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Greg
Registered user
Username: Greg
Post Number: 120
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 6:09 am: |     |
Here are a couple more points on problems that are created when we deny the inerrancy of Scripture, taken again from Grudem.
quote:1. If we deny inerrancy a serious moral problem confronts us: May we imitate God and intentionally lie in small matters also? Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be imitators of God. But a denial of inerrancy that still claims that the words of Scripture are God-breathed words necessarily implies that God intentionally spoke falsely to us in some of the less central affirmations of Scripture. But if this is right for God to do, how can it be wrong for us? Such a line of reasoning would, if we believed it, exert strong pressure on us to begin to speak untruthfully in situations where that might seem to help us communicate better, and so forth. This position would be a slippery slope with ever-increasing negative results in our own lives.
2. If inerrancy is denied, we begin to wonder if we can really trust God in everything he says. Once we become convinced that God has spoken falsely to us in some minor matters in Scripture, then we realize that God is capable of speaking falsely to us. This will have a serious detrimental effect on our ability to take God at his word and trust him completely or obey him fully in the rest of Scripture. We may begin to disobey intially those sections of Scripture that we least wish to obey, and to distrust initially those sections that we are least inclined to trust. But such a procedure will eventually increase, to the great detriment of our spiritual lives.
3. If we deny inerrancy we essentially make our own human minds a higher standard of truth than God's Word itself. We use our minds to pass judgment on some sections of God's Word and pronounce them to be in error. But this is in effect to say that we know truth more certainly and more accurately than God's Word does (or than God does), at least in these areas. Such a procedure, making our own minds to be a higher standard of truth than God's Word, is the root of all intellectual sin.
4. If we deny inerrancy, we must also say that the Bible is wrong not only in minor details but in some of its doctrines as well. A denial of inerrancy means that we say that the Bible's teaching about the nature of Scripture and about the truthfulness and reliability of God's words is also false. These are not minor details but are major doctrinal concerns in Scripture.
Grudem, Bible Doctrine, p. 47
I believe much of the problem in Adventism is found in point number three. Some, in an effort to be scholarly and deep in their understanding of Scriptures, claim that their own mind is a higher standard of truth than God's word. Couple this with needing to support all of the contradictory statements made by Ellen White, and you've got a real mess.
Greg |
Dd
Registered user
Username: Dd
Post Number: 446
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 8:27 am: | |
Thank you so much for sharing, Greg. Just a few weeks ago I was talking to the principle of my children's SDA school. I was telling him my concerns for the lack of Christ-centered teachings throughout the school and that I felt that the Jr. High students needed to be in God's Word rather than reading and "discussing" EGW (my 7th grade daughter said that Bible class consists of "discussing" but that all it really is is arguing). His response to me was similar to the response you received from the SDA pastor..."The Bible contradicts itself and one author copied from another...does that mean we should not discuss it either?" Yes, he did say it in a very sarcastic tone!
I have printed off what you have shared to keep for another such comment. It is all right on! Thanks, again, for sharing. |
Bob
Registered user
Username: Bob
Post Number: 248
Registered: 7-2000
| | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 4:36 pm: | |
Greg, I recommend Grudem's larger work, "Systematic Theology," of which "Bible Doctrine" is an abridgement. Systematic Theology has over 1200 pages. It would be a worthwhile addition to your library. The cost is approx. $30 at Amazon.com. It is also available on CD-ROM (for about $10 more).
Bob |
Greg
Registered user
Username: Greg
Post Number: 122
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 8:44 am: | |
Bob, thanks for the recommendation. Bible Doctrine suits me pretty well right now, but I'm sure I'll be adding Systematic Theology to my bookshelf at some point. I need to find a way to function on less sleep so I can get through everything on my reading list!
Dd, I'm glad some of this discussion applied to your situation. Praise God for showing us that the Bible really is his infallible Word! Without that understanding, everything, even the very nature of God and his sovereignty, is open for debate. Thankfully there is no debate for the believer because we know his word is truth (John 17:17).
Greg |
Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 571
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 9:01 am: | |
I know this might be off subject a little...but the sermon this Sunday at my SBaptist church was about Pleuralism. IOW: Most people think it doesn't matter who you worship that God can't just let people in other cultures go to hell because they don't accept Jesus. God will save them anyway.
I have found this to be a common thought among my friends and family. We were having a conversation the other night about Bhudda, etc. and how "good" these people are and how they just know God will save them somehow, etc. And I have started too many arguements and ended too many good evenings with these people in a bad way...so I bite my tounge. But I was thinking, "The only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ His Son." But I didn't say it, and now I feel like a coward. Seems to me the devil would like us all to think Jesus isn't necessary. Has anyone else encountered this with their family, the people I was talking to were all raised SDA, though they don't really practise it now, but still cling to the Sabbath and attend church sporadically. |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 787
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 9:49 am: | |
Pheeki, Pastor Bryan Clark at Lincoln Berean has been preaching through the book of Mark. Two weeks ago he taught through the passage in Mark 14 that includes the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of the crucifixion. Pastor Clark brought out a point from that story that really struck me.
Jesu said, "Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what you will."
Jesus prayed this prayer three times. He saw the agony that was coming. To be sure He foresaw the physical agony, but that was the smallest part of what was in store for Him. Jesus, as no person before or after Him, would experience the full wrath of God poured out on his person in it's fullest measure. Jesus says in v. 34 that His soul was grieved to the point of death in anticipation of what was to come.
In His prayer, Jesus was essentially asking that if there were any other possible way, that this horrible agony be removed from Him. But it was not removed because there was no other way. The Son of God experienced the full wrath of the Father, suffered in unfathomable spiritual and physical torment and died because this was the only way to reconcile fallen man to a completly Holy and Righteous God. This was *THE* way of salvation that God provided to man through the suffering and sacrifice of His Son. Jesus prayed for the cup to be removed if possible, but there was no other way, so He submitted to the will of the Father.
This is why God finds it so incredibly offensive when people suggests there are many ways to God and that Jesus is only one of the ways. This idea makes light of Jesus' prayer in the Garden. It makes light of the Father's answer. It makes light of the incredible suffering and sacrifice endured by Christ and the wrath that was poured out upon Him. The prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane shows clearly that Jesus' sacrifice is the only possible way to provide salvation to fallen man. If there were another way it would have been taken.
I highly recommend this sermon, it brought tears to my eyes and I would be willing to bet it will bring tears to yours too.
You can listen to mp3 audio here: THE AGONY OF THE CUP.
Or read it here: TRANSCRIPT.
The entire sermon series can be accessed here: MARK.
Chris |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 1970
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 11:14 am: | |
Thanks for sharing that insight, Chris. Pastor Clark is absolutely right.
If one denies the Father's wrath against sin, one can reason his way completely out of needing Jesus as the One who opened the living way to the Father. If one thinks that God is "love" and "good" and "fair" but not "just" and filled with wrath against sin, then we not only don't need Jesus' submission to God's will that He suffer the effects of God's wrath, but we don't really need to repent, either.
If God really has no wrath against sin, then what on earth do we need to turn away FROM? And if we don't need to turn away from sin in repentance, if God loves us all equally because He made us (never mind that He made Adam and Eve spiritually alive and sinless!), then there's really no need for Jesus' agony and suffering. It just becomes a really good "object lesson" of God's love.
If we don't need to repent and be restored to God, then anyone can come to Him by whatever method suits him best. God's wrath isn't an issue, anyway. Being outside of a realtionship with God isn't an issue, either. Nor is sin an issue!
Truth is terrible and awe-full. It is also unbelievably loving and gracious. It is restorative and healing.
Popular religion doesn't suppose the universe needs mending; it doen't say sin needs to be eliminated. Popular religion puts human nature at the pinnacle of value in the universe. Truth puts God at that pinnacle.
Colleen |
Greg
Registered user
Username: Greg
Post Number: 123
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 11:47 am: | |
Chris, thanks for posting this. I have also been blessed by Pastor Clarke in his sermon series on Galatians and Ephesians, also available at that site. The point that mankind makes light of Jesus' sacrifice by devising multiple paths to salvation makes is profound.
I had a discussion about this topic with a friend recently. He believes there are many ways to God and that it would be unfair of God to judge those who had never heard of him. I want to post what I wrote to him here and I apologize in advance for the length. This isn't anything new for the veterans here, but hopefully it will help someone.
Greg
----
As a prelude to this discussion, here is what Jesus says about himself--the bold claim we must accept or reject:
quote:"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." John 14:6-7 (NIV)
As Christians, we believe it is through Jesus that we reach the Father--because Jesus is God incarnate and has died for our sins. But what about those who lived before Jesus' time? The Bible texts on this issue have implications for those who have not heard (or rejected) the gospel in times since Jesus' walk on this earth.
Paul wrote something about this when he was in Athens. He discovered a statue that was inscribed "To an Unknown God." Seizing this opportunity, Paul declared that he would make it clear who this ìunknownî God was:
quote:"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stoneóan image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." Acts 24:17-31 (NIV)
Paul makes it clear that God has gone to great lengths to show himself to mankind since the very beginning, even overlooking idolatry so men would still be able to come to Him. Now that Christ has come, we have an even better picture of God, because God became incarnate and walked among us. The ultimate proof that Jesus was who he said he wasóGod, comes from his resurrection (verse 31).
There is yet another place where Paul says all have known about God and had a choice to believe him or not from the very beginning:
quote:"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualitiesóhis eternal power and divine natureóhave been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:18-20 (NIV)
The statement Paul makes here is powerful. God has been revealed to mankind since the creation of the world, primarily through his creation. Even before the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus, man had the choice to acknowledge him as the creator. By giving God the credit for creating the world, the believer is impelled to worship his creator, putting total faith in him. It is precisely because of this faith in God that Abraham was called righteous by God, even before the existence of the law given on Sinai or the birth of Jesus (Galatians 3:6).
King Solomon affirms the idea that God created man with an understanding of eternity, giving us an opportunity to understand God:
quote:"God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end." Eccl. 3:11 (NLT)
And of course, David declared that all of creation speaks to God's glory:
quote: "The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge." Psalms 19:1-2
The apostle John also writes on this theme:
quote:"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." John 1:3-5 (NIV)
"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." John 3:19-21 (NIV)
The first text is a statement by John that Jesus is the light of the world and the second is a statement by Jesus himself verifying that he is that light. The light has been present from the beginning in God's creation. Men have always had the opportunity to accept or reject that light, no matter the culture or belief system they have been born into.
There are several more places in the book of John where Jesus makes similar statements:
quote:"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." John 12:46 (NIV)
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12 (NIV)
We not only have received the light, but we are commanded by that light (Jesus) to follow him so that we will never be in darkness. Jesus furthermore states the conditions under which he is the light:
quote:"While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." John 9:5 (NIV)
Jesus came to this world to be a light to the world, but when he left, the light of his presence also left, yet the world is not without light. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes this interestating statement:
quote:"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)
When Jesus ascended to heaven, he did not leave us without a lightówe have been given the Holy Spirit and we are to reflect that light onto others! The light is still here, and we are that light, through Godís Spirit. Paul tells us in Ephesians to live as ìchildren of lightî:
quote:ìFor you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible.î Ephesians 4:8-14 (NIV)
By living in and radiating Godís light, not only are we sanctified through Christ, but our light serves as a beacon for others who are hiding from the light. We are literally used by God to bring others to him! Imagine you lived in a time before electricity but you had an oil lamp. At night, you would not hide that lamp under a bowl but you would place it in a prominent location so your house would be illuminated! In the same way, those of us who know Jesus realize how precious he is. He illuminates our world, and we display him in a prominent place in our lives so that others will not stumble around in darkness but will see clearly because of him! No longer is there only one light in the world, but millions of lights shining through all those who believe in the Light of Jesus and allow him into their hearts.
In summary, we have learned from these texts that men have known about God from the beginning, by observing his creation. Mankind has always had a choice when it comes to Godóacknowledge and worship him, or reject him. God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, giving the world another revelation of himself and basking the earth in light. Jesus said about himself that there is no other way to the Father but through him. We must either accept or reject this statement--there is no middle ground. Those of us who accept him into our lives, living a life of total dependence on him through his Holy Spirit, are transformed into a light, showing others the way to him. This is truly good news!
Tying this back to the original topic of the thread, it is evident from reading the story of the Chagalls above that they were faced with the light of Jesus and made the decision to embrace, rather than run away from that light. |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 788
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 12:35 pm: | |
Excellent study, Greg! Thank you for sharing it. This is perhaps the THE issue of our times. As Christians living in a post-modern world it is absolutely essential that we understand the claims Jesus made for Himself and that we are able to cogently articulate the implications of these claims to others.
I had a coversation a while back with a SDA layman who was insisting that people didn't necessarily need to accept Jesus to be saved. It was his feeling that there would be many people who were life long followers of Mohammad, Budda, Hindu gods, and others who would find themselves in Heaven. If they were sincere in their beliefs and lived a reasonablly good life God would save them.
I asked him where he found support for this notion in the Bible and also shared much of the same information you outlined above. He brushed aside the scripture I had read and never did produce any scripture at all to support his point. He just kept saying, "I think if you study it out you'll see that it's there". I interpreted that to mean, "I don't really know where the Bible teaches plurallism, but it's what I was taught so I'm sure it's correct."
It is indeed difficult to counter beliefs that are based upon faith in a system or an organization as opposed to faith in the Person of Jesus and the objective, propositional truth found in His Word. Yet each of us must be prepared to give a defense for the hope that we have. Your study is a helpful outline for that defense. Thank you Greg.
Chris |
Greg
Registered user
Username: Greg
Post Number: 124
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 1:13 pm: | |
Chris, thanks for the feedback. Ravi Zacharias says something about pluralism that hits right at the heart of the matter, appealing to reason rather than Scripture.
He says it is more reasonable to believe all religions are false than to believe they are all true because they make contradictory claims. For instance, Christianity affirms Jesus Christ as God, but Islam teaches he is only a prophet. These are contradictory claims and according to the law of non-contradiction, they both can't be right.
Having firmly established this point, Zacharias begins to lay out the unique claims of Christianity, primarily that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Ravi Zacharias is an outstanding apologist for the Christian faith and if you haven't heard him yet, you can listen to him online at this link: RAVI ZACHARIAS.
Colleen, your point on this is very well taken. I have some Hindu friends who believe their salvation is completely tied up in their good works (Karma). Christianity, as far as I know, is the only faith where salvation is a function of God's grace, rather than man's effort. I must clarify that it is only a subset of Christians who believe this!
Greg
(Message edited by Greg on May 16, 2005) |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 789
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 2:00 pm: | |
Greg, I'm glad you brought up Ravi Z. I once heard him say something on this topic that has really stuck with me. I will attempt a rough paraphrase:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Some people think it is unfair that God would only provide one way for people to be saved, but let me suggest to you that even if God had provided 10 ways to be saved, human beings would still want an 11th way. In fact, it's fair to say that if God had provided a thousand different ways to be saved, humans would still want a thousand and one ways.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
I think Ravi is dead on with this point. No matter how many ways of salvation God provided, humans would still want their own way.
Chris
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