Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I & II Thessalonians, I & II Timothy, Titus, and Philemon

Hebrews, James, I & II Peter

I, II, & III John

Jude and Revelation

Let’s look first at the writings of James and Peter, then we’ll examine the book of Hebrews in some detail.

In James' epistle, the very first verse identifies it as a Jewish-Christian epistle.

(James 1:1)
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered, greeting.

In the passage from 1:5 to 1:8, we see some pure "transitional" wording that slams even the slightest wavering of faith; declaring that this person who wavers will receive nothing for his prayers. This is in direct contrast to Jesus’ instructions to knock and keep on knocking when we approach the heavenly Father in prayer. The key to understanding this passage is found in verse 8: "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."

In the church this double-minded man is often depicted as a Christian who is unstable because he has one eye on the world and one on Christ. This teaching goes on to say that the prayers of such a man will go unanswered, but there is no New Testament Scripture to back this interpretation. Although it’s true that such a Christian will be unstable, still, concerning the prayers of the saints (and all in Christ Jesus are considered by God to be saints), the answer to our prayers may be "yes," or "no," or something different than what we’ve asked for, but the sincere prayers of a child of God will never go unheard or unanswered. It is true that sin can hinder us in our prayers, particularly if it is not dealt with; but its main hindrance lies in the guilt associated with the sin, guilt that makes us hesitant to approach our heavenly Father for forgiveness and deliverance. Nevertheless, the abiding Holy Spirit will convict and discomfort the believer until the sin is dealt with—be it by confession and repentance (I Jn. 1:8-10), or by chastisement designed to bring about repentance (II Tim. 2:24-26), or by the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (I Cor. 5:4-5).

This brings us to a consideration: if this double-minded man of whom James spoke is not a Christian, then who is he? To answer that question, we need but to look at the passage in it context; whereupon, we will recognize this "double-minded man" to be a "transitional Jew" who can’t make up his mind if he wants to believe the Pharisees and the Judaizers or the Holy Spirit as to if Christ was really Israel’s Messiah. That James knew he was dealing with vacillating Jews can be seen from the following verses:

(James 3:11-12)
Doth a fountain [in the spiritual, a source of life] send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
Can the fig tree [Israel under the law], my brethren, bear olive berries [the fruit of the faith of Father Abraham]? either a vine [the New Testament Church], figs [the incomplete, unsatisfactory fruit of Israel under the law]? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

In the first verse of his first epistle, we see Peter also addressing the Jews of the transition.

(I Peter 1:1)
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered [the Jews dispersed by the Romans and the previous Gentile powers before them] throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,...

Further, in the first chapter of his second epistle, he again addresses his Hebrew brethren.

(II Peter 1:10-11)
Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall;
For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

(Hebrews 1:1-3)
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high...

(Hebrews 2:1-4)
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will?

(Hebrews 3:7-12; 19)
Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God...
So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

(Hebrews 4:1-2; 6; 11; 14)
Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them [in the wilderness]: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it...
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief...
Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief...
Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession...

(Hebrews 5:8-9; 11-12)
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him...
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat...

(Hebrews 6:1; 4-6)
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God...
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, [i.e., the conviction of sin and the manifestation of Christ: both the work of the Holy Spirit, which was especially powerful among this unique generation of Jews because of their unique needs]
If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Then in the passage from Hebrews 5:6-10:23, we find a discourse having to do with the priesthood. In the passage the author presents a rather illusive Old Testament individual called Melchizedek (Gr.-Melchisedec) whose name means "King of Righteousness." He is only mentioned twice in the Old Testament. The first mentioning is found in Gen. 14:18-20.

This particular event took place just after Abraham had followed the marauding bands of some nearby thieving nations who had pillaged Sodom and Gomorrah and taken captive his nephew Lot. Abraham and his trained army delivered Lot and all who were taken with him. Abraham was on his way home from the fray when the meeting with Melchizedek took place. Undoubtedly, just as Abraham would later recognize one of the three angels on their way to deal with Sodom and Gomorrah to be the Christ in His future earthly form, so did he recognized Christ in this theophany (and Old Testament visit by the Christ in His New Testament body). He further understood Him to be THE HIGH PRIEST of the Lord God Almighty.

The other mentioning of Melchizedek in the Old Testament is found in Psalms 110, which is a rather short Psalm of only seven verses. It begins with a verse that is often quoted by the New Testament writers, a verse that lets us fix the event of which it speaks on the Bible time line.

(Psalms 110:1)
The Lord [God the Father] said unto my Lord [God the Son], Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

This speaks of our Lords final event in His Visitation; i.e., His ascension after His resurrection (see Mt. 22:44; Mk. 12:36; Lk. 20:42-43 & Acts 2:34-35).

Then in verse four of this Messianic Psalm, David writes:

(Psalms 110:4)
The Lord [God the Father] hath sworn and will not repent, Thou [God the Son] art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

In its context we see that this refers to the time when Christ will rule the world with a rod of iron; i.e., the Kingdom Age wherein Christ will be both King and High Priest.

In this regard, the wording of Hebrews 7:1-2 is even more explicit:

(Hebrews 7:1-2)
For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;
To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of Righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace.

Then the writer of Hebrews goes on to show how that this Jesus the Son of God that they had crucified was the only one who could fulfill the type or office of Melchisedec, explaining that like Melchisedec, Christ was a priest with no earthly predecessor, God being His Father. Therefore, He was a priest after the order of Melchisedec and not after the Levitical order (those of the family of Levi) who had to make a sin offering for themselves every year before they could make offerings for the Israelites. Because He was without sin, Christ was able to offer Himself once for all time for the sin of all—that in Him all might be forgiven. The writers of Hebrews summed up his explanation thusly:

(Hebrews 7:9-12; 19:21-22)
And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.
For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law...
For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God...
(For those [Levitical] priests were made without an oath; but this [Jesus] with an oath by him [God the Father] that said unto him [God the Son], The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec:)...
By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.

(Hebrews 10:19-23)
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
And having an high priest over the house of God;
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience [by the blood of Christ], and our bodies washed with [the] pure water [of the Word].
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)

The writer follows this lengthy discourse on the high priests of Israel with a stern warning for his fellow Hebrews.

(Hebrews 10:26-29)
For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses’s law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace?

As we’ve said, these dire warnings were calculated to strike fear in the hearts of the wavering transitional Jews with the goal in mind of getting them to understand and accept the fact that Christ was their Messiah. This understanding was of the utmost importance to these Jews, for to reject Him as their Messiah and as the Savior of the world was to doom their souls. It is unfortunate, though, that men (and women?) in the church will pound the pulpit as they lash the back of those in the pews, bellowing out warnings that were written for the transitional Jews. "If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth," they thunder, "then there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins!" Of course, the doctrinal error of such preaching comes about because their text is not in its proper context. When viewed in its proper context, this passage is seen not to be referring to the sins of the flesh, but to the sin of those Jews who were rejecting the sacrificial death of their Messiah. In fact, all such passages from the Jewish-Christian epistles, when rightly discerned, can only apply to those Jews who had seen the mighty hand of God at work in their midst and who had been enlightened by the precious Holy Spirit that this Jesus was the Christ (their Messiah).

Again, the central theme of the Jewish-Christian epistles is a warning to this unique generation of Abraham’s offspring that they cannot fall back on their relationship to Abraham and expect to be accepted of God. In fact, for them to do so would be to fall into the hands (the fearful judgment) of God. And to try to apply these passages to the Church can only be counter-productive; for instead of producing faith (and repentance when needed) their misapplication produces fear and despair in the hearts of the Lord’s babes whose new, sensitive nature wants only to please their Savior. This being the case, let me sum up here by looking at two short passages that the writer of Hebrews used to sum up his word to the Jews of his day.

(Hebrews 12:25)
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh [the Holy Spirit]. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth [Moses], much more shall not we [The transitional Jews of Paul's day] escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.

And finally, he wrote:

(Hebrews 13:10)
We [the born-again Hebrew/Christians] have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

It is interesting to note that, even though the day of the transitional Jew is long gone, the tactics that Satan used against them are not too unlike his attack on today’s Church. By playing on fear and pride, Satan pulled at the transitional Jews by appealing to their traditions through the teachings of the Judaizers. In like manner, he now has his Modern Judaizers in the church. These teachers are feeding the pride of the self-righteous and introducing into the Body of Christ the burdens and the fears of the law. Though today’s message has been stripped of any appeals to return to Abraham and Moses, still, the "letter of the law that killeth" is there (II Cor. 3:6) and the results are just as hurtful as ever.

Of course, Jesus knew before hand that all of this would take place; and in His parables to the Church concerning the kingdom of heaven, Jesus marked those in the church who would continue the work of the Judaizers, comparing them to the tares of the field.

(Matthew 13:24-26)
Another parable put he forth unto them saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man [Christ] which sowed good seed [the Word] in his field:
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares [false teachers] also.

We have already stressed that for the born-again believer, doctrine, be it good or bad, cannot effect our standing in Christ Jesus. This is because all who have exercised their faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, accepting Him as Lord and Savior, have had the righteousness of Christ put to their account. But we’ve also noted that doctrine is critical to our walk of faith because bad doctrine can undermine our faith and make us to be fruitless in this life and without treasures in the life to come. Of course, the enemy fully understands this, which explains his efforts. But there is another reason for sound doctrine of which the devil is also aware, one that is even more crucial than that of perfecting the saints. For you see, salvation can be presented to the lost only as God presents it. Otherwise, He will not honor it, for it will not honor His Son. That is, it must be presented as a free gift to man that was totally paid for by the atoning death of Christ on the cross. This being the case, those who come to God bringing the blood of Christ plus something else will be denied. And in this Satan has reason to rejoice; for the only victories he will experience in his existence is that of destroying another being, be it an angel or a man.

It is imperative for us to understand that the only way God will receive a sinner is for that sinner to repent of his or her sins and to exercise the measure of faith in Christ Jesus that God has given to each of us. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: Not of works lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:8-10).

So, the Bible is explicit that we are saved unto good works, not by them. Therefore, those who present a doctrine with ingredients other than repentance and faith in the Christ of the Bible are planting the seed of the tare.

SATAN'S INSTALLMENT PLAN

Also, we cannot warn strongly enough about those who would have the born-again believers paying for their salvation on the installment plan. This is simply plan "B" for the devil; for when he realizes he has lost a soul to Christ, then he’s all out to stop the new believer from serving his Savior. To illustrate what the devil is about, what if someone were to give you something that you needed and wanted; but as this person turned to leave, he said, almost as an afterthought, "by the way, if you really want to keep this gift, you’ll have to pay me $10.00 a month for the rest of your life." Indignation would set in, right? But why is it that we can see when someone is deceiving us in temporal things, and not when the things of real value (those things eternal) are involved? This deception and blindness is the work of the spirit of the tare; and the people promoting its doctrines are either tares, or those who are under their teaching and influence. But, regardless of whether these legalistic teachers are tares or are just acting as tares, the results are one and the same. They insert the law (and the flesh) into the plan of salvation and thereby abort the process; or they insert legalism into the walk of faith and put the believer in bondage to the flesh.

TAKE CARE, CHURCH!

The Bible also warns us of the flattering tongue (Psa. 12:1-4; Prov. 28:23; I Th. 2:4-5). And this warning would seem to especially apply to those who claim to be prophets, but who prophesy only good, proclaiming how great is one’s ministry, how great is one’s love, how great is one’s place with God, etc. In the Old Testament, Israel was often warned of those who tickled the ears; and we, too, have such warnings in the New Testament (e.g., II Tim. 4:3-4).

The following is a list of some of the end-time tactics that will help us to recognize the tares/"Judaizers" that will be (?are already?) attempting to replace or taint the liberty of the Gospel with their legalism.

In reality, the distortions of the Scriptures by the Judaizers/tares, and by those being deceived by them who do their work, are so numerous that it would be laborious and unpractical to try to include them all in a book (see II Pet. 3:15-18 cf. Acts 20:26-32). This is because they attempt to make every Scripture agree with their bias. It is sufficient to say that any teaching that stirs up doubt concerning God’s love, or fear concerning His promises, is suspect and should be scrutinized in the light of the whole counsel of God’s Word. This list we've just compiled includes only a few of the doctrinal errors which qualify as spiritual leavening. But it is an important list in that it helps us to identify the false teachers in our midst by bringing to light the most common errors of those who wrest the Words of life.