This blog serves as an outreach for Pastor Randy Powell of the First Baptist Church of Franklin, PA. Feel free to ask questions or send me an e-mail at pastorpowell@hotmail.com
Before concluding his letter, the Apostle Paul offers an extended military metaphor about spiritual warfare. We learn that our enemy is not other human beings, but rather the schemes of the Devil and his minions. Against such foes we don't need the weapons of man, but the armor gifted to us by God: truth, righteousness, the Gospel, faith, salvation, and the Word of God.
Our call, in this fight, is to stand firm. Stand where we have been planted by the Lord.
In many of its publications, the First Fruits of Zion presents itself as an educational organization that is simply trying to help the Church learn more about the aspects of the Jewish people and Judaism that form the background of the Bible. Sometimes, however, they drop the pretense and go full-on Anti-Church revealing their belief that both Christianity and the Church were never meant to exist and have had an "incomplete Gospel" since the generation after the Apostles.
Rethinking the Five Solae by Jacob Fronczak is a prime example of FFOZ's hostility toward the Church and the key theological truths that have been believed by followers of Jesus for centuries. This isn't just a random book that FFOZ happens to publish, not only is it consistent with what is scattered throughout the Torah Club series, Jacob serves as the co-host of their public facing Messiah Podcast. As of this date, the book is still available on their website, they are still profiting from its sales.
Which is what helps make the actual content of this book so very alarming. It is the worst book that I have read in the past twenty-five years. There are two primary reasons: (1) It is built upon a click-bait title / premise that it doesn't begin to substantiate, and uses the unethical polemic of the Straw Man argument and the argument Ad Absurdum {i.e. Jacob doesn't argue against what Protestant actually believe, but against the most absurd version of his opponents ideas}. (2) It contains a host of dangerous false ideas, among them: That the Trinity is a construct, not an idea derived from scripture, that the scriptures were given to the Jewish people alone and nobody else has the right to interpret them, that the New Perspective on Paul ought to convince Protestants to abandon the idea of being saved by Christ alone through grace and faith alone, that congregational polity is folly and what we really need is a human authority that can force people to obey, and lastly, that the Messianic Jewish movement will never be taken seriously until it abandons its ties to Evangelicalism and embraces the structure of Orthodox Judaism.
The six-part series to follow interacts with well over 100 quotes directly from the book. For those wishing to utilize it, the PowerPoint from the videos is here: Rethinking the Five Solae - full rebuttal PowerPoint
The essence of the Gospel is our salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This is a simple message, but also the most powerful one that ever has been. It challenges human pride and it rests upon the love of God. Attempts have been made to supplement God's grace with human effort, these have all ended in the failure that such folly deserves. In the end we are left with this joyous message: By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
The first half of Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus is an ode to the wonders and majesty of the grace of God. Fittingly, Paul delves into that very subject as soon as the customary introduction is completed.
As Philip Yancy's book asked, "What's so amazing about grace?" Paul has the answer for you.
Abraham and Sarah are heroes of the faith, but they made plenty of mistakes along the way. One of the most serious of them was the decision by Sarai to offer her slave Hagar to her husband Abram as a 2nd wife in the hopes that a son born to Abram and Hagar could be considered her son by adoption. This way an effort to "assist" the fulfillment of God's promise. Here's the thing: God doesn't need immoral help to accomplish his will.
In the end, the plan works in that Hagar bears Ishmael, but is a disaster in all other respects because it spawns a bitterness between Sarai and Hagar. In the end, God intervenes to protect Hagar and her son, preventing Abram and Sarai's mistake from going further off the rails.
Does faith exclude anxiety and fear? As it turns out, it does not. Abraham, the "father of faith" had them. Abram's promise from God of a son and heir was a LONG time in the fulfilling. Abram's expressed his frustration with this to God, and rather than getting angry, God offered him reassurance that his promise still stood. It is Abram's acceptance of this promise, after expressing his anxiety/fear, that God credited to him as righteousness.
In Genesis 14 the story of Abram is dragged into the drama of a regional war when his nephew Lot is taken along with the spoils following one of its battles. Abram responds in faith, boldly moving to rescue Lot. His success leads to an amazing moment, where the victorious Abram tithes from the plunder to Melchizedek, a "priest of God Most High." This offers an amazing insight into God's work in our world beyond the scriptures.
After his failure to trust God while sojourning in Egypt, how will Abram react the next time he needs to live by faith in God's promises? Genesis 13 offers the answer, in it Abram passes the test with flying colors. When a conflict arises between his shepherds and those of Lot over the available grazing land, Abram offers Lot the first choice of the land so they can part in peace. This incredibly generous offer from Abram highlights his faith in God, as the chapter unfolds God speaks to Abram reiterating his promises and once more proclaiming that the future of this land belongs to his offspring.
* Apologies that I stepped out of the frame a bit this time, I was trying to tighten up the zoom a bit, but I guess I don't stand still enough for that to work.
Abraham and Sarah are heroes of the faith, but their lives had challenges just like our own, and they failed to meet some of them with faith. When famine caused them to seek refuge in Egypt, Abram was willing to put his wife at risk in order to avoid danger that he feared. This form of, "Let us do evil that good may result," is wholly unacceptable for God's people. Our call is to do what is morally upright, circumstances don't change that.
Following the Tower of Babel incident, when God dispersed a human effort to establish his presence among humanity, the narrative of Genesis turns toward the family line that leads to Abram, the man whom God will choose to begin his relationship with one particular people, and through them bless the world.
God asks a lot of Abram, to leave his homeland and trust that God will make him into a great nation despite the lack of children in his marriage with Sarai. But God also promises amazing things to Abram, going far beyond what any connection to a God in the Ancient Near East would expect to be by proposing to Abram an enduring relationship. With God it wouldn't be a mutually beneficially bargain, instead it would be an outpouring of grace.
God shares his plan with Noah, giving him instructions on how to survive the Flood that is coming and entrusting him with the care of the animals that are also to be spared. In that process, God promises to Noah that he will establish a covenant with him, further deepening their already existing relationship.
In the end, Noah did what God commanded. The narrative never tells us what Noah thought about any of this, we simply learn that he obeyed.
In the benediction to his letter to the church at Rome, the Apostle Paul reminds his readers of God's marvelous Gospel, of the grace given in this generation through the coming of Jesus Christ who brought salvation to all the people of the world by faith.
The following was part of a series of comments on my YouTube channel, specifically the video introducing our objections as a ministerium to the Torah Clubs back in February of 2023. Heather Mohnkern is the leading local Torah Club leader and their primary spokesperson in Venango County, she and her husband Keith were given an award by the First Fruits of Zion organization for outstanding service at the 2022 Malchut Conference.
To also add to the conversation…a recurring theme of the Gospels is Jesus pointing out the ‘religious hierarchies need to be theologically right’ took a secondary role to ‘being in relationship and trusting the one walking with them’ and correcting established theology that had been misapplied. Even Saul of Tarsus needed to have an ‘adjustment’ via his Damascus Road experience. He did not have to throw out his theology he just had to have an encounter with His G-d that bound the two together into something that would change the nations….relationship then theology. And Paul never taught contradictory to Torah if you can remove supersessionism from hundreds of years of interpretations of his writings. There is a whole academic explosion happening in the world right now to correct that which has negatively impacted the greater Christian orthodoxy. - Heather Mohnkern, Franklin area Torah Club leader, 1/3/23
This then is the heart of the matter, did Saul of Tarsus only need an "adjustment" by encountering God, one that left his theology intact (or at least mostly intact)? Was Saul of Tarsus on the right track in life, only missing that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, or did the roots of his murderous hatred toward the followers of Jesus run much deeper? To be honest, I've never heard anyone downplay the Damascus Road experience before, but thinking about it, this is a necessary contention for First Fruits of Zion to make given that they believe (and teach) that Jesus was only a reformer of Judaism and that neither he nor Paul, nor any of Jesus early followers, intended to found the Church or Christianity. From that viewpoint, Saul of Tarsus must have been one of the most excellent men of his day, for he was a follower of the Law of Moses with which few could compare. Let's let Paul explain what really happened in his own words...
Galatians 1:13 New International Version
For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.
Before meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus was entirely opposed to the teaching and message of Jesus Christ, he wanted to destroy everything that Jesus had created.
Galatians 1:14 New International Version
I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
Saul was both full of zeal and following the dictates of the Law of Moses as understood by his rabbinic teachers to the fullest, few if any could compare with his accomplishments within that system. And yet, looking back on this life, how did the now Apostle Paul think of it, how close to God was he in that previous life?
Philippians 3:4b-11 New International Version
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
When Saul got up off the ground on the way to Damascus, having seen the risen Lord Jesus Christ, his entire understanding of what it meant to be in a relationship with God had changed. His entire understanding of what God required of his people had shifted radically. Faith, not works was the key. Love, not precision in obedience to the minutia of the Law was its engine. The man who wandered blind into Damascus to find Ananias was seeing things clearly for the first time in his life. Prior to this he had known all about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he had not known him at all. Saul of Tarsus could not have been in relationship with God because he had not faith, only self-righteousness.
"He did not have to throw out his theology" is a claim that fits well with the teachings of TC/FFOZ, for they would love to hold up Saul the Pharisee and just add faith in Jesus to that foundation, but that's not what happened, that's not how Paul himself felt about it. In fact, what Saul thought he knew about God needed to change dramatically before he emerged as the Apostle Paul, the champion of grace and faith.
An adjustment?? When God knocks you off a horse because you're on your way to murder his people, he's got more than an adjustment in mind.
Having established the grace we need to give each other in disputable matters, Paul ends the discussion with a warning toward those who might act against their own conscience, and thus do so without faith.
Along the way, we also have the important advice to "not condemn ourselves" by approving of things that we should not, and the clarification that it is not with respect to faith in God or his will that we should hesitate to act on faith if we doubt (in that case we ought to "dare Great things for God") but our own understanding, when we doubt ourselves Paul is telling us to err on the side of caution.
Before explaining how the various members of the church (local and universal) fit together in God's will, the Apostle Paul offers a reminder that as Christians we need to look at ourselves with sober judgement. His primary emphasis is the danger of letting pride skew our self-view, there is an equal (hard to say if it is more/less common) danger in letting doubt/despair skew our self-view in the opposite direction. In both cases we can rely upon baseline truths to help us avoid self-deception: (1) We are all created in God's image, this creates a floor of self-worth, nobody is worthless. (2) We are all lost sinners, incapable of pleasing God on our own, this creates a ceiling of self-worth, nobody is perfect. (3) We are all saved by grace, this moderates both extremes by lifting us up because of our transformation in Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and reminding us that this gain is all a gift of grace.
The Gospel message of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus is an easy one to share and comprehend, children are more than capable of fully believing it. So, why did the Israelites in Jesus' generation, who saw his miracles, refuse to believe in him? What is it about humanity that we're capable of this?
Willful and stubborn human pride is the answer. The human heart is capable of looking at overwhelming evidence and ignoring it because we would rather not believe it. It isn't the Gospel message that needs to change, but the hard hearts of those who won't accept God's love for them.
How simple is it to receive the Good News of the Gospel?
Amazingly simple. The intellectual hurdle is minimal, one only need acknowledge that Jesus has risen from the dead and he is Lord. The crux of the matter is the willingness of the heart to accept the need for salvation in Jesus.
For everyone who does so, seeking salvation in Jesus, they will find it.
Why did Paul's generation of Law observant Israelites fail to accept Jesus as the Messiah? One of the primary explanations, coming from Paul who knew this personally before his own Damascus Road conversion experience, was the presence of prideful self-righteous zeal. Too many of the people sought to please God with their own efforts, rather than by faith trust in God's mercy and forgiveness. The Law of Moses could never be the path to righteousness, it only showed God's people where they fell short of his holiness.
How did Jesus fix this apparent dead end? By totally, completely, and forever fulfilling the Law. The sinless life and guiltless death of Jesus Christ is the end of the Law because the moment Jesus breathed his life he had fulfilled it fully, thus bringing to a close the Law's time as the guardian of His people. The Spirit would soon come at Pentecost to confirm this transition.
Righteousness has been been achieved by human effort or desire, it has always been, and always will be a gift of grace given through faith.
Since the Law was given by God to his people, and he rewarded them for keeping it and punished them for breaking it, why couldn't righteousness come through obeying it? Simple, that was never its intent. God knew that humanity could never follow his commands perfectly, that all would sin, all would be lawbreakers. The Law made God's people conscious of their sin, it did not offer them the solution to it. The answer to that dilemma was always grace. God's forgiveness and mercy given to his people, and his people's need to trust in that grace by faith. Ultimately Jesus came to be the solution, to be the sacrifice for sin, and our faith became in/through him.
It is all about the mercy. Salvation depends utterly upon the mercy of God, thanks be to God for that. The Apostle Paul uses the example of Jacob and Esau (twin brothers) to demonstrate that God's mercy does not depend upon our character or effort, he gives it to whom he chooses.
Why is this a conclusion to be praised rather than a cause for alarm about freewill? Because God's love, mercy, and grace will always be greater, more reliable, and more effective than any human effort.
