How Much Theological Error Is Too Much Error To Be Saved?

I have often pondered the question of how much theological error one can hold and still be a Christian. Salvation cannot be an easy thing (in the sense of believing and living however we want and still be saved) for we are told the way is narrow (Matthew 7:13-14). When asked a question of the particulars of worship Jesus answered the woman at the well that we are to worship God “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23, 24). The conclusion I have come to is that any doctrinal error that perverts the worship of God is salvation-effecting. One must worship God in truth – as he truly is – in order to be saved.

The first essential in worshiping God in truth is worshiping as he is. This plays out in many ways. The worship of God is distorted when you worship an idol instead of the one true God. An idol may take a physical form, for example a statue or picture, or it may take the form of self-worship, or the worship of money or things or any other person other that God.

John 1:1 and 14 says that Jesus Christ is God himself in the flesh. Therefore one must worship God in the person of Jesus Christ. To claim to worship God but deny the deity of Jesus Christ is to deny God. To know Jesus Christ is to know God (John 14:7).

Theologically Christ is referred to as the second Person in the Trinity (God the Father being the first). The third Person is the Holy Spirit. The deity of the Holy Spirit can be illustrated for example in Acts 5:3, 4, where lying to the Holy Spirit is said to be lying to God himself. To know the Holy Spirit is also to know God. To deny any of the persons in the Trinity, the Father, Son or Holy Spirit is to deny part of who God is. In doing this you end up worshiping a God distinct from the God of the Bible, and are thus cannot be worshiping God in truth.

Worshiping God as he is also involves worshiping him as his personality says he is. If your idea of what God is like is distorted – if you think he is a cruel God, or else a complacent God who doesn’t really care what you do, or if you treat him like a genie in a bottle who answers your every wish, or anything of this sort – then your worship of God will not be in truth.

Secondly, one must worship God in truth by understanding the way to be saved. Salvation comes through no one else but Jesus Christ. We are told that the only name under heaven by which we must be saved is the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). The Lord says that he is the truth and that no one comes to God except through him (John 14:6). You are not saved by good works but by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). At the same time, your faith must show itself in the way you live (James 2:14-26), because that is how it is displayed that there has been an actual saving change in your life. Neither can you be saved by following any other religion. There is only one way to the heaven, and it is through Jesus Christ (John 4:12; Acts 4:12).

Thirdly, worshiping God in truth involves receiving salvation God’s way through the method God provided. John 3:3 says that we must be born again. This is a spiritual rebirth that puts to death the sinful nature and makes us new in Christ Jesus. “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our born-again experience is possible only through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ died on the cross to put to death the sinful nature, and he rose again from the grave to claim victory over it. If Christ has stayed dead there would still be no salvation. “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Because Christ is risen from the grave, “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).

Finally, worshiping God in truth cannot be done unless we affirm the infallibility of his Word, the Holy Bible. The Scriptures are God-breathed, completely inspired by God and thus completely trustworthy (1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 4:12). If you do not believe the Bible is the Word of God, you cannot trust anything else you think you know about him. You have then traded God as he has revealed himself through Scripture for a false god of your own making. You have also then traded the message of salvation for your own methods. You can no longer know God or worship him for who he is and what he’s done.

So here we have the essentials of Christian doctrine. Every biblical doctrine is connected with these three things. Without believing these you cannot say you are truly worshiping God or are truly saved:

1. The nature of God – in his personality and attributes and his existence as a Trinity
2. The nature of salvation – that we cannot be saved unless we are born again, having died to the sinful nature and been made alive in Christ; that Christ died to pay the price for our sin because we cannot save ourselves or die to sin under our own power; and that he rose from the dead to conquer the grave
3. The nature of the Bible – that the Bible is the inspired, perfect and complete Word of God; if you don’t believe what the Bible says, you can know nothing of the first two points or anything else connected to them.

The Hound of Heaven

I fled Him down the nights and down the days.
I fled Him down the arches of the years,
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
of my own mind: And in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
Down titanic glooms of chasmed fears
From those strong feet that followed, that followed after
For though I knew His love that followed
Yet I was sore adread
Lest having Him I have naught else beside.
All that I took from thee I did but take
Not for thy harms
But just that thou might’st seek it in my arms.
All which thy child’s mistake fancies are lost
I have stored for thee at home:
“Rise, clasp my hand, and come.”
Halts by me that footfall:
is my gloom after all,
shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly.
Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am he whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, that dravest me.

(Except from The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson, as found in Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias, pg. 19-20)

“A Monk No More”

He thought they were going on a family vacation, and was utterly shocked when his mother informed him that she was leaving him in their ancestral homeland of Cambodia at a Buddhist monastery until he “changed.” It was two years before he returned to the United States. He seemed to have learned some discipline and was almost silent for the first few weeks. Then things went pretty much back to the way they were, minus the drugs and police contact. Gone is the training to “not want stuff” and now he works because he likes to make money. He doesn’t do his chores or keep his room clean. His mother says she is disappointed, but is glad at least he’s not on drugs anymore or in trouble with the law. This is the story that ran in the Yakima Herald Republic’s faith section today (sourced from the Seattle Times). It was titled “A Monk No More.”

So what happened? After the initial shock to his system this young man seemed to have settled into the monastic lifestyle. Why would he turn back to a “normal” American teenager after two years as a monk?

The problem lies in the failure of the Buddhist system to deal with the root of the problem. A disciplined lifestyle will always fall apart if it is done on the person’s own strength. The problem is not that of discipline or self-will, but of sin.

The Bible says that everyone is born into the sinful nature. Everyone may not get into drugs as a teenager, but every does live as a slave to sin apart from Jesus Christ. That’s why no matter how much self-will you may have you constantly find yourself slipping back into old habits until you are changed from the inside out. And the only one capable of changing the sinful nature into a new nature cleansed of sin and alive to righteousness and holiness is Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation; The old has gone, the new has come!”

The problem with the Pharisees of the Bible is they had an outward form of religion but inside they were dead, just like an outwardly painted tomb still holds dead man’s bones (Matthew 23:27). So it is with anyone who has “religion” but has not been cleansed from the sinful nature. Sin will always creep back in without this change.

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:11-14).

False Presuppositions

“False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel” (J. Gresham Machen).

It is very true that false presuppositions of men and women are typically the biggest barriers to their reception of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If you hold the idea that evolution is true it typically follows that you disbelief in the Bible. If you disbelief the Bible, then you typically disbelieve the gospel message as a whole. Or else you disbelieve in God altogether and also conclude the gospel message is null and void.

If you believe that you’re a good person you will typically reject the gospel on the grounds that you aren’t someone in need of salvation; and neither is anyone for that matter because everyone goes to heaven in the end anyways. This also follows from the presupposition that God is a God who would never condemn anyone.

And then there are some who believe that they are such horrible people that there is no such thing as redemption for them, even if salvation does exist.

How you view the world, yourself, other people, and God will color how you will view the gospel message.

The problem with presuppositions is that often they are not founded in truth. As we discussed last week and the week before, evolution does still have a lot of questions to answer. If you have ever lied, cheated, stolen, swore, or done anything else against another human being you are not a good person. If God would never condemn anyone for their sin then he is not a just God. Likewise if there are people who God is unable to save based on their wretchedness, God cannot then be just either. If God is not just then he is not perfect, and an imperfect deity is no God at all.

But if the Bible can be trusted, if man is sinful, but if man can also be redeemed, and if God is just, that changes everything. Suddenly the gospel comes into focus, and salvation is at hand.

Lessons From The Great Divorce – The Rest Who Went Back

In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, it is sad that all but one (in addition to the narrator) would choose to go back to hell even when given the chance to spend eternity in heaven. Each of the characters has their own reasons, stemming from their unresolved sin, for going back:

– For a couple, heaven was simply too overwhelming and brilliant
– One tried to bring a piece of heaven back to hell (but it wouldn’t fit)
– A self-conscious ghost refused to be helped because she didn’t want to be seen through in her shame
– One went back when she was unable to attract any of the heavenly spirits
– Two possessive women (one of her husband, the other of her son) refused to give up possession of their “loved” ones, completely missing what love really is
– One refused to stop acting and pretending (he was an overdramatic tragedian), and refused to embrace the joy of heaven

If you do not know the Lord, what is keeping you back from receiving the salvation being offered you? Are you afraid of the light? Do you enjoy your sin too much? Do you hold onto something or someone possessively, mistaking this for love? Do you harbor bitterness or resentment?

Will you let go of the chain today? Will you let go of that which is holding onto you, and surrender it to God Almighty? Will you allow the Lord to make you new and receive you into his kingdom? Will you let go of your sin, and in turn receive forgiveness, new life and victory over its power? I pray you will. I pray you learn from this story that there is only one way to be saved, and it is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Posts In This Series

A Review
The Intellect
The Arts
The One That Stayed
The Rest Who Went Back

Lessons From The Great Divorce – The One That Stayed

In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, the narrator witnesses an encounter between one of the bright spirits and a ghost with a red lizard on his shoulder. The lizard is whispering things in the ghost’s ear. After yelling at it to be quiet, the ghost turns away from the mountain to which he is journeying, and turns to go back to the bus to hell. The lizard represents everything that keeps us from God. The spirit he is speaking to has burning hands outstretched, ready to kill the lizard as soon as the ghost verbally permits him to do so. The ghost gives a succession of reasons why the spirit shouldn’t kill the lizard:

1. He doesn’t want to bother the spirit with killing it
2. It isn’t presently bothering him because it went to sleep
3. He’ll be able to get it under control himself through gradual process
4. He doesn’t feel well enough to go through with “the operation”
5. He thinks killing the lizard would kill him
6. He’ll go and get his doctor’s opinion (back in hell), and come back later
7. Then he asks why the spirit hasn’t killed the lizard yet

At this point the lizard whispers into his ear that the spirit can indeed kill him, but it would kill the ghost as well. The lizard tells him that it is only natural to have him on his shoulder, and it is not natural to be without. He promises to be good, although he has not been so in the past. The ghost almost believes the lizard, but then finally relents and begs the spirit to kill the lizard. In one swift moment the flaming hands of the spirit kill the lizard and throw it to the ground. After this, something wonderful happens. The ghost is remade into a solid spirit. At the same time, what used to be the lizard becomes a great horse, which the new spirit rides away on.

This is the one ghost in this story out of them all who decides to stay in heaven. This also illustrates what happens to someone who surrenders to the power of God

In the life of the unregenerated human being, sin has complete control. The person may fight with it, but they never win. The sin always regains control. People make all sorts of excuses why their sin is okay, and why it should be alright to keep living in it. “It’s no big deal” … “I’ll take care of it myself” … “I can’t live without it” … “I’m not ready yet” … the excuses keep coming, and on and on the struggle goes. But at any minute, as soon as the words are spoken, as soon as the life is surrendered to God, he can and will set you free from the power of sin over your life. This is the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only can a person be free from sin’s consequence (damnation due to your separation from God apart from Christ), but they can also be free from the very power sin holds over the individual that keeps them living in the habitual pattern of that nature.

As soon as the words are uttered, the sin may then be removed. God will not impose his salvation over our lives before we utter our surrender to it. But at that moment – praise the Lord! – we can be set free. Being set free, we are born again by the Spirit of God into a new and living hope, the hope of salvation and eternal life in the presence of God. In Christ we become masters over that which used to have mastery over us.

Will you, like this once enslaved ghost, chose God’s salvation today? Will you be free from the power of sin? Will you allow him to make you new? Or will you listen to the lies whispered in your ear, that you have everything under control, and turn away once again to the life you’ve always lived?

Posts In This Series

A Review
The Intellect
The Arts
The One That Stayed
The Rest Who Went Back

Lessons From The Great Divorce – The Intellect

In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, the narrator encounters many interesting characters in heaven. These aid Lewis’ point in writing the book – that there is an absolute way to heaven, and it is through the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the characters encountered have different expectations about why they should be accepted into heaven, or why they at least want to visit. Today I want to focus on the Episcopal bishop, referred to as the Fat Ghost in the story. The encounter between him and his Spirit friend is found in Chapter 5 of Lewis’ book.

The Fat Ghost, we discover, is theologically liberal and philosophically relativistic. He thinks that his opinions, if believed honestly and sincerely, should be accepted no matter what. He sees nothing sinful about a wrong opinion, as long as it is sincere. He doesn’t believe in a literal heaven or hell (which is ironic because in the story he has walked in both). He has fallen in with the academic crowd and was swayed by every new idea that fell on his ears (which lead to his becoming a liberal theologian). He also has a hint of existentialism. He doesn’t believe that he was really sent to hell. In the end he chooses to return “home” and not stay in heaven because he is reading a paper to a theological society, (“not of a very high quality, perhaps”), the following week about how Jesus’ teachings would’ve changed had he lived (more liberal theology, completely ignoring who Jesus Christ really is).

The Fat Ghost is the token intellectually and theologically liberal professing Christian. I say professing because he is not really a Christian at all and is instead called an apostate for rejecting all orthodox biblical theology. If he stays in heaven, he expects to test all things with his intellectual faculties, and in turn also wants to be used and appreciated for his intellectual might. He has completely missed the point of faith, and of inquiry. The Spirit says to him:

Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become a child again, even now… You have gone wrong. Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.

I suspect that many people who believe they are saved will be surprised, like this Ghost, to find that they were not. Opinions may be sincere, but may be sincerely wrong. The Bible says we must worship God in Truth (John 4:23). This Ghost, in the end, had no real thirst for the truth, and was not really interested in finding it. In the end he turn away from heaven, and quite contently, to instead entertain his own ideas about how Christianity should be.

Take the warning. Do not be like this man. Do not miss the point of asking questions. We ask questions because we are seeking after the truth. When we find it, we must rejoice in it. Jesus says, “I am the Truth” (John 14:6). Rejoice in Christ and the salvation he gives.

Posts In This Series

A Review
The Intellect
The Arts
The One That Stayed
The Rest Who Went Back

Either-Or or All Around?

In the preface to his The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis wrote the following:

“The attempt [of William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell] is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre; rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’ – or else not. It is still ‘either or.’”

Eternal Security? – Part 8 – Concluding Remarks

I have already stated that we at Acts 20:24 Ministries believe it is possible for a Christian believer to forfeit their salvation. (I encourage you to read this series in its entirety if you haven’t already for a full explanation.) I would like to close our discussion of the doctrine of eternal security with two illustrations.

The first illustration is that of the nature of covenant in the Bible. A covenant is an agreement between two people or bodies. In the Bible we find many examples, such as those with Noah, Abraham and David, where God made a covenant with men. Probably most distinctly is the covenant between the Lord God and the nation of Israel. The covenants always followed a formula: If this, then this. If not this, then this is the consequence.

Covenants were always optional, and always conditional. They were optional because the person always had the choice to enter into the covenant or not. They were conditional in that they had conditions to be followed. If the covenant was kept, then blessing would flow from God. If the covenant was broken, then judgment would fall.

Covenants could be broken, and had dire consequences when they were. Salvation in Jesus Christ works in the same way. We enter into Christ, and receive his blessing as abiders in him (see John 15). However one can chose to break away from the salvation offered, and in that case, judgment and condemnation follows (Hebrews 10:26-31).

Secondly, God uses the picture of marriage to illustration Christ’s relationship with the church. The Lord Jesus says that the only grounds that one has for divorce in a marriage is if the other partner has been unfaithful (Matthew 5:22). Likewise in God’s covenant with the nation of Israel, the covenant was broken when Israel was unfaithful to God and worshiped idols instead. If we are unfaithful to Christ as his bride, he has legal grounds for divorcing us from being a part of his body.

This unfaithfulness in following Christ is what ultimately causes one to forfeit their salvation. It is a conscious act committed by a believer in which, in word or in deed, they turn away from trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. They instead choose to follow the desires of their flesh and live their lives completely for this. When this happens, that person has just severed themself from Christ, and gone back to the way they were before they were saved. The Lord says, “If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and witheres; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned… If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:6, 10).

The assurance of the Christian is found in remaining in Christ. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit…” (John 15:5).

Eternal Security? – Part 7 – An Examination of Scripture, Cont’d

Today, just a couple of brief passage supporting the belief that a Christian may forfeit their salvation (and tomorrow will be the conclusion of this study).

2 Peter 3:17 says, “Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.” Simply put, one may be secure in their salvation, but still fall away. The believer does have security and assurance as long as they remain in Christ. This is our secure position. However here we also see that if carried away by error, you may fall from this position.

2 Peter 2:20 gives a stark warning: “If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.” Here first we see that the one being spoken of here knows the Lord, and because of this has escaped the world’s corruption (this is what it is to be born again). Then that person has been entangled again in the former way of life in that corruption, and has been overcome by it. The warning to this person is that they are worse off than before. If before they were sinners condemned due to their sinful nature (John 3:18), were born again, and are now worse than before, how terrible is that condemnation. This warning goes on to say, “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: ‘A dog returns to its vomit,’ and ‘A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud’ (v. 21-22).