ONLY JESUS - ALBERT ELISHA OBERDORFER - HOLYSPIRIT10X.COM

“This book is subtle. It looks simple on the surface,
but is profound and brilliant in its analysis of the
bible.” Hendrik Alexander
“A must-get, a must-read, a must-give-away!”
Debbie Kris C-E
ONLY
JESUS
A Simple & Clear Step-By-
Step Explanation of Who
Jesus is, Why We Need Him,
and What We Should Do When
We Want to Come to Him
For
New
Believers
Especially From
a Buddhist
Background
ALBERT ELISHA OBERDORFER

Only Jesus: A Simple & Clear Step-By-Step Explanation of Who Jesus
is, Why We Need Him, and What We Should Do When We Want to
Come to Him. For New Believers Especially From a Buddhist Background
A Kindle and a black and white paperback version of this book
are also available on Amazon.
© Copyright Albert L. Oberdorfer, 2018.
All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents
and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any
form without the express written consent of the publisher.
A previous edition of this book has been published under the
title Find Real Help (2012, Albert and Peninnah Oberdorfer,
Chiang Mai, Thailand, ISBN 978-616-305-276-6). In this
current edition, most images have been changed and some
chapters have been updated or added (Introduction, Chapter 1:
What Is Jesus Like?, Chapter 2: Religion—A Performance System,
Chapter 17: Repent, Chapter 21: The Culture of the Kingdom and
Come Home).
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James
Version ®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Image credits
The images on the following pages are the author’s: backcover,
24-26, 30 (soft toy), 62, 64, 81, 103, 105, 112, 136, 195, 198-199,
201, 210-211, 213-214, 222, 230, 233, 235, 237, 277, 285 and 278.
The images on pages 2, 8, 10, 12 (couple), 19 (motorbike), 30
(orchid), 30 (butterfly), 32, 38 (exhaust pipe), 41, 43, 59 (father
and daughter), 65, 66, 67, 68 (heart), 73 (stick), 75 (father and
daughter, robots), 84, 88, 92-93, 95, 106, 116, 128 (copyright),
142 (Don’t litter sign), 143 (motorbike), 157 (family), 166-167,
172-173, 182, 186, 200, 234, 238, 246, 270 (heart), 274 and 276
(sign) are from Shutterbox.com. Images on pages 45, and 136
are courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net. All other images are
from Pixabay.com.

“What a beautiful Name it is
What a beautiful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King
You have no rival
You have no equal
Now and forever God you reign
Yours is the Kingdom
Yours is the glory
Yours is the Name above all names”” [1]

4 ONLY JESUS
Dedication &
Thank You
Dedication & Thank
You

To Edward Radeka from Coober Pedy, South Australia.
Thank you for all your support and encouragement.
I thank the Lord also for your dad for bringing me
to the Lord.
“The just shall live by faith.” [Romans 1:17]
To my spiritual father Leif Hetland. Thank you for
teaching us how to love.
“I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You
are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and
I will give you the nations for Your inheritance and
the ends of the earth for your possession.’” [Psalm 2:7-8]
To all my present and future Thai and Asian family in
Christ. You are God’s precious children of the East.
Your time to shine has come.
“In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not
my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the
living God.’” [Romans 9:26]

6 ONLY JESUS
What Others
Have Said ...
What Others Have
Said ...

This book is subtle. It looks simple on the surface,
but is profound and brilliant in its analysis of the bible.
~ Hendrik Alexander
I have been greatly blessed through reading your Only
Jesus book that was passed on to me by a dear friend. I
am living down in the South of Thailand and delight
to share the gospel with people I meet. Thank you for
taking the time to write your refreshing book that reveals
the radical grace of the gospel. In fact, I can think of
at least 100 people, including many friends, who need
to read it.
~ Peter J M
Only Jesus is amazing by its simplicity and the pictures
and illustrations explaining the text. It’s a wonderful
introduction to the Father’s love and shows Jesus’ grace
to new believers in such a clear way! I like the fact that
it makes difficult things easy to understand! I have been
passing your book around and it helps the Vietnamese
believers a lot. Simplicity and straight to the point! Bravo.
~ Jean-Marc M
Treasure Found—for a while now, I’ve been looking for
a simple, yet comprehensive book that can introduce the
New Covenant (our identity, authority and relationship
with Abba, Father) to pre-believers—essentially to relate
to the Thai mentality or folks who have no concept of
God.
Well, I FOUND IT!!! Thank you Jesus!

This is the book, ‘Only Jesus’ by Albert Elisha
Oberdorfer. The book is presented with illustrations,
examples, MAKING IT REALLY EASY for anybody—
who hasn’t got any background at all in God—to
understand. It takes the reader step by step from the
difference between self-help & religion to understanding
God’s original plan, Adam handing over authority, why
Jesus, the finished work, the Holy Spirit—about 280
pages, in a paperback book.
It’s a Must-get, Must-read, Must-give away!
~ Debbie Kris C-E
We received your book yesterday—thank you—and I
have been looking through it today. I am very impressed
and I feel it will be a blessing to a great deal of people—
me included. It is interesting to see how our attitudes
and understandings mature over the years as the Holy
Spirit leads us into all truth.
~ Paul R

Contents
Introduction 1
I WHO IS JESUS? 5
1 What Is Jesus Like? 7
2 Religion—A Performance System 17
3 The Design and the Designer 29
4 Exhaust Pipes and Fried Chicken 39
5 In the Beginning 51
6 Why You and I Are Special 61
7 God Created Us to Be in His Family 67
II WHY DO WE NEED JESUS? 77
8 It Was Not an Apple Tree 79
9 Fig Leaves 93
10 A General That Changes Sides 99
11 We Got a Goal! 109
12 The Good Person Test 117
13 I’m Better Than Him 135
14 It Is Finished! 155
15 Why Only Him? 179

III WHAT SHOULD WE DO WHEN
WE WANT TO COME TO JESUS? 189
16 A Spiritual Re-Birth 191
17 Repent 201
18 Be Baptized 211
19 Receive the Spirit of God 233
20 A Spirit Language 247
21 Kingdom Culture 261
Come Home 271
Contact Details 279
Endnotes 280
Index 281
Other Books by Albert Elisha 282

Introduction
‘"Come"’
When I was 19—the night before I got
baptized—Jesus came to me in a dream. I didn’t
see His appearance, but I heard His voice, as
clearly as if you were speaking to me face-to-face.
Jesus’ voice was unlike any other voice I had
ever heard before. It was full of perfect love—a
kind of unconditional love that is totally free of
condemnation of any kind. But at the same time
it was also full of absolute authority. When
I heard it, I knew that whatever Jesus would
command would happen.
Jesus said to me three words. First, He called
my name, twice: “Albert, Albert.”
Then He said, “Come.”
And I remember responding in a trembling
voice, “Yes.”
Later when I began to read my bible, I found
out that many times Jesus said to people, “Come.”
Sometimes He said, “Come and see,” or “Come and
follow Me,” or “Come to Me.”

2 ONLY JESUS
My First Experience
with the Glory Realm
On the next day I then got baptized.
Later that night, when I was alone in my room
I knelt down on the floor and began to pray. All of a
sudden I felt that I was on the end of a huge pipe that
directly connected me with the realm of heaven.
And through that pipe the power and the glory of
God kept pouring down to me continuously,
as I was on my knees with my arms lifted up
to heaven.
I also found myself speaking in a new Spirit
language. [We will talk more about this in chapter
20.] It was like streams of living water were flowing
through my innermost being and pouring out
through my mouth in a language that was new
to me. That was my first experience with the
glory realm.
Later I then understood that I
had received the Spirit of God—the
Holy Spirit, and that I had experienced a
spiritual re-birth. [We will also talk more about
this in Chapter 16: A Spiritual Re-Birth.]
Later I also found out that Jesus is a King and
that He had brought me into His Kingdom and a new
way of life. [See Chapter 7: God Created Us to Be in His
Family, and Chapter 21: The Culture of the Kingdom.]

INTRODUCTION
3
Who This Book Is For
Ever since that day I
have been following Jesus.
To date, I’ve been on 5
continents in 40+ countries.
Everywhere I’ve met people
who were hungry to find out
more about Jesus, and who
were ready to come to Him.
Many of those people had supernatural encounters
like the one I had. Others had this longing in their
heart to find out what this life was about, some ever
since they were young. Some had been looking at
the materialistic side of life, and they were asking
themselves, “Isn’t there more to life than this?”
Some had been thinking about death, and before
they came to Jesus, they didn’t have a clear answer
of what would happen to them after death.
Often I could tell them in simple words and
illustrations—like in this book—more about Jesus and
help them to come into the Kingdom of God.
If you are one of those people who are hungry for
the truth, then this book is for you.
And if you are from a Buddhist background, then
Only Jesus will help you to understand how following
Jesus Christ differs from following a religion,
especially the Buddhist religion.

4 ONLY JESUS
What This Book is About
So in this book, I am trying to answer, step-bystep
in a simple and clear way the following questions:
1. Who is Jesus?,
2. Why do we need Him? and
3. What should we do if we want to come
to Him?
I hope that Only Jesus will help you in your journey
into the Kingdom of God.
I hope that it will give you a better understanding
so that you can fully come to Jesus, like I did, and
like hundreds of millions, even billions of people all
around the globe—in an ever increasing measure.
Your life will never be the same.
Albert Elisha Oberdorfer
May 2018

Part 1
Who is
Jesus?

1
What Is Jesus
Like?
WHEN PEOPLE SEE the title of this book
they sometimes ask me, “Is this book about
religion?” Then I say, “No.” “This book is
about Jesus.”
People often think that Jesus is connected to some
kind of religion. But He actually doesn’t have anything
to do with religion.
Here is a story to illustrate what I mean. The story
is called A Man in a Hole. It’s about a man who has
fallen down a hole and then different religious teachers
come along to ‘help’.

8 ONLY JESUS
‘A Man in a Hole’
“A man falls in a hole and he can’t get out.
A traveler passes by. He tells the man to
meditate to purify his mind, and when
he reaches nirvana [=a state of absolute
emptiness and bliss] all sufferings will
cease. The man does as he is told but
he remains in the hole.
Another man appears. He explains that
the hole doesn’t exist and neither in
fact does the man. It is all an illusion.
The man who does not exist is still
stuck in the hole that is not there.
Another visitor arrives. He
instructs the man to do good deeds
to improve his karma [=the law
of cause and effect, meaning
that your life today is a reflection
of your past deeds], and though
he might still die in the hole he
might be incarnated as something
magnificent.
Another man looks down from above.
He tells the man to pray five times facing
the east and to follow five important tenants. And
if he is faithful, perhaps the divine will set him free. The
man prays the best he can, but he is losing strength and
in the hole he remains.

WHAT IS JESUS LIKE?
9
Another man appears. There is something
different about him. He calls out to the man
in the hole and asks him if he wants to be
free. This man lowers himself into the earth.
He takes hold of the man and drags him into
the light. And the man who could not get
himself up is saved.” [2]
Religion Says,
"Help Yourself !"’
The story of A Man in a Hole shows us that religion
can come in many forms. But all forms of religion have
one thing in common: Religion
will always tell us what
we should do to help
ourselves.
But when we’ve
fallen down a hole
from which we can’t
get out, then this kind
of advice is all useless.
We will later see
that all of us were
born into a condition
from which we can’t free
ourselves. [See Chapter 11: We Got a
Goal!] We will see that only Jesus can set us free!

10 ONLY JESUS
Jesus Says,
"I Will Save
You!"’
Jesus doesn’t have
anything to do with
religion. The name
‘Jesus’ means savior. A
savior is someone who rescues
others. So Jesus doesn’t just say to us,
“Help yourself!” like a religious teacher. He rescues us.
But Jesus does more than that.
Jesus doesn’t just rescue us and then let us go again
our own way, like a firefighter who rescues a person from
a burning building. Jesus invites us to come to Him—so
that we may be connected with Him permanently.
So Jesus says,
‘Come to Me’
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take
My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle
and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” [Matthew
11:28-30]

WHAT IS JESUS LIKE?
11
Union
“Come to Me ... Take My yoke upon you ...”
A yoke
is a piece of
wood that
connects 2
animals to
each other
so that they
can share the
load.
But notice,
Jesus does not say, “Give Me your yoke. I will help you
carry it.” He says, “Take My yoke upon you.”
This means that Jesus invites us to link up with Him.
Jesus doesn’t want us to come to Him to only have our
problems fixed, and then go again our own ways. Jesus
wants us to be united with Him
permanently.

12 ONLY JESUS
Relationship
“Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me ...”
Learning from someone is very
different from just following rules and
regulations. There is a relationship
involved. It’s like when you learn from
loving parents. They don’t just give you a
list of rules. They connect with you heartto-heart
and teach you by example.
Jesus is like that. He wants to connect
with us—heart-to-heart—so that we can
learn from Him. He is amazingly gentle and
lowly in heart. He is wonderful to be with.
Rest
“I will give you rest ... you will find rest
for your souls ... My yoke is easy and My
burden is light.”
Jesus tells us what will happen
when we link up with Him, and learn
from Him. We find rest for our souls.
Our own burdens are heavy. We are
yoked to things that weigh us down. But
Jesus’ yoke is easy. His burden is light.
He frees us from our own burdens
and gives us a new life in a heart-toheart
relationship with Him.

WHAT IS JESUS LIKE?
13
The Kingdom of God
In the story of A Man in A Hole,
the story ends when the
person (who represents
Jesus) has rescued
the man from the
hole. But, as we
have said, this is not
where the story with
Jesus actually ends. It is
where it begins.
We will see that when Jesus
rescues us, He frees us from the
domain of darkness (the kingdom of Satan) and transfers
us into the domain of God (the Kingdom of God).
A king / dom is the domain of a king.
We will later see that when we were born into this
world, we were automatically born into the kingdom of
darkness. When we come to Jesus—through what He
has done for us—we are rescued from the kingdom of
darkness and come into the kingdom of light which is
the Kingdom of God.
Then we can begin our journey of walking
with God. Then we can come more and more
under the rule of His Kingdom in our lives.
And in that journey He will begin to teach us about our
identity, our value, our inheritance and our purpose.

14 ONLY JESUS
Jesus—Our King
So when we come to Jesus, we don’t just come to
him to receive things from Him.
When we come to Him, we experience a total transfer
from the rule of darkness to the rule of light. Jesus
becomes our King and we get to live in the Kingdom
of God as children of God. [We will talk more about this
in the later chapters.]
Are you weary?
‘How About You?’
Are you burdened?
Are seeking to find rest for your soul?
Are you tired of struggling on your own? Are you
tired of your self-life? Have you been trying to help
yourself and you feel that it doesn’t get you anywhere?
Are you tired to live under the rule of darkness?
If this is you, Jesus says to you,
“Come and link up with Me. What you really need is Me.
Let Me save you and bring you into the Kingdom of God.”

WHAT IS JESUS LIKE?
15
Come on a Journey
of Faith with Us
In this journey of faith, we will
go step-by-step so that you can fully
understand how you can come to
Jesus and fully link up with Him
and come into the Kingdom of
God.
As we have said before, when
we come to Jesus we enter into a
union and relationship with Jesus
and find rest through that union
and relationship with Him in His
Kingdom.
In the next chapter, Religion—A
Performance System, we will look at a
particular type of religion that you might be familiar
with: Buddhism. We will see that Buddhism is not about
a relationship but that it is all about performance.
d
Study Questions
1. What is the story of A Man in a Hole about?
2. What is the difference between following a
religion and being united with Jesus?

2
Religion—
A Performance
System
I
N THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, we’ve looked
at the story of A Man in a Hole. It shows that
religion will always tell us what we should do to
help ourself.
Let us look at one example of religion—Theravada
Buddhism—in more detail because it illustrates the story
of A Man in a Hole well. Theravada Buddhism is a
religion from India. It was later introduced to Thailand.

18 ONLY JESUS
What Buddhism Teaches
Imagine for a moment that you are a follower of this
religion. Then this is what Theravada Buddhism would
say to you: (I will first mention the original sayings in
Thai, and then the English translations)
‘Ton Ben Ti Buen Heng Ton’
=‘'Self Relies on Self'’
In other words, ‘Rely on yourself!’
‘Tam Dee DaiDee;
Tam Tschua Dai Tschua’
=‘'Do Good—Get Good;
Do Bad—Get Bad'’’
In other words, ‘You get what you deserve’ (karma)—
either good (‘dee’), or bad (‘tschua’).
‘Bun’=Merit,
‘Bab’=Sin and
‘Gam’=Curse
If you do what is right (‘tam dee’), then you accumulate
merit (‘bun’) and you will get good (‘dai dee’). But if you
do what is wrong (‘tam tschua’), then you commit sin
(‘tam bab’), come under a curse (‘gam’) and you will get
bad (‘dai tschua’).

RELIGION—A PERFORMANCE SYSTEM
19
‘Bab Suan Bab,
Bun Suan Bun’
=‘'Sin is Sin,
Merit is
Merit'
However, sin
(‘bab’) and merit
(‘bun’) belong
to two different
categories. This
means that if you
have sinned (‘tam
bab’), you cannot
make merit (‘tam
bun’) to reduce the bad effects of your sin.
Imagine that you were speeding and you’ve been
caught by a police officer. Then you can’t just say to
the police officer, “Dear officer, please don’t give me a
fine! I’ve kept the speed limit all day. Only now I drove a
little faster because I didn’t want to come late to dinner.”
You can’t also say, “Please forgive me! I will really try
my best to keep the traffic laws from now on. I promise
that I won’t do it again!”
So neither your good behavior in the past, nor
your noble intentions to behave well in the
future helps you in that case. With sin
and merit it’s the same.

20 ONLY JESUS
‘Tam Bun’=Making Merit
Now what can you do to make merit (‘tam bun’)?
‘Seen Ha’=The 5 Moral Laws
To make merit you should keep the following 5
basic moral laws (‘Seen Ha’). [3]
1. ‘Bana tipa-ta veramani’ = Do not kill (a being that
has feeling)!
2. ‘Atin-na ta-na veramani’ = Do not steal!
3. ‘Garmay sumitcha jara veramani’ = Do not commit
sexual immorality!
4. ‘Musa wa-ta veramani’ = Do not lie or speak any
evil! and
5. ‘Sura may-ra-ya majjapama tat-tana veramani’ = Do
not consume intoxicating substances!
These 5 basic moral laws are good.
We don’t feel well when someone steals from us,
or when someone acts immoral towards us, or when
someone lies to us.
We also will not feel right in our conscience if we steal,
or if we commit sexual immorality, or if we lie. Right?

RELIGION—A PERFORMANCE SYSTEM
21
‘Tam Bab’=Committing Sin
However, what counts is not what you are thinking
about these moral laws. What counts is whether or not
you are keeping them. So Buddhism will ask you, “Are
you keeping the Seen Ha?”
‘Are You Keeping the Seen Ha?’
1. “Have you ever killed a living being?” “Are you only
eating vegetarian food?”
2. “Have you ever taken something that does not belong to
you?” “Have you ever downloaded files illegally
or watched copyrighted movies on the Internet?”
“Have you ever illegally copied books that are
copyrighted?” “Have you ever used pirated
software?”
3. “Are you sexually pure?” “Have you been having sex
before marriage or outside of marriage?” “Are you
watching unclean movies and images on the Internet?”
4. “Are you telling lies?” “Have you ever gossiped?”
“Have you ever talked about other people behind
their back?”
5. “Are you consuming any intoxicating or addictive
substances?” “Are you drinking alcohol?” “Are you
smoking?” And so on.
Are you failing in any of these areas? If yes, then you are
sinning (‘tam bab’) and will receive punishment (‘tam
tschua, dai tschua’).

22 ONLY JESUS
‘Narok’=Hell
Buddhism says that you are going to face the
consequences of all of your actions—whether good
or bad (=karma). Those who break the Seen Ha will be
punished in one of the 8 pits of hell (‘narok’). [4]
The 1 st pit of hell (‘Sancheewa Narok’) is for those
who break the 1 st moral law, ‘Don’t kill!’
The 2 nd pit (‘Galasutta Narok’) is for those who break
the 2 nd law, ‘Don’t steal!’
The 3 rd pit (‘Sangkata Narok’) for those who break
the 3 rd law, ‘Don’t commit sexual immorality!’
The 4 th pit (‘Roruwa Narok’) is for those who lie.
The 5 th pit (‘Maha-roruwa Narok’) for those who drink
or smoke.
The 6 th pit (‘Dapana Narok’) is for those who break
a number of the moral laws.
The 7 th pit (‘Maha-dapana Narok’) for those who
break all five.
And finally, the most severe form of hell, the 8 th
pit (‘Away-jee Narok’) is for those who kill their
parents or monks.

RELIGION—A PERFORMANCE SYSTEM
23
Summary
So this is what Theravada Buddhism says to you:
“Rely on yourself! (‘Ton ben ti buen heng ton.’)
You get what you deserve. (‘Tam dee, dai dee; tam
tschua, dai tschua.’)
You either accumulate merit (‘bun’) or a curse (‘gam’).
But doing good deeds doesn’t help you to counteract
the effects of your sin. (‘Bab suan bab, bun suan bun.’)
You are going to suffer the consequences of all of
your actions (karma).
And there is hell (‘narok’) awaiting for those who
break the moral laws.”
In short, everything depends on you and
your performance. The moral laws (Seen Ha) are
all good, but how well can you perform?
How did you go with keeping the Seen Ha?
This reminds me of an experience I had some time
ago with one of my students.

24 ONLY JESUS
'Lee'
Lee was a 2 nd year student in one of my my 8 o’clock
English classes at Chiang Mai University.
For this class (Oral Expression 2) it was very important
that students came on time so that we could get through
all the scheduled role-play and speaking activities. I also
had to count students who were more than 20 minutes
late as absent, according to university policy. Also, if
students were more than 6 times absent, they lost the
right to take the final exam, and automatically failed
the course.
Our class (with Lee)

RELIGION—A PERFORMANCE SYSTEM
25
After I had taught the class a few times, I noticed that
one student seemed to be a notorious late-comer (Lee).
I knew that if he continued this pattern of being late,
he was headed towards an ‘F’ (fail) grade.
So I approached him and told him what would
happen if he continued this pattern of coming late to
class. But instead of just saying, ‘So don’t be late!’, I then
offered to help him to be on time and we connected
through a social networking application called LINE.
'Hi There'
From then on,
I started to text
him greetings,
encouragements,
and reminders
during the day,
and especially
in the mornings
before class
started.
He was so
surprised that he
received help from
me and started to
come to class on
time.

26 ONLY JESUS
It
Works
One day I
received a text
message from
him 20 minutes
before the class
started.
Lee told
me that he was
already in the
classroom and
was getting
ready for the
speaking test
he had to take
on that day.
That’s when I
realized that
this strategy
had worked and that all would work out well.
I didn’t just threaten him with what would happen
if he didn’t come. Instead, I offered him my help. The
good thing was that Lee was willing to receive my help.
Otherwise I’m sure that he would have ended up failing
the class. But because Lee happily received my help, all
ended well.
Jesus is like that.

RELIGION—A PERFORMANCE SYSTEM
27
Jesus Saves
Jesus is not like religious teachers who only tell us
what we should do. He is like that person
who climbed down into the hole to
help the man to get out.
And more than that!
As we will see, Jesus sets us
free from the power of sin and
brings us into the Kingdom
of God where we can live in a
relationship with Him and be
ruled by the power of His love.
We will talk more about what Jesus has done for us,
and how we can enter the Kingdom of God a bit later.
But before we do that, let’s first talk more generally
about God in the next chapter, The Design and the
Designer.
d
Study Questions
1. What are the basic teachings of Theravada
Buddhism?
2. How well can you perform?
3. What can we learn from the story of ‘Lee’?

3
The Design and
the Designer
‘Nature?’
STARS IN THE NIGHT SKY that look like huge
diamonds of a royal diadem pulsating with life...
Inspirational, romantic sunsets that light up the
sky in a firework of exquisite yellows, oranges, purples
and reds... A full moon rising majestically over the
skyline of a city... Singapore orchids... Rainbow colored
butterflies...
How do you feel when you see such
displays of glory in nature? Amazement?
Joy? A sense of awe and wonder?
But have you ever thought
about who made all this?

30 ONLY JESUS
If you ask general
people, “Who made
the world?” they will
often simply say, “Ah,
yes, that was
nature.”
Sure it was
nature.
But what is
‘nature’? And why
do things in nature
exist?
Order and Design
What we see in nature is order.
Now some people say that order
can occur randomly. But have you
ever left your living room for a couple
of weeks without cleaning up
and then looked what has
become of it? (A total mess.)
So what I want to say is
that wherever there is order
and structure (design), there
has to be a designer. Somebody
who puts things in order.
In other words, design is
evidence of a designer.

THE DESIGN AND THE DESIGNER
31
Engineers, Architects,
and Dressmakers
For example, when we look at
a man-made item such as a car,
there had to be engineers who
first designed, and then built
every part of that car.
Or when we look at a
house, there had to be an
architect who first drew
a blue print, and builders
who then built the house
according to the blue print.
Or when we look at a beautiful
dress, there had to be a fashion
designer who creatively designed,
and then skillfully manufactured it.
So any car, house, dress—or any
other created thing—just doesn’t
come into existence by chance without
reason. They are the product of designers.

32 ONLY JESUS
The Design
and the Designer
And the design tells us something about
the designer. If the design is excellent,
it means that the designer is excellent.
Everywhere we find evidence of human design. But
what about design in nature, such as the design of a
human body?
‘Who Made You?’
If I ask my Thai students,
“Who made you?” they
will quickly answer, “My
parents!”
Then I say to one of
them, “Can I call your
mum or dad, please?”
“I’d like to ask them,
‘How did you make your
daughter’s beautiful
hair?’” “How did you
make her amazing
eyes?” “How did you
make her lovely
nose?” “What
would your
parents say?”

THE DESIGN AND THE DESIGNER
33
At this point my students usually
start laughing. I can hear them think,
“This teacher is asking really strange
questions!” But would they know?
They wouldn’t.
Sure, doctors will know
more than normal people
about medical things. But
even then, they still can’t
explain why the miracle of
life happens.
The Seed
Would a farmer who plants
a seed know why and how the
seed changes into a flower, for
example? No.
In the same way, your parents don’t
know why and how the egg that came from your
mother and the seed that came from your father changed
into a human being that then became you. So it’s not
them that made you.
They were involved in the process—yes. But they
didn’t make the design. They didn’t make you grow in
your mother’s womb.

34 ONLY JESUS
God Made the Heavens
and the Earth
What does God’s word, the bible, say
about all this? The first sentence of the bible
says,
In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. [Genesis 1:1]
So it was God—the master designer—who
made all things, including us. So when we
see evidence of beautiful design in nature,
it tells us something about the beautiful
designer—God—who made it.
King David was a king in Israel. He lived
about 3000 years ago. Whenever David
looked up into the sky, he was overwhelmed
by the splendor of God’s handiwork in the
heavens. In a song, King David wrote,
The heavens declare the glory of
God; and the firmament shows His
handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and
night unto night reveals knowledge. There is
no speech nor language where their voice is not
heard. [Psalm 19:1-3]
The heavens speak. They reveal
knowledge. All around the world, people
can look up into the sky and be touched by
the glory of God’s creation.

THE DESIGN AND THE DESIGNER
35
I had an overwhelming experience on a visit
to Mozambique in 2017. One night, in a remote
area in Chiure, I felt that I should go outside and look
up into the sky. So I did. I will never forget how at that
moment the constellations of stars appeared to me like
huge diamonds of a royal diadem pulsating with life.
When I close my eyes today, I can still see them.
But King David was not only overwhelmed when he
looked up into the sky. He was also overwhelmed when
he thought about how he was formed in his mother’s
womb. So in another song, David wrote,
“You [God] formed my inward parts; You covered me
[=knit me together] in my
mother’s womb. I will
praise You, for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made;
marvelous are Your works, and
that my soul knows very well.”
[Psalm 139:13-14]
How about you?
How do you feel when you see
those sparkling stars, those majestic
full moons, and those inspirational
sunsets in the sky? How do you
feel when you contemplate about
the wonders of creation?
Are you touched by God’s
creation like David was?

36 ONLY JESUS
‘But Who Made God?’
Sometimes people say, “If God
made the universe, who made God?
Where did God come from?” I’ve
recently heard someone answer this
question well.
The God who created this universe is
not affected by time, space or matter.
If He would be affected by time, space or matter
then He would not be the God of the bible.
Time, space and matter all have to come into
existence at the same time. Because if there were
matter, but no space, where would you put it? If there
were matter and space but no time, when would you put
it? You cannot have time, space or matter independently.
They have to come into existence at the same time. The
word of God tells us this in the first sentence. “In the
beginning” (that’s time) “God created the heavens” (that’s
space) “and the earth” (that’s matter).
The God who created time, space and matter
has to be outside of them. If He is limited by time,
then He is not God. The God who created this universe
is outside the universe. He is above it, in it, through it,
but he is not affected by it.
So the question, “Where did God come
from?” assumes a limited God. The God of
the bible is infinite and almighty. This is
the God who we worship. [5]

THE DESIGN AND THE DESIGNER
37
We Need a Touch
from the Master'’s Hand
Now if God is the master designer, then we can also
expect to find help through Him.
If there is a car that needs fixing, it needs to be taken
to a mechanic—someone who knows about the design
of the car. In the same way, in the fundamental issues
of life, we can’t get help from other human beings.
To find real help, we need to come to God who made
us—the God who created the universe, the God who
placed the stars in the sky, the God who made nature,
the God who is unlimited by time, space or matter.
We need a touch from the Master’s
hand.
But what is God really like? This is what we are
going to look at in the next chapter, Exhaust
Pipes or Fried Chicken?
d
Study Questions
1. What can we learn from order and
design?
2. What does looking at creation tell us?
3. Who made God?

4
Exhaust Pipes or
Fried Chicken?
‘What Is God Really Like?’
AT THIS POINT, LET’S TALK a bit about
the characteristics of God and find out what
God is really like. This is important. We need
to know that God is good. Otherwise, we will not
want to get to know Him.
It’s like getting to know someone in the daily life. We
wouldn’t want to get to know people and make friends
with them, if we knew that they were not trustworthy,
or planned to take advantage of us, or meant us ill in
any way.
So what is God who created this world really like?
What is His character?

40 ONLY JESUS
‘I’m Sorry, but Here
We Only Have Fried
Chicken’
Imagine you went
to a KFC restaurant
and said, “Excuse me,
I want an exhaust pipe
for my car.”
What would the
shop assistant say to
you? She’d probably
look at you strangely
and say, “I’m sorry, but
in this restaurant we don’t
have exhaust pipes—we
only have fried chicken. If you want to buy an exhaust pipe,
we can’t help you. You have to go somewhere else.”
With God it’s the same. If you come to Him expecting
to get anything bad, you won’t get it. He would say to
you, “I’m sorry, but here we don’t have anything bad. You
have to go somewhere else. We only have good things.” [5]
The bible says,
“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
comes down from the Father of lights, with whom
there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
[James 1:16-17]

EXHAUST PIPES OR FRIED CHICKEN?
41
God Is Good—
All the Time
“Do not be deceived ... Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above ...” This shows us that from God come
only good and perfect gifts.
And He never changes.
“With whom there is no
variation or shadow of
turning.” The normal
sun in the sky constantly
changes. It constantly casts
moving shadows. But God
doesn’t change like that. He
is always the same.
God is good—
all the time.
God
Good and perfect gifts

42 ONLY JESUS
God Is Good—
To All
God is so unlike normal
people. Most people love
those who love them.
They do good to those
who do good to them.
They greet those who greet
them. They help those
who help them.
But the God who
created this world
is not like that!
He is good
to all.
“He makes
His sun rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just
and on the unjust.” [Matthew 5:45]
He loves His enemies.
[Matthew 5:44-45]
He does good to those who hate Him. [Matthew
5:44-45]
He blesses those who curse Him.
[Matthew 5:44-45]
[Luke 6:35]
He is kind to the unthankful and evil.
Have you ever heard of a God who is like that?
How do you see God?

EXHAUST PIPES OR FRIED CHICKEN?
43
So what happens
when we come under
the influence of this
good God?
Then we get
to experience His
wonderful presence.
God’s Influence
Is Only Good
We get to experience His
tender love.
His exuberant joy.
His comforting peace.
His limitless kindness.
His great goodness.
His great faithfulness.
So—contrary to what you might have heard in
religion—God’s influence is only good.
What a wonderful God!

44 ONLY JESUS
God Is H oly,
Righteous
and Just
Yet at the same time God
is also holy, righteous and
just. Holy means ‘pure, righteous,
sinless, without fault.’
When people experienced
the goodness and the holy
presence of God through
Jesus, they often reacted in a
way that they became aware
of their own sinfulness, their
[See Luke 5:8]
own uncleanness.
Because God is holy, He
cannot co-exist with impurity
or something unclean (sin). He
cannot coexist with unrighteousness.
This is the reason why before we can be united
with Him, God has to clean us.
He has to purify us.
We will see that this is what Jesus did for us on the
cross through His blood. Jesus the pure and Holy One
had to give His own pure and holy life, so that we could
be cleansed from our sins and could be united with a
holy God. We will look at this in detail in a later chapter.
[See Chapter 14: It Is Finished!]

EXHAUST PIPES OR FRIED CHICKEN?
45
A Good Shepherd
God also cares like a good shepherd.
In general people keep focusing on all their problems
and they keep looking for ways to solve them. They are
like sheep without a shepherd.
A good shepherd leads his sheep to the green grass.
He leads them to the waters. He finds a good place for
them to lie down and rest. If a sheep is wounded and
sick, a good shepherd bandages the wound and heals it.
And if a snake or wolf tries to attack, a good shepherd
uses his shepherd’s rod to protect it.
A good shepherd loves his sheep and they feel secure
in his love. So if a sheep has a good shepherd, everything
else will be all right.
I’m in daily need of such a good shepherd.
How about you?

46 ONLY JESUS
Jesus Is the Good Shepherd
Jesus Christ says that He is that good shepherd that
we are so in need of:
“I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep,
and am known by My own.” [John 10:14]
Someone who knew what it was like to have God
as a shepherd was King David in Israel. He wrote a
famous song (Psalm 23). In this song David described
his intimate experience with God.
This is what David said:
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me
beside the still waters.
He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of
righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod
and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.” [Psalm 23:1-6]

EXHAUST PIPES OR FRIED CHICKEN?
47
‘How Would You Feel?’
How would you feel if you knew you had
- Someone who would always be with you
and look after you, so that you would never
feel alone?
- Someone who would always lead you, so that
you would never need to worry about the
future?
- Someone who would always walk with you
through any storms of life, so that you would
always look ahead with hope and confidence
that everything will turn around for your
good?

48 ONLY JESUS
There’s a song that describes God’s good care for us.
It is called, He’s Been Good.
He’s Been Good
The song goes like this: [7]
I have known the Father’s care for me
He’s been good,
He’s been good
Through it all, He’s always there
for me
God’s been good to me
Through the storms,
Through the night
Come what may
Everything will be
all right
I have known the
Father’s care for me
God’s been good to me
Once Jesus Christ has
become your shepherd, you will
be all right.
Once you have Him in your life and you have come
under His care, you won’t have to worry about anything.

49
He will always be with you and go with you
through all the storms of life. He will never leave
you nor forsake you. He will cause you to walk
in the path of righteousness.
He will cause you to experience His holy
presence and you will experience transformation and
refreshing through that. He will cleanse you from
all your sin, and cause you to walk in a pure
conscience.
He will teach you to walk with Him all the
days of your life until eternity.
Then it will be truly well with you.
In the next chapter, In the Beginning, we will go back
to the beginning and look at how God created the world
in the beginning.
d
Study Questions
1. What is God really like and what happens
when we come under the good influence of
God?
2. How does Jesus want to look after us?

5
In the Beginning
Everything Was Very Good
LET’S GO BACK IN TIME and look at how
God created the world in the beginning.
God is good. So if God is good, then
everything that He created would have been good too.
Let’s see.

52 ONLY JESUS
A Good World
The bible says that God made the
world step-by-step. He spoke things
into being.
In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth. The earth was without
form and void; and darkness was on the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
was hovering over the face of the waters.
Then God said … [Genesis 1:2-3]
1
First, God made light.
“God said, ‘Let there be
light’; and there was light.”
[Genesis 1:3]
And after God had
made the light, what did
He think about it? The
bible says, “And God saw
the light, that it was good.”
[Genesis 1:4] So, what God had
made was good.

IN THE BEGINNING
53
2
After that, God made the world’s atmosphere.
Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in
the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters.” Thus God made
the firmament, and divided the waters which were under
the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament
Heaven. [Genesis 1:6-8]
Then, God made the continents and oceans.
Then God said, “Let the waters under the
heavens be gathered together into one
place, and let the dry land appear”; and it
was so.
And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering
together of the waters He called Seas. [Genesis 1:9-10]
And after God had made the atmosphere, the
continents, and the oceans, what did He think about
it? The bible says, “And God saw that it was good.”
[Genesis 1:10] Again, what God had made was good.

54 ONLY JESUS
3
After that, God made the vegetation.
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass,
the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree
that yields fruit according to its kind, whose
seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.
[Genesis 1:11]
And after God had made all the
vegetation, what did He think
about it? The bible says, “And
God saw that it was
good.” [Genesis 1:12]
Again, what God
had made was good.

IN THE BEGINNING
55
4
Then, God
made the sun,
the moon,
and the stars.
T h e n God said, “Let
there be lights in the
firmament of the heavens
to divide the day from the
night; and let them be for
signs and seasons, and
for days and years; and
let them be for lights in
the firmament of the
heavens to give light on
the earth”; and it was so.
Then God made two great lights:
the greater light (the sun) to rule
the day, and the lesser light (the
moon) to rule the night. He made
the stars also. [Genesis 1:14-16]
And after God had made the
sun, the moon, and all the stars,
what did He think about it? The
bible says, “And God saw that it
was good.” [Genesis 1:18] Again,
what God had made was good.

56 ONLY JESUS
5
After that, God made
fish and birds.
Then God said, “Let the waters abound with
an abundance of living
creatures, and let birds
fly above the earth
across the face of the
firmament of the
heavens.”
So God created great sea
creatures and every living that
moves, with which the waters
abounded, according to their kind,
and every winged bird according
to its kind. [Genesis 1:20-21]
And after God had
made all the fish and the
birds, what did He think
about it? The bible says, “And God
saw that it was good.”
[Genesis 1:21] Again,
what God had
made was
good.

IN THE BEGINNING
57
6
Then, God made
land animals.
Then God said, “Let
the earth bring forth
the living creature
according to its kind:
cattle and creeping
thing and beast of the earth, each
according to its kind”; and it
was so. [Genesis 1:24]
And after God
had made all the
land animals, what
did He think about
it? The bible says,
“And God saw that
it was good.”
[Genesis 1:25] Once
more, what God
had made was
good.

58 ONLY JESUS
After that God created man. He made the first
couple, Adam and Eve.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness …”
So God created man in His own image; in the image of
God He created him; male and female He
created them. [Genesis
1:26-27]
So man was
special and
different from
all animals
because God
made man
in His own
“image” and
“likeness.”
We will look
at how man
could be like
God in the
next chapter,
Why You and
I Are Special.

IN THE BEGINNING
59
7
Then, on the seventh day God rested because all
the work was completed. And what did God think about
everything when it was finished?
Then God saw everything that He had
made, and indeed it was very
good. [Genesis 1:31]
Notice—in the beginning—
everything that God had made was
very good. There was no sickness,
disease, and death. There wasn’t anything
that is not good. At that time, the whole world still lived
totally under the good and life-giving influence of God.
d
Study Questions
1. How did God create the
world in the beginning?
2. How did God create humans?
3. What was the world
like after God had
created it?

6
Why You and I
Are Special
T
God Made Us
to Be Like H im
O UNDERSTAND HOW we could be like God,
let’s see how God made man in the beginning:
And the LORD God (1) formed man of the dust of
the ground, and (2) breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and (3) man became a living being [soul].
[Genesis 2:7]
(1) So first, God took some dust of the earth and
shaped Adam’s body from it. But at this point, Adam
was not yet alive.
Life originates from the Spirit of God. [John 4:24] So at
this time Adam’s body was still dead because it was not
yet in contact with the Spirit of God.

62 ONLY JESUS
(2) God then took Adam’s lifeless body and made
it come alive by bringing it into contact with His own
life-giving Spirit (the Spirit of God). God blew “the
breath of life” into Adam.
(3) So when God’s life-giving Spirit came into him,
Adam became alive. Adam, the lifeless dustman became
Adam, the living being with a
unique personality—a
soul.
3 Parts
So, from this we
can see that God
made man in 3 parts
with a body, a soul, and
[1 Thessalonians 5:23]
a spirit.
Body
Soul
Spirit
Body = Physical Part
The physical body is our visible part. When we look
at people, we first see their physical appearance.
Soul = Thoughts, Emotions, and
Will
The soul is our second part. It consists of our thoughts,
emotions and will. Everybody’s thoughts, emotions and
will are somewhat different. That’s why everyone has
a unique personality. But the soul is invisible. We can’t
directly see what other people think.

WHY YOU AND I ARE SPECIAL
63
Spirit = Inner Core
The spirit is our third part, our inner core. It’s the
force that gives life to our body. And it is also invisible.
[James 2:26]
Without that life-giving spirit, a body is dead.
So when people have died and the life-giving part—the
spirit—is no longer in them, they soon turn into earth
again.
In the beginning, God made man to be like Him.
Let’s find out how Adam could be like God.
Big Lions, Little Lions
In the animal world, you have big lions that give
birth to little lions. The big lion and the little lion are
alike. Or you have big dogs that give birth to small dogs.
The big dog and the little dog are alike. They belong to
the same kind. So you will never see a big lion giving
[Genesis 1:24-25]
birth to a little dog, or vice versa.

64 ONLY JESUS
Man Was United with God
in the Spirit
Now “God is Spirit.” [John 4:24] That’s why God
made Adam to be like Him in the spirit. [See below.]
Body
Spirit of
God
Soul
Spirit
Adam wasn’t like God in the body or in the soul part.
Adam was like God in the spirit. This also means
that in the beginning, man and God were united with
each other in the spirit.
God Gave Man Dominion
Over the Earth
After creating Adam and Eve, God gave them
dominion over the earth. He blessed them saying,
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;
have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds
of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the
earth.” [Genesis 1:28]

WHY YOU AND I ARE SPECIAL
65
So God gave the earth
into the hands of Adam
and Eve. From then
on, it was their
responsibility
to keep the
earth—with
God’s help—
under the
good and
life-giving
influence
of God.
In the
next chapter,
God Created Us
to Be in His Family
we will examine how
God dealt with man in the
beginning.
d
Study Questions
1. How did God create man and what was
special about man?
2. What did God do after He created man?

7
God Created Us to
Be in His Family
God Is Not Religious
I
N THE BEGINNING ADAM AND EVE were
like God in the spirit. So they were God’s children.
So God related to them like parents relate
to their children in a family.

68 ONLY JESUS
Characteristics
of the Family
System
A Personal Love
Relationship
In an ideal family, there are parents and
children, and other family members. They all
have a personal relationship with one
another and love each other.
The children are born from their parents or
they are adopted by them. So the children are
part of the family. That’s why parents treat their
children in a special way.

GOD CREATED US TO BE IN HIS FAMILY
69
For example, the parents feed and clothe them. They
protect them from harm and danger. They provide
shelter. They teach them. Parents do many
good things for their children
because they love them.
Now why do parents love
their children? Is it because
they always behave nicely?
Would a mother or father
ever say to a naughty child,
“You have been so naughty
today! So, now I won’t give you
anything to eat for the next three
days?” Of course not!
And why not? Because good
parents love their children unconditionally. They are
motivated by a spirit of love. Good parents love
their children simply because they are their own children.
They don’t love their children because of anything the
children will do for them.
Of course, good parents will also train their children.
They will correct them at times, when needed. But all
this doesn’t change the fact that they love their children.
So under the family system, children will feel safe and
secure. They know that their parents love and care for
them. And—of course— by the time the children
are grown up, they will also have learned to
love their parents and to care for them in
return.

70 ONLY JESUS
Children Receive
an Inheritance
Children also
freely inherit
everything that
belongs to their
[Luke 15:31]
parents.
Parents may own a
car, a house, and some
land. When the children
are old enough and are
able to steward it,
then their parents will
give the inheritance to
them. Children don’t work
for their inheritance. It
belongs to them because they
are part of the family.
Religious System =
Works-Wages
Now, let’s examine another system that is opposite
from the family system. Let’s look at the system workers
are under.
Workers are not part of the family.
They are hired. That’s why they don’t have the same
status as children. They are under a different system.

GOD CREATED US TO BE IN HIS FAMILY
71
Characteristics
of the Works-
Wages System
A Professional
Work Relationship
In the works-wages system,
the house owners (or employers)
and their workers are not in a
love relationship. They are in a
professional work relationship.
Let’s say in a house there is a fridge
with fresh apples.
Now can children
just go and open
the fridge and take
an apple, whenever
they are hungry? Yes.
But do workers
also have that same
right? No.
And why not?
Because they are not
part of the family.
Now when can workers get something from the
house owner? Only if they have worked for it.

72 ONLY JESUS
Servants
Work for a
Pay
Cheque
So workers have
to work. Only then
they will get their
wages.
Let’s say a worker
works for a rate of 80
baht per hour. If she
has worked for 5 hours,
then she will get
paid 400 baht. But
if she hasn’t done
the work, then she
won’t get paid.
In this system,
everything depends on
the workers’ performance.
That’s why the workswages
system is
a performancebased
system. Under
this system, you get what
you deserve because of
your performance.

GOD CREATED US TO BE IN HIS FAMILY
73
‘Do Good, Get Good;
Do Bad, Get Bad’
So the works-wages system is based on the
principle of reward and punishment: “Do good,
get good (reward); Do bad, get bad (punishment).”
Does this saying sound familiar to you?
Yes—this is the same principle that people
follow in religion. That’s why we can also call
it the religious system. [See also Chapter 2:
Religion—A Performance System]
2 Totally Different
Systems
When we compare these 2
systems, we can see that they
are completely different
from one another.
That’s why people
who know God
and people
who follow a
religion think
in completely
different ways. [See
next page.]

74 ONLY JESUS
Family Versus Works-Wages
FAMILY
SYSTEM
WORKS-WAGES
SYSTEM
People who know God
know that they are
part of God’s family.
They know that God
loves them like parents
love their children in a
family.
People who know God
know that God freely
provides for them
and cares for them
because they are part
of God’s family.
People who know God
feel safe and secure
because they know
that they can rest in
God’s goodness.
They don’t need to earn
God’s acceptance and
love by trying to do
good deeds. They do
good deeds because
they have experienced
the love of God. They
are motivated by love.
People who follow a
religion think like a
worker who isn’t part of
a family but who works
for a house owner
based on the workswages
principle.
People who follow
a religion follow the
principle, “Do good,
get good; do bad, get
bad.” They try to earn
their blessings.
People who follow a
religion don’t feel safe
and secure because
they know that they
have to perform all
the time. They are
trying to do good
deeds to get rewards.
They are motivated by
fear or gain.

GOD CREATED US TO BE IN HIS FAMILY
75
God Made Adam and Eve
in Love
God created man in love to have a love
relationship with him.
So in the beginning Adam and
Eve lived in close union with God.
They were like children who
continually experience the
comforting presence and
tender love of their good,
good father. [8] So they were
always happy, healthy, and never
lacked any good thing. That’s
what Father God had destined
them to be. And that is what Father
God has destined us to be.
However, God didn’t make robots.
You can preprogram a robot to walk
straight for 2 meters, turn right, and
then stop. Then, all you need to do
is push a button and the robot
will do what you want it to do.
But God didn’t make Adam
and Eve to be like that because
He made them in love.
And true love never
forces.

76 ONLY JESUS
Adam and Eve Had a
Free Will
It’s like when two
people get married. If
it’s true love, then both—
husband and wife—choose
to get married. If they don’t
have that choice, then it’s not
true love. That’s why God gave
Adam and Eve also a free will.
They had the freedom to choose.
In the next chapter, It was Not an
Apple Tree we will see that they made
a wrong choice. They left God’s
family system and came under the
works-wages system. This has affected
the whole world until today, as we shall
see later.
d
Study Questions
1. What are the characteristics of the family
system and the works-wages system?
2. Why did God create Adam and Eve with a
free will?

Part 2
Why Do We
Need Jesus?

8
It Was Not an
Apple Tree
‘The Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil’
AFTER GOD HAD MADE Adam and Eve, He
put them in a garden called “Eden,” which
means pleasure. [Genesis 2:8] In Eden were all types
of pleasant fruit trees.
In the midst of Eden were also two special trees:
the “tree of life” and the “tree of the knowledge
of good and evil.” [Genesis 2:9] The tree of life
represented God’s family system. The tree of
the knowledge of good and evil represented
the religious system (“Do good, get good” = the
knowledge of good; and “Do bad, get bad” = the
knowledge of evil).

80 ONLY JESUS
God didn’t want Adam to come under the religious
system. So He told Adam,
“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die.” [Genesis 2:16-17]
Death Is Separation
Now what does it mean ‘to die’? It means ‘to be
separated from.’ In other words, God said to Adam,
“Don’t eat of this tree, otherwise you will be separated
from Me.”
Being separated from God
would mean that Adam
and Eve would come under
the works-wages system!
It would also mean that they
would experience separation from
the good influence of God’s life
and positivity and come
under the influence of
negativity. [See next page.]

IT WAS NOT AN APPLE TREE
81
ONLY JESUS
Effects of Separation from
Works-Wages GodVersus Family
GOD’S FAMILY
SYSTEM
RELIGIOUS WORKS-WAGES
WAGES SYSTEM SYSTEM
Union with God
(life)
Experience of
God’s presence
Union with
God (life) ➝
positivity God’s
presence Love ➝
Influence of
Peace
positivity
Influence of
Joy
Hope Love
Joy
Peace
Etc.
Patience
Etc.
Separation from God
(death)
Absence of
Separation God’s presence from God
(death) Influence ➝of
Absence negativity of God’s
presence Fear ➝
Influence of negativity
Strife
Sadness
Hopelessness Hate
Sadness
Rest
Etc.
Restlessness
Etc.

82 ONLY JESUS
‘Why This Tree?’
You might say, “But why did God plant this tree, if
it could cause man to be separated from God?” That’s
a good question.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
represented the religious system. This system
originated from Satan. It wasn’t God’s idea.
But if you have children, you want them to know
what you know. So God planted this tree because He
wanted Adam and Eve to know what He knew—so that
they could stay away from this deadly system.
God also wanted them to have the freedom to choose.
Love is only love if people can choose to love. If they
don’t have that freedom to choose then it’s no longer true
love. [See Chapter 7: God Created Us to Be in His Family.]

IT WAS NOT AN APPLE TREE
83
‘Who Is Satan?’
Satan is an unseen (a spiritual)
negative force in the world. Satan is
[Ephesians 2:2, Matthew 13:39]
opposed to God.
God is good. He wants people
to live under His positive influence
so that it may be well with them.
Satan is evil. He wants to
separate people from the good
influence of God and bring them under
the influence of negativity. That’s why
Satan is a liar and a thief. He’s a destroyer.
Satan Comes to Steal, Kill,
and Destroy
Satan’s aim is “to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”
[John 10:10] There is nothing good in him. He is
an enemy of God and an enemy of man (because man
is made in the image of God and the object of God’s
affection!) That is why Satan hates God and man!
You might say, “Where then does Satan come from? Did
God make Satan?” Yes, God created Satan in heaven.
That was before God created the world. But then
Satan decided to separate himself from God because
he wanted to be like God on his own merit (=workswages
system). So it’s Satan who originated the
[See Isaiah 14:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:12-18.]
religious system.

84 ONLY JESUS
Satan Is
a Liar
The word ‘Satan’
means slanderer. So Satan is
a liar!
Satan’s aim was to separate
man from God. So he tricked
them to eat from the tree of
the knowledge of good and
evil. Satan is a spirit but when
he came to Adam and Eve he
disguised himself as a snake.
Satan first came to Eve and deceived
her to eat of the fruit. And after that, Even
then influenced her husband to eat of the fruit
that brought separation from God as well.
This is what happened:
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of
the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to
the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall
not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the
woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the
trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat
it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Then the serpent
said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For
God knows that in the day you eat of it your
eyes will be opened, and you will be like

IT WAS NOT AN APPLE TREE
85
God, knowing good and evil.” So when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one
wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her
husband with her, and he ate. [Genesis 3:1-6]
So how could Satan trick Eve?
‘God Is Not Good’
First Satan said, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall
not eat of every tree of the garden’?” This was a sly trick
question.
Satan cunningly implied that God is not good but
that He is untrustworthy and stingy. But this was a lie!
God is not like that!
God had said they could freely eat from all
trees. They only should not eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil because this would bring
them under the deadly works-wages system.
Let’s see how Eve responded to Satan’s trap.
And the woman said to the serpent,
“We may eat the fruit of the trees
of the garden; but of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of
the garden, God has said, ‘You
shall not eat it, nor shall
you touch it, lest you
die.’” [Genesis 3:2-3]

86 ONLY JESUS
Eve’s Mistakes
Eve replied with the word of
God. This was the right thing to do.
You confront darkness with light. You
confront a lie with truth. But Eve also
made a couple of mistakes.
Eve left out the word ‘freely’. God
had said that they could “freely
eat” of all the trees of the garden,
except one.
Eve also added her own ideas.
God hadn’t said anything about
touching the tree. He had only said, “In
the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
[Genesis 2:17]
And Eve also left out the word surely. God had said,
“In the day you eat of it you shall surely die.”
By this Satan must have realized that Eve was gullible
to be deceived. That’s why he then assaulted her with
a deadly lie.
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not
surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it
your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil.” [Genesis 3:4-5]
Satan said, “You will be like God.” But Adam and
Eve were already like God! They were already united
with God’s Spirit. [See Chapter 6: Why You and I Are
Special.] (At least Adam must have understood that.) [1
Timothy 2:14]

IT WAS NOT AN APPLE TREE
87
‘You Can Be like God
on Your Own Merit’
So what Satan falsely promised them was that they
could be like God—through their own efforts—without
being united with God! They only needed to do the right
things (the knowledge of ‘good’) and not do the wrong
things (the knowledge of ‘evil’).
Satan insinuated that they could be like
God under the works-wages system on their
own merit!

88 ONLY JESUS
Religious Thinking
Now this is exactly what religion keeps telling us!
Religion says, “To become a good person, you
need to do right and not do wrong.”
(Please understand. I am not against doing right. I
am for doing right and I am against doing wrong!)
But this kind of thinking is religious works-wages
thinking. It’s knowledge of good and evil thinking—
which produces death. The root problem isn’t people’s
behavior. The behavior is a fruit.

IT WAS NOT AN APPLE TREE
89
The root problem is that people are in
the wrong system. The root problem is
that they are in the wrong kingdom!
(The kingdom of Satan)
The tree of the knowledge of good
and evil stands for the works-wages
system that causes people to live
independently of God! But God never
intended for us to live independently of Him.
God intended for us to live in union with Him
under the family system.
And if we live in union with God under
the family system, we will be transformed by
the love of God, so that we then start doing
good because of love. [See also Chapter 21: The
Culture of the Kingdom.]
Let’s see what happened next:
So when the woman saw that the tree was good
for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree desirable to make
one wise, she took
of its fruit and ate.
She also gave to
her husband with
her, and he ate.
(Genesis 3:6]

90 ONLY JESUS
ReligionKills
Eve believed Satan’s
lies because she looked
at the appearance of the
fruit. It looked good. In
Eve’s understanding, “It
was pleasant to the eyes, and
a tree desirable to make one
wise.” Works-wages-based
religion always looks good.
To follow the principle
of “Do good, get good;
Do bad, get bad” seems
to be wise. But it’s
the wrong system
because it promotes
independence from
God!
So when Eve kept looking at the tree,
she began to doubt God’s word. And finally
she participated in a deadly system that was
contrary to God’s family system. Then she also
influenced her husband Adam to do the same.
This then caused them to be separated from God
because God’s system and the religious
system can’t coexist.

IT WAS NOT AN APPLE TREE
91
In the next chapter, Fig Leaves, we will look at what
happened to Adam and Eve once they had come under
the works-wages system.
d
Study Questions
1. Which trees did God plant in Eden and
what did these trees stand for?
2. Who is Satan and how could he deceive Eve
to choose separation from God?

9
Fig Leaves
Adam and Eve’s Reaction
ADAM AND EVE ATE of the fruit of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. So they
came under the works-wages system. Let’s see
what happened next:
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew
that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves coverings. And
they heard the sound of the LORD God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day,
and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the LORD God
among the trees of the garden. [Genesis
3:7-8]

94 ONLY JESUS
Guilt, Shame and Cover-Up
Under the family system, Adam and Eve had always
experienced the comforting presence and love of Father
God. But as soon as they had come under the workswages
system, they began to experience guilt and shame.
The works-wages system is based on reward and
punishment. Do right and you will be praised for it
and feel proud. Do wrong and you will be condemned
for it and feel guilty.
And when you feel guilty, you will try to cover up
your shame. You will try somehow to compensate for
it. That’s why Adam and Eve put on
the self-made covering of fig leaves.
Fig Leaves
Deep down inside,
people are hurting. They
are aware of their state of
lack and shame. But under
the works-wages system
they will try to hide their real
feelings by putting on fig-leaves.
This can be things like a good
status in society, a good job,
possessions, achievements, good
deeds, and so on. But all this
can’t successfully remove guilt.

FIG LEAVES
95
So even though Adam and Eve had put on fig leaves,
they still felt guilty. And when they heard the voice of
God, they were afraid and tried to hide themselves
from God’s presence.
God hadn’t changed! But suddenly
their experience of God had totally changed.
Before, they were under the influence of
the Spirit of God and they experienced
God’s love. But when they were separated
from God, they came under the influence
of the spirit of Satan, which is a spirit of fear.
Yet, God’s love for them had not changed!
He still kept talking to them like a father who keeps
talking to his wayward children.
Let’s see how Adam and Eve responded to God after
they had come under the works-wages system.
Then the LORD God called to Adam and
said to him, “Where are you?” So he said,
“I heard Your voice in the garden, and I
was afraid because I was naked; and I
hid myself.” And [God] said, “Who told
you that you were naked? Have you eaten
from the tree of which I commanded you that
you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The
woman whom You gave to be with me,
she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the
LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have
done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived
me, and I ate.” [Genesis 3:9-13)

96 ONLY JESUS
‘I Am Right and
You Are Wrong!’
God gently first asked Adam and then
also Eve what had happened. But neither
Adam nor Eve wanted to admit that they
had done something wrong. They both shifted
the blame on someone else. Adam said, “The
woman whom You gave to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I ate.” So Adam indirectly
put the blame on God. Eve also put the blame for
her own behavior on someone else, Satan. She said,
“The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
This shows us that when people are under the
works-wages system and they have done something
wrong, they won’t admit that it’s their own fault.
Instead, they tend to make excuses and blame others
or circumstances for their own mistakes.

FIG LEAVES
97
So students who fail to hand in their assignments
on time will say that they are late because the printer
didn’t work. Those who come late to class will say that
their alarm clock didn’t go off, or that they got stuck in
a traffic jam. It’s always someone else’s fault.
It’s never their own fault.
[In Chapter 12: The Good Person Test, we will
examine how this condition of self-righteousness can
be diagnosed with a simple test.]
So Adam and Eve didn’t admit their own mistakes.
But God still kept loving them. He still provided for
them a covering of animal skins. [Genesis 3:21] This pointed
to what He would later do through Jesus Christ. [In
Chapter 14: It Is Finished! we will see how God provided a
way out of the works-wages system through Jesus.] But at
this stage, God couldn’t keep them from experiencing
the consequences of their bad choice.
In the next chapter, A General That Changes Sides we
will look at the effects Adam and Eve’s separation from
God also had on the whole world.
d
Study Questions
1. How did Adam and Eve react after they
had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil?

10
A General That
Changes Sides
‘Where Does Suffering and
Death Come From?’
SOMETIMES PEOPLE ASK, “If everything was
so good in the beginning, how come that today
the world as a whole is in such a condition?
How come there is sickness, suffering, decay and
death? How come that people and countries fight each
other, and animals kill each other? How come there are
earth quakes, floods and environmental disasters?
If all was well in the beginning, how could all these
negative things come into the world?” Good questions.
Let’s see why.

100 ONLY JESUS
‘Guard This Territory!’
As we’ve said, in the beginning, God gave Adam and
Eve authority to keep the whole earth under His good
and life-giving influence. God had said,
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;
have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds
of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the
earth.” [Genesis 1:28]
So we can compare Adam and Eve to a general
in an army. This general has been given authority by
the commander-in-chief to guard (and even expand) a
certain territory. The commander-in-chief would have
said, “Listen—I give you my authority. Guard this
territory and protect it. If an enemy tries to intrude—
fight him! I will back you up!”
A General That Changes Sides
Now imagine an enemy comes along but that
general doesn’t use his authority to fight. Instead,
he changes sides and surrenders himself to
the enemy. When that general changes sides, he
loses his original authority. He also comes
under the authority of the commander-in-chief of
the army of the enemy. The general of the army
of the enemy can then say to the general who
has changed sides, “You are now under my
authority!”

A GENERAL THAT CHANGES SIDES
101
This is what also happened to Adam and Eve.
They failed to exercise their authority over Satan
and chose to follow his lie, instead of resisting him.
Instead they ate of the tree that would cause them to
be separated from God. So they chose to follow
Satan’s rebellion against God.
So when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, they then lost their Godgiven
authority and came under Satan’s authority
instead. From then on, Satan began to have influence
over their lives.
The Kingdom of God and the
kingdom of Satan
The word king / dom consists of 2 words: king and
dom, or domain. So a kingdom is the domain of
a king. It’s the sphere in which a king has influence.
So the Kingdom of God is the sphere in which God
has influence over people. The Kingdom of God is a
kingdom of light. The kingdom of Satan is the sphere
in which Satan has influence over people. The kingdom
of Satan is a kingdom of darkness.
In the beginning, Adam and Eve were in the
Kingdom of God. They automatically experienced the
presence of God. They were under the influence of the
Spirit of God.

102 ONLY JESUS
Love
The Spirit of God is a spirit of love.
So in the beginning, when Adam and Eve were
united with God in the spirit, they didn’t know fear.
They only knew love because their were under the good
influence of God’s love. [See below.]
Man
God
Spirit of
Love
Body
Soul
Spirit

A GENERAL THAT CHANGES SIDES
103
Fear
But then they were disconnected from the Kingdom
of God and came under the influence of the kingdom
of Satan.
The spirit of Satan is a spirit of fear. So, they
began to experience fear. [See below.]
God
Spirit of
Love
Satan
Man
Body
Soul
Spirit
Spirit
of
Fear
They also became familiar with all other things that
are not from God. They began to experience sadness.
Unrest. Disease. Unhappy relationships. Bondage.
Hopelessness. Disappointments. Failure. Poverty. Etc.

104 ONLY JESUS
God Is Not the Source of
Negativity
God is not the originator of all these things! He
is the infinite source of life, goodness, and joy. He is
inexhaustible, glorious.
But if you’re separated from the source of
something, you will automatically experience
lack. For example, if you’re separated from the source
of joy, you will automatically experience sadness. If
you’re separated from the source of health, you will
automatically experience disease. If you’re separated
from the source of freedom, you will automatically
experience bondage. And so on. So if you are separated
from the Kingdom of God, you will automatically
experience the effects of the
kingdom of Satan.

A GENERAL THAT CHANGES SIDES
105
Separation from God
in the Spirit
In the beginning, Adam and Eve had spirit-to-Spirit
contact with God. But then they ate of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil and came under the workswages
system. So they were also separated from God in
their spirit. [See below.]
In the Beginning
Spirit of
God
Spirit of
man
After Separation
Spirit of
God
Spirit of
Satan
Spirit of
man

106 ONLY JESUS
Spiritual Death
God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil then they would
surely die. Adam and Eve did eat from this tree.
However, they didn’t instantly fall to
the ground and die physically. They first
died spiritually. (Spiritual death is
separation from God in the spirit.)
Adam only died physically at the age
of 930. [Genesis 5:5] Effects
on the World
Adam and Eve’s separation
from God also had an effect on
the whole world.
They were supposed to keep
the earth under the positive influence
of God. But they didn’t resist Satan
and instead submitted themselves to
him. From then on, Satan began to
have influence over the whole world.
This is why death came into the
earth.
Today the whole creation is under the
[Romans 8:19-22]
effects of separation from God.

A GENERAL THAT CHANGES SIDES
107
That’s why today
there is death all around
us. Decay. Corruption.
Diseases. Earthquakes.
And so on.
That’s why there is evil.
Everything that has to do with God has to
do with life and positivity! Death does not
[Romans 5:12-14]
come from God.
So all these negative things do not come from God.
They are not part of God’s original plan. They came
into the world because Adam and Eve chose separation
from God. [We will have good news for you later. In Chapter
14: It Is Finished! we will look at what Jesus has done for
us to overcome Satan and death!]
In the next chapter, We Got a Goal! we will see that
Adam and Eve’s separation from God also affected the
whole human race.
d
Study Questions
1. What is the Kingdom of God and the
kingdom of Satan?
2. How did Adam and Eve’s decision to eat of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
affect them and the world today?

11
We Got a Goal!
Adam—
Our First Representative
YOU MIGHT SAY,
“But what happened to Adam was a long time ago.
Why should we today be affected by what Adam
has done?”
This is why.
Adam was the first human. That’s why Adam
was the first representative of the whole
human race. A representative is someone who acts
on behalf of those he represents.

110 ONLY JESUS
Take a national football team for example. [6]
The players of a national football team represent
the people of a country. So
countries send their
selected national
teams to international
tournaments.
Thailand : 1
Let’s say
it’s the 30 th
of January
and the
King’s Cup
is on. It’s the first
leg of the semifinals
and Thailand
is playing Indonesia
in the Rajamangala
Stadium in Bangkok. It’s the
27 th minute.
Suddenly the Thai player
Piyapong manages to outwit
the Indonesian defense near
the penalty area and scores
a goal for Thailand.

WE GOT A GOAL!
111
‘We Got a Goo...oal!’
When Piyapong scores the goal, all the Thai viewers
go wild. People in the stadium and those that are
watching the game on TV in public places, pubs or
their own living rooms jump to their feet and shout,
“Goo...oal!”
“We got a goo...oal!”
They can all say that because the Thai team is their
representative. They don’t have to be out there playing
football themselves.
When Piyapong scores the goal, the display board
says, “THAILAND : 1, INDONESIA : 0.” It
doesn’t say, “PIYAPONG : 1, INDONESIA :
0” because Piyapong is part of the Thai team that
represents Thailand.
So the Thai team plays. It represents all of Thailand.
When the team wins, all Thai people win.
When the team loses, all Thai people lose.

112 ONLY JESUS
Because of Adam
Because of Adam
It was the same with Adam. Adam represented
the It whole was the human same with race. Adam. What Adam he did affected all
represented human beings the whole came human after race. him. What he
did affected Adam chose all human separation beings from who God. came So after all who came
him. after He him chose were separation also separated from from God. God So all because of him
who and came after under him the were influence also separated of the kingdom from of Satan.
God
[1 Corinthians
because
15:22,
of
45]
him [See(see below.] below).
(1 Corinthians
15:22, 45)
ONLY JESUS
KINGDOM
GOD
Adam and Eve
in the beginning
KINGDOM OF
SATAN
After separation
from God
Us today
106

GOT A GOAL!
113
‘Like Father, like Son’
We can understand this also because there is a law
called heredity. The law of heredity says that parents
pass their traits on to their children.
For example, some parents have light skin. Then
their children will also have light skin. Some parents
have dark skin. Then their children will also have dark
skin. But some parents are of mixed descent. Then their
children will also have a blended skin color.
All this happens automatically.
WE
Children can’t choose their genetics before they are
born. They inherit the looks and genetic make-up of
their parents. And it goes all the way back to Adam
and Eve because all of us are descendants of Adam
[Acts 17:26]
and Eve.

114 ONLY JESUS
All Are Born into Spiritual
Separation from God
The law of heredity
also works on the
level of the spirit.
Adam and
Eve chose
s e p a r a t i o n
from God.
Because of that
all people are
naturally born into
a state of spiritual
separation from God and
spiritual death. That‘s why, by
nature, people can’t experience or
understand the sphere of God’s Kingdom.
As we’ve said, when people are born into a kingdom,
they are automatically subject to that kingdom. So when
people are born into this world, they are automatically
subject to the kingdom of Satan. They are automatically
subject to negativity.
It’s natural for them to experience fear. It’s natural
for them to experience sickness. It’s natural for them to
experience unhappy relationships.
Sadness. Bondage. Hopelessness. Disappointments.
Failures. And so on.

WE GOT A GOAL!
115
The Sinful Nature
All people are also automatically born with a
sinful nature that is working in
them.
They don’t have this sinful
nature because of anything that
they have done! It is something
that they have inherited
from Adam. [See also Chapter
13: I’m Better Than Him.]
In the next chapter, we will look at
the Good Person Test. This test can be used to show that
people have this sinful nature. [Sometimes later, in Chapter
14: It Is Finished! we will also look at what Jesus Christ
has done for us on the cross to remove the sinful nature from
us, and to bring us into the Kingdom of God. Once we are
in the Kingdom of God, we also have a new inheritance
which includes a new nature!]
d
Study Questions
1. What is a representative and how could
Adam be the first representative of the
whole human race?
2. What has Adam done and how does this
affect humans today?

If you feel
that you would
like God to help
you, then please
skip to Chapter 14:
It Is Finished! The
next two chapters
are only for people
who are trying
their best to be
‘good people’ on
their own under
the works-wages
system. They are
not aware that they
need God’s help.

12
The Good
Person Test
“I am a good
person. I rely
on myself. I
do many good
deeds. Why do I
need God?”
Diagnosis Before
Treatment
I
N
THEIR NATURAL CONDITION,
all people are separated from
God. They are born with a
sinful nature, because of Adam. But
most people don’t believe that.
Most people think that they are ‘good
people’ [Proverbs 20:6] because they are doing
good deeds, or because they are making
merit under a religious system. Such people
are not aware that they need God’s help.

118 ONLY JESUS
But a person like this is like a deadly sick person who
mistakenly believes that there is nothing wrong with her.
So she doesn’t accept any medical help.
What would a doctor do in such a case?
A good doctor would first carry out some diagnostic
tests. For example, she would do a physical examination,
do a blood test, and take an x-ray.
Test
Results
Then she would say,
“Here are your test
results. The physical
examination shows
that your lymph nodes
are notably enlarged. This
usually happens when there
is an infection in the body.The
blood test shows that there is
this substance in your blood that
the body produces when there is
a cancer somewhere in the body.
And the x-ray shows that there
is a 2.5 centimeter large tumor
in your upper right lung. I’m
sorry to tell you but you seem
to have lung cancer.”

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
119
The patient might not
feel sick. But seeing the
test results will help her
understand that she really
has this health problem
and that she needs help.
Then she will
also willingly
undergo the
suggested
treatment.
God has the
cure for people’s Adamic
condition. But first
they need to realize
that they really need
God’s help! Only then
they will also receive the
treatment.
The Good
Person Test
So, let’s look at God’s diagnostic test to determine
the condition of man. We can call it The Good Person
Test. This test is designed to find out who is a good
person, according to God’s standard under the workswages
system.
Let’s see how well people would do on it.

120 ONLY JESUS
‘The 10 Commandments’
God’s standard is expressed in law commandments,
[Exodus 20:1-17]
which are called the Ten Commandments.
Let’s look at only four of the Ten Commandments
and see how well people are able to keep them. Here
they are: [Exodus 20:13-17]
1. You shall not murder!
2. You shall not commit adultery!
3. You shall not steal! and
4. You shall not give false testimony! (=lie)
Interestingly, these four of the Ten Commandments
are extremely similar to 4 of the Seen Ha [see also Chapter
2: Religion — A Performance System]. [3]

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
121
‘The 5 Buddhist M or al Laws ’
1. ‘Bana tipa-ta veramani’ = Do not kill (a
being that has feeling)!
2. ‘Atin-na ta-na veramani’ = Do not steal!
3. ‘Garmay sumitcha jara veramani’ = Do
not commit sexual immorality! and
4. ‘Musa wa-ta veramani’ = Do not lie or
speak any evil!
The fifth commandment says, ‘Sura may-ra majjapama
tat-tana veramani’ = Don’t consume intoxicating
substances! This includes drinking alcohol and smoking.
All people who claim to be Buddhists
should at least strictly keep these
five basic rules 24/7 in order to
be good followers of this religion.
Now everyone
would agree that
killing, committing
adultery, stealing, lying
and even getting drunk
is not good. In most
countries of the world
there are civil laws against people
who do such things.

122 ONLY JESUS
God’s Standard: Perfection
But before we start looking at these commandments,
we need to understand this: God’s standard is
absolute perfection.
So if anybody wanted
to be a good person in the
sight of God under the
works-wages system (!)
that person would have
[Matthew 5:48]
to be perfect.
He or she would have
to be able to keep all of God’s commandments 100%
(perfectly) 24/7 (all the time) from birth to death. If
a person can’t do that, then he or she is considered a
lawbreaker, or a sinner.
To Sin =
‘To Miss
the Mark’
The word ‘sin’ in
the bible originally
came from archery. To
sin meant ‘to miss the mark.’
When an missed the mark, then
he had sinned. So under the works-wages system ‘to sin’
is to miss the mark of keeping the Ten Commandments.

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
123
Adam's Sin Separated
People from God
However, it is not the sins of
individuals that separated them from
God. It was Adam’s original sin.
[See Chapter 11: We Got a Goal!] The
bible says,
“... the wages of sin is death ...”
[Romans 6:23]
Adam sinned. That’s why all his
descendants (=you, me, all of us!) are
born into a state of separation from God
[Romans 5:14, 1 Corinthians 15.22]
and have inherited
a sin nature from him.
The purpose of this Good Person Test is only
to show that people have this inherited sin nature and
that they are in that Adamic condition.
[Later, in Chapter 14: It Is Finished! we will see what
God has already done for us through Jesus Christ to bring
us out from that condition and to give us a
new nature.]
But, for now let’s begin with the Good Person Test.

124 ONLY JESUS
~#%#x!
1. ‘You Shall
Not Murder!’
Let’s start with the
commandment,
“You shall not murder!” [Exodus
20:13]
When people hear this, they
often say, “Oh, that’s easy. I’ve
never killed anyone. See—I’ve
told you—I’m a good person.”
Then God would say to them,
“Don’t be so quick. My standard is
much higher than you think. I don’t
just look at the outside—I also look
at the inside. I also look at people’s
intentions. I also look at their words.”
Sure, we might have never
murdered someone physically. But
what about our words?
Have we always been able to keep
our words perfectly under control?
Have we ever yelled at someone?
Have we ever been angry with someone
without a just reason?
How do I know that God’s standard is so
high?

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
125
Sometimes self-righteous people were in Jesus’
audience. Those people believed that they were already
‘good people’ and didn’t need God.
They were proud because they
thought that they could keep God’s
commandment perfectly.
So Jesus had to show them
that they were not so righteous
as they had thought.
So He said to them,
“You have heard that it was
said to those of old, ‘You shall
not murder, and whoever murders will be
in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother,
‘Racca!’ [‘empty head’] shall be in danger of the council.
But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in
danger of hell fire.” [Matthew 5:21-22]
So, according to God’s standards
being angry unjustly and speaking
badly about others already counts
as murder!
Sure, we might have never
killed someone with a knife. But
who of us has never been angry with
someone unjustly or used bad words?
So who of us can say, “I am a good
person” under the works-wages system?!

126 ONLY JESUS
2. ‘You Shall Not Commit
Adultery!’
Let’s continue the Good Person Test with the next
commandment,
“You shall not commit adultery!” [Exodus 20:14]
Some people might say, “Not
me—I’ve never done that.”
Or, “I’m not even married.”
“So how can I break this
commandment?”
People might
think that they
are clean on the
outside. But God’s
standard under
the works-wages
system is much
higher. Again,
God doesn’t only
look at the outside—
God looks at the
inside.
So people might
have never committed
the physical act of
adultery. But what about
their thought life?

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
127
Let’s see what Jesus would say to self-righteous
people who believe that they are ‘good people’ because
they have never committed the
physical act of adultery.
He would say to them,
“You have heard
that it was said
to those of old,
‘Do not commit
adultery.’ But I say to
you that whoever looks at
a woman to lust for her has already
committed adultery with her in his
heart.” [Matthew 5:27-28]
(Please notice that Jesus would never
say this to people who were aware that
they needed His help!)
So Jesus says that lustful
thoughts already count as adultery.
Anybody who has ever looked
(!) with lust at another person
has already committed adultery
in his or her heart. That person
has already become an adulterer at
heart.
Now who of us has never done that?
So who of us can say, “I am a good person”
under the works-wages system?!

128 ONLY JESUS
3. ‘You Shall Not Steal!’
Let’s look at the next commandment.
“You shall not steal!” [Exodus 20:15]
Again some self-righteous people
would say, “Stealing? Not me.”
Sure, you might have never
done pickpocketing.
But what about illegally
copying books, CDs or DVDs
that have a copyright?
What about downloading
copyrighted songs or movies from
the Internet? (That’s called piracy.)
What about taking
something that belongs to
another person without
asking?
What about honestly
filling in the tax report?
Who of us can say
that we’ve kept this
commandment (don’t
steal) perfectly?
So who of us can say,
“I am a good person”
under the works-wages
system?!

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
129
4. ‘You Shall Not Lie!’
Here’s the last commandment
of the Good Person Test:
“You shall not bear false
witness against your
neighbour (= you shall
not lie)!” [Exodus
20:16]
Sometimes people try
to excuse themselves. They
say, ‘white lies’—lies that
people tell to make themselves
or others look good—don’t count.” But
that’s only an excuse. A lie is a lie.
Lying also includes deceptive talk. People
can be insincere and hide their true feelings.
They can speak nicely to other people but at
the same time have negative
feelings about them. That’s
called hypocrisy, which is
another word for play-acting.
In society, people often
only look at other people’s
outward behavior or
words. But God
always recognizes
the thoughts and
intents of the heart.

130 ONLY JESUS
Gossiping also falls into the same category. Some
are quick to listen to gossip. But they don’t know that
gossipers who gossip about others will also gossip about
them.
Anyhow, who of us has never in our life lied? Who
of us has never gossiped, or never talked hypocritically?
So who of us can say, “I am a good person” under the
works-wages system?!

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
131
Good Person Test
Am I a good person?
1. Have I ever in my life physically
murdered someone, or been angry
unjustly, or used bad words?
2. Have I ever in my life had an
unclean thought or imagination
about another person, or used
unclean language, or had any kind
of sex before or outside marriage?
3. Have I ever in my life illegally
copied a book, CD, or DVD; or
downloaded copyrighted material;
or taken something that did not
belong to me; or not paid what I
should have paid (such as taxes)?
4. Have I ever in my life told a lie, or
been insincere, or gossiped about
other people?
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
According to God’s standard of righteousness
under the works-wages system,
I have reached God’s standard
I fall short of God’s standard
I am a ‘good person’
I am not a ‘good person’

132 ONLY JESUS
‘How Did You Do on
the Good Person Test?’
How did you do on the test? After taking the test, do
you think that under the works-wages system someone
can be a ‘good person’ according to God’s standard?
Could you see that God’s word is true which says,
... all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
... [Romans 3:23]
If people understand that they aren’t good according
to God’s standard, then they
can easily come to Him and
are able to receive what He
has done for them. Then
they can easily and freely
experience His love and
goodness. [We will look at
this in more detail in Chapter
14: It Is Finished! and in
Chapter 16: A Spiritual Re-
Birth.]
Yet, even after taking
the test, sometimes people
are still not convinced that
they have inherited a sinful
nature from Adam. They are
still trying to be ‘good people’
on their own. They don’t see
their need for God yet.

THE GOOD PERSON TEST
133
They are still like that person with the
deadly cancer who stubbornly refuses any
treatment. That’s because she still believes
that there is nothing wrong with her, and
that her condition is not as bad as that
of some other people.
We will examine this in the next
chapter, I’m Better Than Him.
d
Study Questions
1. What is the Good Person Test and what is it
for?
2. What does the Good Person Test show?
3. Why is it important for people to
understand their condition before they
come to God?

13
I'm Better Than
Him
Relative Goodness
SOME PEOPLE HAVE A HARD TIME to come
to God. They can’t see their need for God. These
people might even be trying to be ‘good’, apart
from God. They still think that they can manage on
their own—without God.
Often such people think that they are better than
other people. They say, “I know—I have my faults. But
... I’m not as bad as others. I’ve never murdered someone. I
don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I give money to the poor. I help
people. And I’m trying my best to do good.”
So these people look at others and think that they
[Luke 18:9-14]
are better than them.

136 ONLY JESUS
The Law Demands Perfection
But people who think like this need to understand
that under the works-wages system God’s law demands
perfection. [See below.]
God’s Standard (= perfection)
All fall short
of God’s
standard of
perfection
Relative
goodness
The standards of the law are radically high. The law
demands that people perfectly keep its standards 100%
in thoughts, words, and deeds. If people can’t be
perfect, then they fall short.
People may think that they are quite ‘good people.’
But that’s because they are comparing themselves only
with other people. They don’t compare themselves
with the perfect standard of the law. If they did that,
then they would see how much they are falling short.
In comparison with God’s standard, all fall
short.

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
137
The Law Is One Unit
God’s law is 1 unit that consists of many points.
LAW
Point 1 ....................................................
Point 2 ....................................................
Point 3 ....................................................
Point 4 ....................................................
Point 5 ....................................................
Point 6
Point 7
Point 8
Point 9
You shall not murder!
You shall not commit adultery!
You shall not steal!
You shall not lie!
Point 10 ....................................................
This means that whoever has broken only one point
of the law is guilty of having broken the whole law. The
bible says,
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and
yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of
(breaking) all (of it). For He who said, “Do not
commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if
you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have
become a transgressor of the law. [James 2:10-11]

138 ONLY JESUS
The Law Is Like a Teapot
We can compare God’s law to a teapot.
The law has many points. All these points make up
the law as a whole. Likewise, a tea pot has many parts.
All these individual parts make up the teapot as a whole.
For instance, the teapot has a bottom, a main container,
a handle, a spout, and it has a lid.
Now, would you buy a teapot, if only one part, let’s
say a handle was missing? Would you buy it, if it had
a hole? Would you buy it, if the spout was broken? I
wouldn’t. Why not? Because if one part of the pot is
broken, then the whole pot is no longer
in perfect condition.
So the law comes as a package. If
you have broken only one point of
the law, then you have broken the
whole law. If you have said one
wrong word, if you have thought
one wrong thought, or if you have
committed one wrong deed in your
whole life (!), then you have already
missed God’s mark of absolute
perfection.
It’s like a student getting an ‘F’ grade.
She may have missed to reach the cutoff
point for a passing grade
by 1%, yet she has still
failed the course.

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
139
The Cut-Off Point: 100%
God’s cut-off point is at 100%.
If you think that you can be a good person in God’s
sight through your own performance under the workswages
system, then you need to be perfect. You need to
have perfectly obeyed all commandments (“Don’t murder,
Don’t commit adultery, Don’t steal, Don’t lie,” and many
others) in thoughts, words, and deeds 100% all
the time.
If you couldn’t, then you fall short.
‘Are You Serious?’
You may say to me, “Are you really serious? Because
then there is nobody in the world who could ever reach
that standard.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I want to say! There is no
one who could ever reach God’s standard—
apart from Jesus Christ!

140 ONLY JESUS
‘Why Did God Give the Law?’
We’ve said that the law is God’s diagnostic
test. It can help self-righteous people realize that they
are not so righteous as they thought they were.
The Law Is a Mirror
When you look into a mirror in the early morning, it
will show you all the things that are wrong with you.
It will show you that your hair is unkempt,
that there are eye boogers in your eyes,
and that your face needs shaving
(if you are a man) or that there is
a new pimple on your face (if
you are a lady). And the closer
you look, the more you’ll see
what’s wrong with you.
But the mirror can
only show you what’s
wrong with you. It’s only
a diagnostic tool. It can’t
clean you up.
People often
misunderstand what God’s
law was intended for. They
often think that strict
rules can help people
to change. But unfortunately
this is not the case.

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
141
‘Don’ts’ Make People Sin More
When people come under rules and regulations, it
will make them miss the mark (sin) more than before.
[Romans 5:20]
The law is good.
There is nothing wrong with it! But the only problem
is that laws just don’t mix well with the Adamic human
nature that is not yet born again. [See Chapter 16: A
Spiritual Re-Birth.]
‘Don'’t Look !’
Imagine a room with three doors.
On one of these doors is a
sign that sign says, ‘DON’T
LOOK THROUGH
THIS KEYHOLE!
OFFENDERS WILL
BE PROSECUTED!’
Do you think
that people would
be trying to look, if
nobody was around?
Would you?

142 ONLY JESUS
‘Don’t Litter !’
My wife and I used to live in
Chiang Mai, Thailand. We
were renting a house in a
small Soi (side-street) off
Suthep Road, near the
western main entrance of
Chiang Mai University.
Near our house were a
few acres of vacant land
that was covered with
lovely tall teak trees and lush
bamboo. We greatly enjoyed
the clean jungle scenery.
There was only one small
extremely dirty area where
people had literally littered
tons of smelly household
garbage and decaying plastic
shopping bags. Interestingly, it
was the only block of land that
also had a sign on it
which said in bold
letters, ‘DON’T
LITTER.’ And
exactly where the sign
was was the dirtiest spot
of the whole area!

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
143
‘Why Then Do People
Keep Laws?’
Because They Fear
Punishment
Of course, we know that people
also keep laws. But why? Not because
they really want to, but because they are
afraid that otherwise they will get
punished.
So if the law enforcement is strict, people
will comply because they are afraid that
otherwise they might get caught. But if the
law enforcement is weak, they often don’t care much
about complying.
For example, in Thailand you are supposed to wear
a helmet when you ride a motorcycle. But the law
enforcement is not so strong. So less than sixty percent
of motorcyclists, less than 20 percent of adult passengers,
and less than ten percent of child passengers are wearing
helmets.
Some even are
carrying a helmet with
them while they are riding,
and they only put it on,
when they see the police
doing a helmet blitz.

144 ONLY JESUS
A Helmet Campaign
In 2015, the government
decided to enforce the helmet
law on the campus of
Chiang Mai University.
For a week, police
were stationed at
the university gates.
During that week, all
students who tried to
enter the campus on
their motorcycles without
wearing a helmet were not
allowed to enter. By the end
of the week, the compliance
rate had gone up from about
20 percent to 100 percent.
That was at the gates.

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
145
Amazingly, on campus the situation was still different.
You could still see some students who were riding around
without helmets. That’s because these students were
staying in dormitories on campus. They didn’t have to
enter the university in the morning through the gates.
So they didn’t care about the helmet law because it was
only enforced at the gates.
At the gate, you could also see funny scenes. Some
students without helmets arrived on the back of their
friends’ motorbikes. When they realized that they
couldn’t get through the gate without wearing a helmet,
they got off the bike in front of the gate where the police
man was stationed. Then they walked through the gate.
And once they were past the police, they then hopped
on the bike again, and keep riding without a helmet.
So the fact that a law exists—be it a traffic
law or any other law—doesn’t automatically
guarantee that people will also keep it. Only
if the police enforce laws and punish people for not
keeping them, then people do keep laws.

146 ONLY JESUS
The Law Reveals
the Sin Nature
Law commandments (rules and regulations)
even often stir people up to do exactly the opposite
of what they are not supposed to do. In other words,
commandments bring out the sin nature in
people.
The more people are put under law, the more they
will find themselves missing the mark (sinning), and the
more it will become obvious that they have an internal
sin problem.
So the law can only show people
that there is something wrong with
them. But it can’t help them. It
can’t change their sin nature (!).
As we will see, only Jesus can
do that. Only Jesus can take
the old, Adamic sin nature
out of people and give them
a new nature, God’s nature.
[See Chapter 16: A Spiritual
Rebirth.]

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
147
Man’s Sin Nature Is
the Real Problem
Often people are even trying to do good. They
have good intentions. But in spite of their good
intentions, they find themselves failing repeatedly.
In the bible, there was a man who openly talked
about his struggle with his sinful nature. His name was
Paul.
Paul writes about what he experienced before he
came to Jesus, when he was under the law, when he
didn’t yet have a new nature.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,
sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand.
For what I will to do, that I do not practice;
but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I
will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But
now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells
in me. [Romans 7:14-17]

148 ONLY JESUS
‘I Want to Do Right, but …’
Paul is saying that the law that says “Don’t lie, Don’t
steal, Don’t commit adultery” and so on is good
(spiritual). But Paul’s problem is that he has
this sin nature (“sin that dwells in me”).
He is enslaved to sin (“sold under
sin”). So even though he wants to
do the right thing (“what I will
to do”), he doesn’t do it (“that I
don’t practice”).
And the wrong things that he
doesn’t want to do (“but what
I hate”), those things he does
(“that I do”). Paul has good
intentions. He doesn’t want
to do bad things. But he
still does them (“If, then, I
do what I will not to do”).
Paul agrees with the
law that says, “Don’t do these
bad things.” But he realizes
that there is something
bad in him—this sinful
nature. Paul says that this
sinful nature is not ‘him,’
but ‘in’ him. And it causes him to
do what he doesn’t want to do (“it is
no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells
in me”).

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
149
Good Intentions
Can'’t Help
This shows us that just because
people have laws, it doesn’t mean
that they are also able to follow those
laws. Just because people have good
intentions, it doesn’t mean that they are
also able to act on those good intentions.
The problem is that they have a sin
nature in them.
You may be experiencing what Paul is talking about.
You may want to do good. Yet, you constantly find
yourself doing bad things. You don’t want to do these
bad things. But still you keep doing them. You have the
same problem as Paul. There is a sin nature in you that
you have inherited from Adam.
Listen some more to Paul’s struggles:
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good
dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform
what is good I do not find. For the good that I will
to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do,
that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it
is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one
who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God
according to the inward man. But I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is
in my members. [Romans 7:18-23]

150 ONLY JESUS
Paul keeps repeating himself. He
says that his problem is that sin
dwells in him. He has this
inherited sin nature. (Now that’s
not a good thing to inherit! As
we will see, when we come to
Jesus, Jesus takes that sinful
nature out of us, and gives
us a new nature that is not
sinful. That’s a good inheritance!)
Paul keeps saying that even though
he wants to do good things, he doesn’t
do them. And even though he doesn’t
want to do bad things, he still keeps doing
them. In his mind he agrees with what the law
says (“Don’t do this ... do that ...”), but he still can’t
do it. The sin nature is working in him.
He is imprisoned by this sin nature.

151
Only Jesus Can Set You Free!
Finally Paul cries out,
O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from
this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus
Christ our Lord! [Romans 7:24-25]
Paul comes to this conclusion. The solution to
his problem is a person: Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ sets us free from our sin nature and gives
us a new nature! And when we have this new nature,
we will be able to live righteously. [We will look at this in
more detail in the next chapters: Chapter 14: It Is Finished!
and Chapter 16: A Spiritual Re-Birth.]
Sometimes people look for solutions in religion
or self-help programs. But whatever they do to help
themselves doesn’t work! That’s because the solution to
their problem isn’t a principle or program. The solution
is a person: Jesus Christ.
He is the savior.
He is the deliverer!

152 ONLY JESUS
Self-Righteousness Can'’t Help!
So God has given the law so that people can see how
helpless they are to help themselves. He has given it so
that self-righteous people (who think that they are good
people) can see their true state.
‘Stop Trying to Qualify
Yourself!’
So by giving the law, God says to them,
“Stop trying to qualify yourself! Stop trying to ‘be
good’ by yourself. All your efforts to be a ‘good person’
under the works-wages system are completely futile.
Look at my standards. You have no chance, whatsoever!
You have inherited a sin nature from Adam. Give up
and let me show you what I have done to qualify you.
Let me help you and give you a new nature.”

I’M BETTER THAN HIM
153
And once they’ve realized that, then they wil be able
to receive help from God through Jesus Christ.
Then God will take that Adamic sin nature
out of them and give them a new nature (in
union with Christ) that is able to truly love. [See
Chapter 1: What Is Jesus Like?]
And then God will also teach them to live according
to their new nature. [See Chapter 21: The Culture of the
Kingdom.]
Let’s see now in the next chapter, It Is Finished! what
God has done for us to help us. We will see that He—in
His great love for us—has done something for us that
we couldn’t have done ourselves!
This is wonderful news!
d
Study Questions
1. What is God’s standard of righteousness?
2. How does the law help people to see their true
state?
3. Why can’t good intentions help people and what
is God’s solution to their problem?

14
It Is Finished!
A
God.
What God Has Already
Done to Help Us
DAM REPRESENTED the whole human race.
He chose separation from God. So because of
Adam, the whole world is now separated from
We can’t do anything to change our state.
Doing good deeds doesn’t help us. We need somebody
to save us. We are like the man who is stuck in a hole
from which he can’t get out by himself.
But there is good news!

156 ONLY JESUS
Jesus Christ—
Our New Representative
So how did God solve our problem? He sent a new
representative—Jesus Christ—to replace
Adam.
When we come under the headship of Jesus, we
change from a state of separation to a state of union
with God. We get to be children of God. We get to
be part of God’s family. And we receive a new nature
from God—a nature that is no longer sinful. We get to
experience all the positive effects of His headship.
Do you remember the story of the football
team? When the team gets a goal all the
people of that country can say, “We got
a goal!”
It’s the same with Adam and Jesus.
Under the headship of Adam (we can
say ‘in Adam’), we get to experience
the effects of Adam’s failure. Under
the headship of Jesus (we can say ‘in
Christ’), we get to experience the effects
of Jesus’ victory. [See next page.]
That’s good news! [We will explore this in
more detail in the following chapters.]

IT IS FINISHED!
157
‘In Adam’ IT Versus IS FINISHED! ‘in Christ’
OLD
OLD
REPRESENTATIVE
REPRESENTATIVE
HEADSHIP HEADSHIP OF ADAM OF
ADAM
RELIGIOUS WORKS-
WAGES
RELIGIOUS
SYSTEM
WORKS-WAGES
SYSTEM
NEW
NEW
REPRESENTATIVE
REPRESENTATIVE
HEADSHIP HEADSHIP OF OF CHRIST
CHRIST
GOD’S FAMILY
SYSTEM
GOD’S
FAMILY
SYSTEM
Separation from God
(death)
Separation
Absence of
God’s
from God
presence
(death)
In ➝ the Absence kingdom
of God’s of satan presence
➝ Under the
Influence of
kingdom of satan
negativity
➝ Influence of
Living negativity from fear
Living Peace from fear
Restlessness Joy
Hope
Strife
Sadness
Hopelessness
Etc. Etc.
Union with God
(life)
Experience
Union
of
God’s with God presence (life)
➝Experience In the Kingdom
of God’s of presence God
➝Under the
Kingdom
Influence
of God
of
➝ Influence
positivity
of
Living positivity from love
Living Strife from love
Sadness Peace
Restfulness
Hopelessness
Joy
Hope
Etc.
Etc.

158 ONLY JESUS
‘Who Is Jesus Christ?’
Jesus Christ is God’s new representative.
This is what John, a disciple of Jesus, said about Him:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning with God. All things were made through
Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And
the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not
comprehend (=overcome) it. ...
And the Word [Jesus Christ] became flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. [John 1:1-5,14]

IT IS FINISHED!
159
The God-Man
Before Jesus Christ
came to earth, He
was called “the
Word.” In the
beginning, He
was with God,
and He was
God. So Jesus
Christ is
God.
In the
beginning, He
created the whole
universe. “All things
were made through
Him, and without Him
nothing was made that was
made.”
But then, about 2000 years ago,
He became a human being. “The Word [Jesus Christ]
became flesh and dwelt among us.” God became a man.
So, Jesus was man and God together.
He was (and still is) the God-Man.

160 ONLY JESUS
‘The Light of Men’
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did
not comprehend (=overcome) it.”
When the life of Jesus has come into our life then
it begins to shine and drive out darkness. It’s like light.
When light enters a dark room, then darkness has to go.
So when Jesus’ life begins to shine in us, it drives
out our fear.
It drives out our hopelessness.
It drives out our poverty.
It drives out sinful behavior.
It drives out every other form of darkness.
Then we begin to experience God’s wonderful
presence. Then we begin to experience salvation. Then
we experience union and fellowship with God. Then
we start to experience blessing, healing and provision.

IT IS FINISHED!
161
The Virgin-Born
Jesus Christ was conceived in a special way. Before
His birth, an angel of God appeared to His mother
Mary. At that time, Mary was still a virgin. The angel
said to Mary,
“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with
God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and
bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He
will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest
... The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and
the power of the Highest will overshadow
you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is
to be born will be called the Son of God.”
[Luke 1:30-32,35]
So God created the body of Jesus in the womb of
Mary through the life-giving influence of His Holy
Spirit. This means that Mary was a virgin when she
conceived Jesus and she stayed a virgin until Jesus was
born. That’s why Jesus was not a descendant of
Adam. He was virgin-born.

162 ONLY JESUS
You might say, “But why is this important?”
Had Jesus been born as a descendant of Adam,
He would have been born automatically in a state of
separation from God and spiritual death. But Jesus was
born spiritually alive.
That’s why He could save us.
The Anointed Savior
As we have said, the name
‘Jesus’ comes from the Hebrew
word ‘Yeshua.’ It literally means,
“Yahweh (one of the Hebrew
names of God, meaning ‘I am that
I am’) is salvation.”
The word ‘Christ’ comes
from the Hebrew word
‘Meshiach.’ It literally
means, ‘anointed.’
Jesus was anointed
with the Spirit of
God. So the power
of God’s Spirit was
working through
Him. So the word
‘Jesus Christ’ (in
Hebrew ‘Yeshua
Hamashiach’)
means ‘The
Anointed Savior.’

IT IS FINISHED!
163
‘What Did Jesus Christ Come
For?’
To Unite Us Back to God
Life means union with God. Death means separation
from God. Jesus said,
“I have come that they [people] may have life,
and that they may have it more abundantly.” [John 10:10]
Jesus came to unite us back to God who is the source
of life. So when we are united again with God then we
get to experience His wonderful presence and abundant
life. We begin to experience His peace. His joy. Freedom.
Health. Happy relationships. We get to experience His
wonderful love.
Through Adam, the whole world is in a state of
separation from God. People are in a lost state. But
Jesus came to reverse that. Jesus said,
“[I have] come to seek and to save that which was
lost.” [Luke 19:10]
“... God did not send His Son (Jesus) into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through
Him might be saved.” [John 3:17]
Because of Adam, people are already separated from
God. They are self-condemned already. But Jesus came
so that they can be set free from their sinful Adamic
human nature and receive a new nature from God.

164 ONLY JESUS
Jesus came to bring us back into union with God; so
that we can be part of God’s family—children of
God—again.
Then we can learn what it means to live under the
family system where we can experience the continual
comforting presence of Father God’s love. Then we can
experience salvation—which is fellowship with God and
wellbeing of our body, soul and spirit.
Then we can be in the Kingdom of God.
‘What Did Jesus Do for Us
to Bring Us Back to God?’
Let’s look what Jesus has done
for us to bring us back to God.
1. He Always
Obeyed
First, Je sus
fully obeyed all
commandments of
God under the workswages
system. He never
sinned once, in thought, word
or deed. He always perfectly
obeyed God’s commandments and
[John 8:28-29,38,46 and
followed God’s will.
Hebrews 4:14]

IT IS FINISHED!
165
Jesus did this as our new representative. Remember
the story of the national football team that gets a goal
and everybody in the country says, “We got a goal!”
This means we can point to Him and say, “Jesus—my
representative—has always perfectly obeyed
God’s commandments. So have I.”
2. He Paid for
Our Disobedience
As our new representative, Jesus also received
the punishment for our disobedience under
the works-wages system.
Remember, Adam brought all mankind under the
works-wages system. Under that system, all have sinned.
So under that system, all deserve punishment for their
sins, which is separation from God. But God in His great
love sent Jesus Christ to receive the punishment that we
deserved. The bible says,
... Christ ... suffered once for sins, the just [=Jesus]
for the unjust [=us], that He might bring us to God
... [1 Peter 3:18]
Jesus was just (sinless). But He suffered the punishment
that we (the unjust) deserved, so that through Him
we can be united with God again.
The following story of the motorcycle illustrates what
Jesus did for us.

166 ONLY JESUS
The Motorcycle
Story
Imagine you are riding a
motorcycle.
You get to an intersection
and the traffic lights are red.
You should stop. But there isn’t
much traffic on the road and so
you decide to ignore the stop
sign and happily drive on.
But you didn’t notice
something.
Right after the intersection
is a police station. And as you
are cruising past, suddenly a
police officer jumps out and
waves the stop sign at you.
He has watched you crossing
the red lights. So there is
no point in denying it.
You have clearly
broken the
traffic rules.
According to
the law you
are guilty
and have to
pay a fine.

IT IS FINISHED!
167
But there’s a problem.
You don’t have any money
with you. So the officer takes
you into custody. He can’t
let you go just like that.
You have broken the law,
so he has to penalize you.
He can’t just let you
go without punishing
you for your offense.
Otherwise, he would
become a lawbreaker
himself. He is bound by the
law that says, “Offenders
must be prosecuted.” Now
the law is unbending.
Inflexible. There is no
room for compromise.
But now something unexpected happens.
A person who has watched the whole incident
suddenly comes along and says, “Hey—Let me help you.
I will pay the fine for you.” If you accept his offer, then
the police officer can let you go free, because the fine
for your sin (you broke the traffic law) is paid for.
After that you may drive on happily, as if nothing
had ever happened. Before the law, you are blameless
because your offense is paid for.
Now how is this story related to what Jesus has done?

168 ONLY JESUS
The Good News of the Cross
We are all like that motorcycle rider who has broken
the traffic law. We are actually all like someone who was
born into a prison. That’s because from our forefather
Adam we have inherited a sin nature and a state of
separation from God! That’s why we suffer from all
forms of death, such as fear, worries, and so on. In
His great love for us, God
wanted to release us
from that condition.
But the law was against
us (!). It required that a penalty
had to be paid.
God also couldn’t unite
Himself with someone
who was imperfect. It’s like 2
substances that don’t mix—like
water and mercury. So, God who
is righteous couldn’t coexist with
someone who is unrighteous. [See
Chapter 4 on God’s holiness.]
But here is the good news. God—
through Jesus Christ—came to pay the penalty
for our sins Himself.

IT IS FINISHED!
169
That penalty was death. So,
by dying in our place on the
cross, Jesus paid for our sins,
so that we could be be united
with God again. It’s like that
innocent person who pays the
fine for the guilty person. Once
the fine has been fully
paid for, the guilty
person is no longer
guilty. [9]
So when
Jesus Christ has
become our new
representative, we
can hold our heads tall. Our God didn’t just
say to us, “O.K. I let you go,” as an unjust
police officer might have. God forgave us
our sins in a just way. He sent Jesus to
suffer the full punishment that we deserved. This
means that through Jesus Christ all our
sins have been fully paid for.
This is good news.

170 ONLY JESUS
Jesus Saves Us
from Our Sins
Before Jesus was born, God’s angel appeared to
Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus. The angel said,
“And she [Jesus’ mother Mary] will bring forth a Son,
and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save
His people from their sins.” [Matthew 1:21]
So Jesus didn’t come to blame us. He didn’t come to
condemn us. He came to save us from our sins. Jesus said,
“I did not come to judge the world but to save the
world.” [John 12:47]
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved.” [John 3:16-17]
So what did Jesus do to save us? We read that God,
because of His great love for the world (=YOU AND
ME),
“gave His only begotten Son [=Jesus] ...”
What does it mean that God gave Jesus? This refers
to what Jesus did on the cross.

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171
The Precious Blood of Jesus:
Payment for Our Sins
When Jesus died on the cross, He paid for our sins.
His blood was
“shed for many for the remission
of sins.” [Matthew 26:28]
Peter, a follower of Jesus
wrote to remind other fellow
followers of Jesus of this truth:
Knowing that you were
not redeemed with
corruptible things, like
silver of gold, from your
aimless conduct received by
tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious
blood of Christ, as of a
lamb without blemish and
without spot. [1 Peter 1:18-
19]
Jesus’ blood is precious
because it was sinless. Pure.
That is the only reason why
He could make payment for
our sins. Only Jesus was
qualified to do that. [See also
Chapter 15: Why Only Him?]

172 ONLY JESUS
We Deserve to Be Punished—
but Jesus was Punished for
Us!
We deserve to be punished because of our
sins. But on the cross, Jesus Christ was punished
for us. For our sins and for our curse (‘gam’)!
On the cross, Jesus received the punishment
that we deserved. So that we could go free! So
that we would not perish! So that we would not be
condemned! So that we could be forgiven, and receive
a new life!
!
Oh, how great His love is for us!
Whosoever Believes
God already gave His Son, Jesus Christ. Without
Jesus, we perish. There is no hope for us
because we try to rely on our own goodness—
which falls short! [See Chapter 12: The Good Person
Test, and Chapter 13: I’m Better Than Him.]
But whosoever believes in Jesus will not perish.
Whosever believes will have everlasting life. Whosoever
believes, will be saved from their sins. Whosoever
believes, will receive a new life. And whosoever believes,
will be empowered through the Spirit of God to live a
holy life. [See Chapter 16: A Spiritual Re-Birth, Chapter 17:
Repent, Chapter 18: Be Baptized, and Chapter 19: Receive
the Spirit of God.]

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173
A Comparison:
Buddhism
Versus Bible
Let’s compare for a moment what
the bible says about sin with the teachings of Buddhism.
(1) Buddhism says that sin is real and that there will
be a judgment for those who sin. The bible also
says that. [See Chapter 2: Religion—A Performance System,
Chapter 12: The Good Person Test and Chapter 13: I’m
Better Than Him.]
(2) The bible says that by nature mankind is in a sinful
condition. All people are born with a sinful nature.
This sinful nature is something that they
have inherited from the first man Adam! [See
Chapter 11: We Got a Goal!] We have looked
at a test (like the Seen Ha) that proves that
people have this sinful nature. [See Chapter
12: The Good Person Test.]
(3) The bible tells us where
sin comes from It gives us
a reason why people are
in the sinful condition
they are currently in.
[See Chapter 8: It Was Not
an Apple Tree, Chapter 9: Fig
Leaves, and Chapter 10: A
General That Changes Sides.]

174 ONLY JESUS
(4) But the bible also gives us
good news!
The bible says that we can
be set free from that sinful
condition and experience
a real spiritual re-birth
through Jesus. [See Chapter
16: A Spiritual Re-Birth.] So
the bible does not only talk
about the problem (the sinful
condition of human beings)
and consequences, but it
also gives us a solution
through Jesus Christ.
There Is
More!
But there is more. Now this is
exciting!
On the cross, Jesus also took
[2 Corinthians
our sin nature on Him.
6:21]
And when He died, He took it to
the grave and buried it there! Then He
rose again from the grave without it.
So through what Jesus has done, we
will also be set free from the sin nature that we
have inherited from Adam! [We will look at this
in more detail in the upcoming chapters.]

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175
Grace Abounds
There is a powerful song called ‘Grace Abounds.’ [10]
This song talks about what Jesus Christ has done for us.
It goes like this:
You lay aside Your throne
And to this worldYou have come
You offered up Your life
The debt You paidwas not Yours
Your grace abounds to me
Your grace abounds to me
Jesus, In You I find all that I need
A gift I could not earn
Your open arms
Are undeserved
Enabled by Your grace
Now to liveis Christ alone
All powerful
All glorious
There’s nothing
like the Name
of Jesus

176 ONLY JESUS
All powerful
All glorious
There’s nothing like the Name of Jesus
Knowing that Jesus has fully paid for my sins so that
I can be fully united with God makes me want to jump
for joy!
How about you?
Can you believe it?

IT IS FINISHED!
177
Sometimes people say,
“Yes, but all religions are good because they all help people
to be good. All religions lead to God in one form or another.
Why are you saying that only Jesus can save us?”
This is what we are going to look at in the next
chapter, Why Only Him?
d
Study Questions
1. Who is Jesus, what did He come for, and
what did He do for us?

15
Why Only Him?
Only Jesus Was Without Sin
SOMETIMES PEOPLE SAY,
“Why do you say that Jesus is the only person
that can connect us to God?”
This is why.
Imagine one of your friends is in debt.
Now you would like to help. But you can only help
him if you have enough money. If you are in debt
yourself, then you can’t help anyone else.
So Jesus could only help us to pay for our
sins because He didn’t have any sins himself.
Jesus was virgin-born. He wasn’t a descendant of Adam.
He was the sinless God-man Jesus Christ. That’s why
He could save us.

180 ONLY JESUS
All religious teachers who ever lived on this earth
were descendants of Adam. They were all sinful. None
of them also ever claimed to be without
sin—only Jesus. He could challenge
his critics saying,
“Which of you convicts Me
of sin? And if I tell the truth, why
do you not believe Me?” [John 8:46]
No religious teacher also ever
claimed to die for other people’s sins. Only
Jesus said that He came
“ ... to give His life a ransom for many.”
[Matthew 20:28]
A ransom is a payment. So Jesus said that He came
to pay for others with His own life.
Paul, a follower of Jesus also said this,
[Jesus] died for all, that those who live should live
no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them
and rose again. [2 Corinthians 5:15]
Jesus not only died for the sins of all people. He
also rose again from the grave. He did this so that all
through Him can receive a new life and then live for
Him instead of living for themselves.
You may say, “But how do we know that Jesus
successfully paid for our sins?”

WHY ONLY HIM?
181
Only Jesus Rose
from the Dead
In the story of the motorcycle rider we said that there
is a person who pays for the offense of somebody else.
When the guilty person is released, it’s proof that the
offense has been fully paid for. So when Jesus after
3 days and 3 nights rose from the dead, it’s
proof that our sins have been forgiven.
Sometimes people also ask the following question:
‘How Could One Man Pay
for the Sins of the World?’
Again, to understand this we need to understand
who Jesus was.

182 ONLY JESUS
A Prisoner Exchange
Imagine the following scenario. Some Palestinians in
the Middle East have captured an Israeli general.
Now Israel is willing to do a prisoner exchange.
They want to get their high-ranking officer back. That’s
why the Israeli army is willing to release 100 ordinary
Palestinian captives in exchange for that one general.
This means that the one general is worth 100 ordinary
captives.
Now Jesus is worth much more than one
general.

WHY ONLY HIM?
183
Jesus Is the Only One
Who Is Worthy
Jesus is the Lord of heaven. He created the
whole universe. He is God who came to earth in
the form of a man. He is the only one born into this
world who wasn’t a descendant of Adam.
Jesus didn’t have a sin nature. He never thought
a wrong thought, or said a wrong word, or did a
wrong deed His entire life. He always obeyed God’s
will. That’s why He was more worth than all who
have ever lived and will ever live. This made Him a
worthy payment for the sins of the whole world.
When Jesus was on the cross, God looked at all
the sins that people committed in the past. He also
looked into the future knowing what kind of sins
people would commit. Then he took all those sins
(past and future) and placed them on Jesus.
So Jesus in one event—once and for all—paid for
the sins of all mankind. [Hebrews 10:10-14] This means that
through Jesus, our past sins, our present
sins, and our future sins are forgiven.
But that’s not all!
As we have said, Jesus also removed our
sin nature! So when we come to Jesus, and we are
born again we not only receive forgiveness of our
sins, but we also receive a new nature from God!
[See next chapter, A Spiritual Re-Birth.] Now I think
that this is good news! What do you think?

184 ONLY JESUS
Sometimes people also ask:
‘Why Did Jesus Need to Die?’
God is righteous and just.
According to the work-wages system, sins need to be
punished (“Do good, get good; Do bad, get bad”). So
God couldn’t have forgiven our sins just like that. The
works-wages system—the law—was against us! That’s
why Jesus, our new representative, had to receive the
punishment that we deserved.
As we’ve said in the motorcycle story, a police
officer can’t let a person who broke the traffic law
go just like that. Otherwise, he would be breaking
the law himself. He can only let that person go free
lawfully, if someone steps in and pays the fine.
Jesus Had to Pay for Us
This means that Jesus had to step in
and pay for us. That’s the only reason
why God could justly forgive us! A
passage in the bible talks about this.
... There is no difference; for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by His grace through
the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus, whom God
set forth as a propitiation

WHY ONLY HIM?
185
[a sacrifice of atonement] by His blood ... to
demonstrate ... His righteousness ... that He might be
just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
[Romans 3:22-26]
What does this mean in simple language?
We All Have Sinned ... but (!)
Through Jesus We Are Justified!
We all have sinned ... But (!) thank God there is a
BUT ... Through Jesus we are justified!
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God.” God is righteous. But all people (you and me)
have sinned because when we were born we inherited
Adam’s sin nature. So all have fallen short. [We’ve looked
at the Good Person Test that shows that this is the case.]
Thank God there is a ‘but’! So even though
all have fallen short, God has justified us freely by what
Jesus has done. We are “justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus.”
Christ has redeemed us. As we have said, the word
‘redeem’ means to buy back. Through Adam,
all of humanity was separated from God
and came under the influence of Satan
and negativity. Now through Christ,
the whole world can be united with
God again and come under the
influence of God and His presence.

186 ONLY JESUS
So, by God’s grace (His undeserved favor),
we are justified in God’s sight. We are justified.
Not because of anything that we have
done. But because of what Jesus has
done! To be ‘justified’ means to be declared
righteous—just as if we had never sinned.
God Is Just to Forgive
Us
God set [Jesus Christ] forth as a propitiation
[a sacrifice of atonement] by His blood ... to
demonstrate ... His righteousness, that He
might be just and the justifier of the one who
has faith in Jesus.
As we’ve said, a police officer can’t let an
offender go free just like that. If he did that, he
would no longer be a just police officer. But if
someone pays the fine, then a police officer is
just to let an offender go free.
So, when God forgave us, He didn’t
compromise His integrity. God was just
to forgive us because Jesus has paid
for our sins to the full with His own
[1 Peter 1:19]
precious blood.
Jesus paid for our sins. But He didn’t ask us
before He did it. It was all by His undeserved
favor. This is what the word ‘grace’ means.

WHY ONLY HIM?
187
But still—God will not force anything unto us. He
gives us the right to choose. So the question now is, “Can
you believe and receive Christ’s forgiveness
for yourself?” [We will get back to this in Chapter 17:
Repent, Chapter 18: Be Baptized, and Chapter 19: Receive
the Spirit of God.]
God’s is not
interested in changing
our life. He wants to
give us a new life
in His Kingdom. He
wants to take us out from
the kingdom of Satan and wants to transfer us into the
Kingdom of God. This is what we are going to look at
in the next chapters.
In the next chapter, A Spiritual Re-Birth we will look
at what it means to be ‘born again.’
d
Study Questions
1. Why was Jesus a worthy payment and how
could one man (Jesus) pay for the sins of
the whole world?
2. Why did Jesus need to die to pay for our
sins?

Part 3
What
Should We
Do When
We Want
to Come to
Jesus?

16
A Spiritual
Re-Birth
‘You Must Be Born Again’
ONE NIGHT, A RELIGIOUS LEADER named
Nicodemus came to Jesus. Nicodemus had seen
Jesus healing people and performing miracles.
Jesus healed the blind, the deaf, and the cripples. He
healed the lepers. He healed the paralyzed, and those
with birth defects.Jesus set people free from demons.
He healed all manner of sicknesses and all manner
of diseases among the people to demonstrate what
the Kingdom of God is like.
Nicodemus was astonished that Jesus could do these
things. So he came to Him to find out more. Let’s see
what they talked about.

192 ONLY JESUS
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a
ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and
said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher
come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do
unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say
to you, unless one is born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God.” [John 3:1-3]
We Are Born into a Kingdom
Jesus said, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God.” By nature—because of Adam—
we are all born into separation from God, into
the kingdom of Satan. That’s why we can’t understand
the sphere of God’s Kingdom. [See Chapter 11: We Got
a Goal!]
When people are born into a
kingdom, they are automatically
subject to the king of that
kingdom.
So in this world, people are
subject to the king of this world,
Satan. They are subject to negativity.
They are subject to disappointments.
They are subject to diseases and so on.
They can’t see the Kingdom of God—a
realm where they can experience the wonderful presence
and the good influence of God. So naturally people
don’t know how to overcome the forces of negativity.

A SPIRITUAL RE-BIRTH
193
A Spiritual Re-Birth
That’s why Jesus says that to see the Kingdom
of God, a person must be “born again.”
Let’s see if Nicodemus understood this.
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born
when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his
mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless
one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must
be born again.’” [John 3:4-7]
Nicodemus was wondering how a grown person could
be born again physically. But Jesus didn’t mean that.
Jesus was talking about a spiritual rebirth.
We have a physical body, a soul (our thoughts,
emotions and will) and a spirit. [See Chapter 6: Why You
and I Are Special.] When we are born from our natural
parents, our spirit isn’t connected with the Spirit of
God because of our forefather Adam. [See Chapter 11:
We Got a Goal!] So when Jesus talks about being “born
again,” he talks about a spiritual re-birth.
When we are born of our parents, we look like them
and have a human nature like them. This is why Jesus
said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh…”

194 ONLY JESUS
But when we are born of God, we are like God in
our spirit and share God’s divine nature. This is what
Jesus meant when He said, “that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit.”
So when we are born again, we still have the same
body and soul. We still look the same. We may at first
even think and feel the same. But in our spirit, we are
united with God once again.
The Headship of
Adam Versus the
Headship of Christ
When we are born from our
human parents, we are born under
the headship of Adam. We
are born into separation from
God. [See Chapter 11: We Got
a Goal!] In our spirit we
are disconnected from the
Spirit of God.
But when we are born again, we come
under the headship of Jesus Christ.
God replaces our old spirit with a
new spirit and we are connected
again with the Spirit of God. So
we become united
with God in the
spirit. [See next page.]

A SPIRITUAL RE-BIRTH
195
Under the Headship of Adam
(Old spirit, separated from
the Spirit of God)
God
Man
Body
Spirit of
God
Soul
Spirit
Spirit of
Satan
Under the Headship of Christ
(New born-again spirit,
united with the Spirit of
God)
Man
God
Spirit of
God
Spirit

196 ONLY JESUS
Born of Water
and the Spirit
Now Jesus said, “Unless one is born of water
and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
What does Jesus mean by “born of water and the
Spirit”?
As we shall see later, “born of water”
refers to getting baptized because
getting baptized links us with
the death of Jesus Christ. [See
Chapter 18: Be Baptized.] Before there
can be something new, there has to be a
death of the old. Only then there can
be a new beginning—a resurrection.
So to be born again, we need to be
linked with the death of Jesus.
And we also need to be linked
with the resurrection of Jesus.
This happens when we are “born of the
Spirit” (and we receive the Holy Spirit).
[See Chapter 19: Receive the Spirit of God.]
Then we are born again—through
what Jesus has done in His death,
burial and resurrection—“of
water and the Spirit.”

A SPIRITUAL RE-BIRTH
197
‘What Shall We Do?’
Now you may say, “What should I do if I believe in
Jesus and want to receive what He has already done for
me so that I can be born again?”
This is exactly what a group of people who heard
about Jesus Christ wanted to know. They believed that
Jesus had died for their sins and that He had risen again
from the dead. So they said, “What shall we do?”
Peter then gave them a clear answer:
‘Repent, Be Baptized, and
Receive the Holy Spirit’
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every
one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of sins; and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” ...
And with many other words he testified and exhorted them,
saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.”
Then those who gladly received his word were baptized;
and that day about three thousand souls were added to
them. [Acts 2:37-41]
So when the people who already believed wanted to
know what they should do, Peter clearly told them,
- “Repent,”

198 ONLY JESUS
- “Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of sins,” and
- “You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
In the next chapters we will examine what this means.
[See Chapter 17: Repent, Chapter 18: Be Baptized, and
Chapter 19: Receive the Spirit of God.]
Repenting has to do with
changing the way we think and act.
It has to do with turning from our
own efforts to be good to receive
what Jesus Christ has done for
us on the cross. It has to do with
getting under the rulership
of God in all areas of our
life. In the bible, whenever people
repented, they turned from their
own sinful practices and put their
faith in God.
Getting baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of sins has to do
with receiving the forgiveness
that Jesus has already provided
on the cross. It has to do with
getting united with Jesus
in His death and burial. In
the bible whenever people believed
in Jesus (His death, burial, and
resurrection), they got baptized.

A SPIRITUAL RE-BIRTH
199
Receiving the Holy
Spirit has to do with
being united with
Jesus Christ in His
resurrection. In the
bible whenever people
believed in Jesus (His death,
burial, and resurrection),
they also consequently
received the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a Spirit
of wisdom, power and love
that helps us to live a holy
life under the rulership of
God in all areas of our life.
d
Study Questions
1. What does Jesus mean when He says that
to see and to enter the Kingdom of God a
person must be ‘born again’?
2. What does it mean to be ‘born of water’ and
to be ‘born of the Spirit’?

17
Repent
WHEN THE PEOPLE who had heard the
good news about Jesus Christ and believed
asked Peter what they should do, he gave
them clear instructions.
First, he said, “repent.” To repent means to
change the way you think, and then change
the way you act.

202 ONLY JESUS
Change the Way You Think
To repent (from the Greek word ‘metanoia’)
means ‘to change your mind.’ It’s like doing a
U-turn. For example, if you are on the way to
Bangkok and you want to go to Chiang Mai,
then you need to turn around. You can only
go in one direction at the same time.
How does repentance take place?
You first need to understand about your real condition
without Jesus. You need to understand that because of
Adam you are separated from God [see Chapter 11: We
Got a Goal!] and that you have inherited a sinful nature.
[See Chapter 12: The Good Person Test.]
You also need to understand that all your own efforts
to be a good person in the sight of God are futile. [See
Chapter 13: I’m Better Than Him.]
Then you are ready to hear what Jesus Christ has
already done for you through His death, burial and
resurrection.
You need to understand that Jesus, the perfect
sacrifice died on the cross for your sins, and was buried
and resurrected. Jesus did this so that you can
now come out from being under the headship
of Adam and come under the headship of
Christ.
When you hear what Jesus has done for you, and you
experience His goodness, this will produce repentance in you.

REPENT
203
Faith Comes by Hearing
You actually can’t
change the way you
think by yourself. Your
mind automatically
changes by what you
hear.
It’s like watching a
horror movie. If you
watch a horror movie
you don’t say to yourself,
“Now I am going to fear.”
No. When you watch the
scary images and hear the
frightful sounds, fear comes
to you. Automatically.
It’s the same with faith. When you first understand
your true sinful condition and then hear the good news
about Jesus and what He has done for you, faith comes
to you. Automatically. So faith is not something you do.
Faith is something that happens to you when
you hear the word of Jesus.
But when faith has come unto you, then you will
also need to act on that faith. Faith and action goes
together.
Faith first originates from hearing the word of God.
But then there is an outworking of it, which is you acting
on your faith.

204 ONLY JESUS
Change the Way You Act
So if people’s repentance is real, those who have
come to Jesus change the way they act.
They will fully turn away from their old
life. They will fully turn from their
old beliefs. They will fully
turn away from their old
religion, and their old
way of doing things.
They will
lay it all down
at the feet of
Jesus. They will
be willing to come
under the headship
of Jesus Christ and
under the rule of the
Kingdom of God in
all areas of their life.
This is an ongoing
process.

REPENT
205
Real Repentance Is
Connected with Real Deeds
If their repentance is real, people who have come to
Jesus will turn away from idol worship as it was
in a city called Thessalonia where people
... turned to God from idols to serve the living and
true God ... [1 Thessalonians 1:8-9]
The Thessalonians were idol worshippers in the past.
But when they came to God, they truly repented from
worshipping idols and turned to worship the living God
instead.
If their repentance is real, people who have come
to Jesus will make restitution and will turn away
from magic, as it was in a city called Ephesus.

206 ONLY JESUS
... many who had believed came confessing and
telling their [evil] deeds. Also, many of those
who had practiced magic brought their
books together and burned them in the sight
of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it
totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. [Acts 19:17-20]
People who have truly come to Jesus will make
restitution wherever they can. They will destroy and
throw away everything that connects them with their
previous beliefs, such as idols and altars.
If their repentance is real, people who believe in
Jesus will turn away from stealing.
If their repentance is real, people who believe in Jesus
will turn away from fornication and sexual
immorality. And so on.
Sometimes people misunderstand the message of the
Kingdom. They are saying that we are telling people that
it is ok if they keep doing what they have been doing
before they came to the Lord. In other words, that their
sinning does not really matter.
But this is not at all our message.
People who have truly repented—and as we
shall see have been baptized, and then received the
Spirit of God—will begin to do good deeds as
a result of repentance.

207
Jesus Came to Set Us Free
from the Power of Sin
Jesus didn’t come to just cover our sins.
He came to set us free from the power
of sin, so that sin no longer has dominion
(=power) over us. Jesus said,
“... if the Son makes you free, you shall be free
indeed.” [John 8:36]
That’s good news!
But God W on' t
Twist Our Arms
But God won’t twist our arms to make us come to
Him—He is calling us. So you need to understand
that God isn’t going to force you to come to him. He
is calling:
“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all
who are afar of, as many as the Lord our God
will call ...” [Acts 2:38-39]

208 ONLY JESUS
It's Your Turn to Move
So when you hear His call, then it’s your turn to
respond. It’s your move. It’s your turn to make a step
of faith towards Him.
It’s like in a game of chess. In chess you are not
allowed to make a double move. Each person can only
make one move at a time. Then it’s the other person’s
turn.
God Has Already Moved
God has already moved through what Jesus
has done on the cross (His death, His burial and His
resurrection).
Now He is calling you to make the next move towards
Him (repent and be baptized). Then He will make the next
move towards you (which is to fill you with His Spirit).

REPENT
209
So now it’s your turn to move.
Repent.
Be baptized.
And you are going to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In the next chapters, we are going to look at what
it means to “be baptized,” and what it means to “receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
d
Study Questions
1. What does it mean ‘to repent’?
2. What does repenting involve practically?

18
Be Baptized
L
‘Crucified and Buried
with Jesus’
ET’S COME BACK to what Peter answered
when the people asked him what they should do.
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every
one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission (=forgiveness) of
sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
[Acts 2:38]
So if you believe in Jesus Christ and have turned to
Him (repented), the next step is to get baptized.

212 ONLY JESUS
“Be baptized ... for the remission of sins.” Remission
means forgiveness. Jesus already died on the cross and
rose again for you. From His part, your sins are
already forgiven. But from your part, you still
need to receive in faith the forgiveness that
Jesus has already provided.
That’s why the bible says, get “baptized for the
remission of sins.” The word for means ‘in order to.’ In
other words, you get baptized in faith in order to receive
the forgiveness of sin.
The word ‘to baptize’ (from the Greek word
‘baptismo’) means to immerse or submerge.
Now is the meaning of baptism and what
happens when we get baptized?
Baptism Links Us
with Our Co-
Death and
C o-Bur ial
with Christ
This is what the bible says about the
meaning and purpose of baptism:
... Do you not know that as many of us
as were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into His death? Therefore we
were buried with Him through baptism into

BE BAPTIZED
213
death ... we have been united together in the
likeness of His death ... our old man was crucified
with Him ... [Romans 6:3-6]
Jesus was your representative. He came and paid for
your sins by dying in your place. Then He was buried.
(And then He rose from the dead.)
Because Jesus represented you, you died and you
were buried with Him. It’s like in the football game. [See
Chapter 11: We Got a Goal!] We just read,
“we were ... buried with Him (Jesus Christ) through
baptism into death,”
and
“we have been united together (with Him) in the
likeness of His death.”
This means that baptism unites us (links
us) with our death and co-burial with Jesus
[See also Colossians 2:12]
Christ.

214 ONLY JESUS
A Watery Grave
When you get baptized, the person who baptizes you
will fully submerge you under water. This is because
you believe that when Jesus Christ died and was
buried for you, you also died and were buried with him.
The Confession of Faith
The bible also says that when we believe with our
heart, we will also express that belief verbally.
.... if you confess * with your mouth the Lord Jesus and
believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the
dead, you will be saved. [Romans 10:9]
* ‘To confess’ means to agree with.

BE BAPTIZED
215
Before the people who baptize you put you under
water, they will ask if you believe in Jesus Christ in
your heart. (So only get baptized when you have fully
understood and believe what Jesus Christ has done for
you.)
When you get baptized, the people who baptize you
will ask you the following (or a similar) questions,
“Do you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God who
came from God to represent you?”
“Do You believe that when He died on the cross for your
sins, you died with Him.”
“And when He was buried, you were buried with Him.”
“And when He rose from the dead, you rose from the dead
with Him?”
Then you can say, “Yes, I believe.”
After that the person who baptizes you might say
something like this,
“Because you say that you believe, I baptize you now in
the name of Jesus Christ.”
[When you are put under water] “Die with
Christ.”
[Then you will be completely put under water for a few
seconds]
[And when you have come up again from
the water]... “Rise with Christ.”

216 ONLY JESUS
An Example of a Baptism
Let’s look at one example of how a person got
baptized in the bible.
Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise
and go toward the south along the road which goes down
from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert.
So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia,
a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of
the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and
had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And
sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.
Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this
chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the
prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you
are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone
guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with
him. [Acts 8:26-31]

BE BAPTIZED
217
A Meeting by
Divine Appointment
So what happened in this event?
First there was a person called Philip. He was a
follower of Jesus. Phillip had a dream. In that dream, an
angel told him to go down a certain road. On the way, he
then saw a chariot that belonged to a royal official from
Ethiopia. This man had come to Jerusalem to worship
and was on his way back home. Then the Holy Spirit
told Philip to go near the chariot.
When Philip came near, he heard that the Ethiopian
man was reading a passage from a book of the bible called
Isaiah. So Philip asked the man if he understood what he
was reading. The
man then invited
Philip to sit next to
him and to explain
to him what this
passage meant.
Today many
people are also
trying to read
the bible. But
they cannot yet
understand it on
their own. They need someone who can help them and
explain the good news of the Kingdom of God and the
name of Jesus Christ to them.

218 ONLY JESUS
Preaching Jesus Brings
Faith and Repentance
Let’s see what the man was reading and what
happened next.
The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He
was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before
its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth. In His
humiliation His justice was taken away, and who will
declare His generation? For His life is taken from the
earth.”
So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of
whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other
man?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning
at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. [Acts
8:32-35]
The Ethiopian man read this text about a certain
person. This person was like a sheep that was led to be
killed and like a lamb that didn’t cry out when it was
shorn.
The Ethiopian then asked Phillip if this description
referred to the writer of the book (Isaiah) or to some
other person. Then Phillip started from this passage and
began to preach to him about Jesus.
So Philip would have explained to the Ethiopian that
this text referred to Jesus. He would have explained that
when Jesus was arrested and taken to be crucified, He
didn’t resist. Jesus was like an innocent sheep that doesn’t
resist when it’s taken to be killed or shorn.

BE BAPTIZED
219
The passage also said, “In his humiliation his justice
was taken way.” In other words, Jesus was humiliated
and deprived of justice.
Before Jesus was crucified, He didn’t have a fair trial.
During the whole procedure of His mock trial, torture
and crucifixion, He was mercilessly taunted, mocked
and humiliated.
But Jesus didn’t revile back because He knew that
He was doing this in obedience to God and that He was
doing it for us. Jesus had you and me in mind.

220 ONLY JESUS
Baptism Is a Faith Response
Philip would have also explained to the Ethiopian
man who Jesus was (God in the flesh). And he would
have also explained why Jesus
was crucified (for us). And
he would have talked about
Jesus’s resurrection. Let’s see
how the man responded.
Now as they went down the road,
they came to some water. And
the eunuch said, “See, here is
water. What hinders me
from being baptized?”
Then Philip said, “If you believe
with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and
said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
[Acts 8:36-37]
So suddenly as they came to some water, the man
wanted to get baptized. This means that Philip would
also have explained to the man how he could
respond to the gospel.
Peter, the apostle told the people when they asked
him what they should do,
“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” [Acts
2:38]
Phillip would have also told this to the Ethiopian
man.

BE BAPTIZED
221
So after the Ethiopian had listened to what Philip
told him about Jesus, faith came to his heart. And then
he wanted to act on his faith by getting baptized. They
were in the desert where there was no water. But as they
drove past a waterhole, the man then asked Philip why
he could not get baptized
now.
Philip said that he
could get baptized if he
believed with all his
heart. The man then
made a confession of faith
and said, “I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God.”
This shows that he
must have understood and believed who Jesus was. He
also must have understood that Jesus was God’s new
representative who came to die for us, so that through
Him we could be connected to God again. And He must
have understood that when Jesus died and was buried
for us, as our representative, then we died and were
buried with Him.
That’s why he then wanted to get baptized.

222 ONLY JESUS
Baptism Is by Full Immersion
Let’s see what happened next.
So he commanded the chariot
to stand still. And
both Philip and
the eunuch went
down into the
water, and he baptized
him. Now when they came
up out of the water ... [Acts
8:38]
From this we can see that
when Philip baptized the Ethiopian man, both went
down into the water, and both came up out of the water.
This shows that Philip baptized the man by full
immersion. Baptism is a burial.
As we have said, baptism links us with our
death and co-burial with Jesus Christ.

BE BAPTIZED
223
Summary
So here we have the story of an Ethiopian high
ranking officer. He reads the bible but doesn’t understand
it. Then God sends another person along (Philip).
Philip then preaches Jesus to the man from the text
of Isaiah. As the Ethiopian listens to Philip’s explanation
of who Jesus Christ was, and what He has done for
mankind, faith comes to him. He finds that he can
believe the good news about Jesus Christ. He believes
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died and
was buried for our sins, and that He rose from the dead.
Then he wants to act on his faith in Jesus Christ by
getting baptized. Philip then asks him if he believes, and
after the man’s confession of faith, Philip baptizes him
by full immersion in water.

224 ONLY JESUS
Sometimes, people who come from a religious
background ask the following question:
‘Is Baptism a Ritual?’
They might ask, “Is baptism a ritual to remove sin?”
They ask such a question because in most religions,
people are used to practicing rituals.
But baptism is not a ritual to remove sin. Baptism
links us with our death and co-burial with
Jesus Christ.
So baptism is only for the person who believes that
Jesus’ death was a substitutionary death for him, and that
when Jesus was buried, he was buried with Jesus. It’s for
those who believe in the gospel of the Kingdom and the
name of Jesus Christ. It is for those who have repented
and are ready to be fully united with Jesus.

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225
On the day of Pentecost, Peter said to the people
who wanted to know how to respond to the good
news about Jesus’ substitutionary death, burial and
resurrection,
“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
[Acts 2:38]
From His part, God has already forgiven our sins
through Jesus when Jesus died on the cross for you.
But we still need to individually receive the
forgiveness of sins.
Nobody can receive the forgiveness of sins for us.
Only we can receive the forgiveness of sins for ourself.
This happens when we believe and get baptized.
This is why Jesus also said,
“He who believes (the gospel) and is baptized
will be saved.” [Mark 16:16]
That’s why we see in the bible that believing
in the gospel (in our co-death with Jesus, our co-burial
with Jesus, and our co-resurrection with Jesus) and
getting baptized always goes hand-in-hand.

226 ONLY JESUS
In the Bible, Whenever
People Believed the Gospel,
They Got Baptized
So in the bible, people who believed the gospel of
Jesus always responded by getting baptized
in water.
For example,
[Acts 2:41] Then those who that gladly
received his word were baptized ...
[Acts 8:12] ... when they believed Philip as
he preached the things concerning the kingdom of
God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men
and women were baptized.
[Acts 18:18] ...and many of the the
Corinthians hearing believed and were
baptized.
[Acts 19:4-5] Then Paul said, “John [was]
saying to the people that they should believe on
Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ
Jesus.” When they heard this, they were
baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
There are many other examples of believers
getting baptized in the bible when they believe.
[See Acts 10:34-48, Acts 16:11-15, and Acts 16:25-34.]
Let’s just look at one more example in Acts 9. It’s the
story of how a person by the name of Paul came to Jesus.

BE BAPTIZED
227
Paul’'s Conversion
Paul was at first persecuting people who
believed in Jesus. He arrested them, put
them in prison, and agreed to have
them killed. But then on the way to a
city called Damascus he had a mighty
encounter with Jesus. This then
caused Paul to believe in Him.
Here’s Paul telling a part of his story:
Now it happened, as I journeyed and came
near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a
great light from heaven shone around me. And
I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul,
Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ So I answered, ‘Who
are You, Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of
Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’
And those who were with me indeed saw the light and
were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of Him who
spoke to me.
So I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said
to me, ‘Arise and go into Damascus, and
there you will be told all things which are
appointed for you to do.’ And since I could not see
for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those
who were with me, I came into Damascus.
Then a certain Ananias, a devout man according to the
law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt

228 ONLY JESUS
there, came to me; and he stood and said to me, ‘Brother
Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that same hour I looked
up at him. Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has
chosen you that you should know His will, and see the
Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. For you will
be His witness to all men of what you have seen and
heard. And now why are you waiting? Arise and be
baptized, and wash away your sins, calling
on the name of the Lord.’ [Acts 22:6-16]
And then Paul also got baptized.
In another passage that refers to the same event, the
bible tells us what happened to Paul after that.
Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales,
and he received his sight at once; and he arose and
was baptized. [Acts 9:18]
Let’s recap what happened here.
On the way to Damascus, Paul had a mighty
encounter with Jesus. But through that encounter, he
was not yet born again. He had not yet been united
with Jesus death through baptism. He had
not yet received the forgiveness of sins. Paul
received the forgiveness of sins when he was baptized
and called on the name of Jesus.
And through that encounter, Paul had not yet been
united with Jesus in His resurrection. Paul then had not
yet received the Holy Spirit. Paul received the Holy
Spirit when Ananias laid hands on him. [See Acts 9:17] [We
will talk more about receiving the Holy Spirit in the next
chapter.]

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229
‘Baptism Saves Us’
In the past, there was a person called Noah. He
was instructed by God to build an ark so that people
could be saved from a
coming flood. When the
flood finally came,
everybody who went
into that ark (Noah
and his household) was
saved. But all others who
didn’t come into the ark died.
This is a picture for us
today. God has already sent
Jesus Christ who died for us and rose again so that
through Him we can be saved. So the ark is a
picture for Jesus Christ. If we get into the ark, we
will be saved. Peter writes about this.
... Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust,
that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the
flesh but made alive by the Spirit ...
... once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few,
that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There
is also an antitype [= a figure] which now
saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of
the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God),
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone
into heaven ... [1 Peter 3:18, 20-22]

230 ONLY JESUS
So when we believe in Jesus and get baptized we
will have a good conscience towards God because we
know that our sins are forgiven. We know that we
are inside the ark who saves us, Jesus Christ.
‘Can I Baptize
Myself?’
No. You can’t baptize
yourself. Getting baptized is
not something you do. It’s
something that happens
to you.
Imagine a dead person.
A dead person cannot bury himself. Getting buried
is something that happens to that person. So
to get baptized you need someone who helps you, as
we’ve just read in the passage about the Ethiopian man.
When Philip preached to him Jesus, he believed. And
then he wanted to act on his faith by getting baptized.
So Philip then baptized him.
So if you ask, “How can I be baptized? Can I do this
by myself in my shower at home?” the answer is, you
need someone to help you to get baptized.
You can’t baptize yourself.

BE BAPTIZED
231
‘When Should I Get
Baptized?’
... faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word
of [Christ]. [Romans 10:17]
When faith has come to you and you find that you
can believe in your heart, then it is the right time for
you to repent, and get baptized. This is the pattern we
find in the bible. People get baptized when they
believe. And then you are going to receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit.
This is what we are going to talk about in the next
chapter, Receive the Spirit of God.
d
Study Questions
1. What is the meaning of baptism?
2. What does baptism link us with?
3. How and when should we get baptized?

19
Receive the
Spirit of God
Risen with Jesus
LET’S GO BACK TO THE EVENT in the
second chapter of the book of Acts. When the
people asked Peter what they should do, he said,
“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” [Acts 2:38]

234 ONLY JESUS
Remember, Jesus stepped in as our substitute. He
did everything right under the works-wages system on
our behalf.
And He also suffered the punishment that we
deserved for breaking the law. He died for us and was
buried for us. (So we died and were buried with
Him.) That’s why we get baptized in water.
After that, Jesus was raised again from the grave by
the Spirit of God. (So we were raised with Him.)
That’s why we can now also receive the Spirit of God
and be united with God again in the spirit.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
God gives the
Holy Spirit to us
as a gift. A gift
is something
that someone
gives to us
freely. We can’t
earn or deserve
it. Otherwise it
would no longer
be a gift.
So nobody
can receive the Spirit of God on his or her own merit.
We can only receive the Spirit of God because
of what Jesus has done for us.

RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD
235
The Holy Spirit in You
When you receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
God comes to live in you. Then you are in your spirit
connected again to the Spirit of God.
Before the disciples of Jesus received the Holy Spirit,
Jesus foretold what would happen to them.
And being assembled together with them,
RECEIVE
He commanded
THE SPIRIT OF GOD
them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the
Promise of the Father, “which,” He Spirit of said, God. “you have
heard from Me; for John truly baptized Holy Spirit, with Jesus foretold water, what but would
you shall be baptized with
happen
the
to
Holy
them.
Spirit
not many days from now.” [Acts 1:4-5]
So Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for
heard from Me; for John truly baptized
the Promise of the Father—the
Holy Spirit.
Now what does this phrase
“You shall be baptized with the
Holy Spirit” mean?
are in your spirit connected again to the
Before the disciples of Jesus received the
And being assembled together with them,
He commanded them not to depart from
Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of
the Father, “which,” He said, “you have
The word ‘to baptize’ means
to immerse or submerge. This
word was used in ancient times
to refer to the process of dyeing
(coloring) cloth. When a piece
of cloth was dyed, it was fully
219
dipped into a container with color. When it was taken
out of that container, the dye had gone into the cloth
and changed its color.

236 ONLY JESUS
So when a person is baptized with the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit comes to be in that person, and changes
the inner being of that person.
Jesus said to His disciples at
one time that the Holy Spirit
was already with them.
But the time would
come when the
Holy Spirit
would be in
them.
Jesus said,
“And I will
pray the
Father, and
He will give you
another Helper,
that He may abide
with you forever—
the Spirit of truth
[the Holy Spirit],
whom the world cannot
receive, because it neither
sees Him nor knows Him;
but you know Him, for He
dwells with you and will
be in you.
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” [John
14:16-18 ]

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to
you.”
(John 14:16-18 )
RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD 237
When Jesus said this, the Holy Spirit was
When
still
Jesus
with
said
the
this,
disciples.
the Holy
But
Spirit
Jesus
was
said
still
that
with
He
the disciples. would But pray, Jesus and said then that the He Holy would Spirit pray, and would then
the Holy come Spirit to would be in come them. to So be the in time them. would So the come time
would come when when they they would would be be baptized with the Spirit, Spirit.
This which also means means that that they they would would be united be united with with God
in the Spirit. God in [See the below.] spirit (see below).
GOD
God
SPIRIT
Spirit
OF GOD
of
God
Man MAN
BODY
Body
Soul
SOUL
GOD
God
SPIRIT Spirit of
OF GOD
God
MAN
Man
BODY
Body
Soul SOUL
Spirit SPIRIT
Spirit SPIRIT
221

238 ONLY JESUS
Streams of Living Water
Will Flow from You
Jesus promised that all who believe on Him would
receive the Holy Spirit.
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood
and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let
him come to Me and drink. He who believes
in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of
his heart will flow rivers of living
water.”
But this He spoke concerning
the Spirit, whom those believing in
Him would receive; for the
Holy Spirit was not yet given,
because Jesus was not yet
glorified. [John 7:37-39]
In this passage, Jesus compares
the Holy Spirit with living water
that would flow forth from
within a believer. But when Jesus
said this, the Holy Spirit was not yet
given because Jesus hadn’t yet died
and risen from the dead.
Let’s look at another passage
where Jesus also talks about the Holy
Spirit. He uses the same image of
“living water” for the Holy Spirit.

RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD
239
[Jesus] came to a city of Samaria which is called
Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his
son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore,
being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It
was about the sixth hour.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to
her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away
into the city to buy food.
Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it
that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan
woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of
God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’
you would have asked Him, and He would have
given you living water.”
The woman said to Him,
“Sir, You have nothing
to draw with, and the
well is deep. Where
then do You get that
living water? Are
You greater than our
father Jacob, who
gave us the well, and
drank from it himself,
as well as his sons
and his livestock?”

240 ONLY JESUS
Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of
this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the
water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the
water that I shall give him will become in
him a fountain of water springing up into
everlasting life.” [John 4:5-14]
In this passage, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at
a well and asks her for a drink. The woman is surprised
because normally Jews (Jesus was a Jew by birth) and
Samaritans don’t interact with each other.
Jesus then says that if she knew who He was,
she would have asked Him, and then He would
have given her “living water.” The woman doesn’t
understand. She thinks that Jesus is talking
about normal water. So she wonders where He
would get that “living water” from.
Jesus then tells her that
He isn’t talking about
normal water. He says
that if you drink normal
water, you will get thirsty
again. But if you drink
His “living water,” it would
become in you a well of
water that springs up into
everlasting life.

RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD
241
Now ‘everlasting life’ is union with God. It is to really
know Him.
Jesus said,
“And this is eternal
[=everlasting]
life, that they
may know
You, the only true
God, and Jesus
Christ whom You
have sent.” [John 17:3]
Every human being
has a void in his spirit that
can only be filled by God. People
can follow all kinds of religious
practices.They can believe all kinds of
philosophies and teachings. They can even
say that they don’t believe in anything. But deep down
inside every human being exists a void that can only be
filled by God Himself.
When a person has received the Spirit of God and is
united with God again in the spirit, then this deep thirst
of the human heart is quenched. So Jesus is saying here
that He can quench that thirst in human beings. This
happens when they receive “living water” from Him.
This living water is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit
Will Give You
Power to Be a
Witness of Jesus
[Jesus said,] “ ... you shall receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come
upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the end of the earth.” [Acts 1:8]
Jesus told His disciples that they would receive
power through the Holy Spirit. Then they would be
His witnesses.
So when you receive the Holy Spirit, and the Holy
Spirit has come upon you, the power of God will start
to flow to and through you. You will start doing the
works of Jesus and the Kingdom of God will manifest
through you. Then other people will realize that you
belong to Jesus.
The Holy Spirit Will Enable
You to Live a Holy Life
When you have received the Holy Spirit, the Holy
Spirit will enable you to live a life free from sin. The
Holy Spirit will empower you to live a holy
life.

RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD
243
The Holy Spirit Will
Enable You to Pray in a
Supernatural Language
Jesus told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they
would receive the Holy Spirit. Let’s read what happened
about a week later:
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all
with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a
sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it
filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of
fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak with other
tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance. [Acts 2:1-4]
When the Holy Spirit came it was like
a rushing wind and tongues as of fire that
came on them. And when the Holy Spirit
had come to be in the disciples, and they
were filled with Holy Spirit, then they began
to speak in other tongues.
This means that once their spirit was again
connected with the Spirit of God, they started to speak
in a supernatural language. So there was a manifestation
that could be seen and heard by other people.

244 ONLY JESUS
Babies Cry out when They
Are Born
It’s just like when a baby is born and takes a breath
for the first time. While it is still in the mother’s womb,
a baby doesn’t breathe yet because the oxygen comes
from the blood of the mother. But after a baby has been
born, his or her lungs will fill with air for the first time.
When that happens, then the baby will start to make a
sound and cry out. Everybody who hears that cry will
be happy because it’s a sign that the baby is now alive
and can breathe on his or her own.
So the same principle applies here. When a people
have received the Holy Spirit (=the Holy Spirit has
come to be inside of them), then they have become
spiritually alive. This happens with a sign. These people
will begin to speak forth in other tongues, as the Holy
Spirit enables them.

RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD
245
This is what we are also going to look at in the next
chapter, A Spirit Language.
d
Study Questions
1. Why can we receive the Holy Spirit?
2. Why does God want that we receive the
Holy Spirit?
3. What happens when we receive the Holy
Spirit?

20
A Spirit Language
A New Language That
Originates from the H oly
Spirit
AFTER YOU HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED, the
person who baptized you will lay hands on you
and pray with you to receive the Holy Spirit.
And when you receive the Holy Spirit, you will be able
to pray to God in a new language that originates from
the Holy Spirit.
Normally, when we speak a normal language, the
language originates from our mind. But when we’ve received
the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit helps us to pray to God in
a Spirit language that originates from the Spirit.
In the bible, this practice of speaking in a Spirit language
is also called ‘speaking with (new or other) tongues.’

In the following section, we
will look in detail what speaking in
a Spirit language is. We are going
to look at a few examples from the
bible that show what happened
when people received the Holy
Spirit and were born of the Spirit.
JESUS
The Sign of Speaking in a
Spirit Language
Jesus said that everyone who believes on Him would
speak with a new Spirit language.
And [Jesus] said to them, “Go into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and
is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe
will be condemned.
And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name
they will cast out demons; they will speak with
new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they
drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them;
they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was

A SPIRIT LANGUAGE
249
received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand
of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the
Lord working with them and confirming the word
through the accompanying signs. [Mark
16:15-20]
Jesus Himself said that signs would follow all
who believe the good news of His death, burial and
resurrection. One of these signs is that those who believe
will “speak with new tongues.” So, when you have received
the Holy Spirit, you will also be able to speak in a Spirit
language.
Examples in the Bible
Let’s look at the bible. Let’s see what happened the
first time when people received the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak with other tongues, as the
Spirit gave them utterance. [Acts 2:1-4]
When people are filled with the Holy Spirit, the
Holy Spirit has come to dwell in them. Then they the
Holy Spirit enables them to “speak with other tongues”
(=a Spirit language).
This means that when people speak with other
tongues, the language originates from the Holy Spirit.
They speak, but the language (syllables / words)
originates from the Holy Spirit.

250 ONLY JESUS
Acts 10
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy
Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.
And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished,
as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy
Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For
they heard them speak with tongues and
magnify God. [Acts 10:44-46]
Peter, a follower of Jesus, had come with other
Jewish (circumcised) brethren to the household of
someone who was not a Jew. People who were not Jews
were called Gentiles. While Peter was preaching the good
news about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, the people who listened to his message believed
and they received the Holy Spirit. The believers who
had come with Peter were astonished that people who
were not Jews had also received the Holy Spirit.
How did they know that these people had also
received the Holy Spirit? Because they heard them
speak in Spirit languages and praise God. So we
can say that whenever people receive the Holy Spirit
and they speak in a Spirit language, it is a sign that they
have received Holy Spirit.

A SPIRIT LANGUAGE
251
Acts 19
And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy
Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with
tongues and prophesied. [Acts 19:6]
Again, after Paul had laid his hands on
the people he had just told about Jesus and
baptized, these people received the Holy Spirit
and began to speak with Spirit languages.
They also began to speak prophetically.
Let’s look at speaking in a Spirit language in
a bit more detail.

252 ONLY JESUS
‘How Does Speaking in
a Spirit Language Differ
from Speaking in a Normal
Language?’
1. Speaking in a Spirit Language
Is Directed to God
The following scripture that talks about speaking in
a Spirit language tells us that
... he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men
but to God, for no one understands him; however, in
the spirit he speaks mysteries. [1 Corinthians 14:2]
When we speak in a normal everyday language, we
speak to other people.
But when we speak in a Spirit language, we don’t
speak to other people but we speak to God. We just
read, “anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men
but [speaks] to God ...”

A SPIRIT LANGUAGE
253
2. Speaking in a Spirit Language
Can'’t Be Understood by
People
Normally, when we speak to other
people in a normal language, we
understand what we are saying.
Other people can also understand us.
But when we speak in a Spirit
language to God, we as well as
other people can’t understand
what we are saying.
“... he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but
to God, for no one understands him ...”
So apart from God, no one understands speaking in
a Spirit language.
You may say, “Why is that?” “Why can’t we and
others understand what we are saying when we speak
in Spirit language?”
3. Speaking in a Spirit Language
Originates from the Spirit
When we speak in a normal language, we need
to think first and then we speak because the normal
language originates from our mind.
But when we speak in a Spirit language our thinking
is not at all involved because this language doesn’t
originate from our mind but from our spirit.

254 ONLY JESUS
We read,
We Speak ‘'in the Spirit'’
... anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men
but to God, for no one understands him, in the spirit
he speaks mysteries.”
So when we speak in a Spirit language we speak “in
the spirit.” This means our thinking is not involved.
So speaking in a Spirit langauge is a language that can’t
be learned and can’t be understood by other people.
In a study Dr. Andrew Newberg from the University
of Pensylvannia examined MRI scans that show which
areas of the brain are involved when people speak in
Spirit languages. He found out that when people speak
in Spirit languages a certain area
of the brain is involved that
is not directly related to
speech production. But
when people chant or
say normal prayers
the areas of the brain
that are involved with
speech production are
active. [See report by
Nightline Online called
‘Speaking in Tongues
Medical Study Proves Holy
Spirit Praying’ on YouTube].
[11]

A SPIRIT LANGUAGE
255
Our Spirit Prays
Let’s look at another passage that tells us that when
we speak in a Spirit language, it’s our spirit that prays,
but we don’t understand what we are saying.
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my
understanding is unfruitful.
What is the conclusion then? [= So what shall I do?] I
will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with
the understanding. I will sing with the spirit,
and I will also sing with the understanding. [1
Corinthians 14:14-15]
Again, when we pray in a Spirit language the
language doesn’t come from our mind but from our
spirit. We read, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays.”
It’s our spirit that is praying, not our mind.
We Don'’t Understand
And, as we have said, when we speak in a
Spirit language, we also don’t understand what
we are saying. That is why the passage says that
our understanding is unfruitful. We read,
“If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but
my understanding is unfruitful.”
So when we have received the Holy Spirit, we can
pray in both ways. We can pray in a Spirit language,
which is praying in the spirit in a language that we don’t
understand. And we can also pray in a normal language
that we understand.

256 ONLY JESUS
We can also sing in a Spirit language,
which is singing in the spirit in a
language that we don’t understand.
And we can also sing in a normal
language that we understand. Once
we have received the Holy
Spirit, we can do both.
You might say, “But what’s
the use of praying or singing
in a language that we or
others don’t understand?
4. When We Speak in a Spirit
Language We Speak Hidden
Truths
“He who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but
to God, for no one understands him, in the spirit he
speaks mysteries.”
The word ‘mystery’ means a hidden truth. So when
we speak in a Spirit language the Holy Spirit of God
helps us to pray rightly, according to God’s will. People
sometimes try to pray to God with their normal language.
But they don’t really know what they should pray for. So
God wants to help us.
When we speak in a Spirit language, then the Holy
Spirit helps us to pray rightly. When we speak in a
normal language, we need to rely on our own ability
to pray that comes from our mind. But when we speak

A SPIRIT LANGUAGE
257
in a Spirit language, the language originates from our
spirit that is under the influence of the Spirit of God.
So, when we speak in a Spirit language, the Holy
Spirit helps us to pray. Let’s look at a passage that talks
about this.
Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we
do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but
the Spirit Himself makes intercession for
us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind
of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession
for the saints according to the will of God.
[Romans 8:26-27]
So when we pray in a Spirit language, the Holy Spirit
helps us to pray. We don’t know what we should pray
for rightly. But when we speak in a Spirit
language, in “groanings which cannot be
uttered,” then the Holy Spirit prays
for us, according to God’s will.
God looks at our heart and
when He finds something that
is out of balance, then He helps
us to pray according to His will.
So speaking in a
Spirit language is
powerful because it
is Holy Spirit directed
prayer. It differs from
speaking in a normal language
in many ways. [See next page.]

258 ONLY JESUS
Spirit Language (=‘Tongues’)
Versus Normal Language
Speaking in a
normal language
We can learn it.
It originates from our
mind.
Our thinking is
involved.
We speak from the
head (mind).
We speak to people.
We understand what
we are saying.
We pray according
to our own
understanding what
we should pray for.
Speaking in tongues
It is given by the Holy
Spirit. We can’t learn
it.
It originates from the
Holy Spirit.
Our thinking is not
involved. Our spirit is
involved.
We speak from the
heart (spirit).
We speak to God.
We don’t understand
what we are saying.
The Holy Spirit helps
us to pray according
to the will of God.

A SPIRIT LANGUAGE
259
d
Study Questions
1. What is speaking in a Spirit language (also
called ‘speaking in tongues’)?
2. How does speaking in a Spirit language
differ from speaking in a normal language?
3. How does the Holy Spirit help us to pray
when we speak in a Spirit language?

21
The Culture of the
Kingdom
Come Under the Rulership of
King Jesus
WHEN WE ENTER THE KINGDOM of God
by being ‘born of water and the Spirit,’
we become citizens of the Kingdom.
Then we become members of God’s family. We
become royalty.
God is existent as God, the Father; God, the Son;
and God, the Holy Spirit.

262 ONLY JESUS
‘Abba, Father’
When we are born into the
Kingdom of God we get to
experience God as our Father.
Jesus taught His disciples to pray,
“Our Father who are in heaven ...” [Matthew 6:9]
So when we enter the Kingdom of God we get to
experience God as our loving Father (‘Abba’ in Hebrew).
Then we get to discover our identity (as children of God),
value, inheritance and purpose in Him.
‘King Jesus’
Jesus, the Son of God is a King. He is “the King of
Kings and Lord of Lords.” [Revelation 17:14]
When we are born again we enter His Kingdom and
come under the rule of His kingship. This is what the
word of God tells us about Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.
“For unto us a Child [Jesus Christ] is born, unto us a Son is
given: and the government will be upon His shoulder. And
His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty
God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase
of His government and peace there will be no end, upon
the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order
it and establish it with judgement and justice from that
time forward, even forever.” [Isaiah 9:6-7]

THE CULTURE OF THE KINGDOM
263
Submission to the King
So when we enter the Kingdom of God we willingly
submit to the absolute authority and Kingship of Jesus
Christ in all areas of our lives and allow Him to rule
and reign in righteousness over us.
Jesus— Our Husband
We also get to have a relationship with Jesus like the
one a bride has with her husband. A bride looks to her
husband and lets him lead her.
Paul describes this relationship in a passage in the
book of Ephesians [Ephesians 5:15-33] where he says
that we ought to submit ourselves to one another, like
wives submit to a loving husband, and a loving husband
cares for and cherishes his wife. Jesus is our husband,
and we are his bride.

264 ONLY JESUS
‘The Spirit of God’
The Spirit of God is also
called ‘Holy Spirit.’ When
we are born again, He
lives in us, and empowers
us to be witnesses for the
Lord Jesus and to live
holy lives.
The Kingdom of
God is in the Holy Spirit.
The kingdom of God is not eating
and drinking, but righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit. [Romans 14:17]
When we have entered the Kingdom of God then
we learn to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in our
daily walk and in all areas of our lives. This learning
to ‘walk in the Spirit’, that is to follow the leading of
the Holy Spirit is a process. When we have learned this
to a greater degree the bible calls us mature sons and
daughters of God.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these
are sons [=mature sons] of God. [Romans 8:14]
When the word of God talks about ‘sons,’ of course
the ladies are included. This is a Kingdom term.
In the same way, the word of God also calls all born
again believers (women and men) the ‘bride of Christ.’

THE CULTURE OF THE KINGDOM
265
The Word of God
Is the Constitution
of the Kingdom of God
Every country has a constitution. The constitution
contains the guiding principles by which people in that
country are to live. The bible is the constitution of the
Kingdom of God. When we read the bible we can find
out what life in the Kingdom of God is like.
So when we are born again, we are like little children
in the Kingdom of God. That’s why we ought to read
the bible in order to grow. Peter writes,
... Laying aside all
malice, all deceit,
hypocrisy, envy and
all evil speaking, as
newborn babes, desire
the pure milk of
the word, that you
may grow thereby, if
indeed you have tasted
that the Lord is gracious.
[1 Peter 1:1-2]
But then when we have read the word of God,
we also need to put what we have learned in
practice. That’s because it is only when we
practice something that we then really get
to experience it.

266 ONLY JESUS
The Word of God and
the Spirit of God
When we have received the
Spirit of God, the Spirit of God
guides us into understanding
the word of God.
The word of God and
the Spirit of God work
together. The Spirit of
God acts upon the word
of God. So when we have
entered the Kingdom of
God by being born again
we start to learn to
let the Holy Spirit
lead us in our
understanding
and practice
of the word
of God.

THE CULTURE OF THE KINGDOM
267
Kingdom Family
When we have entered
the Kingdom of God, we are
born into the family of God.
That means in that family we
have fathers and mothers, and
brothers and sisters, and so on.
Paul a follower of
Jesus, wrote about this. He
instructed a younger believer
(Timothy) how to conduct
himself in God’s family. Paul
said to Timothy,
“Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as
a father, younger men as brothers, older
women as sisters, with all purity.” [1 Timothy:1-2]
Peter another disciple of Jesus also wrote about this
how we should act towards one another in the Kingdom
family.
“The elders ... shepherd the flock of God which is among
you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly,
not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords
over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the
flock ... Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves
to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to
one another, and be clothed with humility,
for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”
[1 Peter 5:1-5]

268 ONLY JESUS
Culture of Honor
The culture of the Kingdom
of God is a culture of honor.
As we learn to honor one another,
and to honor all men, our heart is
postured rightly so that the Holy
Spirit can work among us mightily.
Transformation
Through Love
Jesus Christ is motivated by pure
love. When we have a relationship
with Him, then we will
experience transformation
through the power of His
fiery liquid love.
We will first experience
His love towards us personally.
This then will cause us to start
to love God, ourself, and others.
Then wonderful things are going to
happen.
When we love God, then we will not sin
against him. When we love ourself, then we will
not do things that will harm us. And when we
love people, then we will not do them wrong.

THE CULTURE OF THE KINGDOM
269
Instead when we love God, we will do what pleases
Him. When we love ourself, we will do what is good for
ourself. And when we love people, we will do good to
them.
So once we are born again and are in the Kingdom
of God, Jesus will teach us how to live from
love.
d
Study Questions
1. What are some characteristics of the
culture of the Kingdom of God?

Come Home
N
OW WE’VE COME TO THE END of this
book. How do you feel about what you have
just heard?
How has what you heard changed your understanding
of the religious works-wages system and God’s family
system that comes through Jesus Christ?
How has what you heard given you more
understanding about the Kingdom of God and what
Jesus Christ has done for you?
We’ve seen that the real problem is that people are
still in Adam, that they have a sin nature and are under
the influence of negativity. They are still in the kingdom
of darkness.
If people only try to solve their problems in their
own way but they don’t realize what the real reason for
their problems is, they can never find a lasting solution.

272 ONLY JESUS
A Lasting Solution
But Jesus Christ hasn’t come to give us a quick fix. He
has come to give us real help. He has come to take us
permanently out of the kingdom of darkness
and transfer us into the Kingdom of God
through His death, burial and resurrection.
We enter the Kingdom of God when we get born
again and receive a new life through what Jesus has
already done for us on the cross. He was our substitute.
His death was our death. His burial was our burial. And
His resurrection was our resurrection. This is good news.
Now Jesus is calling you. He is still saying,
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me,
for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest
for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is
light. [Matthew 11:28-30]
Jesus is saying, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at
hand. Believe the gospel, what I have already done for you
on the cross, through My death, burial and resurrection. Now
surrender to Me and My Kingdom.”
So Jesus is calling you to a life of union
with Him in the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the
only savior. There is no one besides Jesus that can deliver
us from the kingdom of darkness.

COME HOME
273
‘Are You Ready to
Surrender to Jesus?’
The question now is,
“Are you ready to receive what Jesus Christ has done
for you and start a new life with Him?”
“Are you ready to repent from your old life and fully
turn to Jesus, leaving behind your old life?”
“Are you ready to surrender
to King Jesus and come
under the rule of the
Kingdom of God.”
“In other words,
are you ready to
be born again?”

274 ONLY JESUS
God Is Calling You:
Come Home to Love
Come back home to the
Kingdom family of God where
you can experience the love
of Father God and be part of
God’s family. He is longing to
embrace you and give you a
new identity as a beloved son or
beloved daughter of God.
Can you hear His call?
And if you can hear it, how will you respond?
Remember, God will never force you in any way to come
to Him. He has given you a free will and He will always
respect your choice.
But if you can believe, then there is nothing that can
hinder you to come to Him and receive a new life.
You might say, “I believe. So what should I do?” like
the people in the bible in Acts chapter 2. When they
had heard the good news about Jesus’ death, burial and
resurrection, they asked,
“Men and brethren, what shall we do?” [Acts 2:37]
Then Peter gave them a clear answer.
“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the

COME HOME
275
Holy Spirit. ... And with many other words he testified
and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this
perverse generation.” [Acts 2:38, 40]
And then we read how those
people who believed
responded.
Then those who
gladly received
his word were
baptized; and
that day about three
thousand souls were
added to them. [Acts
2:41]
Action
When You Believe,
This Is What You Should
Do
So, when you believe, this is what you should do now:
1) Repent from your old life, and turn to what God
has already done for you through Jesus.
2) Be baptized (by full immersion in water) in
the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of sins, and you are going to
3) Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

276 ONLY JESUS
As our representative, Jesus died for the sins
that we committed under the works-wages system.
He died for us—in our place, as us. This means
that when He died, we died with Him. And
when He was buried, we were also buried with
Him. And when He rose from the dead, we
also rose with Him.
When we believe this we repent. We change
the way we think. We turn away from our old
ways of trying to justify ourselves and turn to
God to receive what Jesus Christ has done for us.
Then we get baptized. It’s to unite us with Jesus
in His death and burial.
And then we receive the Holy Spirit. Then we are
united with Jesus Christ in His resurrection. That’s when
we are born again. [See next page.]

277
Summary of How to
Be Born Again
Jesus died
and was
buried
for us
Jesus was
raised from the
dead by the Holy
Spirit for us
We repent
We get
baptized
We are
united with
Jesus in His
death and burial
We receive
the Holy Spirit
We are
united with
Jesus in His
resurrection
When we believe

278 ONLY JESUS
When you are born again, this will then
revolutionize your life. It will be the
starting point of a new life in the
Kingdom God.
You will then begin to experience that God
will deal with you like a Father deals with a
son or daughter in a family. You will begin to have a
relationship with God and come more and more under
the rule of the Kingdom of God in all areas of your life.
And out of that relationship you will find
yourself living a new lifestyle: not a cold religious
lifestyle that is all about rules and regulations, but a new
vibrant relationship with God under the family system
and His grace.
“And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized,
and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the
Lord.” [Acts 22:16]
Come home.
d
Study Questions
1. What should we do, when we have believed
the good news of what Jesus Christ has
done for us on the cross?

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Endnotes
1 Lyrics from the song ‘What a Beautiful Name’ by Hillsong.
2 From the video on Youtube: ‘A Man in a Hole’, https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=OEpoHO_Ox6A
3 The Five Commandments of Buddha. Steve Cioccolanti, From
Buddha to Jesus: An Insider’s View of Buddhism and
Christianity, Monarch, 2007, ISBN 9780980483901, pg.
77-81
4 Is There a Hell? Steve Cioccolanti, From Buddha to Jesus, pg.
99-108
5 From the video on Youtube: https://youtu.be/w6AHcv19NIc.
6 The idea for this illustration is from Bertie Brits from
Dynamic Love Ministries.
7 Lyrics by Ron Kenoly.
8 See song ‘Good, Good Father’ by Housefires.
9 In the worldly legal system someone who is innocent can’t
be punished on behalf of someone who is guilty. But with
God it’s possible that Jesus was punished for us (see also 1
Peter 3:18) because Jesus was the legal representative of the
whole human race, like Adam.
10 From Hillsong Live New DVD Album, Cornerstone, 2012.
11 See TV report about speaking in tongues on
YouTube: ‘Speaking in Tongues Medical Study proves
Holy Spirit praying’; http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=NZbQBajYnEc.

281
Index
(according to chapter #)
Adam 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Be Baptized 16, 18, Come Home
Born Again 16
Buddhism 2, 7, 12, 14
Christ 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
Death 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17
Eternal Life 19
Family System 7, 21
God all chapters
Holy 4, 19
Good Person Test 2, 12
Holy Spirit 5, 6, 10, 16, 19, 20, 21
Jesus 4, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21
Kingdom of God 10, 11, 16, 21
Merit 2, 8
Nature 3
Religious System / Works-Wages System 2, 7, 8, 9
Repent 17
Satan 8, 10, 11
Sin 2, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17
Spiritual Re-Birth 16, 18, 19, Come Home

282 ONLY JESUS
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