"The Shack" and the Atonement

Posted by Dan C. on

Gary Johnson writes:

The Scriptural support for the doctrine of penal substitution, as we will see, is overwhelming. Nonetheless, there is perhaps no other single doctrine that has elicited such harsh criticisms, even from those claiming to be Evangelical.

B. B. Warfield, writing at the turn on the 20th century observed this growing hostility,

“The ultimate result has been that the revolt from the conceptions of satisfaction, propitiation, expiation, sacrifice, reinforced continually by tendencies adverse to evangelical doctrine peculiar to our times, has grown steadily more and more widespread, and in some quarters more and more extreme, until it has issued in an immense confusion on this central doctrine of the gospel. Voices are raised all about us proclaiming a ‘theory’ of the atonement impossible, while many of those that essay a theory seem to be feeling their tortuous way very much in the dark. That, if I mistake not, is the real state of affairs in the modern Church. I am not meaning to imply that the doctrine of substitutive atonement – which is, after all, the very heart of the gospel – has been lost from the consciousness of the Church. It has not been lost from the hearts of the Christian community. It is in its terms that the humble Christian everywhere still expresses the grounds of his hope of salvation. It is in its terms that the earnest evangelist everywhere still presses the claims of Christ upon the awakened hearer. It has not even been lost from the forum of theological discussion. It still commands powerful advocates wherever a vital Christianity enters academical circles: and, as a rule, the more profound the thinker, the more clear is the note he strikes in its proclamation and defense. But if we were to judge only by the popular literature of the day – a procedure happily not possible – the doctrine of a substitutive atonement has retired well into the background. Probably the majority of those who hold the public ear, whether as academical or as popular religious guides, have definitely broken with it, and are commending to their audiences something other and, as they no doubt believe, something very much better. A tone of speech has even grown up regarding it which is not only scornful but positively abusive. There are no epithets too harsh to be applied to it, no invectives too intense to be poured out on it.1

Individuals associated with what is called The Emergent Church are among the more out-spoken critics of penal substitution going as far as to call it cosmic child abuse.2 Recently Tony Jones, one time national director for the Emergent church, triumphally declared,

Some people today may find it compelling that some Great Cosmic Transaction took place on that day 1,980 years ago, that God’s wrath burned against his son instead of against me. I find that version of atonement theory neither intellectually compelling, spiritually compelling, nor in keeping with the biblical narrative.3

The author of The Shack shares this overt animosity for the doctrine of penal substitution as well, declaring in an interview that he rejects the doctrine explicitly. Not surprisingly, the Jesus of The Shack shares this perspective as well. This is another confirmation that this particular Jesus is to be classified as another Jesus (II Cor. 11:4) and part of another gospel (Galatians 1:6).

UNDERSTANDING THE CROSS OF CHRIST: THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT

Our faith is in the Son of God, “who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20) cf. 1:4. All of the essentials of the atonement are found here. His redemptive work is grounded in the love that expressed itself in the cross, the word “loved” being an aorist in tense and referring to the event of the cross as the issue of eternal electing love (cf. Eph. 1:3-6; 2:4, etc.). The verb, “gave,” means to hand over, to deliver over (cf. Rom. 4:25; 8:32; Eph. 5:2), and in this context suggests these important things:

First, His death was voluntary. He gave Himself. “The will of God is at the same time Christ’s will. He accepted his suffering and death consciously and voluntarily. The Son of Man, of whom is said that he is delivered up, gives himself. He gives “his life as ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He declares: “I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:17-18). His death is a deed. He is no martyr; he is the Mediator.”4

Second, His death was a penal sacrifice, for He had to deliver Himself over to the cross. The aorist of the participle again points to the cross as the event at which the delivering took place. And it was a delivering of Himself over to the divine penalty for sin. He, thus, was a sacrifice, and His sacrifice was designed to deal with the reality of our sin and guilt. Herman Bavinck helpfully develops this theme by noting that

inasmuch as the Reformation had learned to know sin primarily as guilt, atonement became central in the work of Christ. Sin was of such a nature that it aroused God’s wrath. Needed above all to still that wrath, to satisfy God’s justice, was the satisfaction accomplished by the “God-man.” He achieved it by putting himself in our place as the guarantor of the covenant, taking upon himself the full guilt and punishment of sin, and submitting to the total demand of the law of God. Hence the work of Christ consists not so much in his humility, nor only in his death, but in his total—active as well as passive—obedience. He accomplished this work in his threefold office, not only as prophet by teaching us and giving us an example and exhorting us to love but also as priest and king.5

Third, his death was substitutionary. It was “for me,” Paul says, a personal reference that is expanded to all the elect in other places in his writings (cf. Eph. 5:2; Gal. 1:4). Incidentally, as S. Lewis Johnson pointed out, it is never said in the New Testament that Christ loves the world. He loved the church, and He loves me; the special relation that He bears to His own is the New Testament stress (cf. Rev. 1:5).6

CONCLUSION

The apostle has set forth for us the true nature of the cross-work of Christ. It is found in the voluntary, penal substitutionary sacrifice of the Son of God who, uniting us with Himself, has died our death under judgment and has raised us up with Him in His resurrection. Thus, any notion of the atonement that avoids penal substitution ends up with an equally distorted understanding of Christ’s resurrection.

J. I. Packer’s comments on our text deserve reflection.

The measure (‘gave himself’) and the personal particularity (‘for me’) of the love of the atonement-maker for Paul, and by parity of reasoning for every other believer, is here made plain, and so is God’s way of freeing us from the dominion of the death-dealing law that by nature all denizens of this fallen, evil world are under. What does God do? He exchanges our sin-serving existence for a Spirit-led existence by incorporating us, invisibly and intangibly, yet really and truly, into the space-time, trans-historical death and resurrection of our Savior, who now through his indwelling Spirit can truly be said to live in us and shape us as we live our new life in faith-fellowship with him. Atonement—Christ’s dying for us—is thus foundational, says Paul, for entry upon the new life—Christ living in us—which is a life totally free from sin’s penalty and significantly free from sin’s power and ruling over us also.7

The Shack presents a gospel that is devoid of the central feature of the cross of Christ: that of penal substitution. The author, William P. Young, not surprisingly, talks like Brian McLaren, who likewise speaks contemptuously of penal substitution as “divine child abuse.”8

Long ago, J. I. Packer addressed this distortion.

The penal substitution model has been criticized for depicting a kind Son placating a fierce Father in order to make him love man, which he did not do before. The criticism is, however, inept, for penal substitution is a Trinitarian model, for which the motivational unity of Father and Son is axiomatic. The New Testament presents God’s gift of his Son to die as the supreme expression of his love to men. ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son’ (John 3:16). ‘God is love, . . . Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (I John 4:8-10). ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:8). Similarly, the New Testament presents the Son’s voluntary acceptance of death as the supreme expression of his love to men. ‘He loved me, and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2:20). ‘Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends . . .’ (John 15:13f.) And the two loves, the love of Father and Son, are one: a point which the penal substitution model, as used, firmly grasps.9

Endnotes

1 The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield IX (rpt. Baker, 1981) p. 297.

2 Cf. Steve Chalke, The Lost Message of Jesus (Zondervan, 2003) p. 182. He writes, “The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the Church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement “God is love.” If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.” (p. 182). Brian McLaren and N. T. Wright gave Chalke’s book glowing endorsements.

3 http://www.blog.belief.com/tonyjones/2009/04/why-jesus-died.html

4 J. V. Gendern and W. H. Velema, Concise Reformed Dogmatics (P & R, 2008) p. 480.

5 H. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics III (Baker, 2006) p. 345.

6 S. Lewis Johnson Jr., class lecture notes, Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fall, 1984. I owe my analysis of this passage to Dr. Johnson.

7 J. I. Packer, “The Atonement in The Life of the Christian,” in The Glory of The Atonement eds. C. E. Hill and F. A. James III (IVP, 2004) p. 411.

8 B. McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In (Jossey Bass, 2002) p. 102.

9 J. I. Packer, “What Did The Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution,” The Tyndale Bulletin (1974) p. 17.

How ‘Free’ is The Human Will?

Posted by Dan C. on

Discussions about human ‘free will’ are always interesting but often run afoul and accomplish very little, except for those engaged in the debate coming away convinced more than ever that their particular opinions are the absolute truth of the matter. I think it safe to say that most of the difficulties that render objective discussion rather difficult revolve around not basing the discussion on a particular definition of the term ‘free will’ at the outset. We end up with individuals supporting whatever definition each of them brought to the discussion, designingly unavoidable arguments, and even shattered friendships. Sometimes, but not often, the ‘free will’ discussion ends amicably, with everyone patting each other on the back for their ‘insights’, proud of their individual opinions, having only skimmed or totally avoided what scripture tells us of the state of the human will.

Much of the time when we talk about ‘free will’, all we really mean is that we have freedom of choice, which is certainly true! Our lives are filled with instances of having to weigh options and choose one thing over another, from what cereal to eat for breakfast or what shirt to wear, that merely indicate ‘preference’, to other issues of far greater ethical or moral significance. Does the fact that we make ‘free’ choices necessarily mean that we are equally ‘free’ to choose any of the set of options available to us? 

Is the human will in some sort of neutral state, uninfluenced by anything outside of itself? That’s what ‘free will’ means to the vast majority of evangelicals these days. But is that true? What does scripture tell us about the human will?

Paul, in describing the characteristics of a good workman for Christ in relation to opponents of the gospel, says to treat them gently so that:

“. . .God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. – 2 Tim 2:25-26

Paul seems to  be saying that those who oppose the gospel are in ‘the snare of the devil’ and prisoners to to the will of the one holding them captive. Even more emphatically, Paul, in his letter to the Romans describes the condition of the man apart from Christ:

“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” – Rom 6:6

Here Paul states that before encountering Christ and trusting in Him for salvation, we were ‘enslaved’ to sin. Sin is the ‘master’ of anyone who is apart from the saving grace of Christ.

In using the slave/master analogy Paul was only echoing Christ:

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

“They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.   . . .So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” – John 8:32-34, 36

Jesus told them, despite their objections, that before they believed in Him (the Son) and were set free, they were ‘slaves’ to sin.

Does that sound like ‘free’ will? Slaves do not have free will and are obligated to serve their masters. Concerning the matter of a lost person ‘choosing’ Christ all on his/her own, listen to Paul once again:

1Co 12:3  Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. (Emphasis mine)

The word ‘can’ is significant here. It means what it says – no one is able without the Holy Spirit to say Jesus is Lord. Put another way – it is not possible for anyone to ‘decide’ for Christ on his/her own, as the common definition of ‘free will’ would have us believe.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) summarily describes the human will from the creation of Adam to it’s eventual state in glory.

CHAPTER IX.
Of Free Will.

1. God has endowed the will of man with such natural liberty that it is neither forced nor—by any absolute necessity of nature— determined to good or evil.

2. Man, in his state of innocence, had freedom and ability to will and to do what was good and well-pleasing to God, and yet not unalterably, so that he might fall from it.

3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has completely lost all ability to choose any spiritual good that accompanies salvation. Therefore, an unregenerate man, because he is opposed to that good and is dead in sin, is unable by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself to be converted.

4. When God converts a sinner and brings him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage to sin, and by his grace alone he enables him freely to will and to do what is spiritually good. Yet, because of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly nor only will what is good, but also wills what is evil.

5. The will of man is made perfectly and unchangeably free to do good alone, only in the state of glory.

So the question remains How ‘free’ is the human will? No soapbox or opinion here, just a question that needs asking in light of how ‘free will’ is these days commonly defined. Let the Bible speak.

The Gospel According to Calvary

Posted by Dan C. on

One of the most amazing ‘pictures’ of the of the Gospel message in scripture is found in the last book of the Bible:

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
 and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

Revelation 5:6-9

With the currency of His own blood, the coin of the Heavenly Realm, Christ purchased men for God. Other translations use terms like ransomed, redeemed, or bought. Regardless of the specific term, what happened at Calvary was as firm a transaction as walking into a store, placing money on the counter and walking out with whatever you intended to buy. Only in terms of fallen men, the Father sent his Son to earth to ‘buy back for himself’ (Christ purchased men for God), out of the mass of fallen humanity, men and women from every ‘people group’ on the planet

The Apostle Paul, everywhere he went and to every audience, spoke a simple message of Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2). Paul also very specifically defined the core of the gospel message – that Christ died for our sins (1 Cor 15:1-4).

The passage in Revelation and Paul’s gospel provide slightly different perspectives of the same message.  In Revelation we have the ‘big picture’. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, as well as in the entire body of his preaching, we have the gospel message that is to be the center of the ‘good news’ we are to declare to all men.

Judge Not?

Posted by Dan C. on

A common phrase heard these days, in various forms, among professing Christians who seem to have swallowed the ‘tolerance’ mantra that doesn’t allow criticism of others’ beliefs, no matter how ‘interesting’ they might be, is this:

“I know some Christians who go to church a lot more than I do and have tons more Bible smarts, but don’t know anything about love, forgiveness or humility. All they know is how to judge others and they have no right.”

Aside from the fact that the above statement, and others like it, are in themselves judgmental, the commonly held belief that we are not to ever judge anyone about anything is simply unbiblical.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. . . . You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye”. – Matt 7:1, 5.

Our favorite passages for never judging is first of all speaking of the Pharisees’ practice of judging hypocritically. And concerning logs and eyeballs, notice the “then you will be able to see clearly”, telling us to judge ourselves before judging others.

You could say that what we have in a short passage in Matthew is Jesus’ passing judgment on improper forms of judgment, not a commandment to never judge anything or anyone.

If it isn’t sufficiently clear, consider the following:

Mat 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

Mat 24:11 “And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.”

Mat 24:24 “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”

In order to ‘beware’ of false prophets, you have to be able to suspect something might be amiss, apply a standard of judgment, and make a judgment!

While we are not to pass judgment in certain matters, we are to discern between true and false teachers/prophets. We are even given at least one very specific area of judgment in Paul’s letter to the Galatians concerning false teachers:

“As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” – Gal 1:9

In cased you missed it, we should be ‘experts’ in the gospel and be able to spot ‘false’ gospel messages, which means those who would preach/teach a false gospel are false ‘prophets’, who should be treated according to their judged ‘status’.

There are most certainly areas in which we should not be in the ‘judging’ business, but there are other areas where we are commanded to judge, chief among them the gospel message itself.

"What is God Like?"

Posted by Dan C. on

That is a great question to ask anyone! The answers you get will tell you if the one with whom you are conversing even believes there is a God, and if that person does believe there is a God, how he/she thinks about God.  By how a person thinks about God, we don’t mean all of the specific details that might surface in the conversation, but the larger context, or framework, of thoughts about God.

The question, when posed, will certainly result in sorts of details, or characteristics about God. That’s a given – the question will draw them out. The details will always provide the larger framework of thought from which they come, or how a person thinks about God. The descriptions of God that surface in such discussions most likely indicate two main categories of thought, or mental paradigms.

The first of those reveals the tendency of picturing God being like us, just BIGGER. After all, we are created in the image of God, therefore it’s quite logical to think of God that way – isn’t it?

The second way of picturing God is in terms of who He has revealed himself to be through the scriptures.

It’s probably a fair assumption to say that for most, if not all of us who call ourselves Christians/believers/Christ followers (pick your favorite term), our thoughts of God are a combination of the two. The ratio between thoughts of God as a ‘BIGGER us’ and the revealed God of scripture will speak volumes.

Food for thought on a Friday morning………

Who Opened Lydia’s Heart?

Posted by Dan C. on

The hearts of all mankind are closed to the gospel, to the preaching of the word, the beseechings and invitations of the Lord.

by Geoff Thomas

Lydia’s home town was four hundred miles away in Thyatira a city famous for its dyes (there is an early inscription to a guild of dyers there). Lydia was a business woman and an entrepreneur. She traded in purple cloth, up-market material because purple dye was expensive (she may have been the agent for a Thyatiran manufacturer). We are also told that she was also a worshipper of God, that is, she had been influenced by the Old Testament Scriptures and come to believe and behave as the Jews did without having become a Jew. So she was a godfearing woman. There was a place a mile outside the city where she and other women like her met together on the Sabbath day for prayer. So it seems that there was no synagogue in Philippi (a quorum of ten men would be needed in order to have a synagogue constituted).

But the most significant truth we are told about Lydia is that her heart was closed. In other words, it was closed to God and to Jesus Christ. It was closed very effectively to the message of salvation. Before I became a minister of the gospel I worked for a year for the National Coal Board as a wages clerk in their south-west Wales headquarters. The miners in the 20 collieries in the region were all being paid in cash in 1964, and every Thursday we would fill their wage packets from a million pounds in cash, and we would carry the metal cash-boxes for each pit into a strong room for the night before paying the miners on Fridays. The strong room had a mammoth door which two men would push closed and then turn a wheel in the middle. A fly couldn’t pass that door and a burglar would find it a very considerable and lengthy challenge. That door was closed shut on Thursday nights.

That closed door is a picture of Lydia’s heart, and the heart of every man and women outside of Christ, so of your heart too. The hearts of all mankind are closed to the gospel, to the preaching of the word, the beseechings and invitations of the Lord. This woman was a very capable women with considerable responsibility in the world of commerce, and I am sure she did her job with great competence and integrity, but her heart was closed. There is no mention of her husband, simply the members of her household, and she was working to support her children or her parents, and she seems to have had their trust, but her heart was closed. She was a religious person with some knowledge of the God of the Old Testament Scriptures, and one day each week was different for her, but her heart was closed. She was not simply ‘dead orthodox’ as the phrase puts it, but she believed in prayer and met regularly with other women and prayed. She was deeply devout, but still her heart was closed. With all her intelligence, and respectability, and business acumen, and religion, and piety her heart was closed.

There were a number of women gathered there outside the city gate by the river, and Paul spoke to every one of them with the same sincerity, yearning that every one of them should come to know his Saviour for themselves. Yet there was just one woman whose heart was opened. How solemn is this matter of the sovereignty of Christ. Many fishermen lined the shores of Galilee’s lake but just two sets of brothers taken to follow Christ. You yourself once went to a meeting and there the Lord opened your heart. You thought the heart of your husband who was sitting alongside you would have been opened too but he had nothing to say of the salvation of Christ. Or you went with a gang of your friends, but afterwards they talked of football and school and music. Jehovah Jesus meant as little to them after the meeting as he had before, but you were changed. Your heart had been opened. That is how it is in this solemn and humbling experience. It is initiated by Christ. It is accomplished by the grace of Christ, and that grace works sovereignly, and selectively. That grace falls with all its particularity on favoured men and women as he determines. This is his grand prerogative, and in that honour none shall share. Please don’t presume on that grace. Don’t say as boys in school would say to me, “I’d like to be religious. I want to taste what the world offers first, and then when I’m older I might become religious.” It is not in our power to determine the time or place. The only moment we have is now. All the years gone can never return, and all the future is unknown. We may soon be dead. Now is the time to plead with the Lord to open our heart.

What happened when the Lord opened her heart? We are told that she was able “to respond to Paul’s message” (Acts 16:14). The message demanded a response. It demanded repentance for her sins. It demanded trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ. It demanded baptism and a life of discipleship, and all this was possible once the Lord had opened her heart. She heard Paul speaking and she thought, “I have never heard anyone speak like this.” She thought to herself, “What an orator he is. He really believes what he says.” She thought, “This is all making sense.” But it was not because of Paul’s eloquence or sincerity that his words were having such a transforming influence in her life. It was all due to the Lord opening her heart. I once spoke to a woman in hospital who had been involved in a minor accident outside Aberystwyth and for fear she might have had concussion they were keeping her in hospital for 24 hours. She was fed up with life, but I spoke to her about the God who is in control of all our circumstances, even the fall of the sparrow. “That God has come to this world in his Son Jesus Christ to save us,” I said. She looked back bleakly to me and she said, “Words, only words.” The gospel came to her, but in word only. When the gospel came to the Thessalonians it did not come in word only, but in power and with the Holy Spirit and with much assurance so that the Thessalonians received the gospel of Paul not as the word of men but as it is in truth the word of God. So it was when Lydia’s heart was opened she was able to respond to Paul’s message.

Douglas MacMillan and his elders were interviewing two teenage boys who had come to profess faith and were applying for church membership. “Tell us what changes have taken place in your life that would lead us to believe you have been converted,” said Douglas. Their spokesman said, “Oh, it was no change in us. The change was in you, about six months ago, when your preaching got interesting.” Of course it was no change in Douglas’ preaching. What had happened was that the Lord had opened their hearts at that time and then the preaching seemed more relevant, and the worship more enjoyable and Sunday was no longer a boring day. So as Paul opened the Scriptures using the sword of the Spirit the same Spirit of Jesus opened Lydia’s heart so that she believed what Paul said to her. She became the first convert of whom we know anything on European soil.

What an encouragement Lydia is to us all to go on praying for those whose hearts have long been closed. We sometimes have the misfortune to hear certain preachers inform us that God lacks the ability to open the heart. “God can do no more. It is all up to you,” they tell proud sinners who are glad to hear that they are mightier than God, and that they can keep the Lord wringing his hands in heaven wondering whether men will condescend to accept him or not. Who would want to worship and follow such a god? If that were really the way it is then prayer itself for loved ones’ salvation would be futile. Such a theology says so mournfully that God has no power to open our loved ones’ hearts. Man almighty: God impotent. But that is not how it is! The Lord opened Lydia’s heart and he can open the hearts of the most obdurate sinners. Pray on!

____________________________________

Geoff Thomas is a Reformed Welsh preacher currently living in the South West of England. He is the Pastor of a Baptist Church in Alfred Place, Aberystwyth, UK. He also maintains the Banner of Truth website.

Unholy Trinity: Outraged at TBN’s Brazen False Teaching

Posted by Dan C. on

John MacArthur

Grace to You

I don’t watch much television, and when I do I generally avoid the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). For many years TBN has been dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy. I wrote about the false gospel they proclaim and the phony miracles they pretend to do almost two decades ago in Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. See especially chapter 12). I had my fill of charismatic televangelism while researching that book, and I can hardly bear to watch it any more.

Recently, however, while recovering from knee-replacement surgery, I decided to sample some of the current fare on TBN. From a therapeutic point of view it seemed a good choice: something more excruciating than the pain in my leg might distract me from the physical suffering of post-surgical trauma. And I suppose on that basis the strategy was effective.

But it left me outraged and frustrated – and eager to challenge the misperceptions in the minds of millions of unbelievers who see these false teachers masquerading as ministers of Christ on TBN.

I’m outraged at the brazen way so many false teachers twist the message of Scripture in Jesus’ name. And I’m frustrated because I’m certain that if these charlatans were not receiving a large proportion of their financial support from sincere believers (and silent acquiescence from Christian leaders who surely know better), they would have no platform for their shenanigans. They would soon lose their core constituency and fade from the scene.

Instead, religious quacks are actually multiplying at a frightening pace. One thing I discovered to my immense displeasure is that TBN is by no means the only religious network broadcasting poisonous false doctrine around the clock. The channel lineup I receive includes at least seven other channels whose schedules are filled with false teachers and charlatans. There’s The Church Channel, Daystar, GodTV, World Harvest Television (LeSEA), Total Christian Television, and several others. Some of them feature blocs of family television programming and a few fairly sound teachers who provide moments of escape from the prosperity preachers. But all of them give prominence to enormous amounts of heresy and religious claptrap – enough to make them positively dangerous. And TBN is singularly responsible for kicking that door open so wide.

The continued growth and influence of TBN is baffling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the thick aura of lust, greed, and other kinds of moral impropriety that surrounds the whole enterprise. A long string of scandals involving notable charismatic televangelists between 1988 and 1992 should have been sufficient reason for even the most credulous viewers to scrutinize the entire industry with skepticism. First came the international spectacle of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s moral, marital, and financial collapse. That was followed closely by the revelation of Jimmy Swaggart’s repeated dalliances with prostitutes. Shortly afterward, an episode of ABC’s Primetime Live exposed clear examples of deliberate fraud on the part of three more leading charismatic televangelists. Those incidents were punctuated by a score of lesser scandals over several years’ time. It is clear (or should be) – based on empirical evidence alone – that preachers promising miracles in exchange for money are not to be trusted. And for anyone who simply bothers to compare Jesus’ teaching with the health-and-wealth message, it is clear that the message that currently dominates religious television is “a different gospel; which is really not another” (Galatians 1:6-7), but a damnable lie.

TBN is by far the leading perpetrator of that lie worldwide. Virtually all the network’s main celebrities tell listeners that God will give them healing, wealth, and other material blessings in return for their money. On program after program people are urged to “plant a seed” by sending “the largest bill you have or the biggest check you can write” with the promise that God will miraculously make them rich in return. That same message dominates all of TBN’s major fundraising drives. It’s known as the “seed faith” plan, so-called by Oral Roberts, who set the pattern for most of the charismatic televangelists who have followed the trail he blazed. Paul Crouch, founder, chairman, and commander-in-chief of TBN, is one of the doctrine’s staunchest defenders.

The only people who actually get rich by this scheme, of course, are the televangelists. Their people who send money get little in return but phony promises – and as a result, many of them turn away from the truth completely.

If the scheme seems reminiscent of Tetzel, that’s because it is precisely the same doctrine. (Tetzel was a medieval monk whose high-pressure selling of indulgences – phony promises of forgiveness – outraged Martin Luther and touched off the Protestant Reformation.)

Like Tetzel, TBN preys on the poor and plies them with false promises. Yet what is happening daily on TBN is many times worse than the abuses that Luther decried because it is more widespread and more flagrant. The medium is more high-tech and the amounts bilked out of viewers’ pockets are astronomically higher. (By most estimates, TBN is worth more than a billion dollars and rakes in $200 million annually. Those are direct contributions to the network, not counting millions more in donations sent directly to TBN broadcasters.) Like Tetzel on steroids, the Crouches and virtually all the key broadcasters on TBN live in garish opulence, while constantly begging their needy viewers for more money. Elderly, poor, and working-class viewers constitute TBN’s primary demographic. And TBN’s fundraisers all know that. The most desperate people – “unemployed,” “even though I’m in between jobs,” “trying to make it; trying to survive,” “broke” – are baited with false promises to give what they do not even have. Jan Crouch addresses viewers as “you little people,” and suggests that they send their grocery money to TBN “to assure God’s blessing.”

Thus TBN devours the poor while making the charlatans rich. God cursed false prophets in the Old Testament for that very thing (Jeremiah 6:13-15). It’s also one of the main reasons the Pharisees incurred Jesus’ condemnation (Luke 20:46-47). It’s hard to think of any sin more evil. It not only hurts people materially; it deludes them with groundless hope, deceives them with a false gospel, and thereby places their souls in eternal peril. And yet those who do it pretend they are doing the work of God.

That’s not all. Almost no false prophecy, erroneous doctrine, rank superstition, or silly claim is too outlandish to receive airtime on TBN. Jan Crouch tearfully gives a fanciful account of how her pet chicken was miraculously raised from the dead. Benny Hinn trumps that claim with a bizarre prophecy that if TBN viewers will put their dead loved ones’ caskets in front of television set and touch the dead person’s hand to the screen, people will “be raised from the dead… by the thousands.”

Ironically, one doesn’t even need to be an orthodox Trinitarian in order to broadcast on the Trinity network. Bishop T. D. Jakes, well known for his rejection of the Nicene Creed in favor of oneness Pentecostalism, is a staple on TBN. Benny Hinn has repeatedly attempted to revise the doctrine of the Trinity in novel ways, notoriously teaching at one point that there are nine persons in the godhead.

And yet evangelical church leaders typically show a kind of benign tolerance toward the whole enterprise. Most would never endorse it, of course. They may joke about the gaudiness of the big hair and tawdry set decorations on TBN. Ask them, and they will most likely acknowledge that the prosperity gospel is no gospel at all. Press the issue, and you will probably get them to admit that it is a dangerous form of false doctrine, totally unbiblical, and essentially anti-Christian.

Why, then, is there no large-scale effort among Bible-believing evangelicals to expose, denounce, refute, and silence these false teachers? After all, that is what Scripture commands church leaders to do when we encounter purveyors of soul-destroying substitutes for the true gospel:

The overseer must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain (Titus 1:7-11).

Those who remain silent in the face of such grotesque lies may in fact be partly responsible for turning people away from the truth. Consider the testimony of William Lobdell, religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who once considered himself a devout evangelical Christian, but after doing a series of investigative reports on the moral and doctrinal cesspool at TBN; then “finding that his investigative stories about faith healer Benny Hinn and televangelists Jan and Paul Crouch appear to make no difference on the reach of these ministries or the lives of their followers, he [gave] up on the beat and on religion generally.”

All those who truly love Christ and care about the truth have a solemn duty to defend the truth by exposing and opposing these lies that masquerade as truth. If we fail in that duty because of indifference, apathy, or a craving for the approval of men, we are no less guilty than those who actively spread the lies.

Publication date: February 24, 2010

Salvation’s Two Essential Elements?

Posted by Dan C. on

“And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.” – Acts 16:13-15 (Emphasis added.)

The highlighted portion of the above passage of scripture seems to contain two critical elements to the conversion of Lydia. While we are told she was a worshipper of God, something else happened before she ‘heard’ internally what Paul was saying that day down by the river. The Lord opened her heart to hear what was said by Paul. What happened to Lydia was not something strictly of human intellect, although we can be certain that she had to mentally process the information. Her heart was opened by the Lord in ‘secret’ so that she could ‘hear’ with her heart, not just her ears.

The second element in this picture was ‘what Paul said’. We don’t know exactly what he said, but it is certainly safe to assume that it was the pure gospel message Paul was known to preach, that Christ died for our sins – Christ and Him crucified.

The next thing we are told is that Lydia was baptized along with her whole household, so it goes without saying that Lydia received the gospel message and trusted in Christ as her Savior and Lord.

One might even assume that there are indeed two essential elements in a person’s being saved – a heart opened by God and the preaching of the gospel message.

At this point I could offer other ‘gospel encounters’, as well as other scripture that points to these same two elements in the salvation of men, perhaps not in language quite as clear, but present nonetheless. However, I leave further reading of scripture on the matter to you, the reader, because I am certain that such reading and study on your own will reveal whether the question posed above is answered within its pages.

What is an "Evangelical"?

Posted by Dan C. on

Excerpted from a larger article titled “Evangelicalism, False and True”, that can be read here.

“From a strictly etymological perspective, “evangelical” denotes someone or something for whom or which the evangel serves in some manner as such a significant and distinguishing characteristic that it can be referred to as an identifying mark, making “evangelical” an adequately descriptive label for purposes of identification. Something or someone can be labeled as evangelical because the evangel is so prominent and notable a feature of the person or thing (including ideas) as to stand out sufficiently as a means of characterization that allows us a means of classification and differentiation (comparison and contrast). Accordingly, to be an evangelical is to be identified with the gospel (the evangel), and that identification should be to us a most-coveted and highly-prized badge of honor and distinction: glorying in the Cross and bearing the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Evangelicalism, False and True by Joseph P. Braswell, October 1998)

In the article from which the above was excerpted, the author discusses the term ‘evangelical’, tracing the term back to the Reformation, the gospel message around which the term revolves, as well as characterizations of true and false evangelicalism. It is well worth the read, and perhaps a bit of discussion.

We are ALL guilty……

Posted by Dan C. on

While looking for a particular quote attributed to Martin Luther, among the many articles in which I found the quote, I found this in an article by Reverend Roland F. Ziegler, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary:

“The doctrine of justification defines who God is: He is the one who was in Christ reconciling the world; He is the one who justifies through faith in Christ (Rom. 3:26). Therefore any concept of God that denies this and believes in a god who has to be reconciled by what man does is idolatrous, even if it manages to include Christ in its scheme: ‘Whoever falls from the doctrine of justification is ignorant of God and is an idolater. Therefore it is all the same whether he then returns to the Law or to the worship of idols; it is all the same whether he is called a monk or a Turk or a Jew or an Anabaptist. For once this doctrine is undermined, nothing more remains but sheer error, hypocrisy, wickedness, and idolatry, regardless of how great the sanctity that appears on the outside.‘ Therefore the doctrine of justification is rightfully called the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae, the article with which the church stands or falls. . . .’When this article stands, the church stands, when it falls, the church falls.’ (In XV Psalmos graduum 1532-33; WA 40/III.352.3)” (Emphasis added)

The highlighted portion of the above paragraph contains the quote I was looking for. I included the remainder of the section of text from the article because it also includes this statement:

‘Whoever falls from the doctrine of justification is ignorant of God and is an idolater. Therefore it is all the same whether he then returns to the Law or to the worship of idols; it is all the same whether he is called a monk or a Turk or a Jew or an Anabaptist.’ (Emphasis added.)

That we are justified (saved) by faith alone, without the addition of any sort of work by man, was indeed one of the famous ‘five solas’ of the Protestant Reformation (see below), however the debate is not merely a Catholic v. Protestant one. Whether we add to faith the ‘accumulated merits’ of men and call justification a ‘process’; or a person’s ‘autonomous’ decision to choose Christ, asserting that obtaining faith itself is a ‘process’ that begins in man’s ‘natural’ intellect, haven’t we committed the same error?

Just asking……

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The “five solas” is a term used to designate five great foundational rallying cries of the Protestant reformers. They are as follows: “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture Alone); “Sola Gratia” (Grace Alone); “Sola Fide” (Faith Alone); “Solus Christus” (Christ Alone); and “Soli Deo Gloria” (To God Alone Be Glory).