Nondenominations of abomination: the split, in under 90 words

by Dan Phillips

Don't word-count this part.  Over at Cripplegate, the Rt. Hon. Rev. Prof N. Busenitz offered a rationale for parting denomination from abomination (i.e. Christian group from cult), in under 200 words. I offer two responses:

First: I agree. His point's well-made. This is not a disagreement. It's a valuable, useful post.

Second: I think it could even be further focused, though Nate's fuller development (and still-fuller developments than his) are also necessary.

So what follows is my attempt to shave the difference to one point of less than ninety words. (If I moved the Scriptures to footnotes, it would be under sixty-five words.)

Ahem.

This part counts, starting...next word!

False teachers have a deficient view of Christ. They deny that He is God incarnate (Jn. 1:1, 14), the Father's eternal and distinct Son (Jn. 1:1-2), giver of the Spirit (Acts 2:33), who saves by grace alone through faith alone by merit of His penal,

substitutionary sacrifice alone (Matt. 1:21; 20:28; Eph. 2:8-9), witnessed by His bodily resurrection (Jn 20—21), and who kept His promise to bring revelation to completion through the Spirit's work in His apostles (Jn. 14—16; 1 Jn. 1:1-3).

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The word and the Word: do not sunder what God has joined

by Dan Phillips

Ask a group of Biblically faithful Christians how God is known. Some will likely answer, "In Christ." Others, "Through the Bible." I had just such an array when I asked the other day, as we have been studying how God reaches out to us and how we must respond.

Well, which response is right?

Broadly, one could say that three answers have been given in the history of the Christian church. Taking "A" as representing "In Christ," and B as "Through the Bible," we can treat them thus:

A, not so much B. This would be broadly the view of Christianoid liberalism of all stripes. Like virtually all false teachers, they do want to be seen as on the Jesus bandwagon, so they would claim Him. "Christ, not doctrine" would be their rallying cry. It might be neo-orthodox shaped with a sprinkling of existential spice, but it would amount to this: "We must encounter the living Christ. The Word witnesses to this Christ, but it is just the words of men witnessing poorly and fallibly to the Christ. It is inadequate. All that matters is the soul's contact with the living Christ, a contact that can't be tied to dogma or reduced to doctrines."

This is useful, of course, because this "living Christ" usually fits in pretty well with wherever the professor wants to go. This "living Christ" gets down with the world just fine. He's for evolution, "a woman's right to choose," "marriage equality," "social justice," "empowering women"; He's green, He voted for Obama, He loves Huffington Post, He's not so sure about literal Adams and Jonahs and falling walls and man-swallowing fish. In other words, He pretty much hates and loves what the world hates and loves. The  professor need not deny himself, much less take up anything as distasteful as a cross.

Machen killed this monstrosity decades ago but, like Freddy Krueger, it just keeps coming back. Unlike Freddy, it does change its shirt from time to time. But it's always the same nonsense, under the skin.

Both A and B. Many orthodox Christians would sign onto this, and it's a vast improvement. It at least recognizes that Christ and the Word are not opposed to each other. In fact, I wouldn't quarrel too insistently with this answer, as long as its view of B matched B's witness to itself.

However, I think this isn't the best way to put it. It still envisions a parting between the two that doesn't do justice to the role Christ Himself (A) gives to the Word (B). That is better expressed as...

A, by sole means of B. Of course and always, the intent is to know Christ truly and intimately (Ephesians 3:17-19; Philippians 3:10). And this can happen only as we are born of the Spirit (John 3:1ff.), and the Lord opens our hearts (Acts 16:14). But by what means, through what instrumentality, is this accomplished?

As I've been studying closely with my church on Wednesday nights, God has always had but one means of making Himself known, from the first moments when there was sentient life: by His Word. This has always been the case. Adam's first recorded experience of God is of God speaking to him; and so it goes through redemptive history. The grand trans-covenantal paradigm of Abram is that his right standing before God came through his saying "Amen" to the word of God (Gen. 15:6 and context).

Nothing has changed in the coming of Christ. He preached, He preached and preached; He was known as "the teacher." His miracles showed that his preaching had power, but their meaning was known through His preaching. When people came for his miracles, He moved on so He could preach more, say more words about God and His Kingdom (Mark 1:33-38).

This is what He said would be the norm. The mark of someone who was a genuine disciple was that that person continued in His word (John 8:31-32). That person who experienced God and knew God personally would be the person who kept Christ's commands and word (John 14:21, 23). Christ's abiding in the person would flourish by means of His word abiding in him (compare John 15:4 and 7).

And so it continued after He ascended. When Peter was surrounded by inquiring unbelievers, he preached God's words to them and used those words to urge them to salvation (Acts 2). The saved — reconciled to eternal fellowship with God — were those who embraced his word (Acts 2:41). Again and again, Luke describes the spread of Christianity as the spread of the word of God (Acts 6:7; 12:24; 13:49). In fact, how would we today have fellowship with the Father and the Son? Through the words of God through the apostles (1 John 1:1-3).

This is but a brief sample. I could just put it like this. You say the really important thing is to know Christ. I say "amen." And then I ask, "Who is this 'Christ'? Where do we learn of Him? Where do we find out infallibly who He is, what He taught, what He did, what He offers and demands, how I can know Him, and how He wants me to live and think?"

You know the answer.

A, by sole means of B.

Don't sunder what God hath joined.

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Open Mic Night

by Frank Turk

I am posting excerpts from my talk at the "Call to Discernment" conference last weekend since DJP feels a little dry this week.  You can hear the full audio for my talk, or any of the talks, when they all go live.  I'll post the link here.

The comments are closed until Thursday.

It ought to be a pretty scary thing if, when we talk about the Christian faith with reasonably-intelligent people, the words “church” and “christian” are not clear in their meaning. There are a lot of different kinds of christians and churches represented here today, and I know in the circle I’m usually involved in we worry about the definition of words like, “Gospel,” and “Justification,” and “infralapsarian,” and “the aseity of God.” We sort of assume that we all know what we mean when we say words like “church,” or “fellow believer,” or “ministry,” but let me suggest something to you: I think we don’t understand those words very well. I think we often insert our generic interpretation of those words as a short-cut so we can get started on the Christian Life rather than thinking a little harder and discovering that we have made mistakes, and we have misinterpreted what we ought to mean when we set about living as if the Bible is true.

Because that’s actually the point, right? I’m going to assume that we all want to live as if the Bible is true. That is at least part of what we mean when we say we want to be “Ambassadors to the World.” There is ample opportunity to do so every single day. I’ll bet that there’s nobody reading this who thinks that our nation is doing just fine, our churches are just fine, and the state of the Christian faith is just fine. I’ll bet I could let any one of you who is willing come up here and you could, without any prepared notes, fill a whole blog post with concerns and remedies for our families, our local assemblies, and our cities, and states, and nation.

However, before we start open mic night , let me suggest something to you which many people – even those with the best intentions -- do not consider: It’s that inclination which causes us to want to organize ourselves into groups of like-minded Christians who agree with us about the problems and the solutions – but I think we forget that there is a difference between trying to do what’s morally right, and living as if the Bible is true.

Before we start with our diagnoses and treatments of the world and its ills, we need to make sure that our priorities are the ones which Jesus intended, and that our efforts are the ones which Jesus intended, and then that our results are the ones which Jesus intended. Most importantly: we need to make sure that we are clear about what Jesus says regarding these things, and that we are clear when we live them out and tell others about them.

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