Tongues – Page 2 – Religion Detox Network …

THE FIRST PENTECOST
The first Pentecost occurred at Mt. Sinai when God spoke the words of his law to Israel. All Christians, not just Charismatics and Pentecostals, have missed the truth about the giving of the law and the holy spirit at the two Biblical references to Pentecost.

Thanks to movies and wrong teaching, everyone imagines the giving of the law after the escape from Egypt as a unique historical event when God gave his written law to Moses and Israel. This is commonly pictured as Moses coming down the mountain with the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

Understanding of the first Pentecost hinges on understanding of the fact that it happened after Israel left Egypt. Here is a brief review of events that led up to the Sinai incident:***

Events	Commentary
Jacob and his family (i.e. Israel) lived in the promised land.	The promised land

This imagery is further complicated and distorted by a literal reading of another Pentecost story in the Book of Acts.

There are several problems with this picture.

Pentecost is imagined to have already occurred.
A nation called Israel is imagined to have been the recipient of the laws.
The laws are imagined to be words written on stone or paper such as the Bible.
People who carry these images in their minds do not consider how the giving of the law applies to them personally.
People who carry these images miss out on learning scripture about the giving of the law can train them in righteousness and lead them to faith.

The second problem is failure of Christians to take the Old/First Covenant seriously.

The second problem is closely connected to the first problem. Old/First Covenant scriptures are exceedingly difficult to understand if you only consider the literal meaning of scripture. The tendency, therefore, is to skip over and minimize the things that challenge comprehension. And in doing so acquire a wrong understanding of scripture. This is just another example of the law being a stumbling block.

We have argued in throughout this web site that an understanding of Covenants is critical to knowing God. And since The Law is inextricably linked to Covenant, we have also argued that knowledge of The Law is critical to knowing God.

Curiously, Christians who like to say that they are under grace and not under The Law find it impossible to agree that The Law is necessary to knowing God. They have their own ideas about what is necessary to knowing God, and none of them include The Law. They have observed with disdain what the Jews have done with legalism to The Law of Moses, and they want nothing to do with it beyond the Ten Commandments. And yet, they claim to be followers of Jesus who said clearly that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. This is a big disconnect in Christian thinking.

These and other critical disconnects are the root of errant doctrines that constitute Defiled Religion. All these practices are serious because they misrepresent God and thus violate the Third Commandment. It is risky to say that established doctrines about Baptism of the Holy Spirit are more serious than other errors, but if Pentecostalism is indeed the fastest growing religion, it seems fair to say that wrong beliefs about speaking in tongues as evidence of Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a serious issue for God. Furthermore, lack of understanding about this topic and Covenant make the way for errors in all other doctrines.

The big problem in understanding for Christians is that they have made Pentecost an issue of the holy spirit while missing the fact that Pentecost is really about God speaking his laws into the hearts of his people. Thus the emphasis for Christians is on being filled with the holy spirit (whatever that means) to the exclusion of listening to God’s voice. This means that everyone fails to recognize that being filled with the holy spirit is the equivalent of having God’s law written on the heart.

A cursory study of covenants reveals the following conclusions:

First Set of Conclusions:
	God’s relationship with his people is defined by his covenant with them. The broad terms of the covenant were first revealed to Adam in the Garden of Eden. God’s covenant with his people was clarified through the five books of The Law of Moses. The Law of Moses reveals God’s character. People represent God’s character to the world by living according to the terms of The Law of Moses.

Second Set of Conclusions:

The Old/First Covenant contained the literal law (i.e. The Law of Moses) on which the covenant with God was based.
God used natural terms and concepts in the Old/First Covenant to communicate his spiritual nature.

The Old/First Covenant is impossible to keep for several reasons:

Natural terms and concepts cannot adequately represent God’s character.
The human mind cannot adequately comprehend the nature of God
Being flesh, man’s inclination is to do work.
The inclination to work results in man working with his natural ability to obey religious laws.
In God’s eyes, obedience to religious laws is the equivalent of working for salvation.

The Law of Moses is a stumbling block because natural men will employ natural means (i.e. flesh) to obey the literal law.
The Old/First Covenant leads to spiritual death because it is impossible to keep all the literal laws.
Jesus came to deliver people from their religious activities (i.e. sins).

Third Set of Conclusions:
	The New Covenant contained the spiritual law on which the covenant was based. The New Covenant is the better, and preferred covenant that leads to life. Obedience to the spiritual law is a matter of faith and trust — not a matter of obedience to religious laws. The New Covenant is better because it involves faith and trust in God instead of man’s trust in his religious works.

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