When it comes to Biblical theological understandings, perhaps the greatest rivals (and the most contentious) are team Calvin vs team Armenian.
I honestly don't know a whole lot about either doctrine, but for as long these teachings have been around (as set out specifically by John Calvin or Jacobus Arminius), the believers of these two views have been in conflict.
I personally don't have any solid stance on either side. I believe a little Calvinism and a little from Arminianism, so I guess you could call me a "Cal-minian".
This could be a really long post if I were to get into this more, but as I've stated, I really don't know great details of either and I personally am not so interested in getting into the debate between the two sides.
I do know that there are concerns of either idea being extended too far, such as hyper-Calvinism, and Arminianism leading into Palagiamism, many times though these are simply misrepresentations made by the critics of either side. They can however lead into false teaching just like many ideas can.
I just want to encourage those on either side that if you both believe that Jesus Christ is the sole Saviour of mankind by grace alone through repentance and faith alone than you should be able to call each other brother. We should also be able to talk to each other about these differences and do so in peace without arguing. We can disagree without being disagreeable.
Let us exemplify our unity in Christ, not by having to believe exactly the same thing about being a Christian, but rather by the shed blood of Jesus Christ all of our sins are forgiven and we are brought into a common grace.
Showing posts with label Non-essentials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Non-essentials. Show all posts
Jan 2, 2010
Non- essential Christian Doctrines pt1
This morning I put up a post about how Christians should be united in the truth, and should stop bickering and shunning those who do not believe in some of the minor doctrines they believe in.
I also said that I do believe that some minor doctrines, if taken to far can lead into major consequences, sometimes eternal consequences. I want to try and explain this a little further.
I want to start with a doctrine that I believe is a very great truth that I do wish all Christians believed, but one that I am well aware of the grave consequences that can come of it. That is of a believers eternal security, or commonly known as "once saved, always saved".
I believe that once God saves an individual that person is born again as a new creature in Christ and is sealed for all eternity, never to lose their salvation.
A common misunderstanding is that this then gives the Christian freedom to sin as they please because it doesn't matter, they can't lose their salvation right? Wrong!! Unfortunately, some people think this way. This usually happens because they have not been told or do not hold high esteem for God's command for repentance.
God commands us to repent, and if an individual is truly grieved at how sinful they are from within their heart, not just about the mistakes they've made or consequences of such, then God will give them a new heart with new attitudes and desires for righteousness, and they will sin less but they won't be sinless.
If someone continues in sin then as John says, "If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth" (1Jn 1:6). And I say that person was never saved in the first place. Paul says it well in Romans 6;
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
<--------------------------------\/--------------------------------->
One more doctrine that I will touch on for now is that of being able to lose ones salvation.
This teaching I believe has at least two consequencial implications. One being that I believe it puts a great burden upon those who believe that they can lose their salvation.
If you believe this, then the Christian will spend so much of their time worrying that anything that they do wrong may have caused them to fall from God's graces. Face it, while we are here in these mortal bodies we will sin until the day we die and you will probably live in guilt and worry most of that time.
Another great concern is that these people become very legalistic and can get to the point where they believe that you must never sin again or you are not saved. John responds to this thinkning in 1 John 1:8 and 10 "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"..."If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."
Something I would say to that also is, that there is and never was or will be anything that we can do to earn our salvation, therefore there is nothing that we can do to keep our salvation either. Our salvation has been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we are now seen as righteous before God because of Jesus' life not our own.
I believe the writer to the Hebrews addresses this as well in Hebrews 6:4-6;
"For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt".
I think what he's saying is that if you thought you were saved and then lost it, then that's it, because you'd essentially have to crucify Jesus again to regain your salvation, and I don't think that is going to happen.
As I'm sure you noticed in the title that this is only part 1 for this topic and there will obviously be other posts for this in the future. For now, ponder these things and remember to always cross check everything I say with the Scriptures for they alone are the sole authority.
I also said that I do believe that some minor doctrines, if taken to far can lead into major consequences, sometimes eternal consequences. I want to try and explain this a little further.
I want to start with a doctrine that I believe is a very great truth that I do wish all Christians believed, but one that I am well aware of the grave consequences that can come of it. That is of a believers eternal security, or commonly known as "once saved, always saved".
I believe that once God saves an individual that person is born again as a new creature in Christ and is sealed for all eternity, never to lose their salvation.
A common misunderstanding is that this then gives the Christian freedom to sin as they please because it doesn't matter, they can't lose their salvation right? Wrong!! Unfortunately, some people think this way. This usually happens because they have not been told or do not hold high esteem for God's command for repentance.
God commands us to repent, and if an individual is truly grieved at how sinful they are from within their heart, not just about the mistakes they've made or consequences of such, then God will give them a new heart with new attitudes and desires for righteousness, and they will sin less but they won't be sinless.
If someone continues in sin then as John says, "If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth" (1Jn 1:6). And I say that person was never saved in the first place. Paul says it well in Romans 6;
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 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. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Butthanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Another concern for those who do not believe they can lose their salvation is that I believe although they strive for holiness, they may become a little indifferent to minor sins. That is why I pray for God's heart concerning all sin, and that God would continuously reveal my sin to me and that it may grieve my heart.<--------------------------------\/--------------------------------->
One more doctrine that I will touch on for now is that of being able to lose ones salvation.
This teaching I believe has at least two consequencial implications. One being that I believe it puts a great burden upon those who believe that they can lose their salvation.
If you believe this, then the Christian will spend so much of their time worrying that anything that they do wrong may have caused them to fall from God's graces. Face it, while we are here in these mortal bodies we will sin until the day we die and you will probably live in guilt and worry most of that time.
Another great concern is that these people become very legalistic and can get to the point where they believe that you must never sin again or you are not saved. John responds to this thinkning in 1 John 1:8 and 10 "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"..."If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."
Something I would say to that also is, that there is and never was or will be anything that we can do to earn our salvation, therefore there is nothing that we can do to keep our salvation either. Our salvation has been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we are now seen as righteous before God because of Jesus' life not our own.
I believe the writer to the Hebrews addresses this as well in Hebrews 6:4-6;
"For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt".
I think what he's saying is that if you thought you were saved and then lost it, then that's it, because you'd essentially have to crucify Jesus again to regain your salvation, and I don't think that is going to happen.
As I'm sure you noticed in the title that this is only part 1 for this topic and there will obviously be other posts for this in the future. For now, ponder these things and remember to always cross check everything I say with the Scriptures for they alone are the sole authority.
Dec 13, 2009
Theistic Evolution
Theistic Evolution is the idea that tries to counter atheistic evolution with the notion that yes evolution is true but there is a God and He used evolution to create the world.
So where does theistic evolution stand when it comes to Scriptures?
Well theistic evolution (TE) would read the scriptures as such; "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"... and then they would take whatever theory that the most recent science textbook has come up with and replace the words of the God that they say they worship with the words that they really trust in. Everything written in the Bible after Genesis 1:1 is a moral fairy tale according to the teaching of TE.
When it comes to the authority of Scripture, TE would side with the world. Instead of a great miraculous show of such awesome divine power some 6000 years ago as the Bible says, TE believes that God started the world however many billions of years ago (which is nothing more than a uneducated guess which changes as much as I change my socks) and then used evolution to advance the beginnings of His creation into the pinnacle of evolution - man. TE advocates that during this process God comes along and guides the process with injections of DNA (the embarrassment of evolution, as well as the fossil record, all the rest of modern scientific knowledge) because how else will one animal turn into another when it does not have then DNA to do so.
Right now I'm not going to argue this from a scientific point of view (I will have many posts for that later on. If you want some great scientific resources for that right now check out www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org) but I am going to challenge this from a theological side.
The biggest theological road block that TE is faced with is if they can't trust the first 11 chapters of the Bible to be true then how can anyone trust the rest of it? Every Old Testament author talked of the creation account as true as did Jesus and the Apostles.
Besides that little chestnut, I want to bring up another point which isn't talked about enough. If God used evolution, than how could we ever call God a kind and loving God? Think about it, if God used evolution as His process for creating man, than when the Bible says that man is the one responsible for introducing death, disease and suffering to creation when he chose to disobey God and thereby bringing upon all of creation a curse of death, well that's wrong. That's because God would be the one who is responsible for death, disease and suffering because that is the process of evolution.
According to evolutionary science, evolution is advanced by the survival of the fittest, and the survival of the fittest advances by means of the disease, suffering and death of the weaker species. Evolution needs these horrific factors in order for it to work. As far as evolution is concerned, these are helpful, beneficial, good things.
I don't think that those who are so quick and ready to compromise the Scriptures have really thought this through.
If TE is true, than God and God alone is the creator and sustainer of all the disease, suffering and death we see in the world today. He has to be, it can't be denied. Therefore anyone who holds this view can say that such circumstances are bad and are not the will of God, because these situations are directly from God for the purpose of His plan of evolution.
The Bible however, says that disease, suffering, and death entered this world as the direct result of Adam's disobedience to God and subsequently thereafter because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 5:12 - "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned"...
Romans 5:14-19 - "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.
For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
So we see that as the Scriptures say, man is the author of sin, the consequence of which is a cursed creation. All of which is sovereignly ordained, allowed and even controlled by the all-powerful, all-knowing God. Yes God is in control even of such evil, and thanks be to God for that, because could you imagine how things would be if He wasn't in control?
So if the TE is going to be consistent in their denial of the truth of Scripture, the next time someone asks them why would God allow such tragedies and why is there such a thing as all this evil in the world, they have to say that it is from God. In this case all of this is really not contrary to God's nature.
Be not troubled though, for the Bible is true, and God is loving and kind, and He has overcome the world. And God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Romans 5:8-10
Go now, and be Like a Thessalonian.
So where does theistic evolution stand when it comes to Scriptures?
Well theistic evolution (TE) would read the scriptures as such; "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"... and then they would take whatever theory that the most recent science textbook has come up with and replace the words of the God that they say they worship with the words that they really trust in. Everything written in the Bible after Genesis 1:1 is a moral fairy tale according to the teaching of TE.
When it comes to the authority of Scripture, TE would side with the world. Instead of a great miraculous show of such awesome divine power some 6000 years ago as the Bible says, TE believes that God started the world however many billions of years ago (which is nothing more than a uneducated guess which changes as much as I change my socks) and then used evolution to advance the beginnings of His creation into the pinnacle of evolution - man. TE advocates that during this process God comes along and guides the process with injections of DNA (the embarrassment of evolution, as well as the fossil record, all the rest of modern scientific knowledge) because how else will one animal turn into another when it does not have then DNA to do so.
Right now I'm not going to argue this from a scientific point of view (I will have many posts for that later on. If you want some great scientific resources for that right now check out www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org) but I am going to challenge this from a theological side.
The biggest theological road block that TE is faced with is if they can't trust the first 11 chapters of the Bible to be true then how can anyone trust the rest of it? Every Old Testament author talked of the creation account as true as did Jesus and the Apostles.
Besides that little chestnut, I want to bring up another point which isn't talked about enough. If God used evolution, than how could we ever call God a kind and loving God? Think about it, if God used evolution as His process for creating man, than when the Bible says that man is the one responsible for introducing death, disease and suffering to creation when he chose to disobey God and thereby bringing upon all of creation a curse of death, well that's wrong. That's because God would be the one who is responsible for death, disease and suffering because that is the process of evolution.
According to evolutionary science, evolution is advanced by the survival of the fittest, and the survival of the fittest advances by means of the disease, suffering and death of the weaker species. Evolution needs these horrific factors in order for it to work. As far as evolution is concerned, these are helpful, beneficial, good things.
I don't think that those who are so quick and ready to compromise the Scriptures have really thought this through.
If TE is true, than God and God alone is the creator and sustainer of all the disease, suffering and death we see in the world today. He has to be, it can't be denied. Therefore anyone who holds this view can say that such circumstances are bad and are not the will of God, because these situations are directly from God for the purpose of His plan of evolution.
The Bible however, says that disease, suffering, and death entered this world as the direct result of Adam's disobedience to God and subsequently thereafter because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 5:12 - "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned"...
Romans 5:14-19 - "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.
For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
So we see that as the Scriptures say, man is the author of sin, the consequence of which is a cursed creation. All of which is sovereignly ordained, allowed and even controlled by the all-powerful, all-knowing God. Yes God is in control even of such evil, and thanks be to God for that, because could you imagine how things would be if He wasn't in control?
So if the TE is going to be consistent in their denial of the truth of Scripture, the next time someone asks them why would God allow such tragedies and why is there such a thing as all this evil in the world, they have to say that it is from God. In this case all of this is really not contrary to God's nature.
Be not troubled though, for the Bible is true, and God is loving and kind, and He has overcome the world. And God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Romans 5:8-10
Go now, and be Like a Thessalonian.
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