Category Archives: Doctrine

"Unconditional Acceptance" – Evangelicalism’s Deadly Addiction

Posted by Dan C. on

Dr. Paul Brownback, in his Evangelical Reformation blog, offered these words in a blogpost found here:

“. . .it seems that every society adopts its own gods. The Canaanites chose Baal, the Europeans, after rejecting Christianity, opted for philosophy. Americans, in our post-Christian pagan state have deified psychology.

As Isaiah demonstrates so graphically, idolatry is idiotic, making fools out of its followers. Philosophy has made fools out of intellectual Europeans. Psychology is doing likewise for Americans.

(Carl) Rogers taught that we optimize ourselves as human beings by accepting ourselves unconditionally, i.e. feeling good about ourselves regardless of how bad we live. A bad self-image is the ultimate disease and unconditional self-acceptance is the cure.

However, we can only accept ourselves unconditionally if significant others accept us unconditionally. This means that allowing our kids to do their own thing will not turn them into unbridled hedonists, but will make them into psychological saints—wholesome, actualized individuals.

This belief that unconditional acceptance fixes broken people and makes them into the persons they were meant to be dovetails beautifully with the gospel denuded of repentance, described in the past two postings.

In the absence of repentance, the gospel is reduced to unconditional acceptance. Though this is an unbiblical message, in our culture shaped by the psychology of Carl Rogers it feels right.

Rogers taught us that unconditional acceptance provides the power to change and grow. The gospel stripped of repentance seems to be saying the God agrees. It seems the grace is synonymous with is unconditional acceptance. Salvation comes through a realization that God accepts me “just as I am.”

Change comes, not from repentance, but from this realization that God accepts me apart from any intent to change—even though I am living with my girlfriend, watching pornography, and smoking pot. As I experience God’s grace, His unconditional acceptance, I change will come spontaneously.

This is a life-changing gospel in the sense that it gives people freedom from guilt without change of lifestyle—sort of like spiritual Paxil offered free at your church pharmacy. This is not a biblical gospel and, as George Barna has demonstrated, the promised change in behavior is not occurring.

However, evangelicals are hooked on the message because it is extremely comfortable, fits well with secular culture, and sells well.”

Some time ago I was involved in a small group bible study and actually ended up the study facilitator. The material provided was from a leading evangelical ‘apologist who is know for his work with teenagers and young adults. I found myself dealing with the philosophy of “unconditional acceptance” as the core of the author’s “relational apologetic”. I became concerned when I couldn’t find the concept of “unconditional acceptance” in scripture and decided to research it’s origin. What I found was exactly what Dr. Brownback expressed in his blogpost – that it was developed and articulated in the field of human psychology and became enormously popularity thanks to Carl Rogers in the mid 50s. The study became an excellent opportunity for critical analysis in light of scripture and proved to be very profitable for the members of the group.

God’ “unconditional acceptance” has become so entrenched in today’s evangelicalism that there are many professing believers that have never heard anything other than the lie that God accepts us just the way we are. Not only has believing the lie resulted in countless false conversions, it has resulted in a disdain for critical thinking and the labeling of believers who would dare challenge scripturally unsound teaching or opinions, as legalistic Pharisees. The ever self-congratulatory “what does this verse mean to you” bible scholars don’t allow that which is not intentionally uplifting and encouraging. That which is critical of, or that might challenge another person’s “insight” or faulty interpretation of biblical text, is deemed unkind and “unaccepting” – contrary to God’s very character!

There is a cure for the “addiction”. Wherever pop-psychology has supplanted sound doctrine, get rid of the junk and embrace scriptural truth. How do we do that? For the believer it begins with personally reading a sound interpretation of the Bible. The indwelling Holy Spirit, our ‘instructor in residence’ will take care of the rest.

The Sufficiency of Scripture

Posted by Dan C. on

John Piper, in a short article here, while discussing doctrinal disputes of the 4th century church, had this to say about the sufficiency of scripture:

“That doctrine (the sufficiency of scripture) is based mainly on 2 Timothy 3:15-17 and Jude 1:3.

The sacred writings . . . are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. . . . Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

In other words, the Scriptures are sufficient in the sense that they are the only (“once for all”) inspired and (therefore) inerrant words of God that we need, in order to know the way of salvation (“make you wise unto salvation”) and the way of obedience (“equipped for every good work”).”

The sufficiency of Scripture means that we don’t need any more special revelation. We don’t need any more inspired, inerrant words. In the Bible God has given us, we have the perfect standard for judging all other knowledge.” (Emphasis mine.)

This is not a discussion of those things for which scripture is profitable, however we do need to take a hard look at the statement:

“We have the perfect standard for judging all other knowledge.”

None of us Bible believing, small group (real or virtual) attending, evangelical Christians would dare disagree with the thought that scripture is the perfect standard for judging other knowledge. However, I think we have a problem with ALL other knowledge. My observation over recent years has been that while we will quickly quote some scripture or another as the authority for some point we make during our kitchen table/living room “what this verse means to ME Bible studies”, we have a serious issue with applying that principle to ourselves!

In some cases, we’ve been ‘raised’ with the aforementioned method of studying the bible, having been taught by our pastors, teachers, and leaders that this is the way we are supposed to approach scripture. On the other hand, some of us know better, having been taught at some point the great orthodox doctrines of our faith (that would be me). I am still prone to apply a verse or passage where, if taken in context, or interpreted rightly, might not really apply to the matter at hand.

Another way we violate the principle of judging what we ‘think’ we know by the standard of scripture, is accepting every thought that arrives between our ears, or every warm fuzzy feeling in our hearts as having come from God! We are really good at having ‘personal insights’ that are not necessarily found in the scripture we are studying, and even heading to other places in scripture, pulling other passages out of their context, in order to ‘prove’ our special ‘insight’! Then when share our special insights, we pat ourselves on the back and affirm each others imaginations!

Woe to the person who attempts to inject into our self-affirming love fests the possibility that we might be even a bit ‘off base’, or who asks the question “But is that what the scripture is really saying?” Critical thinking is not allowed! And don’t ever suggest that we might be completely wrong about our errant musings! Any input that is not intentionally affirming, uplifting, or encouraging is ‘bad, bad, fruit’ and the one who would dare bring it to the table is mean spirited, divisive, intolerant, judgmental, and since ‘bad trees’ bear ‘bad fruit’, such a one is at least a false prophet, and might not even saved!

My brothers and sisters, we have a serious decision to make. We need to return to the authority and sufficiency of scripture, interpret it rightly instead of out of our own hearts and imaginations, lest we become false prophets unto ourselves, if we aren’t already.

Satan’s Gambit

Posted by Dan C. on

In the world of chess, a gambit is a chess opening in which the first player risks or sacrifices material, usually a pawn, with the hope of achieving a resulting advantageous position. One article I found that contained a list of twenty opening gambits, including one colorfully named the Fried Liver Attack. Not included in the list was Satan’s Gambit.   Perhaps that’s because in the world of chess there isn’t an opening gambit with that name – at least I didn’t find one.

So what do I mean by Satan’s Gambit, and to what game does it apply? I’m glad you asked those questions – we’ll address them in reverse order.

Satan’s Gambit is not about a game, but about our Christian faith, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6;12), and Satan is the enemy’s CINC (Commande in Chief).  In the art of spiritual warfare, Satan’s opening gambit has always been to attack the authority of inspired Scripture, since the days of the New Testament church. The Apostle Paul specifically addressed ‘other gospels’ that had corrupted the pure Gospel of Christ.

The latest form of Satan’s Gambit would probably reside in the philosophy of the Emergent church, and the leaders of the ‘conversation’ whose passion for the uncertainty of scripture has been heard from their own lips and thoroughly documented, as have strong connections to the ‘contemplative prayer movement’ . As novel and appealing as their ideas might be, they lack a truly original thought.  The Emperor of Uncertainty has new clothes but he’s still running around naked.  Dr. John MacArthur had this to say in an insightful interview with Phil Johnson:

The bottom line, I think, in the movement is that it is a denial of the clarity of Scripture. It is a denial that we can know what the Bible really says. And as I said, it’s amorphous because there’s a mish-mash of approaches to this and a mish-mash of styles and things like that. But they have embraced this mystery as if it’s true spirituality. And so, it becomes celebration of mystery, a celebration of ignorance, a celebration that we can’t really know. I think it’s just another form of liberalism. I think it’s just another form of denying the clarity of Scripture. And I think there’s a motive behind it…it’s just another philosophy.

Post-modernism is another bad philosophy. Modernism was a bad philosophy. Post-modernism is another bad philosophy. But in both cases, they assault the Scripture. Modernism made reason, human reason, the king. Reason was supreme in modernism. Thomas Payne, The Age of Reason, The Enlightenment, all of those things, the Renaissance. Out of that came the worship of the human mind and the mind trumps God. Now mystery trumps the Bible. The human mind trumps the Bible in modernism, mystery trumps the Bible in post-modernism. It is at the foundation an unwillingness to accept the clear teaching of Scripture. (Online source) (Emphasis mine.)

However dangerous to the church the Emergent movement might be, there is a deceptive variant of Satan’s Gambit that is far more dangerous to the spiritual growth of the individual believer. Rather than openly doubting the authority of scripture, this version of the gambit is far more subtle. While seeming to allow for adherence to biblical doctrine, the variant assigns more importance to personal insights and feelings about scripture than the clear teaching of scripture itself. There is even an online university that advertises a book ‘Hearing God’s Voice – Guaranteed!’. The book teaches that the best way to hear God’s voice is through our ‘spontaneous thoughts, feelings and insights’. To test the validity of these ‘journaled’ spontaneous thoughts, they are given to three others who ‘discern’ whether or not it was God speaking.

I am not saying that God doesn’t ever speak, or isn’t involved in our thoughts and emotions. The test of their validity,however, should be the light of Scripture, not the ‘third party’ discernment described above. What we have here is a form of mysticism that teaches the gullible how to be false prophets to themselves! The authority and light of Scripture is supplanted by subjective internal feelings and experiences. Sound rather ridiculous? It should!

You might be asking “How do sincere believers fall for this kind of false teaching?”  Well, there are probably several ways, but I know of a perfect ‘training ground’ that the enemy uses to slide the gullible (usually believers young in their faith) right into it! I speak from experience because I’ve been there and back. What I am referring to is popular What Does this Verse Mean “to ME”? form of Bible study.

This highly subjective approach to scripture lets the individual interpret the text by what he/she ‘feels’  God is saying. When this is the accepted/preferred form of studying the Bible, all sorts of ‘wonderful insights’ are obtained and self-congratulation abounds, accompanied by considerable fawning over everyone else’s ‘insights’. I remember many such Bible studies in which no one was really growing in grace and discipleship, but we sure felt good about ourselves! Can you see the progression here?

  • Reading the Bible but spending more time discussing how one ‘feels’ about the text instead of inductive study to learn what it says in context and applying it.
  • Progressing to a deeper level of ‘hearing’ God’s voice and receiving ‘personal words’ of prophesy for one’s self and others, outside of scripture.
  • Doubting the very certainty of the truth of scripture and embracing forms of mysticism as the best or only way to really hear God.

While there may be other, smaller steps from innocent appearing Christian fellowship to complete apostasy, these three can almost always be observed in the process and all three attack the certainty and authority of scripture, almost invisibly at first, but sometimes resulting in embracing the heretical.

So there you have what I call Satan’s Gambit. Similar to a well played game of chess, there is an initial move that is not necessarily harmful, but that can escalate and end in disaster. Experienced chess players study various opening gambits and how to counter the advance of the enemy. How much more crucial it is for believers to be able to recognize the enemy of our souls and counter his subtle attacks!

Salvation, Free Will and Assurance

Posted by Dan C. on

Is it possible to believe in the complete free will of man in choosing Christ and certain assurance of salvation once saved? I don’t think so. It’s not logical. If I believe that I exercised my ‘free will’ in choosing Christ, that same ‘free will’ goes flying out the window if I believe I have any assurance of my salvation. On the other hand, if I believe that God exercised His complete sovereignty in my salvation, I can also believe that the God who saved me will also keep me, something that is promised in His word.

I had that one figured out even before I believed in the doctrine of God’s sovereign election. I never exactly believed I could lose my salvation, like dropping my wallet on the sidewalk and never seeing it again, but I had to believe that since I had free will to choose Christ, I must also have the free will to turn from Christ, should I choose to do so. The closest I came to having assurance of my salvation during those years was that the longer I served Him, the less likely it would be that I should deny Him. There is no other logic of the matter!

Think about it. . .

God’s Sovereignty Defined – A.W. Pink

Posted by Dan C. on

“Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as Head above all” (Chronicles 29:11).

“THE Sovereignty of God is an expression that once was generally understood. It was a phrase commonly used in religious literature. It was a theme frequently expounded in the pulpit. It was a truth which brought comfort to many hearts, and gave virility and stability to Christian character. But, today, to make mention of God’s sovereignty is, in many quarters, to speak in an unknown tongue. Were we to announce from the average pulpit that the subject of our discourse would be the sovereignty of God, it would sound very much as though we had borrowed a phrase from one of the dead languages. Alas! that it should be so. Alas! that the doctrine which is the key to history, the interpreter of Providence, the warp and woof of Scripture, and the foundation of Christian theology, should be so sadly neglected and so little understood.

The sovereignty of God. What do we mean by this expression? We mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the godhood of God. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that God is God. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Most High, doing according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay His hand or say unto Him what doest Thou? (Daniel 4:35). To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will (Psalm 115:3). To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is “The Governor among the nations” (Psalm 22:28), setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as pleaseth Him best. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the “Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15). Such is the God of the Bible.

How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence. To say that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellow-men are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity: is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue that God is “trying His best” to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent. To throw the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being.To declare that the Creator’s original plan has been frustrated by sin, is to dethrone God. To suggest that God was taken by surprise in Eden and that He is now attempting to remedy an unforeseen calamity, is to degrade the Most High to the level of a finite, erring mortal. To argue that man is a free moral agent and the determiner of his own destiny, and that therefore he has the power to checkmate his Maker, is to strip God of the attribute of Omnipotence. To say that the creature has burst the hounds assigned by his Creator, and that God is now practically a helpless Spectator before the sin and suffering entailed by Adam’s fall, is to repudiate the express declaration of Holy Writ, namely,

“Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Psalm 76:10).

In a word, to deny the sovereignty of God is to enter upon a path which, if followed to its logical terminus, is to arrive at blank atheism.

_________________________________________

The above is excerpted from A.W. Pink’s work The Sovereignty of God, first published in 1918. Some who read this, if there are any, will never have heard of A.W. Pink. Others might recognize his name and frown in distaste, believing him to be a radical fundamentalist of some sort, in the ‘horrible’ tradition of those ‘awful’ Calvinists who hold to such things as predestination and election. Still others will recognize that the sovereignty of God falls into the category of ‘doctrine’ and dismiss it outright, since we don’t really need doctrine, only Jesus.

My earnest desire is that you will have read this and will have been greatly blessed by it. On the other hand, if you have read it and dismissed it or even hated it, that you have read it is a good thing. If you have read it and are earnestly seeking after truth, God will impress His truth upon your heart, if indeed truth exists in this short article.

If you perceive, by the grace of God, His truth in this article and it somehow conflicts with your current beliefs, please continue to seek truth until God settles the matter from His written word.

If you have been blessed by this article, or even if you have hated it, submit a quick comment and let me know. And by the way, have a blessed day!

 

Give Me Doctrine or Give me Death – Part IV

Posted by Dan C. on

Excerpted from this article at 9 Marks, concerning man’s response to to the message of the gospel:

THE GOSPEL

Response

All this of course requires a response from people. Jesus said it this way: “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)

Repent and believe. Turn away and trust. Renounce sin and rely on Christ.

Relying on Christ means embracing the fact that salvation has nothing to do with works performed or not performed, words said or not said. It means renouncing every other possibility for appealing to God’s mercy. It means jumping empty-handed off a cliff and crying, “Jesus, if you don’t save me, then I am lost,” and then trusting by faith that he will save. Relying on Christ means putting away the instinct to stand before God and point to all your good words and works for why he should save you. When he asks why he should declare you righteous, you only point to Jesus and say, “God, justify me because of what he did on the cross. I have no other plea.”

Renouncing sin—repentance—is not merely turning over a new leaf. It is not an über-New Year’s resolution. It is a comprehensive, wholesale change in a person’s life. And it is possible only by regeneration, the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life.

Repentance is a change of orientation: from death to life, from darkness to light. And it has repercussions in every area of a believer’s life. It means, first of all, turning away from sin and toward God. Not that a believer will never stumble into sin again—at least not until heaven (1 John 1:8). But a believer will count himself dead to sin and alive to God. He will refuse sin the right to reign. He will not offer his body to sin, but to God as an instrument of righteousness (Rom. 6:11-13). He will orient himself to live in harmony with God’s law.

Indeed, the repenting believer does even more. He determines to live in such a way that restores relationships, keeps peace, and gives people around him the sense and smell of Jesus Christ in his life. He determines to join God’s work in redeeming the world, caring for the poor and oppressed, and rolling back the effects of the Fall. Repentance is both vertical and horizontal, God-ward and people-ward.

Again, both these directions—vertical and horizontal—are important, and to neglect either one of them leads to a distortion of the gospel. For example, the revivalism that characterizes large segments of evangelicalism tends to neglect the horizontal aspect of repentance, focusing almost solely on the believer’s individual relationship with God. Far too often, revivalistic sermons call people to believe in Christ, repent of sin, and be baptized—but that’s about it. And the result is that thousands of people are “won and baptized” in America’s biggest churches every year, and then never seen again. There is no change of life, no union with Christ’s church, no repentance toward other people, nothing at all of what the Bible describes as newness of life. They are won one minute, and lost the next.

On the other hand, there is also a danger of over-emphasizing the horizontal, of pressing Christians in the work of restoring earthly relationships so hard that the most important relationship of all is neglected. Many new books—perhaps especially Brian McLaren’s—major on alleviating this world’s oppression and overturning this world’s injustices. They press believers, often compellingly, to join God’s work in “redeeming” the world. But their gospel becomes so socially oriented, so focused on the present, that “redemption” comes to take on a different meaning entirely. The great biblical themes of salvation from sin and its consequences for God’s people get lost. Yet those ideas lie at the very heart of the gospel’s meaning. To be sure, the horizontal aspects of responding to the gospel are crucial. God will one day create a new heaven and a new earth, and God expects us to work, even here, even now, toward that goal. But that cannot be all. We cannot de-emphasize the doctrines of salvation and eternity, or pretend that they are somehow not important to the Christian life. For as Paul once wrote, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Cor. 15:19)

CONCLUSION

Some people will argue that subjecting the doctrines of the gospel to interpretation, making them flexible and even expendable, would result in a freer, more open, more mysterious, and thus more compelling Christianity. I just don’t believe that is true. In fact, I believe it would result in a tragic distortion and even fatal falsehood in our understanding of both ourselves and God.

John Calvin once wrote that a person cannot truly know himself until he has come to a knowledge of God. And you see, people can only know God and themselves truly—who they apart from Christ, who they are in Christ, and who they are becoming through his work in their lives—through the doctrines of the gospel revealed in Scripture. The gospel is the divinely-revealed key to our own story, and therefore every part of it is crucial if we are to see ourselves or God clearly. Take out any part of it, subject any line of it to your own re-imagining, and you blur your own vision. That’s not freedom. It’s more bondage.

Real freedom is seeing clearly. It is knowing beyond doubt who you are and what God has done for you in Christ. It is being able to live your life with full assurance that God will do what he has promised and that one day you will see his face. That kind of freedom doesn’t come from having the ability to remake the gospel in your own image. It comes simply from trusting what God says about you, about himself, and about his Son. In short, it comes from believing the gospel.

_______________________________________________________

Greg Gilbert is the 9Marks lead writer on the topic of the gospel. He is also the director of theological research for the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an elder at Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.

September 2006
Greg Gilbert

©9Marks

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 1,000 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by 9Marks.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: ©9Marks. Website: http://www.9Marks.org. Email: info@9marks.org. Toll Free: (888) 543-1030.

Give Me Doctrine or Give Me Death – Part III of IV

Posted by Dan C. on

By Greg Gilbert

Excerpted from this article at 9 Marks.

THE GOSPEL

Christ

The coup de grace came ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man. He fulfilled that tiny flicker of hope God gave to Adam, and realized all that God promised to the chosen nation of Israel—the great prophet, the highest priest, the most exalted king.

He was the Savior, who brought life to that which was dead. And he did it by dying. Actually, he did it by living, then dying, then living again.

Here’s how Jesus himself described his work:

“God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).

But how? Paul says it like this:

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:13-14).

And again,

“God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

In that one moment on the cross at Calvary, all the horrible weight of the sin of God’s people was placed on Jesus’ shoulders. And the curse that God pronounced in Eden and the curse of the law promised through Moses—the sentence of death—struck. Jesus cried out in agony as his Father turned his back and forsook him. And then he died.

Jesus did not suffer for his own sin; he didn’t have any. He suffered for his people’s sin. They should have died, not him. And yet he died for them, in their place. Just as Isaiah prophesied so many centuries before,

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5).

My transgressions, his wounds.
My iniquities, his chastisement.
My sin, his sorrow.
His punishment, my peace.
His stripes, my healing.
His grief, my joy.
His death, my life.

If doctrines were springs, this one—the penal substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross—would be one of the most frequently stretched, twisted, and disconnected of them all. People are uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus being punished for someone else’s sin. More than one author has called the idea “divine child abuse.” And yet to toss this doctrine of substitution aside is to cut out the heart of the gospel. To be sure, there are other pictures in Scripture of what Christ accomplished with his death: ransom, example, reconciliation, and victory, to name a few. And yet the story of the Gospel demands this idea of substitution, too. You can’t leave it out, or else you litter the landscape of Scripture with unanswered questions. Why the sacrifices? What did that shedding of blood accomplish? How can God have mercy on sinners without destroying justice? What can it mean that God forgives iniquity and transgression and sin, and yet by no means clears the guilty (Ex. 34:7)? How can a righteous and holy God justify the ungodly (Rom. 4:5)? He can because in Christ, mercy and justice were reconciled. The curse was executed, and we were freed.

And then Christ rose. If any doubt remained whether sin was defeated and death destroyed, that doubt was erased when the angel said to the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:5-6).

If Christ had remained in the tomb, humanity would remain without hope. Death would have washed over him just like every other human. Every claim he made while living would have sunk into nothingness. But when breath entered his lungs again, when resurrection life electrified his glorified body, everything Jesus claimed was fully, finally, irrevocably, and unquestionably vindicated.

Once again, the whole of the Christian faith stands or falls on the doctrine of the resurrection. Disconnect this, re-imagine it to be anything less than the whole person of Jesus, body and all, rising from the dead in resurrection life, and everything is lost. If the resurrection did not happen and Jesus’ desiccated bones lie somewhere in a lost grave, then the entire Christian faith crashes to the ground. But if it did happen and he is alive, then the whole thing stands. And it stands unassailable. Indestructible. Unconquerable. Forever.

__________________________________________________

September 2006
Greg Gilbert

©9Marks

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 1,000 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by 9Marks.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: ©9Marks. Website: http://www.9Marks.org. Email: info@9marks.org. Toll Free: (888) 543-1030.

Give Me Doctrine or Give Me Death – Part II of IV

Posted by Dan C. on

By Greg Gilbert

Excerpted from this article at 9 Marks.

THE GOSPEL

God

The beginning of everything is God. Any complete understanding of the Christian gospel must begin with him and nothing else. “In the beginning,” says Genesis 1:1, “God created.” There is no more foundational truth than that, and the implications are staggering.

Especially so in our day. The idea that the world itself is not ultimate, but that it sprang from the mind, word, and hand of Someone Else is nothing short of revolutionary. It means that everything in the universe has a purpose, including us. Far from being the result of random chance, mutations, re-assortments, and genetic accidents, human beings are created. Every one of us is the result of an idea, a plan, and an execution—a fact which brings both meaning and responsibility to human life (Gen. 1:26-28).

One implication of this is that no one is autonomous. Despite all our talk about rights and liberties, we are not as free as we would like to think. We are created. We are made. And therefore we are owned. God makes claims on each one of us, one of which is the right to tell or command us how to live (Gen. 2:16).

Yet God’s claim on our lives also includes the grand privilege of ruling over his creation under him, a kind a vice-regency over the entire world. “Fill the earth and subdue it,” God told Adam. “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Gen. 1:28). Had humans obeyed, the world would have been a paradise and we would all be princes—creation bringing forth its fruits, with Adam and Eve ruling over all of it, in perfect relationship with God, the world, and one another.

God’s plan was “very good” (Gen. 1:31), so good that the stars sang together and the angels in heaven shouted for joy (Job 38:7). All creation looked at God’s establishment of the world and its order, and they rejoiced. All of them, that is, except humans.

Man

It is often noted that Adam’s sin—violating God’s command by taking fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—sprang from pride. Adam wanted to be, and thought he could be, “like God.” That’s what the serpent promised Eve, and both Adam and Eve jumped at the chance to shed the vice-regency and take the crown itself. I’m sure their sin was rooted in pride, but surely there was more than pride at work in Adam’s sin. There was discontent, too. Adam did not just look at God’s position on the throne and wish he could be there. He also looked at his own situation—his own exalted position over creation—and wished himself not there.

In all the universe, there was only one thing that God did not place under Adam’s feet: God himself. Yet Adam decided that this arrangement was not good enough for him. So he rebelled.

The consequences were disastrous for Adam and Eve, their descendants, and the entire creation. Adam and Eve themselves were cast out of the idyllic garden of Eden. No longer would the earth willingly and joyfully present its fruits and treasures to them. They would have to work hard to get them. Even worse, God had promised them that death would follow disobedience (Gen. 2:17). They didn’t physically die right away. Their bodies continued to live, lungs breathing, hearts beating, limbs moving. But their spiritual life—the one that matters most—ended immediately upon their removal from the garden. Their fellowship with God was severed. And thus their hearts shriveled, their minds filled with selfish thoughts, their eyes darkened to the beauty of God, and their souls became sere and arid, utterly void of that life God gave them in the beginning, when everything was good.

Still worse, this spiritual death did not stop with Adam and Eve. They passed it on to the rest of us. As Paul wrote to the Romans, “Many died through one man’s trespass.” And again, “Because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man” (Rom. 5:15, 17).

This doctrine of original sin—that Adam’s guilt was imputed to all humanity and his corruption passed from one generation to the next—is probably one that many people would rather disconnect from the trampoline. “What difference does it make?” they might ask. Yet it seems to me that if the author of a passage of Scripture—not to mention the Author—found those words worth including, there must be some reason for them. They must explain something, illumine some problem, or somehow enable worship.

So it is with the doctrine of original sin. This is not something that is dispensable to the gospel. In fact, to disconnect it or leave it out would create a gaping hole in the story. After all, the doctrine of original sin explains why one hundred percent of human beings are less than perfect. It illumines why we distrust biographies that say nothing negative about their subjects. If humans know anything beyond a shadow of doubt, it’s that everyone, even our most exalted moral heroes, have flaws. Human beings are not basically good at all, and that is something we need to know in order to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. Until you have a sober understanding of the problem, you will not see the need for a solution.

If the story of history ended with a dismissal from Eden, the future would hold nothing but darkness and despair, pain and separation, hell and judgment. But the story doesn’t end there. God acted.

In the darkest moment, even as he pronounced his curse against Adam and Eve, God let fall a word of hope. It wasn’t much more than a word, either. It was just a hint, just a phrase tacked onto the end of God’s sentence against the serpent. One misplaced sob, one distracted second, and Adam and Eve might have missed it. But it came—the tiniest flicker of light: “He shall bruise your head,” God declared, “and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).

The story was not over. Here was some gospel, some good news in the midst of the cataclysm.

The rest of the Bible tells the story of how the tiny seed of hope God planted on that day germinated, sprouted, and grew. For thousands of years, God prepared the world for his stunning coup de grace against the serpent. When it was all over, the sin Adam inflicted on his entire race would be defeated, the death God pronounced over his own creation would be dead, and hell would be brought to its knees. In essence, the Bible presents the story of God’s counter-offensive against sin. It presents the grand narrative of how God made it right, how he is making it right, and how he will one day make it right finally and forever.

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September 2006
Greg Gilbert

©9Marks

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What Does This Verse Mean "to Me"?

Posted by Dan C. on

From this John MacArthur article:

“That’s a fashionable concern, judging from the trends in devotional booklets, home Bible study discussions, Sunday-school literature, and most popular preaching.

The question of what Scripture means has taken a back seat to the issue of what it means “to me.”

The difference may seem insignificant at first. Nevertheless, our obsession with the Scripture’s applicability reflects a fundamental weakness. We have adopted practicality as the ultimate judge of the worth of God’s Word. We bury ourselves in passages that overtly relate to daily living, and ignore those that don’t.

Practical application is vital. I don’t want to minimize its importance. But the distinction between doctrinal and practical truth is artificial; doctrine is practical! In fact, nothing is more practical than sound doctrine.

Too many Christians view doctrine as heady and theoretical. They have dismissed doctrinal passages as unimportant, divisive, threatening, or simply impractical. A best-selling Christian book I just read warns readers to be on guard against preachers whose emphasis is on interpreting Scripture rather than applying it.

There is no danger of irrelevant doctrine; the real threat is an undoctrinal attempt at relevance. Application not based on solid interpretation has led Christians into all kinds of confusion.

True doctrine transforms behavior as it is woven into the fabric of everyday life. But it must be understood if it is to have its impact. The real challenge of the ministry is to dispense the truth clearly and accurately. Practical application comes easily by comparison.

No believer can apply truth he doesn’t know.”

How well I remember this sort of Bible study! I have not always been as adamant about first finding out what scripture actually SAYS, and then applying it, as I am these days. Not only have I learned NOT to trust my feelings, I sincerely believe that there is more than enough to apply from what Scripture SAYS to keep me from trying to get something ‘special’ just for little ole me. If there is something I need as a personal admonition, encouragement or application, i am confident I will receive a much clearer message studying what is plain from reading and inductive study.

Give Me Doctrine or Give Me Death – Part I of IV

Posted by Dan C. on

By Greg Gilbert

Excerpted from this article at 9 Marks.

In recent years, a number of books have been published that urge Christians to rethink a traditional understanding of “doctrine.” The discussions surrounding this question are many and varied, and they take place on every level of theological sophistication. At the highest levels, the questions probe whether doctrine is even possible given postmodern ways of thinking: How capable are we of formulating any objective statements at all, given that we are all products of a culture? Is the idea of propositional truth even valid? Does the Bible contain doctrine as we have defined doctrine in the past?

These types of questions have begun to filter down into more popular works as well, so that they are becoming a part of the collective evangelical consciousness. At the more popular level, though, they are not articulated in terms of whether objective, propositional doctrines can exist in a postmodern world. They are stated like this: if I want a Christianity that is authentic, real, textured, and alive, can I possibly have that within the narrow constraints of a structured system of doctrine?

A growing number of books argue that the solution is to do away with the system altogether. Christians need to recognize, the argument goes, that the notion of a solid, objective doctrinal framework is a hold-over from the Middle Ages, or from the sixteenth century at best. There is no well-defined system of doctrine, and there doesn’t need to be. Christianity is more beautiful, more compelling, if we don’t try to clarify it and define it. To insist on this doctrine or that set of propositions is stultifying and restrictive. Better to leave the faith more mysterious, more open to interpretation, more free for people to arrive at their own understanding of the Christian faith.

One author to call for such rethinking is Rob Bell, who devotes a chapter of his book Velvet Elvis to the idea of doctrine. In the chapter he calls “Springs,” Bell paints a picture of a child jumping on a trampoline. He draws an elaborate—and initially compelling—analogy between that trampoline and the Christian faith. Doctrines, Bell says, are like the springs of the trampoline. They are necessary, but they are not the point. Far from it. No child who jumps on a trampoline thinks about the springs, and he certainly doesn’t call his friends to come and stare with him at the springs. No, he calls them to jump. He calls them to climb up on the canvass and leap and flip and fly . . . and live. No one argues about the springs of a trampoline. No one is excluded from jumping because they do not understand how the springs work. The point is the jumping, and the springs play only a secondary role in accomplishing that one main goal.

So it is, Bell argues, or at least so it ought to be, in the Christian life. Far too many Christians have placed far too much emphasis on the springs—on the doctrines. And in the process, they have made the gospel of Christ a cold, metallic, and logical thing, instead of the breathing, moving, adapting, living gospel that Christ taught and the apostles preached.

As I said, this vision of a living, jumping Christianity is compelling at first. In fact, we should not be too quick to dismiss what Bell is saying. So far as it goes, he’s right: The doctrines of Christianity are not the final and ultimate end. The doctrines point us to Christ. They help us to savor and love him more, and to understand better what God has accomplished in him. In this regard, Bell’s analogy is helpful.

But Bell actually pushes his playful analogy further. Consciously or not, he ultimately calls us to re-think the nature of doctrine more radically than is suggested by the affirmation that doctrines are not ends in themselves. As it turns out, the individual springs on Bell’s trampoline are expendable. You don’t like one spring or another? Alright, just disconnect it and keep jumping. It’s possible you’ll lose a little bounce, but on the whole, you ought to be fine. For example, people jumped for thousands of years, he says, without the “spring” of the Trinity. It was added to the trampoline later. And what about the Virgin Birth? What would happen if that spring were disconnected? Could you still jump? Bell implies that you probably could.

That kind of thinking throws the entire gospel up for grabs.

But is this really how we are to understand the role and place of doctrine? If so, the doctrines of the gospel have become something (or rather somethings) that can be tweaked and rearranged, connected or detached, depending on one’s own preferences and sensibilities. Bell’s analogy was fun at first; but as he continues to press it, it becomes evident that saying that the doctrines of the gospel are just so many springs on a trampoline fails to observe how all those doctrines are inter-related with one another, how they all fit together, how they grow into and out of one another and form one integrated whole. It makes the doctrines of the gospel unrelated, unconnected, isolated, individual bits. It robs them of their organic beauty.

No analogy is perfect, but people used to talk about the “body” of Christian doctrine. It strikes me that the analogy of a “body” is much than a trampoline. For one thing, a body can’t be divided into pieces. It’s not a collection of bits. Each part affects and is affected by all the others, and the result is an integrated and organic whole in which the many are and act as one. Moreover, no part of the body is expendable. You can’t decide that you don’t like this or that part and simply disconnect it.

Finally, a body is not designed simply to lie dead and immobile on the ground. It is meant for living—for allowing a person to walk and run, to touch and see and smell and taste and hear. In short, a body allows a person to engage with the world around him.

All of this is true of the doctrines of the gospel. Understood rightly and framed within the entire storyline of the Bible, the gospel is a perfect and beautiful whole. It is not merely a set of isolated statements; it is a story in which every part contributes to and is inseparable from the whole. Therefore, you can’t simply remove one element of that story and expect it to stay the same. Above all, the gospel is not meant to lie dead, cold, and hard on a sheet of paper. It is meant for…living. The story of what God has done in Christ, the narrative of how he has redeemed and is redeeming the world, is meant to lead us to know him, to worship him, and to be reconciled both to him and to other people.

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September 2006
Greg Gilbert

©9Marks

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 1,000 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by 9Marks.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: ©9Marks. Website: http://www.9Marks.org. Email: info@9marks.org. Toll Free: (888) 543-1030.