I am putting up this title not because I have an axe to grind with Apostle Peter. No he does not owe me money. My purpose is to expose the lie of the heretics who seek to twist the Scriptures to put believers into bondage. How does the above title relevant? I will show you later.
Let me start with revealing a new heretical movement that seeks to remove grace from the Gospel. When we trust in God’s grace, they will accuse us of “hyper-grace”. Why? They want us to be ashamed of grace. They want to make “grace” a dirty word in the church so that we are too ashamed to mention it. They tried to achieve this by 2 means:
1. Scripture twisting.
2. Repackaging of sin.
Scripture twisting.
What is that? To put it simply, it means twisting the words of assurance and encouragement in the Bible into new condition of salvation. One example is 1 John 1:8. As explained in my previous post, this is a good verse, seeking to provide the assurance of the forgiveness of sins. Yet the heretics seek to pervert it into an additional condition for salvation.
So the amended “Gospel” now says you must believe in Jesus plus confess all your sins to be saved. Is that true? If it is, then Apostle Peter is in hell right now. (I will explain this later.)
Repackaging Of Sin
The heretics know that the Bible is filled with verses on the forgiveness of sins. So sin is not scary enough for them to put believers in bondage. What did they do? Repackage it into something more scary like apostasy. What is apostasy? It means you are not a Christians anymore. That means you are no longer able to access to God’s forgiveness and you will go straight to hell.
You may wonder. How can one commit this sin? It is even looser than sins. Here are the rubbish I have heard:
1. If you bowed to pressure and worship an idol you are no longer a Christian.
2. If you believe in evolution you are no longer a Christian. (That’s me.)
3. If you listen to rock music you are no longer a Christian.
I did not make this up. I heard this from a Sunday service from a church. Is apostasy that scary? I am going to resolve this by quoting from the Bible a dude who did that.
25 Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?” He denied it, saying, “I am not.”
John 18:25 (NIV)
Peter who is also the Apostle Peter committed apostasy 3 times. After Jesus rose from the dead, he managed to meet Jesus again. What did he say?
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.
John 21:15-17(NIV)
Do you notice something? Peter has neither asked for forgiveness nor confessed his sins. This alone can throw out the scam that one must confess one’s sins in order to be forgiven down the drain. Jesus did not wait for Peter to go through the ceremony of confessing sins before he reached out to Peter. This is the Jesus of the Bible. Have you committed apostasy? Even if you do, it is still not too late. There is hope in the grace of God.
No wonder grace is so dangerous to the devil.
Yeap Chee Seng Weblog 