Introduction
Often times a believer will ask, “What is the doctrine?” What they’re meaning to ask is, what is the doctrine of Christ? Good question. Let’s look at what Apostle John had to say about the importance of the doctrine of Christ.
1 John 1:9
“Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.”
The question about doctrine is really a question about the importance of the knowledge of Christ that God designed in a specific way (pattern) for us to know Him, learn of Him, and serve Him.
The goal of this lesson is to explain to you why your faith needs to be constructed of specific knowledge for you to walk with God in the way of salvation that He planned for you.
You already know that knowledge is the bedrock of experience. Whether you are a farmer, an attorney, a cake baker, plumber, or electrician, knowledge frames your profession – what you do and why you do it. The same thing is true for faith. . . because faith is the profession of Jesus Christ.
Just as your job has a function that is connected to specific knowledge, so also does faith have a function that is connected to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Word of God. That’s why we need His knowledge, or doctrine.
The doctrine (knowledge) of Christ is how God sets Jesus apart from all other belief systems, all other philosophies of life. Who do you want to sit upon the throne of your heart? If you want Jesus to rule your heart then you must learn His doctrine (knowledge).
If you are a seeker of God and want to know Him in a real and living way. . .
You will need knowledge for faith, and that knowledge has to be set in order. No one just jumps into a trade, there’s a season of learning and training that first takes place. The same is true about the doctrine of Christ. God does not want you jumping into a relationship with Him without first being discipled in the faith (learn the knowledge of the new covenant).
So, you get that now. Doctrine sounds like a very formal word, but if you understand that knowledge is necessary for faith to be framed God’s way, rather than man’s way, then you understand God’s point of view: knowledge is key.
Let’s put that to the test. How many times have you heard someone else say, “I believe in Jesus”, yet when you ask that person about the doctrine of Christ (the knowledge they embrace) they don’t have a set path of knowledge, or their knowledge is a mixed hodgepodge of different denominational beliefs and personal beliefs that is further mixed with the philosophies of this world.
There’s a lot of knowledge to pick and choose from, that’s for sure. So again, from God’s perspective, He is talking about exact knowledge that comes through the calling of the apostle (as we saw in 1 John 1:9).
Knowledge is Not Just a Starting Point
As we well know, knowledge is not just a starting point. As the farmer, the dentist, the lawyer, and the electrician are very much aware, their knowledge is their trade. The exact knowledge you learned to gain entrance into your particular career, is the same knowledge you need to perform your trade. Where would they be without knowledge?
DID YOU KNOW
Your faith has to work from the same frame of knowledge as God does. God has an expectation of forming a relationship with you and healing your soul and forming Christ in you. So He wants you to be able to connect your mind to the movement He is making. That’s the doctrine of Christ.
For example, God wants you to know that He needs to speak and commune with you every day. God wants you to have the knowledge to make the right connection in your mind with His grace (which is His voice). He wants you to learn to expect His daily visitations with grace and He wants you to know how powerful grace is so you’ll learn to work with Him and grow in His grace.
So, in order for you to make this and many other mind connections to God’s work in you, you’ll need to be instructed in the doctrine of Christ. You’ll need knowledge for faith to reflect Jesus and express Him.
Knowledge is like the hands of God, taking the clay of faith and sculpting the true and living image of Jesus Christ. About Simple Faith drives home this message about faith’s need for knowledge. The lesson is divided into 3 parts:
About Simple Faith is a 3 part series of lessons brought to you by Second 8th Week Ministries. It is designed to introduce you to the Simple Faith Courses for New Covenant believers in Jesus Christ and teach you why faith needs knowledge.
Faith Needs the Right Knowledge
The word “knowledge” is not a new word, and the idea that faith needs knowledge is not a new concept. The point that God has to make is that your faith needs the right knowledge, and that’s the doctrine of Christ.
God brought knowledge to our attention through the prophet Isaiah saying, “By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities,” Isaiah 53:11.
Apostle Paul confirms this by saying, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” 2 Corinthians 4:6.
Again, The Spirit of the Lord teaches us in 1 Samuel 2:3 saying, “for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.” And again Jesus Himself stated, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth,” John 4:24.
Knowledge… knowledge… knowledge. Or, doctrine… doctrine… doctrine. By now you realize that there are two different meanings to the question, “What is doctrine?” We’ve answered this question by first dealing with the aspect of faith needing knowledge, or a set of instruction.
And because we are talking about God’s knowledge now focused on Jesus Christ and His new covenant, this set of instructions is set in concrete. The doctrine of Christ is the blueprint of knowledge God uses, so we have to use the same blueprint.
So what is it? What is the blueprint of truth? What is the doctrine of Christ all about? How do you start to learn it?
Now, we’re talking about the doctrine of Christ and how it covers the terms and commandments of the new covenant:
Don’t Turn off Your Brain
There are a few reasons why the idea of needing knowledge (doctrine) for faith may be foreign to you. First of all, we live in a high-tech age of information where the mind is bombarded with every kind of knowledge imaginable, from the daily news to the ups and downs of the stock market; best parenting advice, tips about dating, the 10 best ways to cook a turkey, and 101 ways to do your job better, faster, and more efficiently.
People were highly motivated to find a faith in God that would allow them to turn off their brain and just “believe”, hoping that somehow a rich faith in God would emerge from a heart of desire.
People wanted faith in God to be something they felt rather than something that must be studied. People thought that “simple” meant that a person is not required to think about God’s knowledge and that “simple” meant unencumbered with knowledge, but, this is not true. Would you go to see a doctor who had that approach to medicine? No.
Clearly the scriptures testify that instruction of knowledge is necessary for faith to be acceptable to God, for Moses instructed the children of Israel according to the knowledge God gave him. So, one wonders why this should be confusing today.
Deuteronomy 11:1
“Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.”
Switching our brains to Jesus’ new covenant charge, statutes, judgments, and commandments is important for us to keep them always. The doctrine of Christ tells us the terms of God’s new covenant. Doctrine tells us:
Simple Faith Means Having the Knowledge You Need to Reflect Christ
Simple faith is not about taking away the need for knowledge (doctrine), for if we do that, then we throw away the key to the true liberty God wants us to have. Simple Faith means having the knowledge you need to reflect Christ rather than yourself.
Salvation is about God restoring His likeness to the soul. His likeness was lost by Adam’s fall, but restored by Jesus’ resurrection. And it is because we reflect Him that Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brethren.
When salvation is not put in the frame of God’s knowledge, it is impossible for you to identify Jesus Christ. If you cannot identify Him, you cannot observe Him, and if you cannot observe Him you cannot reflect Him or take on His likeness.
What Does Knowledge Need to Reflect Christ?
For you to identify, observe, and reflect Christ, knowledge needs these things:
- Knowledge needs a frame:
Just as God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle (a house) for Him in which the Israelites were to practice their faith, in the same way we have to build a spiritual house or temple for the Lord in which to practice our faith. Faith needs a house in which to function. Without the knowledge we will not be able to function in this house.
Just like Moses had to teach the Israelites how to function in faith in the tabernacle, we need knowledge of how to function in our spiritual temple so we can please God. By the knowledge of Christ we are enabled to enter into this house and use all of its functions freely. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you,” 1 Corinthians 6:19.
- Knowledge needs tools:
God provided spiritual tools, which bring us in contact with the knowledge so that truth can become part of us as it is part of Jesus Christ. God gave us these tools so that when we use them in faith, that which is in Jesus (namely the framework of His knowledge, which is truth) will also be in us. This then becomes the norm by which our souls function.
The spiritual tools of Jesus assist the soul to enter into rest. What does this mean? The soul has a need to enter into the rest of Christ, separated from all the forms of faith that promise rest, but do not deliver. The soul enters into rest when it comes in contact with truth—the knowledge of Christ—which replaces the knowledge that makes all the empty promises and wearies the soul by not producing the desired outcome, and thus leaves it in a state of condemnation and disappointment. We express faith in God by laboring with His knowledge to enter into rest.
- We need knowledge to enable us to reciprocate to God:
Faith needs knowledge to reciprocate to God that you may grow and increase in Him. Just like a father longs to know what a child has learned from a discussion with him through reciprocation, so God also wants to know of us after we have labored with the knowledge of His Son that it has become part of us. A father would even try to get a response from a child by asking, “Do you understand?” and then following up with, “What did you understand?” God has the same longing in His heart. This is why He calls Himself our Father.
God wants you to use His knowledge so you can identify with Jesus Christ, observe Him, and reflect Him. When we say “reflect” it means that when God looks at us He wants to see His Son in us. To determine this, God looks at what’s going on in the soul. Do we work with an earthly knowledge, which reflects our own earthly ambitions to have a worldly peace that will free us from earthly contradictions that upsets our rest, or do we labor with the knowledge from above, which works the peace of Jesus Christ, surpasses all understanding, and is not disturbed by the issues of this world?
Knowledge is Designed For You to Function in God’s Kingdom
Where Christ is preached a tethering of knowledge takes place that carries the living expression of Jesus Christ. Why a tethering of knowledge? Because God has bound Himself to His Word, to carry all those of faith by this knowledge of Christ. Ours souls are renewed and refreshed by knowledge.
God’s knowledge must not be as a pile of wood sitting on the ground. Otherwise, it will be of no use to you or to God. Just like wood takes the frame of a house for you to function in the house, so also knowledge must take a frame for you to function in God’s kingdom.
When wood takes the frame of a house you can enter into the house and use all
all of its functions freely. You can cook and eat your meals in the house, be warmed, have light, take rest, and enjoy companionship. You can cleanse yourself, work, and play in the house. In addition, when you move into your house you bring with you all your precious things and fill your house with your substance. Can you see? The frame is for function, and the result of that function is substance by which you increase.
God’s knowledge is that way. The frame of knowledge is designed by God for you to function in His kingdom that He may fill your soul with His substance by which you increase. The knowledge we embrace produces substance (fruit) in the heart.
Exposing Satan’s Lie That it May Lose its Power
In the absence of knowledge the soul goes to sleep. This is why God likens ignorance to the darkness of night. We see this preached in nature, how that man and much of the animal kingdom shuts down at night.
In the absence of knowledge there is darkness. The scriptures testify to this by saying, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not,” John 1:5. So now, let’s look at how darkness is the absence of knowledge. When someone lies to us about a certain matter, we are ignorant concerning the truth, we are in the dark. When we are told the truth by someone else concerning that matter, we say we are enlightened, and the lie loses its power.
For the lie of Satan to lose its power in our lives we need to be enlightened by the truth, which is found in the knowledge of Christ. That is why, “By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.” Isaiah 53:11. When we are enlightened by the living knowledge of Jesus Christ, we are able to stand justified before God. When we try to use the knowledge of man, we are continually under condemnation.
Where Christ is preached the compassion of God is seen. The light of His knowledge awakens the soul of man from sleep. Man shakes himself and rises up in the power of true holiness to walk with His Maker by His precious gift of life, made possible through Jesus Christ.
The last thing Satan wants is for you to awaken to God’s knowledge, to know God’s plan and to walk in it. Satan wants man to live by his emotions, which are like the sand, always shifting. But God wants you to live by His knowledge, which is the truth of Christ and which will never move. This is why it is vital that you take this knowledge and build a strong faith in Jesus Christ.
What we see God doing by giving us knowledge for faith is giving us the means to choose faith. Faith has to be a cognitive choice of the will. God not only shows us clearly Jesus Christ, but makes clear what false knowledge is and how it holds no substance for the soul.
Satan is being identified as that kingdom that stands indifferent and in direct opposition to the house of God. Satan wants to compete with the house of God by false knowledge. Where false knowledge is, oppression exists. What is oppression? Oppression has to do with the soul being without direction, unable to find its way to the liberty of Christ, always in a condition of serving the many promises of freedom without being enabled to obtain it.
So then, when the soul is without direction it is under a form of oppression; no substance is being born, and it wanders in the broad way. That is a form of oppression. False knowledge births this. False knowledge keeps the soul in that state of derision, wandering, frustrated, and anxious, whereas in the kingdom of God, being tethered to Christ, substance is born, the peace of God rules, and the soul enters into rest because we have the substance of His knowledge, which shows us the way of life. This is Jesus’ promise; He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” John 14:6.
God has to give us knowledge to separate our faith from Satan’s false knowledge. We choose truth over false knowledge because false knowledge does not produce substance, so the soul cannot enter into rest. Truth, on the other hand, brings the substance of God within the heart, and therefore, by faith you do enter into His rest.
REMEBER
Faith is not simple when it is denied life, when it is denied the things it needs to make it living. Faith is simple when it is given knowledge that reflects Jesus Christ perfectly.
