Responding to and Confounding error. Discussing theology and the important issues of the day.
"And He was giving orders to them, saying, 'Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.'" --Mark 8:15
Time after time, men’s attempts to form a “New Israel” or God’s kingdom on earth have failed, which raises the question, “Does God want us—in New Testament times--to attempt a utopia where the church and state are fused? For Calvinists who knew about Geneva, were fleeing persecution in their home countries, and had seen eight centuries of a Holy Roman Empire, creating a new Promised Land did not seem like such a far-fetched concept. However, the Baptist, William Backus believed that the church and state were to be separate institutions of God, never to be mixed. He didn’t like state authority in the churches of Europe and didn’t want it in America. This latter view won out in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, nor abridging the free exercise thereof.” There has never been a state church in the U.S., although for a time some individual states had an official church.
Whether or not the government has made good on the freedom clause: that it won’t interfere with the free exercise of religion is up for debate. In any case, is the best road to a Christian nation state coercion by the changing of laws? Or is it the revival of individual hearts through the gospel? I have to say that I think I wasted a lot of time in my life trying to get morality legislated instead of spending my time winning people to Christ. I never see Jesus trying to change the Roman government or protesting its laws. Neither do I see the apostles trying to set up an earthly kingdom without Jesus.
With these examples in mind, how should we proceed?
Monday, March 21, 2011
Readers,
Have you spent even 5 minutes in the Bible today? Please be honest with yourself. You can read through a couple chapters of the NT in less time.
As I read through Luke I am struck how easy it is for people to fool and deceive themselves. As I prepared to leave the house today, it surprised me how hard the pull was on my heart to rush ahead and not read my Bible. I had intended to pray as soon as I got out of bed, but somehow that got delayed by more than an hour and had several interruptions.
"Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." --Luke 12:1
* People were trampling over one another (like at a rock concert) to hear the words of Jesus, something we may easily do anytime we want. Are we that hungry for the Lord and his words? How else will we know him/have a relationship with him? Do you go days without listening to your wife? (Wait, don't answer that question!)
* What is the danger of the Pharisees? It is saying one thing and doing another. Do you say you are a Christian? Do you claim to have a relationship with God, with Jesus Christ? You are lying if you are not committed to consistent time in His word. But this is just the first layer of hypocrisy, because--behold--the Pharisees had the entire Pentateuch memorized! The Christian life is much more than just reading the word!
Readers, bear with me as I challenge you today. I am tempted with the same hypocrisy daily and often fail. Let's work together to be controlled by the love of Christ. (II Cor. 5:14-15)
I am sometimes asked why I believe in the Trinity when the word, "trinity" does not appear in the Bible. A fair question, although not necessarily well thought out. After all I believe a lot of things that are stated or implied in the Bible without having terms or doctrines noted for them in the actual scriptures.
For instance, I believe that God is omnipresent, though that word or that concept is not to my knowledge specifically stated. "The eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good," Proverbs 15:3, comes close, but just says God sees everywhere, not that he is everywhere.
The concept of three persons in one Godhead is an inevitable conclusion of reading the Bible. When taken together, the clear sense is that three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God. Deuteronomy 6:6 is clear enough, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one." So we only have one God.
Because the Bible does not contradict itself--never does, when we see the Spirit descending like a dove on Jesus at his baptism while the voice of the Father declares from heaven, "This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," we don't initially have a problem. Maybe Jesus and the Holy Spirit aren't really God or fully God, then we can maintain our "one God" theory and keep the inerrancy of Scripture.
However, the New Testament is clear that both Jesus (John 10:30) and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4,9) are fully and interchangeably God. So we believe on faith that God is one God, manifesting himself in three persons.
Let’s step back just for a moment and look at what is happening here. If I were the devil, and some may accuse me of that, seeing that I object to Bell’s views so strongly, and if I wanted to undermine the gospel of Jesus Christ, here is just what I’d do: 1. I’d get a young, attractive, hip, persuasive communicator to articulate for me. Not an ugly agitator, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing so to speak. 2. Next I would undermine the gospel at crucial points of Christian doctrine. I wouldn’t do it directly, but subtly. So let’s look at Bell’s views in Love Wins taken to their logical conclusions and see if God wins, for indeed, He is love. (I Jn. 4:16)
The Fall: If we all are ultimately rescued from Hell regardless of our acceptance or rejection of the death of Jesus Christ to pay for our sins, then sin may not be so bad after all. It doesn’t require eternal punishment. Its payment did not require the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross since even those who reject Christ and that payment are rescued from it anyway.
The Great Commission: If people are ultimately saved regardless of their acceptance or rejection of Christ while on earth, then some starch is taken out of the constant harping of Jesus and Paul to take the gospel to the ends of the earth in the face of death and persecution. After all, “the lost” won’t have to suffer in hell. It will be a little easier for us now not to have to “die daily” (I Cor. 15:31) or “take up our cross daily” (Luke 9:23). We can stay close to home and live the sort of lives we deem to be morally right and worthwhile.
Discipleship: Having the load of preaching the gospel slightly lessened we will be more free to pursue our own personal goals and ideas of Christian morality, not like Jesus, who came to give his life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28) and to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). Or like Paul, who could wish himself accursed in hell for the sake of his lost brothers—oops, he might have been mistaken about that! (Romans 9:3)
Scripture as the Word of God (II Tim 3:16): This point is more cause than effect. Bell does not take the scripture literally and this has led to the digression of his beliefs on the gospel. But what do you do with all those verses about Jesus warning people about hell? What do you do with all the commands to preach the gospel when convenient and when not convenient? (II Tim. 4:2). The whole problem for Bell starts when he is endeared with liberal ideas on scriptural truth. It’s not intellectually fashionable to believe in a God who creates the earth ex nihilo, or one who casts out a demon. Once the Bible becomes less than accurate on any count, the slope can slip you all the way to the bottom with nothing left to stand upon.
The Gospel itself: Paul states the essence of the gospel in I Cor. 15:3 that Jesus, David’s descendant, died for our sins and rose from the dead that we might have life. In Bell’s view, the gospel itself is minimized. Just now, after twenty centuries of broad agreement in the church about what hell is and the meaning of the gospel that saves us from it, we suddenly have a different story. In the view of Bell and other Emergents, we who believe in a literal hell are holding onto old dogma buttressed by an indefensible, outdated view of scripture.
Good and evil: Jesus says that God alone is truly good (Mark 10:18). He also says that apart from Him we can do no good (John 15:5). Yet if God will in the end accept everyone into heaven, who can truly be labeled as evil? Who can be called good? All have the same, wonderful destiny and reward. Behavior on this earth ultimately doesn’t matter.
God’s character: Immediately following from the point above, what does this say about God? Bell is very concerned about the character of a God who would punish Gandhi in eternal flames. What about a god who let Hitler into heaven without any payment for the murder of 6 million Jews? What about a god who put us through the pain and suffering of life on earth without any apparent reason? For traditional Christianity, it is clear why we suffer and why we have been put here on earth. For Bell’s disciples, the answer is unclear. If we all go to heaven, why are we apart from his presence now? Why all the suffering and death all these centuries? What was it for? What is the ultimate point? What is our true purpose? What did God do all this for? From Paul to Augustine to Aquinas to Calvin to present day we thought we knew. Now it’s different?
Who or what really wins in this scenario? Is it love and God? What if we really are accountable for our sins to a just and holy God? What if Rob Bell has been deceived, not just in terms of human logic, but in his interpretation of Scripture?
I think GOD Wins and His eternal WORD wins. Bell loses this round.
A new phenomenon is hitting America. People are going to heaven and returning. Two extremely popular and big selling books are out there claiming visits to heaven for their authors.
Don Piper's 90 Minutes in Heaven Todd Burpo's Heaven is for Real
I am sending a review of the first book. I want you all to think critically about all spiritual experiences. As the Apostle John tells us, we should discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of error.
I have not yet read the Burpo book, but I share the reviewer's skepticism about the Piper book. I'd be open to discussing any thoughts you may have on this.
