In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic. (AA, pg. 44)
For the believer, for the Body of Christ, for God who created this world and sent His Son to be our redemption, it is unconscionable blasphemy to reduce the world to "alcoholics" and "nonalcoholics."
As I have written in a previous post, drunkenness is one sin of many:
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
"Idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
"Envyings, murders,
drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I
have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5: 19-21)
Yet we believers have indeed inherited the Kingdom of God, and we had nothing to do with it:
"For the kingdom of
God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost." (Romans 14: 17)
The Holy Spirit is a gift that we receive:
"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost." (Acts 2: 38)
and
"And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came
with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the
Holy Ghost." (Acts 10: 45)
This gift we receive by grace through faith (Ephesians 2: 4, 8).
In effect, the only division in this world that really matters is Adam and Christ:
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15: 22).
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