I would like to point out something important related to the genuine gospel, the sincere spirit, and the real Jesus. Whenever there is the preaching of the genuine gospel and the real Jesus with a sincere spirit, the Lord Jesus will be ministered to others so that they may appreciate Him, love Him, follow Him, and take Him as everything. Throughout the centuries, many have preached from the Bible and taught the Bible, but their preaching and teaching nevertheless distracted the believers from the precious Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In principle, such ones distract the believers in the same way as that taken by the serpent in Genesis 3.
God’s goal is life. This life, signified by the tree of life, is God Himself in Christ as the Spirit. The way of the enemy, Satan, the serpent, is to distract people from this life. He seeks to turn them to knowledge, good, and evil, the issue of which is death. Death is separation from the enjoyment of God.
The proper understanding of death is that it denotes separation from the enjoyment of God. This means that if we do not have the enjoyment of God, we are in death. Likewise, if we are separated from the enjoyment of God, we shall die. This is revealed in a full way in Romans 8. Romans 8:6 says, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” In this verse death is separation from the enjoyment of God. Life is the opposite, for it is the enjoyment of God. When we have the enjoyment of God, there is no separation between us and God, we are in life, and life operates in us.
In distracting the believers from the tree of life, Satan seeks to separate us from the enjoyment of God as our life. For centuries the subtle serpent has been using teachings to keep God’s chosen people from enjoying Him as their life. For the most part, these teachings are related to knowledge, good, and evil. But such teachings result in separation from God.
From the time of the apostles until today, there have been many teachings related to doctrine, theology, religion, practices, rituals, and the worship of God. Teachings like this are all on the line of the tree of knowledge. They do not bring us into the enjoyment of God. Instead, they separate us from this enjoyment.
When the Judaizers came to the churches in ancient times, these Judaizers made a pretense of being genuine. They could say that they were Hebrews, Israelites, the seed of Abraham. They also claimed to preach Christ and to be ministers of Christ. Furthermore, they had a spirit and said that what they preached was the gospel. If you had been in Corinth when the Judaizers were there, could you have differentiated the genuine Jesus, the pure spirit, and the true gospel from the false ones? If you had been there, as one of the Corinthian believers, you may have been deceived. You should not have the confidence that you can discern what Paul could discern.
In chapter eleven of 2 Corinthians, Paul was strong and bold, saying that the Judaizers were false apostles, deceitful workers, ministers of Satan. Because they were not genuine apostles, Paul called them super-apostles, those that went beyond their measure and placed themselves on a superior level.
Today, by the Lord’s mercy, we can realize that Paul certainly was the foremost apostle and was on the highest level of ministry. Nevertheless, the Judaizers claimed that they were superior to Paul. Their attitude was that Paul was nothing compared to them, that he was far less knowledgeable than they were. There is the suggestion, the hint, in 2 Corinthians that the Judaizers thought that they knew more than Paul. No wonder Paul called them super-apostles. This is, of course, an ironic term. Paul does not use this expression in a positive way. Actually, the Judaizers were not super-apostles, for they were not genuine apostles at all.
Do you not realize that our situation today is the same in principle as that in which Paul, the Judaizers, and the Corinthians were involved? Since our situation is the same, it is important to discern the genuine from the false.