, the term doctrine is used in the Scriptures to identified teachings that are in agreement with God’s will and anointed of Him for a purpose. Nevertheless, there are other doctrines mentioned; e.g., the doctrine of devils (I Tim. 4:1), the doctrine of the Pharisees (Mt. 16:12), the doctrine of Balaam (Rev. 2:14), and the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes (Rev. 2:15).

When we consider the matter of doctrine, the book of Romans comes to mind for it is probably the greatest book in the Bible, doctrinally speaking; and near the end of the epistle the Apostle Paul has a very important word for the Church:

There are a couple of things that we should note about this passage. First, we should note that doctrine is not to be the only factor that Paul would have us consider when we fellowship one with one another. When dealing with new believers, Paul stressed that their feelings and spiritual welfare should take preeminence over their instruction into the doctrinal truths of the Church. For this reason, Paul is instructing the body to receive those who are weak in the faith, being very clear that we are to receive them with love and to make them feel welcome. Then he adds to this admonition some very sage advice, instructing them not to berate the problems in a weaker brother’s beliefs, which usually stem from a lack of experience and knowledge—explaining that to do so leads to disputations which, in turn, leads to doubts. As Christians, we should all make a mental note of this word of caution for it can affect not only our fellowship in the church, but all of our interactions with people. We should also be aware that a critical, intolerant spirit can affect our witness to those who are without. This is because all have beliefs, be they Christians or not; and to attack another’s belief is usually viewed as an attack on the character of the person himself. When we consider that a brother offended is harder won than a strong city (Prov. 18:19a), we can understand why we should try to be as gracious towards others as God has been to us in Christ Jesus. If we would just remember to be concerned for others and leave their doctrine to God and to those who have the oversee—and are led by the Spirit—we would all do well. After all, we are commanded to love one another, not to straighten each other out!

Also, we should note that we are not one another’s masters, but that there is only one Master and He is the master over all. Peter had this truth in mind when in his first epistle he exhorted the elders of the church not to fill their positions of leadership as lords over the flock, but to be examples of righteousness and humility for those in their charge (I Pet. 5:1-3). Neither are we to judge one another, for we are all but fellow servants of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to Him that we each must give account and it is before Him that we will each stand or fall on our own laurels. Then Paul makes a tremendously positive statement that applies to all of us and should be a great encouragement for us all. "Yea he [the believer being judged by others in the church] shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand" (Romans 14:3b). Oh, don’t let this slip by Church; for not only is God able to make us stand, but we shall be holden up!

And there is one other thing that should be stressed at this time. Although Paul’s advice to the Roman Church concerning the reception of babes-in-Christ to their fellowship is pertinent and needful, we can know that it in no way speaks disparagingly of sound doctrine. This is because Paul is the champion of the Church’s doctrine; and as to his attitude towards sound doctrine, we need but to read from his first letter to Timothy.

Also, as we can see from the following Scriptures, the Bible is full of passages that stress the importance of sound doctrine for the universal church as well as for the individual believers.

It is intriguing to note that doctrine, although many spoof it as being archaic and musty like the halls of some old museum, cannot be avoided by anyone; for our belief system is our doctrine and no one is without their set of opinions concerning God and spiritual things. For example, some believe the Bible when it says it is the Word of God, without error and settled in heaven, and that not one jot or tittle shall pass away until God Himself brings it to pass. Others believe the Bible to be full of myth and contradictions and feel they can get closer to God on a fishing trip than they can in a church house. Still others have never been exposed to the Gospel and they believe those things about a supreme being(s) that they have been taught. And then some claim to believe that there is no God, but seem driven to promote their belief, which leaves one to wonder just what is their driving force. All four belief systems, because of their nature, are doctrines; and because it is our nature, we are all vocal and supportive to some degree of whichever system we are in.

It is interesting that in the Old Testament, the word doctrine is mentioned only six times. Moses has the first mentioning in Deuteronomy 32:1-4.

In the remainder of this passage, Moses reminds the children of Israel that God has birthed their nation and that He is, therefore, the Father of it. He also brings to their remembrance that God graciously delivered them from the hands of their enemy and that He continually provided for them in the wilderness. "For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." says Moses, "He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye...so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." But then we read that Israel (the nation) grew fat and forsook God and lightly esteemed the Rock of their salvation, provoking Him to jealousy with strange gods and heathen, barbaric practices. Of this people God told Moses:

When reading the Old Testament, it is hard to resolve God’s attitude and actions toward the children of Israel in the wilderness with those of a godly father as set forth in the Scriptures. For example, such actions do not agree with the New Testament’s depiction of God our heavenly Father who jealously watches over His children, making all things in their lives work together for their good. The God of all who have been born again into the family of God is presented to the believers as a Father who is busy working in each of our lives conforming us unto the image of His Son our Savior. And when He is forced to deal with disobedience in a son or a daughter, it is not in His wrath for Paul tells us that all in Christ Jesus have been delivered from the wrath of God (I Th. 1:10; 5:9). Rather, God now deals with us as sons and daughters: chastising us when our actions warrant such—hoping thereby to deliver us from sin and its consequences and to restore our fellowship with Him and with the Body. In other words, the father of a nation and the father of an individual have little in common; and in this, God is no exception.

As just stated, in the Old Testament God is most often presented as the Father of the nation Israel while in the New Testament He is set forth as the intimate Father of the born-again individual. But this is not to imply that all of Israel were without faith or that God did not consider the faithful among Abraham's seed to be sons and daughters and have intimate relations with them. In fact, just the opposite is true and many of these relationships between God and the faithful are recorded in the Word so that we might better understand the walk of faith that God wants with each of us. Nevertheless, as per the covenants associated with the ages since Abraham (i.e., the Age of Promise, the Age of the Law, and the current Age of Grace), the intimacy of these relationships have varied. Of these differences the Apostle Peter wrote to the New Testament Church:

John the Baptist said that the law came by Moses, but Grace and truth by Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Moreover as the installer of the Age of Grace, Jesus was the first to teach the new doctrinal concepts associated with the New Testament as He began paving the way for the next age—THE MOST STARTLING NEW CONCEPT BEING OUR NEW RELATIONSHIP TO GOD THE FATHER.

In His famous conversation with Nicodemus (see John chapter 3), Jesus taught one of the absolutes of the Grace Age; i.e., to enter into the Kingdom of God, one must be born again of the Spirit of God. Except for some prophetic passages, this was a new concept on the spiritual scene. Up to this time, only Abraham and his descendants (and those strangers around them who wanted to embrace their religion and worship the God of Israel) professed God as Lord; and even then, they worshipped God from a distance through rituals and reverence. True, the Old Testament saints were not always subject to God, but they were all under the auspices of the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, though, the New Testament saints, by virtue of the new birth, are actually members of the family of God; and as such, are heavenly citizens (Eph. 2:17-20; Ph. 3:20). Consequently, the New Testament differentiates between the Kingdom of God which is comprised of heavenly citizens only (only alluded to in Old Testament prophetic passages) and the earthly Kingdom of Heaven which now contains not only the Hebrews, but also the New Testament Church with its good fish and its trash fish. (See the parables of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew chapter 13.)

We should also note that during those ages before Christ’s visitation, the Holy Spirit dwelt in the midst of Israel in the Holy of Holies in their temple; and He only acted upon men as the need would arise. But in our age, the Age of Grace that Jesus came to usher in, men and women are now born anew into the family of God; and by virtue of the new birth, the body of the New Testament believers have now become the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 6:19-20).

When we consider that due to the new birth the believers of our age become heavenly citizens, we can better understand our Lord’s teaching of Matthew 11:7-11 wherein He told the multitudes concerning John the Baptist:

How is the least of the believers greater than this the greatest of the Prophets? Well, the answer is at least two-fold. This is so because in the new doctrine that Christ brought to the world, we are positionally greater—each believer being begotten into the family of God by exercising faith in the divine seed, the Word of God. But also, it is so because we are blessed as none before us could imagine (and as even we have trouble comprehending)—blessed in that the Holy Spirit has taken residence in our bodies, becoming the earnest of our inheritance, and blessing us with joy unspeakable and full of glory (II Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14; I Pet. 1:8).

How does all of this affect us personally? For beginners, it affects us because under grace we believers have entered into a relationship with God that those before us could only wonder about. True, God did reveal Himself to the Israelites through awesome and fearful apparitions, but except for those rare occasions when God would reveal Himself to certain Old Testament saints, those of ages past knew Him only as the Father of their nation. Today, though, we become heavenly citizens because of the new birth (Ph. 3:20) and as such, we can now know God intimately as our Heavenly Father (Ro. 8:15-18). To illustrate the difference between our experiences with God as our heavenly Father and the experiences of those in the past, a fair analogy (except for the fact that God was always a live, moving force behind the scenes) might be our relationship to George Washington as the father of our nation as compared to our relationship with our actual father. We’re taught to respect the person of George Washington and to reverence what he did, but when we need a loving touch or have an actual need which must be met, we need a father who is with us—one who is able and willing to meet our needs. Thank God that because of what Christ did for us at Calvary, we now have such a Father in the spiritual realm; and to this, both the Word and the Spirit attest. Moreover, it has been the experience and the testimony of every believer that when we draw nigh unto Him, He reciprocates. Furthermore, as all who dare to walk with Him can affirm, He does go before us to open doors and to make all things in our lives work together for our good, though for a while (a period of testing) it often seems that just the opposite is true. However, from the visible fruit of today’s Church, it is evident that we make too little of our new relationship to God. Perhaps it would help us to press in if we would remember that it was God’s idea that we be called His sons and daughters. It was Christ Himself who said: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask?" (Lk. 11:13 cf. Mt 7:7-11; Mt. 6:8).

Sadly, the spirit of the Judaizers is still in the church. It is still wielding its influence through those who on the one hand would teach of a loving, caring God who sent His Son to set men free, while on the other hand they would have God’s children walking in fear of Him. With an uncommon zeal they present Him as a stern taskmaster who is always ready to thrash His children and to cut them off from the living unless they behave in some prescribed way. (Of course, each of these teachers—and there are many—has his [or her] own prescription for righteousness.)

Of the Judaizers in his day, Paul took occasion to mark them when he wrote to the Romans:

As we will see when we get on into our study, the spirit of the Judaizers is at the root of most every wind of doctrine that blows contrary to that set forth in the New Testament. This is because the spirit of error can only get into the church when its members subject themselves to some form of the law. (Remember, Paul taught that the law only stirs up the lusts of the flesh [Ro. 7:5-11]; therefore, to put the law in charge of our spiritual life is kind of like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.) Also as we’ll soon see in our study, the underlying purpose of each of these contrary winds is that of putting fear into the heart of the child of God and, thereby, getting him to doubt the love and the goodness of his heavenly Father.

We find the parable of the spiritual virgins in Matthew chapter 25. Let’s read.

This parable is part of our Lord’s final teaching to the disciples as they met on the Mount of Olives the Tuesday before the Friday He was crucified. To correctly interpret and apply this parable, it must be viewed in the whole of that particular prophetic teaching, which is labeled The Olivett Discourse. The lengthiest version of The Olivett Discourse is recorded in Matthew 24 and 25; and of all our Lord’s prophetic teachings, it is the longest in the Bible. (The discourse is considered to be the bridge between the Old and New Testament prophets, and it contains keys that the Church must have to unlock the prophetic portions of the Bible.) When we consider that the parable of the ten virgins is included in this the foremost of all our Lord’s prophetic teachings, we can deduce that it, too, is prophetic in nature and must be viewed as such to be understood.

The parable of the ten virgins is built upon the concept that God has set aside certain people for Himself. This concept was set forth in the Old Testament, and it was brought forward to the New Testament. For the most part, the people "set aside" in the Old Testament were the Israelites; although at times, they would have neighbors who would also fear and worship the God of Abraham and Jacob. (These, God accepted; for it was his will from the beginning for Israel to be an evangelistic nation [De. 4:5-7; cf. Jonah].) In the New Testament these "called-out" ones are the born-again believers in the church.

We also need to understand the part that man’s free will has played in each set of virgins. For the Old Testament Hebrews who were all made virgins by God’s promise to Abraham, each individual was ultimately responsible for making his or her own adult choice whether they wanted to remain a virgin or if they wanted to reject the goodness of God (see Ezekiel, chapter 18). But for the New Testament era, one becomes a virgin by virtue of exercising his or her will and receiving Christ Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

In the parable of the ten virgins, both virgin churches ("called-out ones"—i.e., Israel and the New Testament Church) are represented; and the application of scriptural numerology will help us to understand the parable. The virgins, of course, are the recipients of God’s grace on the earth; and as such, they are introduced as five and five—the number five representing grace. In addition, because the number ten signifies full spiritual responsibility and because God has chosen to meet His responsibility to mankind through His churches, the use of ten virgins in the parable has spiritual significance as well.

Now, let’s look at the scene painted by the parable. At the end of our age just before our Lord returns for His Church at the midnight hour, we see ten virgins who have just been awakened from their sleep and are busy trimming their lamps.

In the Bible the lamp is used to represent God’s Word; so at the end of our age both Israel and the Church will be given to studying the Word of God—and given the fact that God’s Word will not return to Him void, we can expect some very spectacular results when all this comes about. Although we are not told just what will wake God’s chosen from their spiritual slumber, we do know that the end-time signs will be taking place all around them and that the Spirit of expectation will be stirring. Also, we see in the Scriptures that tribulation will be trying the whole earth at the end time. In the Old Testament God would often use tribulation to bring a rebellious Israel to its senses and back to His cover. If this end-time tribulation follows suit, then it could play a strong role in Israel coming to its senses and calling out to God in their hour of need. The end-time tribulation will also cause the virgins in the church to examine their objectives in life and to forsake the sins that so easily beset them.

We should point out that although Israel will be expecting their Messiah to come to the earth, they are taught that He will be coming for the first time. For these Jews the time of the Great Tribulation will be critical, for only those Jews who endure (maintain their expectations) to the end of this time will get to enter under God’s cover of grace (Mt 24:13 cf. Zech. 13:6-9). Although they will not have any oil (the Holy Spirit), nevertheless, they will be doing their part to usher in the Kingdom Age by fulfilling the Scriptures regarding end-time Jacob. This will be the generation of Hebrews that will have been gathered from all nations and restored to their Biblical homeland, the generation that will be left when the Church goes up in the Rapture. The faithful of this generation, those whose faith in God will endure through the horrible time of tribulation at the end of our age (Mt. 24:13), will be given two wings of a great eagle, that they might fly into their place in the wilderness where they will be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time [3 1/2 yrs.], from the face of the serpent [Satan] (Rev. 12:14).

Those with this interpretation have many problems with their understanding; the most obvious being their use of this passage with its difficulty of interpretation, to contradict those straight forward passages that are easy to understand.

Another of the Judaizers' mistakes is their failure to consider the word "know" as it is used in the passage. This word "know" is translated from the Greek word ginosko (its Hebrew Old Testament equivalent is yada); and its various forms have many meanings, depending upon their context. It is often used in the Scriptures to express the most intimate of relationships; and this is not the only place that it is used in conjunction with virgins (cf. Gen. 19:8; 24:16; Judges. 21:12; etc.) It is also used in Matthew’s account of the virgin birth.

As the next quote with "know" illustrates, the Bible often uses earthly concepts so that we might be able to grasp a heavenly counterpart.

Throughout the New Testament we see that God made man and woman and their subsequent union so that we might have some insight into the intimate, spiritual relationship He wants with us. Nowhere is this particular comparison of the earthly to the heavenly more clearly stated than in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

So then, the Word is explicit that the Good Shepherd does know each and every believer in a mysterious, intimate way. And by the way, not only does Christ know the believer, but John tells us that the true believer also knows God. "...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit" (I Jn. 4:12b-13). Consequently, those who try to make the parable of the ten virgins say that the Holy Spirit will forsake the errant believers and vacate their bodies, claiming that He never knew them are teaching gobbledygook; in other words, it just doesn't make sense. Furthermore, if someone can read the following Scripture and still teach such, something just has to be wrong; and it is the words of our Savior that mark them!