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.
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.
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:
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).
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.
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.