With so many believers today still looking for the power of the gospel that will transform their life, ministry leaders Greg Locke and Daniel Adams divide, each taking a different path with scripture. Who is right?

In truth, they are both wrong because they both neglected to take the path that Jesus laid out for the church in the knowledge that leads people into His new covenant where we have direct, full, and complete access to Him.

The path Locke and Adams have taken with scripture separated them from God’s covenant in Jesus and that separation can be traced back to their separation from the stewardship God sanctified to instruct the church.

Locke’s hunt for the reality of his faith in the miracles that Jesus performed is his downfall. The working of miracles is not the gospel, but rather Jesus and our sanctified access to Him that allows us to reciprocate to God – that’s the gospel that bears the true fruit. The fruit bearing gospel is what we preach, not the manifestations.

Locke’s definition of the doctrine of Christ is at fault. He said, “The word ‘doctrine’ means teaching…”

In God’s mind, the word “doctrine” means something entirely different.

The word doctrine means knowledge that God set in order within the frame of His new covenant to give us access to Himself to empower us to reciprocate to Him. The knowledge of Christ that is set in order is His doctrine, which we teach as the record of our faith. This is what Chief Apostle John brings out, the record of life, not the manifestations (1 Jn. 5:10). The manifestations confirmed Jesus as the Messiah, but the manifestations do not teach His record.

Both Locke and Adams believe that scripture is their authority when in fact Jesus is the authority and the anointing works with His stewardship, which He gave to His apostles as a gift to the church.

Apostle John and Apostle Paul both warned the church not to give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. (1 Jn. 2:26; 1 Tim. 4:1)

Like most ministers, Locke and Adams view themselves as knowledgeable in the scriptures, but they are servants of religious quips. We all know what religious quips are, these are things that people say about Jesus, God, and the Bible that are true, but since they are not connected to His covenant, they are empty words without function. It’s knowledge without wisdom, or knowledge without the anointing. For example, saying that,

– Jesus saves
– the Bible is true
– Jesus loves you
– God heals
– God has a plan for each of us
– we have to commit
– we must be saved by grace

These things are all true, but are powerless sayings outside of Jesus’ covenant. Seducing spirits introduce powerless rhetoric through ministers of unrighteousness who use these platitudes to cover their ignorance. This is the familiar voice of seducing spirits that both Locke and Adams are listening to. It’s familiar because the psychological invention that gets wrapped around each religious quip sets right with their philosophy and so disarms them, or disrobes them of the vestments of truth that is the true armor.

Joining a scripture to a religious quip does not make it God breathed.

God is bringing clarity to things that were once obscured. People didn’t know what a seducing spirit was. Light is now sprung up for those who sat in the shadows of darkness. (Is. 29:18; Is. 58:10)

God set order to His knowledge to build connections with us. He is putting your faith into a certain state of reciprocation to set His plan in motion in you and through you. So, when you take God’s order out of His knowledge, the Bible becomes nothing more to you than a book of promises, devoid of God’s power.

The gospels: manifested Jesus as the Messiah and established the history of His divine birth, ministry, death, and resurrection.

The book of Acts: established the transition of the covenant from Moses to Jesus.

The epistles: established people in the faith of the new covenant for the daily work of regeneration (fruit bearing) to take place in the heart.

The apostles, in their epistles, built on the record, not the manifestations. Our access to God is in Jesus’ record. This is how God creates and maintains a divine tether to us – a divine contact to daily heal our soul for increase in His fruit. This daily experience is not a gift of the Spirit, but rather the normal day-to-day work of the Spirit. God reciprocates to those who bond and build with Him. This is the reality of your faith.

Mark 1:22
And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.

The authority of the scribes was in the scriptures and Jesus’ authority was in the anointing. Jesus set the pattern for us to walk in His anointing by establishing us in the knowledge of His covenant. His name embodies these things.

God’s gifts are for all, but God differentiates the gifts given to the lost and the gifts given to those who belong to Him. Most ministry leaders do not understand that the working of miracles toward the lost is born of God’s compassion to confirm Jesus as the Son of God, but His mercy to save and heal the soul is manifested in Jesus’ covenant knowledge which has to be broken open by His apostles.

We can understand the problem God is addressing in “deliverance and healing ministry” when it is directed at those who accepted Jesus as their Savior who have not been given access to Him by covenant. Healing and deliverance ministry is offered as a substitute for the miracle of daily sanctified contact with God, and this offends God.

A believer who is kept outside of Jesus’ covenant is a covenantless believer.

Struggling with past trauma and present afflicting mindsets, they are missing out on the gifts of propitiation that is the daily experience of those inside the new covenant. Apostle Eric vonAnderseck’s recent post on X breaks this open for us. He said, “God’s gifts of propagation is the true relationship where the Lord KNOWS YOU.” (1 Cor. 13:2 Mt. 7:23)

These are the gifts that are given to those who are inside Jesus’ covenant to work Christ within the heart. These gifts attend our regeneration. The Bible points to this work of the Spirit, but cannot replace it.

The gifts that are given to those outside of Jesus’ covenant are not joined to regeneration and are not reciprocated; they are not of His virtue. Another way to say this is that they’re tasting the grapes of the Vine, but are not joined to the Vine. (Jn. 15:1-2)

Another place of confusion for ministry leaders is about stewardship.

Ministry leaders do not understand the connection to stewardship that God is building. They say that they believe in the scriptures, they believe in Jesus, and they believe in the anointing; but these are words without meaning (quips) until God sets them in order (the doctrine of Christ, or the doctrine of His covenant – Jesus’ record). And words without meaning are broken connections.

Believers today say they can know the mysteries of the kingdom of God by knowing the scriptures and by having a personal, one-on-one relationship with Jesus. Is this true? No.

Both Nicodemus and Peter had the advantage of being in Jesus’ presence and speaking to Him one-on-one and hearing Him teach, but they each experienced a different outcome. We’ll look at Nicodemus first.

Nicodemus was well read in the scripture. He also had the advantage of talking face to face with Jesus, but Jesus pointed out to him that his understanding missed the mark. Jesus challenged Nicodemus that a change in covenants was coming and that he needed a new spiritual rebirth into His kingdom to prepare him to reciprocate to God.

Experience with the scriptures did not prepare Nicodemus for this mind shift, and Jesus pointed this out.

John 3:10
Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

In essence, Jesus was saying that you can’t master the kingdom of God by mastering the scriptures. In fact, Nicodemus had misread the scriptures. And God is saying the same thing to the church today, as many follow the Nicodemus example, trying to master the scriptures to know God, but remain ignorant of the covenant He made with us through Jesus.

Now let’s look at how differently Jesus responded to Peter who also talked face to face with Him, but unlike Nicodemus, was under Jesus’ stewardship.

Matthew 16:15-18
¹⁵ He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

¹⁶ And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

¹⁷ And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

¹⁸ And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The difference between Nicodemus and Peter was that Nicodemus refused Jesus’ stewardship, but Peter accepted Jesus’ stewardship and received the blessing, as he reciprocated to God (vs. 16).

Nicodemus put his trust in being well read in the scriptures and put confidence in his interpretation of scripture, but Jesus showed him that was the source of his blindness.

In truth, Jesus was the authority, not scripture. And even though Nicodemus sat with Jesus, he could not understand the things that Jesus said because he was weighing everything by the logic of man in his religious traditions.

But when we look at Peter who openly accepted Jesus’ stewardship, we see that he had a very different outcome. Peter understood what Jesus was saying because he yielded to the revelation of the Father, meaning that grace was present and he reciprocated to God, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Peter was neither confused nor trying to build a relationship with Jesus based on scripture – what the scriptures said. God was linking stewardship to His living grace and set this example in Peter for the church to build upon. And we see that when Jesus said, “upon this rock [foundational knowledge] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Today, God sets the same challenge before the church, will you be confused as Nicodemus or will you be of an understanding heart as Peter? In order to have an understanding heart as Peter, each believer needs to build upon the apostle’s doctrine. (Acts 2:42)

When Jesus said, “upon this rock [foundational knowledge] I will build my church”, He was saying that He would build upon the calling, placing Himself as the cornerstone. Everything would be measured to Him. And this is what the scriptures confirm. The scripture is not the bedrock for faith, but rather the calling that God builds upon, for it is through the apostolic calling that the church receives instruction in the doctrine of Christ.

The challenge again: Will you trust in scripture apart from God’s apostolic stewards and miss Jesus as Nicodemus did, or will you be as Peter whose faith was manifested in the presence of Jesus’ stewardship?

And that’s what Jesus said to Peter, “Blessed are you Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” The stewardship of Jesus carries the blessing in the anointing for faith to reciprocate to God.

We are living in historic times of restoration. God is restoring the church to the true gospel and apostolic stewardship. I want to share something that Apostle Eric vonAnderseck spoke about recently. He brought out how the gospel was being preached through Rachel who came to the well to water her flock.

Apostle Eric said,

Many shepherds came to the well to water their flocks, but the well was capped. All the shepherds had to wait until the cap was removed before they could water their flocks, and the cap was removed when Rachel came with her flock. (Gen. 29:1-8)

Today we see the same thing, all the churches are gathered in expectation of the Lord’s return, but they’re restricted. They know where the water is, but can’t remove the rock. In Genesis chapter 29 we read that “Jacob lifted up his voice” when he saw Rachel, and he removed the rock from the mouth of the well for her.

Jacob lifted up his voice and cried out. When God’s steward is manifested, the water will flow for all. As the Lord also brings out in Revelation 22:17, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”