The Two Ages: Romans 8:1 Part 2 Bible Teaching

WELCOME
PRAYER
SONG
SILENCE
ROMANS 8.1 Part II
Two Age Board Description
June 13th 2021

We left off at verse 1 which is a beautiful continuation of chapter 7’s personal message from Paul.

At verse 1 he says,

Therefore, there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

And we talked about that direct message without any qualifiers or disqualifiers.

We pointed out that there are two segments Paul attaches to believers not being under any condemnation. Remember?

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are . . .

in Christ Jesus, and then the second that Paul adds is

who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Now, what I am about to teach is admittedly dicey relative to most of the Christian community.

It’s part B of this verse but I would be remiss if I passed over this passage about condemnation without mentioning it.

Remember, two judgements faced “that world or that age” when Paul was writing.

The first was the judgement of physical destruction of the former age of material religion which was carried out by the Romans when Jerusalem and her inhabitants were wiped out.

John the Baptist came and said that “the axe was laid at the root of the tree” and that that tree was going to be cast into the fire.

That was the physical judgement that was going to fall upon Israel. And who would be destroyed? Whomever did not receive and believe that Jesus was the Messiah sent to save them.

The second condemnation everyone faced at that time is called the Great White Throne judgement. This judgment would occur when that age ended and would be signaled hell opening up and giving up her dead and then dead, small and great would go before the throne of God and if their names were not found in the Book they would be cast into the lake of Fire.

Revelation points out that once this occurred, we would enter into a new age or a new economy, one where everything about the Kingdom is spiritually based – and there would never be an end to it.

So, when Paul says at verse 1

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

We have to talk about condemnation today, from God, in the lives of those who are His human creations.

The word “condemnation” is taken from the Greek is KATAKRINO – which is a compound word made up of Kata and Krino.

Let’s first take the word “krino.” It means to “try someone as in a court of law, to decree, determine, esteem, judge, call into question or sentence.”

Whenever we read the word Judge in the New Testament that is the word used – Krino.

That in and of itself is a powerful word.

But by adding kata, which means down to it as a prefix, we get the combined meaning of katakrino as “down-Judged.”

Meaning an “adverse adjudication,” a down sentence or verdict, “a condemnation.”

Now, most people believe that down-judgments or condemnations from God upon us have been happening since Jesus ascended on out to this very moment and that God is and will forever more sending condemned people to hell – fiery, eternal and endless.

Listen, this was certainly the case for all souls since the fall all the way out to Paul’s and even beyond.

So, when Paul wrote this to the church at Rome what he said was absolutely true BECAUSE there was awaiting the two coming down-judgements as had been promised in scripture – the material down-judgement on Jerusalem and the Great White Throne down-judgement on the souls of all who died without Christ afterward.

Unique to my understanding of scripture (and others) is that I maintain that all the passages in scripture have been fulfilled and the age to come, which has been described in places by Jeremiah, Isaiah, the writer of Hebrews, and John the Revelator (in Revelation 21-22) and therefore the world’s inhabitants are no longer facing a wrathful condemnation to come NOR is the Great White Throne judgment going to happen in the future.

From what I can see the finished victorious work of Christ bathed the heavens and earth in Him and His power in that day and all things in heaven and earth were placed under His feet but His Father.

There are ten thousand ways to Sunday that the model I am about to share with you answers some chronological issues with what Christians have maintained, but they require more than just easy answers.

For instance, I am doing a funeral for a man who was not religious but sought God and died tragically at his own hand.

The standard response Christians would have to give his grieving mother is he is in hell.

Some might say that right before he took his own life his asked Jesus into his heart thereby escaping hell altogether.

But the one that doesn’t make an sense relative to scripture is what Christians say about Christian who die today.

Do you know what they say? They say absent from the body present with the Lord. They say people go straight to the loving arms of God.

That’s all great stuff . . . but it’s not biblical.
Not biblically chronological.

What the Bible describes is going to God in heaven after the Great White Throne Judgment not before.

Before the Great White Throne judgment people die and go to either hell or paradise and wait to be judged at the Great White Throne.

Then the heavenly destinations are meted out for everyone. I mean it makes no sense for people to die in 522AD, go to heaven and live with God, only to be taken before him in the future and judged as to whether he belongs in heaven or not.

So, relative to this passage, we have to ask ourselves, is God still DOWN JUDGING the world?

And instead of simple fix-it answers, we are going to use the whiteboard and present ourselves with another heuristic.

The FIRST Unfortunate Model The SECOND Unfortunate Model (Gospels out of context)
Old (material) and New (spiritual) together Fail to see Jesus teachings were part of the Old Covenant
as he introduced the New that would come in stages in the future.

The Former Age The Age to Come (by and through the Messiah)
PHYSICALLY BASED SPIRITUALLY BASED
KINGDOM KINGDOM

Eternally Increasing Kingdom (Isaiah 9)
(2nd) (ADD LATER then OVERLAP)
Head – First Adam Head -Second Adam
Fall Reconciliation
Sin entered world World-sin paid for
God estab. a material God estab. a spiritual
Kingdom (see box now) Kingdom
Objectively Described Subjectively lived and understood
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob All Children By Faith
COI Children of God
Material Religion Spiritual Relationship
Law and the Prophets God writes upon the hearts and minds of Individual 1!
Jerusalem New Jerusalem
Old Earth and Heaven New Heaven and New Earth
Temple made w/hands Believers are the temple
Priesthood Lineage Believers are the priesthood
Animal Sacrifices Believers are living sacrifices
Genealogy All peoples are welcome
Life Directed to Israel Life Lived by all
Destination for all – sheol Destination for all – Heavenly Realm
Paradise for Faithful New Jerusalem for faith-filled
Prison for faithless Outside New Jerusalem

Birth of Christ (Which is the birth of Eternal Life for all who believe)
Beginning of New Age began with an overlap of the former material age for fulfillment by Him
Beginning of the End of Former Age (John the Baptist – Who has warned you of the wrath to come)
Beginning of the End of Material Religion (The ax is laid at the root of the Tree but it was not yet)
Jesus came to “His own”
Some will see me coming in the clouds
Apostles called to the House of Israel to prepare
Repent before the end (Matthew 24-25)

Apostolic Church

Former Age Age to Come

Return of Christ (as Promised within a Generation)
“Judgement (condemnation) and salvation (reward) for Bride
The complete wipe out of material religion had to occur
Temple/People/Genealogy/Objective Religious Expressions
All things shaken so the only thing that remains is unshakable
The Kingdom of God is within us writing on our hearts and minds
The Kingdom is eternally increasing Isaiah 9:6 (hence need to share)

THE CONTINUATION OF MATERIAL RELIGION HAS DONE WHAT?

Look at the history of every single attempt on earth! Every one of them!

Shake-ability of Men
Crime and sin in God’s name
Spiritual and ecclesiastical abuses
Material focus
Denominational divisions
Catholicism
Orthodoxy
Reformation – thousands of divisions
Restorationism – hundreds of divisions
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE RESULTS OF THIS APPROACH TO REINSTITUTE OBJECTIFIED BRICK AND MORTAR RELIGION and to IGNORE WHAT GOD HAS PLAINLY REVEALED IN SCRIPTURE – even out to the present day (in Jesus name)
WARFARE, HATRED, DIVISION, BLOODSHED, and DEATH (Inquisitions, Reformation, Mormonism)
Interfaith and even innerfaith hate
Domination and Bondage
Ecclesiastical Tyranny (when all believers ought to be free)
Manipulation of lives
Money grubbing

Where are we really, in the face of what God has done completely through the victory of His only begotten Son?

SO . . . TODAY . . .

God is all in all. He is called the Lord God Almighty. He sits on one throne in the Resurrected body of our Lord governing all things.

The world has been reconciled to Him.
He is not angry. He is not condemning anyone. He FIXED the problem for us!

All are free to choose how to live – for themselves or for Him. We are all daily choosing to eat from the forbidden tree or not.
He writes on the hearts and minds of those who are His. He is with those who are His; His love is unconditional.

The Spirit and its fruit is Primary and Preferential.
His Written Word is Secondary and Deferential.
Church Traditions are Tertiary and are at best Referential,
And brick and mortar material religion with all of its demands is utterly inconsequential.

So, when we read the word now, principles come forth by the spirit and they way we test our interpretation of them is whether they result in the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Do they bring us love, joy, peace, mercy, kindness and produce longsuffering. Or do they cause us to be judgmental, angry, unkind, merciless, impatient and the like. The Spirit is governing everything in this age of God’s Spiritual Kingdom and that is a very different image than what materially based religionists want us to live by.

WELCOME
PRAYER
SONG
SILENCE
ROMANS 8.1 Part II
Two Age Board Description
June 13th 2021

We left off at verse 1 which is a beautiful continuation of chapter 7’s personal message from Paul.

At verse 1 he says,

Therefore, there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

And we talked about that direct message without any qualifiers or disqualifiers.

We pointed out that there are two segments Paul attaches to believers not being under any condemnation. Remember?

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are . . .

in Christ Jesus, and then the second that Paul adds is

who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Now, what I am about to teach is admittedly dicey relative to most of the Christian community.

It’s part B of this verse but I would be remiss if I passed over this passage about condemnation without mentioning it.

Remember, two judgements faced “that world or that age” when Paul was writing.

The first was the judgement of physical destruction of the former age of material religion which was carried out by the Romans when Jerusalem and her inhabitants were wiped out.

John the Baptist came and said that “the axe was laid at the root of the tree” and that that tree was going to be cast into the fire.

That was the physical judgement that was going to fall upon Israel. And who would be destroyed? Whomever did not receive and believe that Jesus was the Messiah sent to save them.

The second condemnation everyone faced at that time is called the Great White Throne judgement. This judgment would occur when that age ended and would be signaled hell opening up and giving up her dead and then dead, small and great would go before the throne of God and if their names were not found in the Book they would be cast into the lake of Fire.

Revelation points out that once this occurred, we would enter into a new age or a new economy, one where everything about the Kingdom is spiritually based – and there would never be an end to it.

So, when Paul says at verse 1

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

We have to talk about condemnation today, from God, in the lives of those who are His human creations.

The word “condemnation” is taken from the Greek is KATAKRINO – which is a compound word made up of Kata and Krino.

Let’s first take the word “krino.” It means to “try someone as in a court of law, to decree, determine, esteem, judge, call into question or sentence.”

Whenever we read the word Judge in the New Testament that is the word used – Krino.

That in and of itself is a powerful word.

But by adding kata, which means down to it as a prefix, we get the combined meaning of katakrino as “down-Judged.”

Meaning an “adverse adjudication,” a down sentence or verdict, “a condemnation.”

Now, most people believe that down-judgments or condemnations from God upon us have been happening since Jesus ascended on out to this very moment and that God is and will forever more sending condemned people to hell – fiery, eternal and endless.

Listen, this was certainly the case for all souls since the fall all the way out to Paul’s and even beyond.

So, when Paul wrote this to the church at Rome what he said was absolutely true BECAUSE there was awaiting the two coming down-judgements as had been promised in scripture – the material down-judgement on Jerusalem and the Great White Throne down-judgement on the souls of all who died without Christ afterward.

Unique to my understanding of scripture (and others) is that I maintain that all the passages in scripture have been fulfilled and the age to come, which has been described in places by Jeremiah, Isaiah, the writer of Hebrews, and John the Revelator (in Revelation 21-22) and therefore the world’s inhabitants are no longer facing a wrathful condemnation to come NOR is the Great White Throne judgment going to happen in the future.

From what I can see the finished victorious work of Christ bathed the heavens and earth in Him and His power in that day and all things in heaven and earth were placed under His feet but His Father.

There are ten thousand ways to Sunday that the model I am about to share with you answers some chronological issues with what Christians have maintained, but they require more than just easy answers.

For instance, I am doing a funeral for a man who was not religious but sought God and died tragically at his own hand.

The standard response Christians would have to give his grieving mother is he is in hell.

Some might say that right before he took his own life his asked Jesus into his heart thereby escaping hell altogether.

But the one that doesn’t make an sense relative to scripture is what Christians say about Christian who die today.

Do you know what they say? They say absent from the body present with the Lord. They say people go straight to the loving arms of God.

That’s all great stuff . . . but it’s not biblical.
Not biblically chronological.

What the Bible describes is going to God in heaven after the Great White Throne Judgment not before.

Before the Great White Throne judgment people die and go to either hell or paradise and wait to be judged at the Great White Throne.

Then the heavenly destinations are meted out for everyone. I mean it makes no sense for people to die in 522AD, go to heaven and live with God, only to be taken before him in the future and judged as to whether he belongs in heaven or not.

So, relative to this passage, we have to ask ourselves, is God still DOWN JUDGING the world?

And instead of simple fix-it answers, we are going to use the whiteboard and present ourselves with another heuristic.

The FIRST Unfortunate Model The SECOND Unfortunate Model (Gospels out of context)
Old (material) and New (spiritual) together Fail to see Jesus teachings were part of the Old Covenant
as he introduced the New that would come in stages in the future.

The Former Age The Age to Come (by and through the Messiah)
PHYSICALLY BASED SPIRITUALLY BASED
KINGDOM KINGDOM

Eternally Increasing Kingdom (Isaiah 9)
(2nd) (ADD LATER then OVERLAP)
Head – First Adam Head -Second Adam
Fall Reconciliation
Sin entered world World-sin paid for
God estab. a material God estab. a spiritual
Kingdom (see box now) Kingdom
Objectively Described Subjectively lived and understood
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob All Children By Faith
COI Children of God
Material Religion Spiritual Relationship
Law and the Prophets God writes upon the hearts and minds of Individual 1!
Jerusalem New Jerusalem
Old Earth and Heaven New Heaven and New Earth
Temple made w/hands Believers are the temple
Priesthood Lineage Believers are the priesthood
Animal Sacrifices Believers are living sacrifices
Genealogy All peoples are welcome
Life Directed to Israel Life Lived by all
Destination for all – sheol Destination for all – Heavenly Realm
Paradise for Faithful New Jerusalem for faith-filled
Prison for faithless Outside New Jerusalem

Birth of Christ (Which is the birth of Eternal Life for all who believe)
Beginning of New Age began with an overlap of the former material age for fulfillment by Him
Beginning of the End of Former Age (John the Baptist – Who has warned you of the wrath to come)
Beginning of the End of Material Religion (The ax is laid at the root of the Tree but it was not yet)
Jesus came to “His own”
Some will see me coming in the clouds
Apostles called to the House of Israel to prepare
Repent before the end (Matthew 24-25)

Apostolic Church

Former Age Age to Come

Return of Christ (as Promised within a Generation)
“Judgement (condemnation) and salvation (reward) for Bride
The complete wipe out of material religion had to occur
Temple/People/Genealogy/Objective Religious Expressions
All things shaken so the only thing that remains is unshakable
The Kingdom of God is within us writing on our hearts and minds
The Kingdom is eternally increasing Isaiah 9:6 (hence need to share)

THE CONTINUATION OF MATERIAL RELIGION HAS DONE WHAT?

Look at the history of every single attempt on earth! Every one of them!

Shake-ability of Men
Crime and sin in God’s name
Spiritual and ecclesiastical abuses
Material focus
Denominational divisions
Catholicism
Orthodoxy
Reformation – thousands of divisions
Restorationism – hundreds of divisions
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE RESULTS OF THIS APPROACH TO REINSTITUTE OBJECTIFIED BRICK AND MORTAR RELIGION and to IGNORE WHAT GOD HAS PLAINLY REVEALED IN SCRIPTURE – even out to the present day (in Jesus name)
WARFARE, HATRED, DIVISION, BLOODSHED, and DEATH (Inquisitions, Reformation, Mormonism)
Interfaith and even innerfaith hate
Domination and Bondage
Ecclesiastical Tyranny (when all believers ought to be free)
Manipulation of lives
Money grubbing

Where are we really, in the face of what God has done completely through the victory of His only begotten Son?

SO . . . TODAY . . .

God is all in all. He is called the Lord God Almighty. He sits on one throne in the Resurrected body of our Lord governing all things.

The world has been reconciled to Him.
He is not angry. He is not condemning anyone. He FIXED the problem for us!

All are free to choose how to live – for themselves or for Him. We are all daily choosing to eat from the forbidden tree or not.
He writes on the hearts and minds of those who are His. He is with those who are His; His love is unconditional.

The Spirit and its fruit is Primary and Preferential.
His Written Word is Secondary and Deferential.
Church Traditions are Tertiary and are at best Referential,
And brick and mortar material religion with all of its demands is utterly inconsequential.

So, when we read the word now, principles come forth by the spirit and they way we test our interpretation of them is whether they result in the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Do they bring us love, joy, peace, mercy, kindness and produce longsuffering. Or do they cause us to be judgmental, angry, unkind, merciless, impatient and the like. The Spirit is governing everything in this age of God’s Spiritual Kingdom and that is a very different image than what materially based religionists want us to live by.