By Pastor Dave Farmer

This is a list of terms that I use, but not everyone who reads the magazine may have been taught the meaning of the technical vocabulary that is presented. This will be a growing list and I prayerfully hope it will be helpful to you.

GLOSSARY

carnality: The absolute status of being out of fellowship with God because of unconfessed sin in the life. In carnality the believer loses the filling of the Holy Spirit and the sin nature controls the life. (Antonym: spirituality)

church age: Began on the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 30, and will end at the resurrection or the Rapture of the Church (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17). This is the unique age in which every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is a priest (1 Peter 2:9), an ambassador for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), possesses a completed Cannon of Scripture, and is mandated to live a supernatural way of life (Romans 8:2-4; Ephesians 5:18).

fives cycles of judgment: Just as God disciplines individual believers when they are carnal, to motivate them to return to His plan, He also disciplines nations. The five cycles of discipline are progressive stages, each becoming increasingly harsh for the disobedient nation.

• First Cycle of Judgment: Loss of health; decline of agricultural prosperity; terror, fear, and death in combat; loss of personal freedoms due to negative volition toward Bible doctrine (Lev. 26: 14- 1 7).
• Second Cycle of Judgment: Economic recession and depression; increased personal and individual discipline for continued negative volition in spite of the first warning (Lev. 26:18-20).
• Third Cycle of Judgment: Violence and breakdown of law and order; cities laid waste (Lev. 26:21-22).
• Fourth Cycle of Judgment: Military conquest; foreign occupation; scarcity of food (reduced to one-tenth the normal supply); separation of families (Lev. 26:23-26).
• Fifth Cycle of Judgment: Destruction of a nation due to maximum rejection of Biblical principles (Lev. 26:27-39).

grace: God's free gift of unmerited favor; all that God is free to do for mankind on the basis of the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Mankind through his own work can never accomplish or achieve the notice or favor of God.

The sum total of all that God provides for us on the basis of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross in order to bring people into a personal and eternal relationship with the God.

pentecost, day of: (1) a sacred and special feast day in Israel's religious calendar. It falls on the fiftieth day after feast of first fruits and occurs only on a Sunday. It celebrated the founding of the nation of Israel, Leviticus 23:15-22. (2) Pentecost refers to the day in AD 30 when the first advent of the Holy Spirit inaugurated the beginning of the church age. On that day the Holy Spirit, permanently indwelt, filled all believers, and distributed to them the gift of foreign languages (also call tongues) in which 3000 Jewish men were evangelized in the temple in Jerusalem.

plan of God, phases:

• Phase One, the moment of salvation.
• Phase Two, the life of the believer, which begins immediately after salvation and continues until either physical death or the Rapture (the resurrection of all dead Church Age believers and the removal of all living believers from the earth).
• Phase Three, the believer eternaly in heaven.

redemption: The saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross whereby all humanity is bought from the slave market of sin in which they were born and delivered to the freedom of grace. Redemption is realized when a person is born again by faith alone in Christ alone.

regeneration: Regeneration or spiritual birth is the work of God the Holy Spirit whereby at the moment a person expresses faith alone in Christ alone and passes from spiritual death to spiritual life, the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit for the imputation of eternal life to the believer.

sanctification: is a technical theological term meaning to be set apart to God for a special purpose. Every believer is set apart in three ways extending from the point of salvation to the eternal state (John 17:17; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 13:12).

• Phase one, positional sanctification, refers to the moment the baptism of the Spirit enters the believer into union with Christ so that he has the assets to grow to spiritual maturity and serve the Lord.
• Phase two, experiential sanctification, is the believer's progress toward spiritual maturity and to actually serve the Lord during his life.
• Phase three, ultimate sanctification, is the believer in resurrection body.

sin: Any mental, verbal, or oven activity that violates the character and standards of God.

sin nature: An integral part of every human being which resides in the cell structure of the human body. The sin nature was acquired originally by Adam at his fall and is subsequently passed down genetically to all mankind through procreation. The result is both spiritual death and total depravity of all humanity, except Jesus Christ. The sin nature is composed of an area of strength, an area of weakness, trends toward legalism or antinomianism, and lust patterns.

• The sin nature is the "old man" of Ephesians 4:22
• The Adamic nature of "flesh" of Romans 8:3-4;
• The principle of "sin" of Romans 7:8-20.

spirituality: The absolute status of fellowship with God through the use of rebound and the resulting filling of the Holy Spirit. (Antonym: carnality)

union with Christ: takes place at the moment of salvation when every believer is identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection and placed " in Christ‘ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The union is eternal, delivers from the power of sin and death, and provides a spiritual life for every believer. The believer shares everything Christ is and has, including eternal life (I John 5:11-12); righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21): election (Eph.1:3-4); predestination (Eph. 1:5-6); adoption (Gal. 3:26); heirship (Rom, 8:16-17); priesthood (1Pet. 2:5, 9); sanctification (1 Cor. 1:2); royalty (2 Tim. 2:11-12). This doctrine explains the forensic status, temporal existence, and eternal future of every Church Age believer.