The Truth War
Page 6
In fact, the New Testament consistently stresses otherwise. One vital principle about our redemption from sin destroys the whole argument: faith, not works, is the sole instrument of justification (Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8–9). In other words, what we believe rather than what we do is what secures us a righteous standing before God—because we lay hold of justifying righteousness by faith alone, and not by our works (Romans 4:5).
Paul says in Romans 9:31–32 that “Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.” In other words, regardless of how meticulous they may have been in their external observance of God’s law, their unbelief was sufficient to exclude them from the kingdom. “They being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:3–4). They doubted the truth of Christ, and that proved spiritually fatal in spite of how well they had perfected an external display of piety.
Notice: Paul expressly says they were pursuing righteousness. But they were looking for it in all the wrong places. Because they clung to wrong beliefs about the righteousness God requires and rejected the righteousness Christ would have provided for them, they were eternally condemned. Their failure was first of all an error about a vital article of faith, not merely a flaw in their practice. Their whole belief system (not merely their behavior) was wrong. Unbelief was enough to condemn them, regardless of how they acted.
It is not kindness at all, but the worst form of cruelty, to suggest that what people believe doesn’t really matter much if they feel spiritual and do good. In fact, on the face of it, that claim is a blatant contradiction of the gospel message.
Besides, real righteousness simply cannot exist in isolation from belief in the truth. To make the case for any concept of “practical good” that subsists apart from sound doctrine, one quickly has to remove just about everything that is truly righteous from the definition of good. Naturally, it doesn’t take very long for that kind of thinking to undermine the foundations of Christianity itself.
Brian McLaren, for example, goes so far as to suggest that followers of other religions can also be followers of Christ in practical terms without leaving other religions or identifying with Christianity. “I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion,” he says. “It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.”3
McLaren is leading the parade for those who do not seem to think wrong beliefs, superstition, false religion, and false gods are evils that people need to be delivered from. Instead, he suggests that even the false religions themselves may ultimately be redeemable:
Although I don’t hope all Buddhists will become (cultural) Christians, I do hope all who feel so called will become Buddhist followers of Jesus; I believe they should be given that opportunity and invitation. I don’t hope all Jews or Hindus will become members of the Christian religion. But I do hope all who feel so called will become Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus.
Ultimately, I hope that Jesus will save Buddhism, Islam and every other religion, including the Christian religion, which often seems to need saving about as much as any other religion does. (In this context, I do wish all Christians would become followers of Jesus, but perhaps this is too much to ask. After all, I’m not doing such a hot job of it myself.)4
The logical starting point of McLaren’s book A Generous Orthodoxy is his belief that doctrinal distinctives are of “marginal” value.5 A predictably postmodern dubiousness seems to color McLaren’s treatment of practically all objective truth claims—and it’s a skepticism that extends even to the authority of Scripture itself. He seems deeply suspicious of any truth-based definition of orthodoxy. He writes as if orthopraxy (practical righteousness) were what really matters most. In fact, one gets the impression from the book that he thinks right behavior automatically trumps right belief. When McLaren finally gives a description of what he means by orthodoxy, even that turns out to be about “how we search for a kind of truth . . .”6 rather than about the truth itself.
Despite his well-known preference for ambiguity, McLaren is surprisingly frank about his perspective on this. He believes both the church’s methodology and the Christian message itself need to be constantly in flux: “Our message and methodology have changed, do change, and must change if we are faithful to the ongoing and unchanging mission of Jesus Christ.”7 He says the message changes “not because we’ve got it wrong and we’re closer to finally ‘getting it right,’” but because the “context” of the culture in which we live is dynamic. We must, after all, keep up with these postmodern times.
Notice: McLaren acknowledges that an ever-changing message does not bring anyone any closer to “getting it right,” and he is not the least bit troubled by that. In the final analysis, he says, “‘getting it right’ is beside the point: the point is ‘being and doing good’ as followers of Jesus in our unique time and place, fitting in with the ongoing story of God’s saving love for planet Earth.”8 All of that is an exemplary statement of the typical postmodern perspective.
But the thing to notice here is that in McLaren’s system, orthodoxy is really all about practice, not about true beliefs. While acknowledging that this idea is “scandalous,” he nonetheless affirms it as the central message of his book.9 It is frankly hard to see such a perspective as anything other than plain, old-fashioned unbelief, rooted in a rejection of the clear teaching of Scripture. McLaren has elevated the sinner’s own good works above the importance of faith grounded in the truth of the gospel. No wonder he feels such an affinity with Buddhists and Hindus—at the end of the day, many of his ideas about the role of righteousness and good works in religion are not fundamentally different from theirs.
And bear in mind that in McLaren’s own moral hierarchy, one of the highest values (if not the supreme virtue by which all others are measured) is a particular notion of “humility”—namely, the standard postmodern species of humility, which starts with the assumption that certainty, assurance, and bold convictions are arrogant and therefore wrong. So the ramifications of McLaren’s continual stress on right practice apart from an equal stress on right belief turn out to be profound. “Right practice” by his definition virtually begins with the relinquishment of all certainty about “right belief.” One gets the distinct impression that objective, propositional truth means so little to McLaren that he would consider a broad-minded Hindu who always tries to speak positively and tolerantly about others’ beliefs a better “Christian” than the preacher who openly curses someone else for teaching a wrong view of the law and gospel.
That, of course, would make the apostle Paul a bad Christian (Galatians 1:8–9)—not to mention Jesus (Matthew 23).
No one except the grossest hypocrite would ever suggest that how we act is utterly immaterial as long as we subscribe to the right creeds and confessions. McLaren nevertheless begins his book with precisely that kind of caricature. He claims that “many orthodoxies have always and everywhere assumed that orthodoxy (right thinking and opinion about the gospel) and orthopraxy (right practice of the gospel) could and should be separated, so that one could at least be proud of getting an A in orthodoxy even when one earned a D in orthopraxy, which is only an elective class anyway.”10
In reality, no true Christian anywhere has ever deliberately advocated such a twisted view of orthodoxy. Scripture is clear: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). A high view of orthodoxy cannot nullify or undermine the importance of orthopraxy. That might seem to be the case if you start with the presupposition that certainty and strong convictions are always wrong and arguments about the truth value of propositions are always arrogant. But surely
from a biblical perspective we can recognize the truth of James 2 without automatically discounting sound doctrine and settled assurance altogether.
BIBLICAL ORTHODOXY
ENCOMPASSES ORTHOPRAXY.
BOTH RIGHT DOCTRINE
AND RIGHT LIVING ARE
ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL
AND TOTALLY INSEPARABLE
FOR THE TRUE CHILD
OF GOD. THAT IS THE
CONSISTENT TEACHING OF
CHRIST HIMSELF.
Biblical orthodoxy encompasses orthopraxy. Both right doctrine and right living are absolutely essential and totally inseparable for the true child of God. That is the consistent teaching of Christ Himself. “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32).
Furthermore, Scripture does clearly and consistently teach the primacy of right belief as the foundation of right behavior. In other words, righteous living is properly seen as a fruit of authentic faith, and never the other way around. Pious actions devoid of any real love for the truth do not even constitute genuine orthopraxy by any measure. On the contrary, that is the worst kind of self-righteousness hypocrisy.
So truth is worth fighting over. As we have seen, it is the one thing in this world the church is supposed to fight for. Lose that fight and all else is lost.
It is obvious to most sensible people that not every point of truth is of equal importance, and therefore every trifling disagreement does not need to be pursued with equal fervor. In fact, one of the most important points in the whole issue of spiritual warfare is the question of what is insignificant and what is really worth fighting for. (I addressed that question in some detail more than a decade ago in a book titled Reckless Faith.11 It is a question that deserves more careful consideration than most Christians evidently care to give it.)
But Brian McLaren leapfrogs over that part of the discussion, because one of his fundamental presuppositions is that there is really not much in the realm of propositional truth that is worth fighting over. He gives a somewhat qualified affirmation of the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. He then repeatedly insinuates that once you get past those two ancient creeds, the only issues at stake are mere “denominational distinctives” and doctrinal trivia that should all be relegated to the “marginal” category.12
That is simply not an honest assessment of what is happening in the Truth War today. The main battlegrounds—the ideas McLaren himself spends most of his book attacking—are the objectivity and knowability of truth as it is revealed in God’s Word. So what is really at stake are the very same truths the serpent sought to subvert when he asked Eve, “Has God indeed said . . . ?” (Genesis 3:1). They are the same truths that have always been at the heart of the Truth War—the inspiration, authority, inerrancy, sufficiency, and perspicuity (clarity) of Scripture—not to mention several essential aspects of the gospel message. Surely those are issues that cannot be swept aside or discounted as marginal in the name of a twisted notion of charity or false humility. When you reflect on how much of the Christian message is undermined by postmodernist notions about truth, it turns out the current controversies are infinitely more serious than McLaren wants to pretend.
Furthermore, when you realize that not one of those issues is mentioned in the two creeds McLaren names (because those doctrines weren’t even seriously challenged by the early heretics the creeds were written to answer)—it should be instantly obvious that there are several very crucial doctrines worth fighting for beyond the few that are catalogued in a couple of Christendom’s most ancient creeds. The vast majority of Christians throughout history have also understood that the truth of the gospel is even worth dying for. It is frankly difficult to see how anyone viewing truth from a post-modernist perspective could ever begin to understand why.
Truth—including historical facts, assurance, and objective, distinct, knowable, authoritative propositions that demand to be embraced as true—is an essential concept in authentic Christianity. All the other aspects of religious experience flow from the truth we believe and simply give expression to it. Take away the ground of truth, and all you have is fluctuating religious sentiment.
Remember, the apostle Paul called the church “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). We have a duty to uphold the truth and to wield the sword of God’s Word against every human speculation and every worldly hypothesis raised up against the knowledge of God. The struggle will continue until every thought is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). The church must pursue that fight, and if church leaders are not setting the example, they are not being faithful to their calling.
WHY APOSTASY IS SUCH A THREAT
Ever since that day in the garden when the serpent tempted Eve, he has relentlessly attacked the truth with lies, using the same strategies over and over to sow doubt and disbelief in the human mind. “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11).
The form of his evil dialectic rarely changes. He questions the truth God has revealed (“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” [Genesis 3:1]). Then he contradicts what God has said (“You will not surely die” [v. 4]). Finally, he concocts an alternative version of “truth” (“God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” [v. 5]). The devil’s alternative credo often has a few carefully chosen elements of truth in the mix—but always diluted and thoroughly blended with falsehoods, contradictions, misrepresentations, distortions, and every other imaginable perversion of reality. Add it all up and the bottom line is a big lie.
Furthermore, in the promotion of his dishonesty, Satan employs every agent he can dupe into being a shill for him—demons, unbelievers, and (most effectively) people who are in some way actually associated with the truth, or (even worse) who merely pretend to be agents of the truth and angels of light. That, as we noted in chapter 1, is one of Satan’s favorite and time-tested strategies (2 Corinthians 11:13–15).
It was happening already, on a wide scale, while the church was still in its infancy. After three years founding and diligently teaching the church at Ephesus, Paul warned the elders in that young congregation about what he knew would happen as soon as he moved on: “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears” (Acts 20:29–31).
THE DEVIL’S ALTERNATIVE
CREDO OFTEN HAS A FEW
CAREFULLY CHOSEN
ELEMENTS OF TRUTH IN
THE MIX—BUT ALWAYS
DILUTED AND THOROUGHLY
BLENDED WITH FALSEHOODS,
CONTRADICTIONS,
MISREPRESENTATIONS,
DISTORTIONS, AND EVERY
OTHER IMAGINABLE
PERVERSION OF REALITY.
ADD IT ALL UP AND THE
BOTTOM LINE IS A BIG LIE.
The primary threat Paul was concerned about would come from within the church itself—even from among the elders of the church. He was speaking prophetically; thus the tone of absolute certainty: “I know this.” God had revealed to Paul that a challenge to the truth would arise from within the church’s own leadership, and people would be drawn away.
It happened just that way too. By the end of the first century, when the apostle John wrote Revelation, Christ’s message to the church at Ephesus included a commendation to that church for having “tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars” (Revelation 2:2). In the same context, Christ condemned “the deeds of the Nicolaitans” (v. 6).
The Nicolaitans were a dangerous sect, and they may well have been the very “wolves” Paul cautioned against in the famous prophetic warning of Acts 20. If so, the g
roup’s teachings might even have originated with one or more of the earliest elders in the Ephesian church. (Some early sources, including Irenaeus in the mid-second century, identified the sect with “Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch,” who was appointed to leadership in the Jerusalem church in Acts 6:5. There is no clear proof of that, but there is a considerable amount of evidence that Nicolaitanism was indeed bred and incubated by men who had achieved stature as leaders in the church.)
Apparently, when the Nicolaitans were rejected in Ephesus, they went to a nearby church plant at Pergamos, where they gained a following in that church. Christ’s message to Pergamos in Revelation 2:12–17 is almost entirely given to rebuke, because the church had embraced “those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans” (v. 15).
What was that doctrine? It is described in verse 14 as a kind of radical licentiousness: “You have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.” They were using Christian liberty as a cloak for vice and an opportunity for the flesh (Galatians 5:13;1 Peter 2:16).
This was evidently the very same kind of error the epistle of Jude was written to address, because Jude refers to the false teachers he opposed as “ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness” (Jude 4), and he says they “run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit” (v. 11).
Licentious behavior and greed were key characteristics of all forms of gnosticism. That was a deadly brand of false religion that flourished in the second century and often infiltrated the church, masquerading as Christianity. Nicolaitanism has many of the hallmarks of later forms of gnosticism. It seems to be one of the earliest expressions of the gnostic tendency in the ancient church. Clearly, similar doctrines had already intruded into the church and begun to take root when Jude wrote.