Spiritual Warfare: Satan's Schemes #7 (Bad Theology)
Happy New Year, Everyone! Here's the next post in my Spiritual Warfare series. I plan on eventually finishing it, but my posts will be fewer and farther between in the new year. I'd like to take some time off to focus more on reading than writing.
Satanic Deception: Bad Theology
In the previous post in this series, we looked at how we could fall victim to Satan's half-truths. And in this post, I want to look specifically - and briefly - at the idea of bad theology.
Through Satan's influence, Adam and Eve began to view God and themselves incorrectly, which led to them acting wrongly and sinfully, and then spreading error to their children.
And he tries to do the same with us. And so if we don't have a correct, biblical view of God and His Word (by spending regular time with God in His Word), we could be easily led astray, creating our own ideas of what God says and what He's like and what He wants from us. And then we'll make decisions according to own ideas instead of what the Bible says, creating consequences God never wanted for us. And then we'll pass our wrong ideas onto the next generation, corrupting their views and lives too, leading to consequences God never wanted for them. And the beat goes on.
[But before you get too worried, remember that we're all on a journey of learning and growing in truth and wisdom. We all have things we'll get right and things we'll get wrong, things we're unsure of and will change our minds on. That's okay. We don't need to get everything right or figure everything out. Spiritual growth is a journey, not a destination. So it's okay to say "I don't know" or "I was wrong." Just keep being teachable and reading the Word and praying for wisdom, and let the Holy Spirit lead you into truth and wisdom and spiritual maturity over time.
John 16:13: "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth."
2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 2:15: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth."
Just "do your best" to know and live God's Word, and trust that His grace will cover the rest.]
Here are some examples of what I consider incorrect theology (but you might disagree), views that deny or twist God's Word in some way and lead to error in thought and in practice. (I'm going to offend a lot of people here, but that's okay. Sometimes, we need to be offended because it's how we learn and grow. And I won't expound much on these points here but will provide links to other posts that explain my views more.):
"Satan and demons aren't really real or active anymore. There is no boogey-man out to get you."
Satan's best defense is to get you to think he's not real. Then he can do his work in the dark, behind the scenes, and you'll never know it or even think to resist/fight him. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
(See "In 'Honor' or Halloween: My Story of Demonic Harassment")
"There is no hell."
What better way to trick people into hell than to convince them it doesn't exist! But “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ ... Then they will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41,46)
(See "Hell is a real place" and "Some Current Heretical Teachings")
"Yoga is okay. It's just about health and exercise."
Is mimicking the worship of Hindu gods okay? Do you think God thinks it's okay, especially when He commands the Old Testament Israelites to completely separate themselves from the idolatrous practices around them, even to the point of burning the items used in idol worship?
Deut. 7:5-6: “This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God...”
Ex. 20:3-5: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol… You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…”
And do you think demons care if you're doing it "just for health reasons"? Do you think they play fair or care about your motives? (Do you understand how the spirit world functions and that what we do can affect the access demons have to us and the power we have to resist them or not? See "Spiritual Warfare Sermons by Tony Evans")
1 Cor. 10:21-22: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons? Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy?...”
(See "Is Yoga Ok for Christians? (Here's a hint: It's not!)")
"The unborn are disposable blobs of tissue, not humans, so it's okay to abort them."
I don't have a post to link this to, but I'll just say that if you think that unborn babies aren't human, that they're disposable based on whether or not they conveniently fit into the mother's life and plans, then I suggest asking God what He thinks of your opinion. (As an unwed, pregnant teen fresh out of an orphanage, my mom thought about aborting me. I'm glad she didn't. And I bet my husband and our four sons, if our sons knew, would be glad too.)
Psalm 139:13-14: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made...”
Look up verses about this and pray regularly every day for at least a week asking God to search your heart, to reveal to you why you believe what you do, to correct you if you're wrong, and to help you see His Truth. And listen for His answer. (And if you feel some resistance right now to even the idea of praying this, of asking God if you're wrong, then that tells you something very significant about your heart and your attitude toward God and His truth... and you should figure out what it is.)
"The Bible doesn't say anything against homosexuality."
Have you read the Bible!?! I mean really read it, with a willingness to understand what it really says? (See "How Christians are led into accepting homosexuality")
"Truth is relative. You make up your own truth."
Well, then, it wouldn't be called truth, would it? It would be opinion. But truth is truth, regardless of our opinions, of what we think or feel or wish. We can't decide what's true, all we can decide is if we will accept it or reject it.
John 17:17: "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth."
John 14:6: “Jesus answered, ‘I am...the truth..."
John 1:17: "... grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
John 8:31-32: "... Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'"
Psalm 145:18: "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth."
Eph. 1:13: "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."
"Jesus was just a good teacher. He didn't really rise from the dead. The Bible was just written by men. Christianity is just based on feelings, not evidence."
If the question "Who is Jesus, and does it really matter what I believe about Him?" could mean the difference between heaven and hell for you, isn't it worth taking the time to figure out your answer to it? (See "Support for Jesus and the Bible")
Read Josh McDowell's books More Than a Carpenter and Answers to Tough Questions skeptics ask about the Christian faith and Evidence that Demands a Verdict ... and Lee Strobel's books The Case for Christ and Case for Faith. (And there's also the Case for Christ movie and the Case for Christ documentary which shares a lot from his book.)
Both of these very intelligent, highly-educated men (one a former pre-law student and the other an investigative journalist) started out on a mission to investigate and disprove the resurrection... but both ended up believing in it and surrendering their lives to Christ instead.
Christianity actually has a lot of evidence (historical, archeological, scientific, rational, etc.) to back it up, if you have the eyes to see it, the mind to believe it, and the will to accept it.
"All roads lead to heaven. We all worship the same God. It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere."
All faiths can be wrong, but they can't all be right, not when they all have different ideas of God, eternity, Jesus, salvation, etc. If you have different maps of different places with different directions to different destinations written by different people, would or could they all essentially be the same?
Besides, most deeply religious people who are serious about their faith - regardless of which religion they are - would not say all faiths are the same. It seems to me that those who say all faiths are the same are usually those who are wishy-washy or uneducated about it, those who don't want to make a decision but who want to feel okay about not making a decision, or those who want to be able to pick and choose from a buffet of religious ideas to suit their fancy.
But even Jesus Himself doesn't allow for the idea of "all roads to lead to heaven." He's pretty clear that there are only two options: His way and everyone else's. And we have to choose.
John 14:6: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
Out of enormous love for us, Jesus sacrificed His life to pay the penalty for sin that we deserved so that He could offer us eternal life, and anyone who accepts Him as Lord and Savior gets that eternal life.
But there are many people who want the benefits of the "Savior" part without having to submit to the "Lord" part. They reject Jesus as Lord but still try to get the eternal life by deciding that any god is good enough. They put other gods on Jesus's level and give them the honor and credit He alone deserves even though He alone is the one who died to save us... and they think that's good enough.
But the Bible makes it clear that Jesus is the only way to heaven and that we have to choose between accepting Him as Lord and Savior or rejecting Him.
John 3:16-18: “For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already ...”
In the end, we'll get what we chose: life with Jesus or life without Jesus. Eternally. Take this decision seriously. Give it the thought it deserves - because even not making a decision for Jesus is essentially making a decision against Him.
Matthew 12:30: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."
(See "An Overview of World Religions")
"All good people go to heaven."
What is 'good'? Who sets the standard? Who judges what kind of "good" counts? How much good is 'good enough'? How much good does it take to outweigh something bad? What if we're good most of our lives but do something really bad at the end? What if we're really bad most of our lives but turn around at the end in remorse and try to make up for it by being good? (Do you want to be the one to weigh everyone's deeds and motives to decide their eternity?) Could we end up being turned away at the pearly gates with "Well, you got almost enough good points to get in, just a couple more and you would've made it, sorry"?
Can you think of a bigger cosmic joke than a vague "good enough" scale, keeping us always working, always running, always worried if we've been "good enough" to get into heaven and if it's the kind of "good" God accepts (whatever our version of God is at the moment)?
Isn't the free, simple, gracious offer of "believe in Jesus to be saved" so much better and more secure? Isn't it more comforting to know that Jesus did the work of getting us into heaven instead of us trying to work our way, that He paid the price with His blood instead of demanding that we pay with ours?
The thing is, the Bible doesn't allow for "all good people go to heaven" because there is no "good enough" to get us into a heaven. Heaven is a perfect place, and so "good enough" won't cut it. Only perfect will do.
But we can never be perfect because "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Sin separates us from God. And we'll stay separated from Him (eternal separation is hell) unless we can bridge the gap between us and Him. But as fallen, imperfect creatures, we can't do that on our own. That's the bad news.
But the good news is this: Jesus did it for us. Out of love for us, because He doesn't want to be separated from us, He died to pay for our sins, to clean our slate, to declare us righteous so that we could draw near to our perfect God and get into His perfect heaven. And He offers salvation to anyone who is willing to humbly accept it, to anyone who knows they are sinners who need Him because they can't save themselves.
"the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all men ..." (1 Timothy 2:3-6)
"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace." (Ephesians 1:7)
And yet, sadly, many of us would rather reject His gracious gift, the sure thing, and settle for a "good enough" scale instead, struggling to earn our way to heaven, essentially saying "Hey Jesus, we didn't need You to die for us. What a waste! We can earn heaven for ourselves with good works. We don't need You."
But...
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
(See "Starting your own relationship with Jesus (And why we need Him!)")
"True believers can lose their salvation."
I can understand being confused about this because it's a tough one and because we can seem to find support in the Bible for both losing salvation and not losing salvation. And so this is a hill I won't die on. And I won't fight or debate other Christians on it. I'd just gently encourage us all to keep being teachable about it, keep reading the Word, and keep asking God to grow us in knowledge of His Truth over time. (And even then, we still might not solve it in a way that completely satisfies us. But maybe that's the way God wanted it, I don't know.)
But for me, I've gone over this one again and again for years, and I still keep coming back to "true Spirit-filled believers can't lose their salvation."
But I think the key here is "Spirit-filled believers," not just anyone who calls themselves a believer. I believe people can trick themselves into thinking they accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior when they really didn't. Maybe they know the right things, say the right words, behave the right way, and hang out with the right crowd, but there's no heart change or commitment. It's like they accept Him in their heads for a time, but not in their hearts for life. But as time goes on, they "lose" their faith. But it's not that they "lost" it; it's that they never really had it to begin with.
"They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth." (1 John 2:19-20)
In these verses, John is contrasting true believers who have the Spirit with those who only thought they were true believers. If we are truly a believer with the Holy Spirit in us, we will remain in Him. But if we do not remain in Him, it shows we were never a true believer, that we never had the Holy Spirit.
And although we can trick ourselves into thinking we're saved, we can't trick God. And so He doesn't give the Spirit to just anyone who says they believe. But if He knows that someone has truly put their faith in Jesus, He seals them with the Holy Spirit, makes them born again, and saves them. And once they are sealed by the Spirit and saved, they cannot lose the Spirit or their salvation, even if they backslide or drift or fall into serious sin.
Now, of course, even those who are true believers could, on occasion, lose heart and lose their good feelings about God and faith and themselves. They could backslide terribly, walk away from God, and think they lost their salvation, maybe even for a long time (usually in response to hardship or doubts or tragedies or sin). But if they are true believers, then the Spirit in them will continue to work on their hearts to convict them and draw them back to a proper relationship with the Lord.
So some who "lost the faith" never really had it. And some who think they "lost the faith" didn't really lose it at all, even if they feel like it for a time.
But while backslidden true believers cannot lose salvation, they can lose eternal blessings and rewards, damage their close fellowship with God, and create bad consequences that wouldn't have happened if they'd been walking closely with the Lord. They can "quench" the Spirit, but not lose Him. They can have all their works burned up at the judgment, but still get into heaven by the skin of their teeth.
I looked at other verses to support my view in this post (and I'll write another one soon, removing the Calvinism stuff), but I'd like to look briefly at these few right now:
1. 1 Cor. 15:2: "By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain."
Some Christians think this verse means that we have to work to hold on to our belief in Jesus or we'll lose our salvation. But it doesn't mean that. If you read the chapter, you'll see that it's not about maintaining your eternal salvation, but it's about believers trusting that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Paul is saying that if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead (as some were saying) then we have no foundation for our faith, no hope of eternal life. Our faith in Him is meaningless if there is no resurrection of the dead because that would mean Jesus didn't rise from death and that He won't raise us from death either.
"But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Cor. 15:12-14)
But because Jesus really did rise from the dead, we can trust His promise to resurrect us to eternal life too.
Read the chapter a few times and you'll see what I mean.
2. Hebrews 6:4-6: "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance ..."
People who believe we can lose salvation point to this verse, saying that it means that those who were true believers can permanently lose their salvation if they fall away.
Some Christians who believe we can't lose salvation reply that it's just a hypothetical situation, that it can't really happen but it's just daydreaming about if it did happen. Kinda like if I said "People who could fly by flapping their arms would cause plane accidents." I'm not saying it can or will happen. It's just hypothetical, speculating about what would happen if people could fly by flapping their arms.
And while I'm okay with this interpretation, I think there's an even better one:
I think this passage (read Hebrews 6:1-12) is saying that when people know the truth - when they know in their heads all the basics of what the Bible says about salvation and Jesus and grace and forgiveness and sin, etc. - and yet they still reject it, there is no more help or hope for them. (Think of Judas and the Jews who clearly heard the truth and saw it close up and yet rejected it anyway.)
If someone clearly hears the truth and knows all the basics but refuses to believe in it anyway, then it's useless to go back over the basics with them again and again. It's not that they don't understand and need to keep reviewing the basics to help them understand it more; it's that they know it full well but reject it anyway. And this leaves them with no hope of salvation because they knowingly spit on Jesus and consciously, deliberately rejected the truth, the only way to be saved.
"So," as the author of Hebrews is essentially saying, "don't bother going over the basics with them again and again. It won't do any good. It will just make a mockery of truth and of Jesus because they don't want it anyway. What they really want by going over it again and again is not to understand it or believe it, but to find loopholes in it, to find ways into heaven that go around Jesus. And it won't work. So leave behind those who reject the truth they know full well... and move forward with the true, mature believers who want to go on to the meatier truths of Scripture."
That's what this passage is saying. Not that true believers can lose salvation.
3. Romans 13:11: "... because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed" and Hebrews 9:28: "... he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" and 1 Peter 1:5: "who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time."
Christians who believe we can lose salvation point to these verses and say "See, salvation is a future thing, something we don't have yet but are working towards, and so we are always at risk of losing it, and so we must always work to maintain it". And yes, these verses sound like salvation is a future thing that we don't fully have yet, and so I can see why people think it means we're at risk of losing it along the way, until we fully have it.
But what they don't understand is that "salvation" in these verses, according to the concordance, is not about eternal salvation, but it's about being saved from the end-times wrath that is to come. Believers inherit un-lose-able eternal life the moment we believe, but we are still waiting for God to rescue us from this world, in particular from the end-times wrath He will pour out on unrepentant mankind.
Many times in the Bible, the word "salvation/saved" does not have to do with your soul being saved from hell, but it has to do with God saving us from some trial or enemy or His wrath in the tribulation. And if you don't know which "salvation" a verse is talking about, you can come to some very wrong and distressing ideas.
4. And a final point I'll make about this is about other Christians who challenged my belief that we can't lose salvation by saying "But if we have free-will to decide to accept Jesus, don't we also have free-will to decide to reject Him later? Or do we only have free-will to decide to get into faith, but not out of it? Do we lose our free-will once we believe?"
And the only way I can think to answer this is, "No, we don't lose our free-will, but it is transformed by the Spirit once we believe. It's like pouring cream into coffee. The coffee is still 100% there, but it's been transformed by the cream, and it can never again be separated from the cream. It's been permanently transformed."
Acts 2:38: "... Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Titus 3:5: "... He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."
2 Cor. 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
Our free-will is still there, but once the Spirit is poured in, He permanently transforms us, making us a new creation that can never go back to the old unsaved one.
This is the belief I keep coming back to, no matter how many times I circle around this issue over the years.
"Being baptized in water is necessary for salvation."
I don't think being baptized in water is necessary for salvation. I think it's symbolic, an outward testimony of an inward change. It's displaying to the public that you've become a follower of Jesus, that you've made Him your Lord and Savior and committed your life to Him.
[This is why I also think we shouldn't baptize babies. They didn't and couldn't make a decision about Jesus on their own, and therefore baptizing babies is really just a pointless ritual, more for the parents than the child. But worse than that, it's also potentially harmful because it convinces people they're saved without ever making a conscious decision to believe in Jesus, which is in direct opposition to Scripture.]
When the Bible talks about the need to be baptized to be saved, I don't think it means being baptized by water but by the Holy Spirit. Matthew 3:11 says that John the Baptist baptized with water for repentance (this was before belief in Jesus was possible or required), but that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit (and fire). In Acts 2, the disciples experienced that baptism at Pentecost when the Spirit mightily filled them (represented by "tongues of fire"). Eph. 4:5 says that there is "one baptism" (which would have to be by the Spirit), not that there are two baptisms (by water and by the Spirit).
I think being baptized in water is definitely something all believers should do as soon as possible (as seen by Philip and the eunuch in Acts 8:38), but I don't think it's required to be saved (as seen by the thief on the cross, Luke 23:42-43). If water baptism was required for salvation, then salvation would be by faith plus works, meaning that Jesus's sacrificial death wouldn't have been enough. But we know that's not the case.
Water baptism, while it's a public testimony and an act of obedience, is not necessary to be saved. But being baptized by the Spirit is... and it happens automatically the moment of conversion, when someone truly believes in Jesus and the Holy Spirit indwells them and makes them born again.
1 Cor. 12:13: "For we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body..."
Ephesians 1:13: "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."
Titus 3:5: "... He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."
Being baptized in water is often our first true act of obedience, the first public step on our journey of faith. Walking in obedience brings God's blessings, closeness, and protection, but disobedience creates negative consequences, distance between us and God, quenching of the Holy Spirit, and it makes us more vulnerable to demonic attacks/influence.
And so if we refuse to publicly identify with Jesus when we're perfectly able to, it will have a negative effect on our spiritual lives and might be a sign of something negative in our hearts (stubbornness, pride, apathy, fear of people's opinions, or a desire for the rewards of following Jesus without the responsibilities and risks, etc.).
And so if we are resistant to the idea of going public with our faith by being baptized in water, we should ask God to search our hearts to show us why we are resistant to it. And then confess it, come clean with Him, and ask Him to help you do what you know He's calling you to do. God will always bless our faithful obedience, even if we don't feel like doing it. (Of course, it's not always safe for some people to so publicly declare their faith, especially those in religiously restrictive countries or households, and so they'll have to be very cautious and prayerful about it.)
Also, on a slightly different note, I don't think there are any "rules" to being baptized in water other than you should be baptized by someone who's already a believer and be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (and being fully dunked in water in the most powerfully symbolic, I think, representing that we were fully covered by and cleansed by Jesus's blood). And so it doesn't have to be in a particular body of water or a particular church or by a particular pastor/leader.
I think we've grown to think that it has to be a certain way because that's the way we've always seen it done in the church. We've learned to follow all sorts of man-made traditions, rituals, and rules and to leave things up to "the professionals". But the Bible doesn't seem to teach this or restrict it that much.
I only think/know this because a few years ago after leaving our church, we still wanted our teens baptized but had no church to go to anymore. And so I began searching the Bible for the "rules" of water baptism. Could we do it ourselves in a lake or pool with just a few friends witnessing it? And I was surprised to see that there was no rule that it had to be by a pastor of a church or follow a certain formula, like I always assumed.
Although we did eventually get them baptized in a new church (whose pastor confirmed my belief that all that's required is being baptized by a believer in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), it was still refreshing and freeing to see how less restrictive the Bible is than the church sometimes. The church - as it gains power and money and more leaders and a hierarchical structure - can become something it was never intended to be, putting rules and rituals on people that the Bible doesn't.
[And I have a big problem with legalistic, self-inflated, domineering churches like Calvinist 9Marks churches which confuse local churches for the spiritual capital-"C" Church, the body of Christ all around the world. These churches think that their little local church is the gatekeeper to the Church, to the body of Christ, giving their little local church (and especially their particular denomination) too much authority and control over the Church at large. They equate getting baptized at their church with membership in their church with joining the capital-"C" Church. They teach that those they baptize into the body of Christ must also join their local church. As if they determine who gets into the Church and who doesn't! As if their local church IS the capital-"C" Church, and not just part of it!
See this 9Marks' article on baptism and church membership. Oh, this makes me mad, teaching that you shouldn't baptize people if they don't join your church: "Therefore, a church should not baptize young people apart from church membership. To do so is unbiblical, unhelpful, and unloving." Who do they think they are, deciding who's allowed into the body of Christ and who's not, deciding that only those who join their church are true members of the global Church, and putting their little local church in the place of the global, spiritual Church!?! This is what happens when churches go wrong, get too much power, and think too highly of themselves.
(Thankfully, our new church told me they will baptize anyone who is a true believer and who wants to be baptized, even those who are from out of town or not attending their church. It's more about the capital-"C" church there than it is about keeping power in the hands of the local church. And I'm so thankful for that!)]
The more you read the Bible for yourself, the more surprised you'll be at how many things we've inserted into Scripture over time. It's eye-opening and refreshing to learn what Scripture itself really teaches about some of the things others taught us or that we assumed or grew up believing. Letting go of the man-made restrictions and rules we superimposed onto Scripture and the spiritual journey will purify our faith, heal our soul, and deepen our relationship with the Lord.
(Or if you're on the other side - if you've been living a really lax Christian life and think God is overly permissive and that certain sins are okay - you might be surprised to see how firm and condemning He is about certain things, and it might compel you to get your life right with Him. Either way, learning what Scripture itself really teaches - instead of what others told you it teaches - is a good thing. A very good thing.)
"Calvinism is the gospel. God predestines everything we do. God decides who gets saved and who doesn't."
Oh, come on, you knew I'd get around to this eventually!
No, Calvinism is not the gospel. It is a corruption of the gospel and a cancer in the Church.
And since I've written on this extensively, I won't recap it. (See "Why is Calvinism so dangerous?" for starters.) But I will look at one verse here that combines this point with the one above, about knowing which definition of "salvation" a verse is referring to:
2 Thessalonians 2:13: “But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”
Calvinists use this verse to "prove" that God chooses who gets saved. I mean, it sounds pretty straightforward, doesn't it: "God chose you to be saved".
But what most of us don't realize is that this "salvation" - according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with Vine's Expository Dictionary - isn’t even about eternal soul salvation, about heaven and hell. Like the verses in the point above, it’s about God's promise to save true believers from the wrath He will pour out on the ungodly at the end of this age.
And I think there's another meaning, too, which has to do with God choosing to switch the method of salvation at that time, in that first-century generation. At that time, He shifted from salvation through the Law (devotion to God as evidenced in their obedience to the Law) to salvation through faith in Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit. I think 2 Thess. 2:13 reflects that too.
So this isn’t a Calvinist “predestined for heaven” verse at all. It's not about God choosing specific individuals to be saved. It's about God choosing to shift the method of salvation at that time and about His promise to spare believers from the tribulation. And this is a very big difference!
"Prayer doesn't really do anything but show God that we are dependent on Him."
I think this is an end result of Calvinism, of thinking that everything's already predestined and so "what does prayer really accomplish anyway?" See my Bible study post on "Prayer."
"God can't forgive what I've done." Or "God is punishing me for my sin."
Oh, dear one, God wants to save you from your sin and heal you from your sin, not punish you for your sin. In fact, He so wanted to spare us from punishment for sin that He sent Jesus to take the punishment we deserved so that we don't have to be punished for it.
If Jesus already paid for your sin, do you think God will hold a grudge against you for it? If Jesus gave His blood to pay for your sin, do you think God will demand payment from you too? Was His blood not enough?
“For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:13-14)
"Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord' - and you forgave the guilt of my sin." (Ps. 32:5)
"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Ps. 103:11-12)
"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36)
God will, of course, have to discipline us when we disobey Him. But it's not to shame us or hurt us or punish us; it's to help us get back on the right path with Him, the best path. And yes, there will be consequences for sin, some that we can't get away from or undo no matter how much we try or wish we could. But God doesn't want our lives ruined because of sin. He wants the best lives and futures for us, and so He helps us overcome our sin and put our lives back together and make something good out of all things, even the bad things.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28)
If He took our guilt and shame upon Himself, we don't have to wallow in it anymore.
I've posted this before, but I will again:
But instead of answering their question about if she should be stoned, Jesus writes on the ground and says “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
And one by one, all the accusers leave. (I think it’s interesting that the older ones left first. I think as we age, if we've gone through enough of our own trials, heartaches, and sinful struggles, we lose some of that dogmatic, judgmental, self-righteousness that we might have had when we were young. Because we learned that we are human and that we fail and fall and break and stumble just like everyone else, and this helps us have compassion on others who are human too.)
I think there are two very important lessons in this account:
A. Jesus was more disturbed by the unforgiving, self-righteous attitudes of the “spiritual elite” than He was by the guilty woman. He cared more about protecting her than about impressing the religious snobs. And this should be sobering to those of us who are more bothered by what everyone else is doing wrong than by what we're doing wrong, to those of us who are so eager to accept the forgiveness, compassion, grace, mercy that we don’t deserve, but so unwilling to give it to others who need it too.
[Did you ever wonder why Jesus wrote on the ground instead of just saying what He wanted to say like He did every other time? I think it was an incredible act of mercy and compassion for the woman. If the hateful, condemning, judgmental people wanted to see what Jesus said, they had to shift their focus off of the trembling, exposed, completely-ashamed woman and look to the ground instead. Not only did this spare the woman from their condemning gaze, but they had to lower their heads, lower their eyes, which is the opposite of what prideful, arrogant, self-righteous people do. And maybe, along with whatever Jesus wrote on the ground, it was the physical act of mimicking a humble posture, of looking away from the sin of another person, of lowering their heads and their eyes, that made them more inclined to look within themselves at their own sins, at their own bad heart attitudes. They realized that in the eyes of God, they were no better than the adulterous woman, no less sinful, naked, exposed, or guilty than her. And they felt shame, the same kind of shame they were heaping on her. In the eyes of God, she was them, and they were her. And so they dropped their rocks and left. What a brilliant act of mercy and compassion and conviction! (But would we except anything less from Jesus!)]
B. And Jesus wasn’t nearly as concerned with where the woman was coming from, because He was much too concerned with where she was going. “‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’” (John 8:11). He didn't care about her past as much as He did her future.
Jesus cares much more about where we're going than where we've been. He cares more about the potential for us to get our life right than He does about what we did wrong. He cares more about forgiving our sins than condemning us for them.
Maybe religious snobs want to pour shame on others for what they've done wrong, rubbing their noses in it, condemning them for it.
But not Jesus. Jesus wants to pour on His love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. He wants to free us from shame, not find more things to shame us about.
Instead of encouraging throwing stones, He stops them.
Oh, that we were more like Jesus!
"Genesis isn't really true and doesn't need to be taken literally."
When you attack the first historical book of the Bible, turning it from history into fable, you undermine the whole thing. Why should we believe anything else the Bible says if we can't even trust what it says about the very beginning, especially when Genesis is clearly written as history, not as metaphor or poetry or symbolism? And why would Jesus quote Genesis if it's a myth? And if He's using myth to support His views and claims, can He really be trusted?
If you undermine Genesis, you undermine Jesus.
(See "Is Evolution True?" and "Starting the new school year with Creation vs. Evolution".)
And personally, I think theistic evolution - even though it includes God in the mix, in creation - damages the validity of the Bible, too, because it teaches us to not take God at His Word, causing confusion and distrust. It attempts to force God's Word to fit man's scientific ideas and theories, instead of searching for ways to affirm God's Word and understand things according to it. (This isn't, for me, an issue of the age of the earth but of how God created it. It's an issue of if the Bible says what it means and means what it says, or not. Can the Bible be trusted the way it was written?)
Here are a few simple questions that shed doubt on theistic evolution:
What does this mean - "and there was evening, and there was morning - the first (second... third... etc.) day" - if it doesn't mean actual days? (If it means actual days like it plainly seems to mean, how could it be made any clearer? What would it take to convince people it was actual days?)
What does "according to its kind" mean if not that each animal was created according to its various, specific kinds, instead of one blending into the next in a long line of tiny changes over millions of years?
In Genesis, plants are created before the sun, and so if theistic evolution is true, then plants were around for millions of years before the sun came into existence. Could this be possible? If not, then either theistic evolution is a lie... or God's Word is.
In Genesis, water animals and birds were created the day before land animals. But in evolution, even theistic evolution, water animals morphed into land animals which morphed into birds over millions of years. So who is wrong: evolutionists or God?
Mountains slowly lose height over time. If the earth is millions and billions of years old, how tall did the mountains have to be in the beginning to get to the height they are now?
If God orchestrated creation over millions of years so that man really did evolve from apes, at what point were we human enough to become accountable for sin? If we evolved from apes, then did God really specifically create humans in His image as He claims?
Genesis says that death was introduced into the world as the result of Adam and Eve's sin. But in theistic evolution, death would be around for millions and billions of years before Adam and Eve sprung from the apes. And so if death was here before mankind's willful sin, then it wasn't the consequence of sin - and so, therefore, God lies. Also, the Bible says Jesus died to pay for the consequence of our sin, the death penalty we earned. But if death was always around and wasn't the result of sin, then why did Jesus die? What did His death accomplish? Theistic evolution ruins the whole reason Jesus came because if death was not the consequence of sin then His death didn't pay the penalty for sin.
Can you see how theistic evolution, just like regular evolution, destroys the validity of the Bible and God's Word and Jesus's sacrifice, etc.? Genesis, as it is written, simply does not allow for the possibility of evolution, even theistic evolution. You must pick one: trusting God's Word or man's ideas.
And finally, even if our bottom-line, fundamental beliefs are correct, we might have smaller incorrect ones that hurt our faith and our relationship with God, such as if we have an imbalance in our views of God's love and wrath, if we use "God is love" as an excuse for sin, if we misunderstand the difference between temporary happiness and lasting joy, if we think God is unhappy with us or ignoring us because things aren't going better in our lives, if we feel we have to earn God's love, if we misunderstand God's Will, etc.
Do we carefully consider our views about faith, life, God, ourselves, etc., evaluating them against Scripture to make sure they are as biblical as can be... or do we take our own (or other people's) ideas as truth, letting unbiblical notions affect our faith, hope, relationship with God, and thoughts about ourselves?
I think this is why the Psalmist's advice/wisdom is so good, so needed:
Psalm 4:4: “... when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.”
Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Psalm 26:2-3: “Test me, O Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth.”
Psalm 51:17: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Psalm 119:9-11: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
Psalm 119:105: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”
If we have created our own version of truth, of what God is like and how faith "works" - if we do not know who He really is according to His Word (His character, rules, how He operates) and who we really are according to His Word (how He sees us, how we are saved, how He views sin, how we should live, the importance of prayer and obedience, etc.) - then we will be making decisions out of wrong ideas, making a mess of our lives and eventually hurting our faith, our self-esteem, our relationship with Him, our enjoyment of this life, our eternal condition, etc. And Satan laughs.
Ask God to show you if there are any half-truths, lies, deceptions, misconceptions, assumptions, or sins that you are clinging to which affect your beliefs about Him, faith, life, and yourself. (And pray for spiritual protection because the enemy doesn't want you to grow in truth, and so he'll try to get in your way.) Ask Him to correct any wrong beliefs you have and to show you the truth, His truth, and to help you grow in it and live it out.
(But be warned: If you ask, you will receive ... and it might hurt. But only for a little while - for our God is a gracious, forgiving God who is more concerned about where we're headed than where we've been, more concerned about growing us in the faith in the future than shaming us for the ways we've failed in the past. So even if it hurts at first, you'll be okay and you'll be better for it. I speak from experience.)
