A Bit More on Sacrifices

Posted on 11/22/2011 by Paul Pavao

Yesterday I talked about reconstructing Christianity as the apostles delivered it. The emphasis yesterday was on the role of sacrifices and that only those with a pure heart can offer sacrifices to God.

Let’s touch on another example of that, one which contradicts another assumption of modern Christianity.

The first example of a rejected sacrifice in the Bible is Cain’s. In today’s Christianity it is usually taught that Cain’s sacrifice was rejected because it was from the field, while Abel’s was accepted because it was from the flock. Abel’s had blood; Cain’s didn’t.

That wasn’t the early Christian understanding, and they have some very clear Scripture on their side.

Cain went away angry when his sacrifice was rejected, and God came to him asking him why he was angry:

If you do good, will you not be accepted? If you do not do good, sin lies at the door. (Gen. 4:7)

Cain’s sacrifice was rejected because he was already an evildoer, not because he sacrificed grain. The apostle John drives that home for us:

We should love one another, unlike Cain, who was of the wicked one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because his own deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous. (1 Jn. 3:11b-12)

Cain was already an evildoer before he killed Abel, and it was for this reason that his sacrifice was rejected.

What we saw yesterday is true. Sacrifices are offered to God by those whose hearts are purified by repentance. All other sacrifices are rejected.

This applies to those of us who are New Testament believers. We must not think that we can live any way we please and hope to be purified by Jesus’ blood. Hebrews tells us that it is possible to count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing (10:29). It remains true that "without [holiness] no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14) and that "the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9).

It also remains true that the only ones who are righteous, as Christ is righteous, are those who practice righteousness, says the apostle John (1 Jn. 3:7).

The first and foremost message that God gives to man is that we must repent. If we repent, then we can call on the name of Jesus and find all the benefits of his blood, including both mercy and grace (which we will define tomorrow). If we do not repent, then we are fooling ourselves, insulting the Spirit of grace, and our attempts to use grace as a license to sin will only result in our spiritual death (Rom. 8:12-13).

A Little Help with the Confusion Tradition Brings

I’ve given you Scripture for everything I said today, but if you are new to reading my blog, then I understand that some of the things I say may be shocking. Yet, who can deny that it is true that the only ones who are righteous as Christ is righteous are those who practice righteousness? John tells us not to be deceived about that! (1 Jn. 3:7).

Still, "works" has become a forbidden word in modern Christianity, leading to a version of the Gospel that has dozens of difficult, barely understandable Scriptures. Some of the ways that modern Christians try to dance around James 2:24, where James says that we are justified by works, are simply embarrassing.

The early church never struggled with such issues. The Scriptures were one, uncomplicated, and easy to understand for them because they still had the apostles’ words echoing in their ears.

I have a longer teaching on the subject of faith and works written especially for modern Christians, to help them get over the hump of terrifying tradition. In fact, I have several:

"Not by Faith Alone" (Titled that way because it’s a quote from James 2:24)

Christian Salvation

Posted in Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Rebuilding Christianity the Way the Apostles Delivered It

Posted on 11/20/2011 by Paul Pavao

I would love to completely deconstruct some of the myths that have made their way into evangelical tradition, then become unquestionable, but which have no Scriptural or historical support. Then afterwards, I would love to retell the story of Christianity the way the early churches said they received it from the apostles.

We would be so blessed; it would honor God, and the Scriptures would fall into place, all saying one thing, rather than our beating each other over the head with competing verses.

But those traditions are so ingrained, it’s hard to do.

As an example, all early Christians knew about Christ’s "new law" (Heb. 7:12), which was not a new law, but the fullness of the old Law of Moses that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5:17. That teaching answers all the fuss about the Sabbath, the ten commandments, why Paul says the Law came to an end (Rom. 10:4), yet appealed to the law (1 Cor. 9:8). Their teaching is clear, and it pulls the Old and New Testaments together in a way we can all understand.

Amazingly, despite the fact that at one time all Christians knew the teaching, no one does now. It’s astounding. You can read the teaching at Christian-history.org.

I have no idea how to do such a reconstruction. Who’s going to believe me?

So, let’s keep picking away at it.

Today, I want to talk one more time about the role of sacrifices.

Yesterday, I went to a National Bible Bee contest. It was a Scripture memory contest for kids with some large cash prizes. The kids were impressive. It seemed like they had the entire Bible memorized.

Anyway, one of the passages was Hosea 6:1-3. This is typing, not talking, so I’ll just quote part of the passage, though the rest is amazing and worth reading, too:

Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. … So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. (vv. 1,3, NASB)

I’ve been somewhat immersed in the writings of second-century Christianity for about twenty years now. When I read an Old Testament passage about returning to the Lord, I know what it’s going to talk about. It’s going to talk about repentance, and it’s going to emphasize that Israel will be wasting it’s time if they try to sacrifice their way back to fellowship with God.

This is not a concept most modern Christians have.

Sure enough, by v. 6, God says:

For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (NASB)

At the start of chapter 7, God tells them that they forget that he remembers all their wickedness (7:2). Towards the end of the chapter, God complains, not that they don’t offer sacrifices, but that "they do not cry out to Me from their heart" (7:14, NASB).

By chapter 8, he specifically mentions their sacrifices, saying:

As for My sacrificial gifts, they sacrifice the flesh and eat it, but the LORD has taken no delight in them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish them for their sins. (8:13, NASB)

Notice, as I said, that he consistently calls for their behavior to change, their repentance, and he says sacrifices will be a waste of time until they do.

Hosea is an amazingly consistent book, staying on the same subject for chapters, outlining the sins of Israel and Judah before drawing to a conclusion in ch. 14, at the end of the book. By the time Hosea reaches that conclusion, it is surprising what he tells Israel to bring with them when they return to the Lord …

Take words with you and return to LORD. Say to him, "Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may present the fruit of our lips." (14:2)

One more thing we have forgotten that the early Christians knew is that sacrifices don’t purify the heart. If the heart is wrong, the sacrifice is rejected, and that is consistent throughout Scripture, not just here in Hosea. It is the heart that purifies the sacrifice. That is why King David writes:

For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Ps. 51:16-17, NASB)

This is as true of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as it is of the sacrifice of animals. Paul tells us, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" (Gal. 6:7, NASB). He then goes on to say that sowing to the flesh will produce corruption for us, while sowing to the Spirit will produce eternal life.

We are those who have nothing good in us, who rely on Jesus Christ to deliver us from this body of death (Rom. 7:24 w/ 8:3-4). We depend daily on the mercy of God, but we need to know that mercy is poured out on those who confess their sins and repent. Then we can enter boldly into the throne of grace, seeking mercy and grace to help in time of need. God will always forgive the repentant, but if we come boldly into the throne of grace, holding sin in our heart, without crying out for deliverance, we may find ourselves recipients of the mercy of God in a form far different than we expected.

It is possibly to trample the Son of God underfoot, to count the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing, and to insult the Spirit of Grace (Heb. 10:29). The writer of Hebrews tells us that if we do so, there is only a fearful expectation of judgment.

Even such judgment is the kindness of God, for we cannot be allowed to continue to believe that grace is a license to sin. If you care to enter the presence of Almighty God by the blood of Jesus, then take words with you and repent before the Lord. He is well able to cleanse you, but not if you have no care to walk in the Spirit and live pleasing to his will.

Posted in Holiness, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Master Storyteller

Posted on 11/17/2011 by Paul Pavao

Today I was reading a book to my children, and as I neared the end of the section we were reading I burst into tears. With many stops and starts, I managed to squeeze out the end of the chapter between the suppressed sobs.

I believe that God sometimes lets us feel his emotions. I was reading End of the Spear, the part about the five missionaries being martyred on a sandbar in a river in the Amazon jungle in 1956. I am convinced that to God, the spearing of those missionaries by the "Aucas" is one of the most significant events in history. I don’t believe God weeps about it; we’re all individuals, and we all express God’s Word in different ways when it comes. The weeping was my expression, but I believe the emotion is God’s. Not sadness, just the incredible awe of one of the most central events of modern history. Untold thousands, perhaps millions, of lives have been changed because those five men gave up their lives to reach the Waodani.

The author of End of the Spear is the son of one of those missionaries. His name is Steve Saint, and he was five years old when the Waodani speared his father. Since then, the families of the five missionaries have turned the Waodani to Christ, and Steve has lived with them and taken Mincaye, the man who speared his father, as a replacement father.

All that is introduction to Steve Saint’s spiritual and insightful assessment of what happened on January 8, 1956. Here’s his conclusions in his own words:

I have come to the conclusion that God did not look awy. He did not simply allow this to happen. I think He planned it. …

I have personally paid a high price for what happened on Palm Beach. But I have also had a front-row seat as the rest of the story has been unfolding for half a century. I have seen firsthand that much good has come from it. I believe only God could have fashioned such an incredible story from such a tragic event.

I could not begin to record the thousands of people who have told me that God used what happened on Palm Beach to change the course of their lives for good. … If I could go back now and rewrite the script, I would not change a single scene. I have come to understand that life is too complex and much too short to let amateurs direct the story. I would rather let the Master Storyteller do the writing. I don’t say that casually. What happened to Dad was extremely traumatic for me, but even so it has not been the most difficult event in my life.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“Really” Saved

Posted on 11/11/2011 by Paul Pavao

All of us have run across people who say they are saved but are not. In fact, for most "Christians," the teachings of Christ and the apostles play little to no role in their lives. Polls by George Barna confirm this regularly, from the mouths of church attenders themselves.

So those of us who are serious about the Gospel have looked for ways to see people really saved. We’ve told those who pray the sinner’s prayer to really mean it. We’ve emphasized follow-up. We’ve made our doctrines better. We’ve increased church activities, and we’ve even tried getting a little more worldly ourselves so that these Christians in name only might get a little more committed.

All to no avail.

I was reading a Christian drug rehab site today, and I realized that one problem is that nominal Christians don’t see that there is anything they need to be really saved from.

At a drug rehab center, there’s something to be saved from. You’ve either stopped brewing meth, or you’re still using it. You’ve either stopped smoking crack, or you’re still smoking crack.

If the drug rehab’s "Gospel" isn’t working, there’s no denying it isn’t working. We don’t usually use the word "saved" in reference to their work, but at a Christian rehab center, that’s exactly what’s going on. Either they’re being saved, or they’re not.

Since I don’t know all the details of what a drug rehab center does, nor how successful they are, nor how much follow-up they do, let’s switch to something I know more about.

U.S. prisons have very high "recidivism" rates. A recidivism rate is the percentage of criminals released from prison who wind up behind bars again. Standard statistics vary depending on how they’re calculated, but a 45% recidivism rate after three years is acknowledged by all. A Free Republic article says that if you track all prisoners for 20 years, then it’s 82% of inmates who return to prison.

The article describes a program that successfully reduced that recidivism rate to 61%, a minor but significant success. It involved counseling.

I have now met two men involved in major prisoner reform programs. Both programs take a prisoner from the prison to a counseling program, help them find a job, and follow up with them for at least two years. Both programs successfully cut the recidivism rate in half.

Now that’s salvation! It is at least for the men who never return to prison.

We have no such standard of measure for Christianity today. Anyone who can attend a meeting can be a Christian.

It was not that way in the beginning. To join the Christians was to join a new family. They shared their meals and even their possessions. They met every day in the temple, and they ate together in their homes. Their leaders taught them "night and day, both publicly and from house to house."

The "every day in the temple" part happened only in Jerusalem, but the rest happened everywhere for around 200 years.

An early Christian tract is still extant that made it into two early Christian writings, one the earliest church manual ever written. That tract urges Christians to "seek out the faces of the saints ever day." It tells them that if they share in eternal things, how much more should they share the things that are merely temporary.

As late as A.D. 200, we read about the Christians that "the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you [Romans], create brotherly bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us except our wives" (Tertullian, Apology 39).

A counselor who takes an inmate fresh from prison and guides him to a new life can tell you whether that inmate was successfully "saved." If the inmate went back to prison, the counselor knows that, at least for now, he’s failed. If the inmate is surrounded by wholesome friends, employed, and has a new life in front of him, then he’s succeeded.

When Christianity is again a family, rather than a set of weekly meetings; when we are again seeking out the faces of the saints every day; when our teachers are again teaching day and night and from house to house as well as publicly; when each saint is expected to stretch out his hand to give as well as stretching it out to take … when these things are happening, we may again be able to tell the difference between the saved and those who merely attend our meetings.

That would require a pretty radical overhaul, but don’t you agree we need it?

One happy note: I have run across a number of churches attempting to make exactly those kind of changes. Some are failing, but some appear to be succeeding.

If you’re in Sacramento or Atlanta, I can already put you in contact with people. Unfortunately, I didn’t get contact information from the elder of one church like this I met, but there are a couple others in the middle of these changes that I know about, too.

David Platt has a rather famous church doing these sorts of things in Birmingham, and if you’re in San Francisco, you ought to look up what Francis Chan is doing. Simple and brilliant.

Posted in Church, Gospel, Miscellaneous, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Innocence vs. Purity Revisited

Posted on 11/03/2011 by Paul Pavao

Apparently, this post is not Innocence vs. Purity "Revisited." I thought I’d already written a post on innocence vs. purity, but apparently I haven’t. A great oversight on my part!

Today, a man I respect and like posted a very interesting post on Facebook, but it implied that God was not at fault for the defect of sin in us. (Which is an immense defect, see Rom. 7.) Perhaps there is some accuracy to that, but to be honest I have to say I don’t agree. The God who can create the universe and foresee all things could not have been ignorant of what would happen if he created man in the manner he did.

I want to argue that the fall of man was a good thing.

God’s plan was never innocence; it was incorruptible purity, and that required the loss of innocence. He always intended to sum all things up in Christ, to make us the sons of God in a more real way than Adam was, and to wind up with new creations that are incorruptible.

In the other post that I thought I wrote, but didn’t, I wanted to say that we should be the same way with our own children. Protecting their innocence is not the goal, though admittedly that innocence should be guarded for a time. Preparing them to meet temptation so that they will preserve their purity, that is the goal.

Posted in Gospel, Holiness | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The New World Order and Government Conspiracies

Posted on 11/02/2011 by Paul Pavao

What about conspiracy theories and the new world order?

I’ve heard many conspiracy theories about a new world order. There is no doubt that we are locked in a battle with satan and his agents, but it doesn’t appear to me that we are to fight him by trying to figure out how governments and rulers will arrange themselves. We fight him by staying close to God, living in righteousness, and praying. In due time, God will order things according to his will. Until then, he has given us much instruction on what we should do, which includes obeying governments, paying taxes, and praying for our leaders so that we may live godly and holy lives in peace and quietness.

To me, the easiest way to sort through difficult teachings is to jump to the end and find out what those teachings ask us to do. If they ask us to do what the Gospel and our Master ask us to do, then let us look deeper. If they ask us to do other things that are mere distractions, like researching government activities, then we must reject them and be about our Master’s business.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

What Is Christianity?

Posted on 10/31/2011 by Paul Pavao

I got carried away and wrote a long email to a young man who wrote me. It covers evolution, church history, the apostles, the Word of God, the Scriptures, the Gospel, and what is central to Christianity.

I hate to see it simply languish in my sent folder, so here goes:

All Bible quotes in this post are from the NASB.

You wrote:>>Either you believe everything in the Bible is the inspired Word of God, being completely true, and that it is the standard for which Christians should live their lives, or you don’t.<<

To me you just made two statements, not one. The first, if I'm understanding your meaning correctly, is that the Bible is completely accurate historically and scientifically. That's a bit more narrow of a definition than "completely true."

Is the Bible “Completely True”?

There is no denying that I don’t believe the Bible is completely accurate historically or scientifically. I don’t believe the world is set on pillars (1 Sam. 2:8). I don’t believe that the sky is as hard as a metal mirror (Job 37:18). I believe that the earth moves, even though Psalm 93:1 says it doesn’t.

Of course, everyone–including you, your pastor, and everyone else you know–agrees with me on the three things I just listed. Oh, they have their excuses as to why that’s different than doubting the exact scientific accuracy of Genesis 1, but it all looks the same to me.

Do we really believe that God made plants before there was a sun? Do we really believe that there is a tree that if you eat from it, you’ll have eternal life whether God wants you to have it or not? That’s certainly what the story of the Garden of Eden suggests. God had to ban Adam … No, let’s not call him Adam. His name is Man. The Hebrew word Adam is used over 500 times in the Old Testament, and it is only translated Adam in the first few chapters of Genesis.

So, God had to ban Man and Life (Life was the name of Man’s wife) from the garden because if he didn’t, then Man would eat from the tree of life and live forever; apparently even if God didn’t want him to live forever!

Maybe that was meant to be an accurate description of the very first days of mankind, but I don’t believe that. And everyone I’ve read on the subject of how the Hebrews told stories agrees with me. To the Hebrews, “true” was not a matter of historically accurate. “True” had to do with whether it communicated truth.

I believe that the story of Man and Life not only communicates truth, but it communicates God’s truth. It’s not just a saying or a bit of human wisdom. It’s a message from God.

In that sense, I do believe that the Scriptures are completely true.

Is “scientifically and historically accurate” the correct definition of true? Well, that’s for you to decide, but I believe that is a modern, western definition that doesn’t apply very well to the Hebrew Scriptures. It was certainly not their mindset, according to every Hebrew scholar I’ve read.

Is the Bible our Standard

The other part of your statement was whether the Bible is “the standard for which Christians should live their lives.”

First, let me say that I definitely believe that the Bible is the standard for which Christians should test, though not necessarily live, their lives. If our lives disagree with the Scriptures, then we are in error. With that I completely agree, but the Scriptures teach us that we are to be led by the Spirit, not led by the Scriptures. The Scriptures can provide guidance, but we are to walk in the Spirit.

Today, we think the Bible is the center of the Christian faith.

I’m pretty certain that the apostles thought that Jesus Christ is the center of the Christian faith. I think they believed that the ultimate testimony of Christianity was that the Gospel they received from Jesus was “the power of God to salvation,” and that those who believed the Gospel received a real and powerful justification, becoming new creations.

Paul describes that concerning the Thessalonians:

“You became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything” (1 Thess. 1:7-8).

The Scriptures talk about the Word of God growing three different times in Acts (6:7; 12:24; 19:20). We tend to equate the Scriptures and the Word of God, but the apostles didn’t. They believed the Word of God is either Jesus or the entire message of God, in whatever form it came. One major form is that the Word of God lives in us, planted like a seed. It can grow because as the number of disciples multiply, the Word of God grows.

We can say that the Scriptures are the standard by which we must live our lives, but could the apostles’ churches say that? I’ve read all the writings of the second century church, and I can tell you–along with the agreement of pretty much every Christian scholar you want to check–that the New Testament writings were not gathered together until about a hundred years after Jesus died.

And do you know how they gathered the New Testament writings?

They were not gathering “inspired” writings. They were not gathering “New Testament” writings. They were gathering the writings of apostles and men who accompanied the apostles. They wanted all and any they could find.

It was the apostles who were inspired, not just their writings. (For example, see 2 Thess. 2:15 and verses like 1 Cor. 11:2 and 14:37.) The New Covenant has never been about a book. It has been about God pouring out his Spirit on all flesh, bringing them into the church, and making of them a family that would glorify his name by their love for God, their love for each other, and their disdain for the things of the world.

Boxing up God, the Scriptures, and the Gospel

I’m so sorry, dear reader, that writing like this is so limited. Today we’ve boxed everything up and made everything nice and tidy.

God’s never been that way. He’s always left questions and things we don’t understand. He doesn’t care about our fitting his grand plan into our limited human minds. He cares about our trust and obedience. He wants us to know him, for eternal life is to know him, not to pass a test on his plan of salvation (Jn. 17:3).

The Original Faith

My goal is not to convince you of things, but to let you look at the faith that’s been handed to us. The original faith consisted of a firm trust that God sent Jesus, Jesus sent the apostles, and the apostles raised up churches to preserve the truth. Those churches all had a basic “rule of faith” to keep them on the straight and narrow. The Apostles Creed is a 4th century “rule of faith.”

When you read the writings of the 2nd century church, it’s such a glorious thing to see the purity of original Christianity. They held firm to the foundation that “The Lord knows those who are his, and let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). They demanded that Christians accept the basic truths, the sort of things outlined in the Nicene Creed, but after that, “sound doctrine” was much more like what is described in Titus 2 than the sort of things we argue about today.

They honored those who lived holy lives. In fact, one early Christian said, “We don’t speak great things; we live them.”

When they defended Christianity, they spoke of the divinity of Christ’s teachings and how the Spirit of God empowered them to be delivered from greed and lust and to live lives of good conscience. Further, they stood gallantly during persecution, arguing that the bravery of the martyrs was proof of the power of the Spirit of God in the lives of Christians.

Misusing the Scriptures

I love the Scriptures. I hope, as you can see, that I study them thoroughly. I pattern my life after them, and I quote them in defense of all I say. If what I say can’t be found in the Scriptures, then what I say can be rightly rejected.

But we’ve done something awful with the Scriptures in the modern era. As I read today in a George MacDonald book, there are too many people who are “more desirous of understanding what they are supposed to understand than of doing what they are supposed to do.”

We argue and fight over doubtful matters. We make our determinations of what is true based on our intellectual interpretations of Scripture, when in fact Jesus (in Scripture) taught us to judge our teachers by their fruit and not by their confident interpretations (Matt. 7).

The Doctrine According to Godliness

We need to relearn the “doctrine according to godliness” as mentioned by Paul in 1 Tim. 6:3. Because our doctrine is according to intellect and argument, rather than according to godliness, we are what Paul describes in 1 Tim. 6:4-5:

He has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved minds and deprived of the truth.

Let us set ourselves to obeying Jesus Christ and honoring him by our lives.

Evolution and Doubtful Disputes

I have a web site on evolution. That is not because I think that Christians need to take a position on evolution, nor because I want anyone at all to agree it’s true. What I want is that men who have boxed up the Word of God and wrapped a book cover around him do not splinter the church of God into fighting factions over doubtful subjects.

The mark of a Christian is not that he agrees that Genesis one is literal … nor that it’s not literal. The mark of a Christian is that by the power of the Spirit of God he obeys Jesus Christ, living a life marked by the love of God.

We have enough work achieving that goal, but modern Christians have forgotten that it is a goal. They have become confused into thinking that Christianity is a mere understanding of and assent to the atonement.

Salvation is not a plan; it’s a Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Posted in Bible, Church, Evolution and Creation, Gospel, History, Holiness, Modern Doctrines, Unity | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Revelation and Repentance

Posted on 10/29/2011 by Paul Pavao

This is another post that I need to hear.

With gentleness [correct] those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been help captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:25-26, NASB)

Repentance, according to this passage, requires revelation. God has to grant our opponents repentance that will lead to the knowledge of the truth.

This should be liberating for us. We do not have to make our arguments strong enough to convince the hard-hearted and foolish. We only have to make our arguments well enough, and with gentleness, to please God. God will take it from there.

Any of you who have ever had a word from God lodge in your heart knows how unshakeable the conviction of the Lord is. That word will pierce like a thorn until you either give in or make a conscious choice to turn your back on God and choose evil.

One final note. This is not the only place that says repentance must be given by God:

They quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well, then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that that leads to life." (Acts 11:18b, NASB)

 

Posted in Gospel, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Foolishness of the Message Preached

Posted on 10/28/2011 by Paul Pavao

“It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”

For those of us who fancy ourselves apologists, it can be difficult to rest in the foolishness of the message preached. We want to be able to explain the reasonableness of the Gospel, and we hope to make the path to faith easier and the response of God more sure by our guidance.

It is true that the Gospel is a confrontation and an ultimatum, whether we like it or not. We cannot help God respond nor make the Gospel more palatable. Either what we preach is true and God will back it up with supernatural power or we need to find something different to preach. The true Gospel is powerful whether we can explain it or not. When it seems foolish to men that Christ died for sins, then God is all the more pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached.

Let us beware lest in our human wisdom and desire to “help” God that we become guilty of preaching a palatable but false Gospel that God must oppose.

“I will bring the wisdom of the wise to nothing.”

Posted from my iPhone

Posted in Gospel | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Division and Heresy

Posted on 10/20/2011 by Paul Pavao

In the last post I discussed baptism in Jesus’ name. I mentioned that those who deny the Trinity are the ones who normally bring this up.

Their belief is that God is only one person. To them, Jesus is the Father, is the Son, and is the Holy Spirit. God is "the Father in creation, the Son in redemption, and the Holy Ghost in the church."

This doctrine—which has been called modalism, Sabellianism, and "Jesus only"—is one of the oldest heresies. Sabellius and Praxeas were excommunicated for holding the doctrine in the early third century, just 150 years after the time of the apostles.

Even more interestingly, Tertullian, writing about the same time that Sabellius and Praxeas were excommunicated, explains that the majority of Christians held to some version of "Jesus only" because they were too simple and uneducated to grasp the concept of "the Trinity in Unity."

The question I want to put before us today is whether we ought to excommunicate modern Sabellians. Should we avoid fellowship with the "Jesus only" churches today?

My answer to that question is yes, but I want to qualify that answer.

Of course we have to reject them. That is the historical position of the church. It is clear that the teaching of the Trinity is what the apostles handed down to the church, and the church really cannot have rebellious members teaching things that are certainly contrary to apostolic teaching.

In this case, I’m referring not only to apostolic teaching, but to a teaching that the apostles considered important.

For us there is but one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (1 Cor. 8:6)

That verse can be a bit of a struggle for modern Trinitarians, who don’t hold to exactly the apostolic doctrine of the Trinity, either; however, 1 Cor. 8:6 definitely flies in the face of modalist teaching. (I have a book on the subject.)

It is not just scripturally, but historically, that it is obvious that the modalists contradict apostolic teaching. The very basis of every early church creed was the Trinity!

What About Godly "Jesus Only" Believers I’ve Met?

I’ve met my share of godly modalists. I’ve met my share of hard-nosed, judgmental, critical modalists, too, but it’s not those I’m concerned about. It’s the godly ones, who actually seem to be marked with love that I’m concerned about.

"Everyone that loves is born of God," says the apostle.

Is that true?

I certainly believe that’s true, just as I believe all theological teaching that comes from an apostle. I assume that most of my readers agree because it’s in the Bible (1 Jn. 4:7).

So what about a modalist who by John’s definition is born of God?

My answer is that we attach too much to being born of God.

Being born of God is apart from works. Being born of God means that you have received the Spirit and grace of God so that you are able to obey and follow God. You must still "sow to the Spirit" and "not grow weary in doing good" if you want to reap eternal life (Gal. 6:7-10). I know that’s unthinkable heresy to a lot of people, but that’s the simple Gospel of the early church, and it’s easily justifiable to anyone who is familiar with Scripture.

We cannot ignore Scripture just because a person is born of God. We are supposed to mark those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine we have learned. In the modern era, we take that way too far, but we are not taking it too far when we forbid a Christian to teach modalism, a doctrine which has been condemned by the church since it reared its head in rebellion to the apostles’ appointed successors and to their churches 1800 years ago.

Such a person may find mercy at the judgment seat of Christ. A modalist walking in love, as far as I can tell, may well find himself among the sheep who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned. We are not given indication in the Scriptures that people will be judged for misunderstanding the Trinity. We are given indication that they will be judged for ignoring the needy (Matt. 25:31-46).

Nonetheless, we are told to reject heretics after the first or second admonition (Tit. 3:10). Today, that word "heretics" might best be translated as "forcefully opinionated men causing divisions." The fact that they might go to heaven does not give them the freedom to trouble the saints and divide the church.

I’d be curious for any feedback, especially scriptural feedback, that you might have for me on this.

Posted in Church, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment