On the weakness of our Bible-believing churches
"They shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy." Revelation 3:4
For the last few weeks I have had a holiday from writing regular Substack articles. It was enjoyable, but I have found, upon reflection, that it is good for me to share some thoughts on various occasions with those who might be interested. Hopefully it will be good for some few others as well, God willing.
In this period I have studied a couple of different Substack sites by Christian authors who have been successful in acquiring a large number of subscribers. I am glad for anything that advances the name of Christ, but find that what they write is not something I want to try and imitate.
I want to explore more closely the applications of biblical Christianity to the various aspects of modernity and postmodernity that are now afflicting modern civilization, and having such a destructive effect on the spiritual lives of multitudes.
To put it another way, I believe that biblical Christianity is the answer - but what is the question?
Some secularist joked, that a theologian is someone who has answers to questions that no one is asking.
That was years ago, maybe back in the 90s, I don’t remember exactly. It may be that there is less joking along those lines these days. People are finding out more and more that we do need laws and standards that are rooted in something deeper than the shifting winds, or maybe I should say the quicksand, of modern rationalist secularism, scientism, humanism, atheism, reductionist materialism, whatever.
Confronting the Goliath of modern secularism is a huge task, and it requires something more than just reaffirming the basic truths of Christianity over and over again. Not that I am against affirmations of biblical truth, of course, but how are those truths applied?
When Christ spoke with the woman at the well, he did not just give her some bible verses - he assessed her need and spoke directly to that need.
Similarly with the rich young ruler. Christ did not say to him, “If you believe in me God will forgive your sins and you can go to heaven.” Again, he directed his attention to the young man’s deepest hidden flaw.
Of course Christ, being God, could with his omniscience see to the very bottom of people’s souls in a way that we cannot. On the other hand, if we have some awareness of the world around us, and some inkling of the Spirit and the mind of Christ, we can discern what some of the dominant spiritual issues of the day are.
Thus, we can speak to people’s needs, instead of just beating the air (as Paul says somewhere).
God’s truth, in its ultimate revelation to us in the teachings and person of Christ, does not change - but human situations do change. That is why a powerful sermon of the 17th century would not go over well today. We are facing new challenges, and new issues, to which the abiding and eternal truth of Jesus Christ is more than adequate, assuming it is properly applied.
The problem today is not the polytheism of ancient Greece and Rome, or the stifling of biblical truth by excessive devotion to the scholastic theology of the Middle Ages. Neither is it the international domination of the papacy, or the pseudo-philosophy of 18th-century deism.
There are many problems facing the Bible believing churches of the United States of America today that require more careful examination in the light of reason guided by biblical truth (and true reason is not diametrically opposed to faith).
In our day, words like “sin,” “repentance” and “faith” are being redefined, so that while there is an outward appearance of religiosity the power is gone, the truth and the authenticity are gone, and what should be revolutionary truths are reduced to boring and impotent verbiage.
There is a lack of holiness, of gravity, of depth, of seriousness and of power.
There is deep conformity to the world in many areas, a friendship with the world that is enmity with God (as we read in the book of James).
In I Corinthians we read not only many beautiful presentations of biblical truth of great spiritual depth. We also read serious indictments of abuses within the church - and it was an authentic, Bible-believing New Testament church. This is made clear in a number of verses in chapter 1. Yet, though the church at Corinth was a true church, it had major flaws.
Serious immorality was tolerated, while at the same time the church members were puffed up and proud of their spirituality. Believers were dealing dishonestly with each other and taking each other to court; they were separated into divisive factions, each claiming to be more authentic than the other; communion suppers were being inappropriately celebrated.
We read in Galatians that the church there was being led astray into another gospel, a new and different version of the basic message of God manifest in Christ: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel” (1:6). This problem was due to “false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage” (2:4).
I believe this was the fault that Peter fell into, which Paul discusses in this chapter, when he (Peter) felt that the Jewish law obligated him to refrain from eating with Gentiles. He and others were trying to resurrect the law of Moses, which is why Paul feels obligated to stress the following (still in Galatians 2):
. . . man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
I see this appearing on Substack. There are those who want to bring us back under the law of Moses - but this is by no means the only problem facing the church today. There are many others.
We read of other problems in Bible-believing, New Testament churches. Thus, there is a warning to the church at Ephesus:
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee [you], because thou hast [you have] left thy [your] first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art [you are] fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee [you] quickly, and will remove thy [your] candlestick out of his place, except thou [you] repent.
There are warnings in the book of Revelation to the church at Pergamos, and at Thyatira, at Sardis, and Laodicea.
And we, the Christians in the US of A today - do we believe our churches are so strong and so deeply rooted in Christ, that we have no need for concern?
How many churches in America today are like the church of Laodicea - wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked, and they don’t even know it?
How many are like the church in Sardis, that have only a few in them who have not defiled their garments? Who have a name that they live, but are dead? Who are not yet dead, but are ready to die, and whose works are not perfect before God? Who need to repent, and if they do not repent, God will come upon them when they are not expecting it?
These things are not just Bible verses. They apply to too many of us today. Also, I am concerned about these things because of my own many failings. These have taught me, by experience, over the years, how much inner sin and faithlessness can lie deeply concealed behind an intellectual adherence to doctrines.
One problem is the truncation of the gospel, to include only the bare minimum necessary for salvation, while downplaying or undermining the Christian life that is supposed to come out of a genuine personal revelation of and commitment to Christ.
It seems that for many, there is only salvation, and then going to heaven, with a great empty space in between. But after coming to terms with Christ by faith, there is a life to be lived, a cross to be taken up, a race to be run, a fight to be fought, a battle to be won, a dying to self that is to be struggled after.
There is to be growth in holiness, in sanctification, a greater conformity to the image of Christ - not this new version of modern American evangelicalism that presents a sort of instant Christianity. “Just add a few doctrines, and stir.”
Yield assent to some doctrines, make Christ the Lord of your life, and presto, you receive your get out of jail free card. No dying to self; no struggles with indwelling sin; no taking up the cross of Christ; inadequate separation from the world; and theoretical Bible verses which do not touch people’s deepest needs.
We are witnessing the establishment of a new gospel, which is in direct violation of Christ’s commandment in the Great Commission at the very end of Matthew:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
This is reaffirmed in Acts 5:20, where the angel says to the apostles
Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.
“All things whatsoever I have commanded you” . . . “All the words of this life.”
All the words of this life. That means, after the good news, the gospel, of forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Christ, there is more. There is also the good news of the consolations of Christ in this life; the good news of serving Christ, and being more closely conformed to his image; in being transformed by the renewing of our minds, in becoming new creatures, in victory over sin, in joy unspeakable and full of glory, in suffering for Christ, in knowing him and the power of his resurrection.
Why does Paul say in Philippians chapter 3 that he has suffered the loss of all things, that he may win Christ?
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Why does Paul say “If by any means I may attain”? Why did he strive diligently to make his calling and election sure? Why did he mortify the flesh and deny himself? Why did he strive and suffer and seek and pray and mourn?”
Shouldn’t he have said, “I have made Christ the Lord of my life, and am guaranteed of a place in heaven no matter what I do, so I have no need to grow in grace. I have no need to fast, study to show myself approved, to pray, to give, to preach”?
But that is not the life of Christ in the soul. The Bible teaches, “The just shall live by faith,” not “The just shall stumble through life in a haze of ignorance, complacency, sin and pride.”
Why does Peter say in his second letter that, along with our faith, we need to have virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity?
Is that because he did not understand salvation by faith? Or does that mean we have redefined faith, to mean something other than what the Bible describes?
And Peter also stresses that “if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And does that mean if these things are not in us, then we will be barren and unfruitful? “Every tree that bringeth [brings] not forth good fruit is hewn [cut] down, and cast into the fire.”
Peter also says “he that lacketh [lacks] these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Many people lack these things and are blind, even while they speak of “grace,” “salvation” and “faith.”
I speak of these things from personal experience. How much of my Christian life has been characterized by failure, defeat, inability to lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily besets me? For how long have I failed to take these things seriously, unaware of the sins and faults that can lie beneath even sincere professions of orthodoxy?
It is for this reason that God chastens us - if we are his children.
Would that we could always learn directly from the Word and the Spirit without having to be cast down and afflicted by the world and by our own failings. What if we were so teachable, that we could always learn without chastisement, as we sometimes do?
Truly, if God did not begin and continue the work, we could none of us be saved.
The apostles did not only preach the gospel. They also preached against oppositions to the gospel. Thus we read of Paul in Acts 19 that “this Paul hath [has] persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands.”
This is why when the people of Lystra thought that Barnabas and Paul were gods, and wanted to sacrifice to them, Paul said to them “ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein.”
Thus, preaching the gospel includes preaching against worldly vanities that are obstacles to the reception of the message of Christ - and in our day we do not have vanities of polytheism, vanities of Jupiter and Hermes and animal sacrifices and reading omens. Oh no - we have much more modern and sophisticated vanities now.
Today, thanks to the wisdom of human reason separated from God, we have vanities of Darwinism; vanities of Marxism; follies of Freudianism; delusions of atheism; corrupt hallucinations of gender fluidity, of unisex, and of role reversal. We have mirages of entertainment, and swamps of vice and depravity, ideologies and isms, all of which stand in opposition to Christ.
Hopefully in the next few weeks I can look at some of the issues confronting the church today - not in the hope of reforming society, but in the hope of shining even a small portion of the light of Christ into the darkness and the ignorance of modern secularism.
For the next three or four weeks I would like to discuss, in this order:
The failure of secularism and the collapse of Germany into the barbarism of National Socialism (with possible implications for our own unfortunate and unhappy country)
There has never been a better time to be a woman? The lies of the world exposed, and the corrosive effect of atheism on public morality revealed, with biblical truth as the sole effective antidote to gender confusion.
Four challenges of being a man in the modern (or postmodern age): the spiritual challenge, the intellectual challenge, the social challenge, and the physical challenge.
Hopefully I can do this on a weekly basis. If not, at least on a bi-weekly basis.
After that, who knows? Maybe something more overtly evangelical, such as “Joy unspeakable and full of glory? What’s that?” or “Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/dfinster/p/what-jesus-said?r=4bo2uv&utm_medium=ios
You had me with ‘Bible believing churches’ then lost me with ‘because Jesus is God’
Serious disconnect there man, the Bible is adamant that Jesus is totally not God.
Oh we can quote lots of verses that are based on conjecture, speculation and simple misreading, but with all those usual ‘proof-texts’ we get unresolved contradiction with everything Jesus said.
it’s like tradition and dogma has blanked the mind so that Christians don’t care what Jesus said.