Author:
Teacher Maria vonAnderseck
Maria serves as a called and confirmed Chief Teacher in the restored government of God and she is an IDCCST Spiritual Life Coach. She is the co-founder of s8w Ministries. Teacher Maria walks you through spiritual transformation from start to finish, God’s way. View my profile.
Did you know that saying true, historical facts about Jesus does not mean you are speaking the truth about His doctrine? Most think that pointing out the places Jesus visited while on earth and pointing to the fact that He died for our sins and rose again should be counted as truthful, accurate statements, and thus give evidence of their faith.
It used to be that people didn’t think or care about the difference between truthful events and the truth of the doctrine of Christ, believing these to be one and the same. But God is shaking people to the very core of their belief system and getting people to think about their own religious traditions and how they fall short of His expectations.
Jesus pointed this out to the woman whom He met at the well of Jacob, which we read about in John chapter 4. Jesus began the conversation by asking her for a drink of water. The woman responded by pointing out the landmark where Jesus was sitting and she began to share the story about how Jacob himself drank of the well, and how that all his children followed in his footsteps and they also came to this very same well to draw water.
Jesus knew that this woman was bogged down in her tradition, believing true facts about the history of Jacob’s well and that she was ready to defend her faith based on these historical facts.
True Facts Does Not Mean True Faith
After I lay this out for you, we’ll bring it home to help you examine your own religious traditions. These are things that you believe to be true about Jesus based on facts that are correct as far as history goes, but not the truth based on the covenant Jesus came to give, which is His doctrine.
Jesus approached the woman knowing full well the value she placed on this landmark and how she was sold on the correctness of the history of the well and how she believed it to be an important part of her worship.
So, when Jesus asked her for a drink of water from the very well she claimed as her spiritual heritage, He knew He was going to get a history lesson from her. Jacob’s well was a flash point of religious tradition for this woman – it was her foundation – and that’s why Jesus started His conversation there. He knew that this is where she placed her trust and confidence in God and He intended to challenge her religious traditions because she needed to transition her faith to Him.
Jesus was right, the woman laid out the facts for Him to understand why she placed so much value on this place of worship. She defended her faith by contradicting Jesus, saying, “Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” (John 4:12)
As I said, these facts are indisputable. The well was indeed Jacob’s well, which he had dug and Jacob did drink from this well and his children and his cattle. Jesus did not refute the facts, but did refute the spiritual value and spiritual significance she placed upon the well. Jesus responded by saying, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.” (John 4:22)
True Facts Are Not the Basis for Worship
What’s important for us to see in this verse is that true facts, as true as they might be, is not the basis for worship, but rather salvation is the basis of worship and salvation needs a covenant. It’s through establishing a covenant that God sets the standard for man to approach unto Him to build and to bond with Him.
When we say that we “know” something to be true, naturally speaking, we’re talking about a set of facts that have been documented. They are irrefutable. But when God talks about “knowing” Him, He is speaking about the salvation He offers through the new covenant of Jesus Christ. This is a different kind of knowing. We have to know the truth – that is – the foundational knowledge you need to know and serve Him according to Jesus’ new covenant – that is His doctrine.
Because this is so important for the church to understand, I want to break away from John chapter 4 for a moment and ask you to think about the many true facts that you may hold dear to your heart (these are the traditions in which you place much spiritual value). Your list may look something like this:
This is a relatively small list. A list of true Bible facts can be quite long. How many of you base your salvation on these and other true facts? Would you be surprised to hear Jesus say, “You don’t know what you worship.”
Most Christians believe that the facts speak for themselves. So then, if the facts are true, their faith must be true. You certainly cannot be wrong to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. But Jesus, in His conversation with the woman who defended her history, was pointing to Himself as the new covenant for the woman to transition her faith to Him.
Once the woman got it out of her system (defending the truth and spiritual significance of her tradition), she did admit that although she was totally sold on her spiritual heritage, she was waiting for more. She told Jesus, “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” (John 4:25)
But Jesus had been speaking to her about His covenant and the transition she had to make, and she had already argued against what He had to say based on her trust in her own history and tradition.
The woman at the well found herself in a catch-22 situation, believing her traditional views about worship, but waiting for God to do something new, something more. She heard Jesus’ voice, but tradition had stopped her ears from spiritually hearing and believing because she was convinced that whatever God was going to do, it would follow along with what she already had received as truth – true historical facts.
The church is in the same condition today. Believers can say many things that are true about Jesus and the Bible, but are still looking for more and waiting for God to do something new. They’re waiting for God to open up a new season.
The thing is, what you believe is the very tradition that stops your ears from hearing the new thing God is doing. So, this is a very real catch-22 situation that most Christians find themselves battling against.
Most don’t realize the catch-22 situation they are in. While they say things that are true and spend their time defending these true facts, at the same time they resist God’s intentions to transition their faith to the new covenant. They resist God’s restoration of apostolic stewardship, they resist the doctrine of Christ, and resist the new covenant tools and priesthood.
Truth is not true historical facts about Jesus, but rather the foundation of truth. It is Jesus’ doctrine. Jesus later said, “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.” (John 7:16)
Jesus is challenging the church through His restored spiritual government to come out of the shelter of isolated religious facts that they fortified with spiritual traditions, and come into the refuge of His new covenant.
Jesus would say the same thing to Christians today that He said to the woman at the well, “If you knew…” (John 4:10) The historical facts were what she knew, but she did not know the gift of God, nor Jesus. Let’s read that entire verse.
John 4:10
“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”
Here Jesus is speaking of His doctrine, His foundation of truth, His new covenant. When Jesus speaks of His doctrine, He’s not speaking of a story line, He’s not speaking about events as they happened and the accuracy of those events. He’s speaking about the spiritual significance of His death and resurrection, for He came to transition the covenant to Himself and to provide Himself as a bridge to the Father.
The doctrine of Christ is the significance of God sprinkling His blood upon the tools of the new covenant to establish Jesus as our contact point. Jesus gave us a new priesthood and new worship at His new altar where we offer to God spiritual sacrifices that reflect Him.
Even as Jesus said, “ God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)
The Apostles Are the Eyes and Ears of the Church
After the church was born and Jesus’ apostles were teaching His doctrine, many believers fell into the same trap as the woman at the well. They, too, based their faith on true historical events rather than the doctrine of Christ – who He is according to His new covenant.
Apostle Paul pointed out that a person can speak the truth about Jesus’ death and resurrection and not preach and teach the true gospel because they don’t teach the true significance of the new covenant, which is the doctrine of Christ.
Galatians 1:-6
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Independent Faith
Did you know that you can say correctly that Jesus died for your sins and rose again, but miss the significance of the covenant of Jesus. That’s because facts are redirected and not placed in the context of Jesus’ new covenant.
You would have correctly stated the facts about Jesus, without giving direction for faith. You’d believe that your faith is in the bag, so to speak, and beyond question, simply because you said you believed.
If you were asked about the rapture, you’d say, “Yes, I believe in the rapture, and I’m excited that I’m going. I know Jesus is coming soon!” If you were asked about your faith in Jesus, you’d say, “Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I know I’m saved.”
But, as we see in these verses in Galatians chapter one, it’s the apostles whom God entrusted to gauge the faith of the people because they are the eyes and ears of the church. God gave the apostolic calling as a gift to the church to keep the doctrine of Christ pure, and thus direct the faith of the people to the new covenant tools and priesthood.
A believer cannot gauge his own faith apart from this much needed oversight. To do so means that you have an independent faith – a faith independent of the anointing – a faith not depended upon God’s Spirit and truth.
It was after believers received the knowledge of the foundation of truth from the apostles that they all shared the same faith. If you were asked about the terms of the new covenant and how God qualifies your faith to function at Jesus’ new altar, you might not know what that means.
If you were asked about Jesus’ priesthood prophecy, you might not know what that means either. If you were asked how God equips you with Jesus’ tools to reflect Him, you might not think that matters.
In this new apostolic age and season, God is reshaping the mind of the church about what they accept as truth.
