DOCTRINAL HYPOCRISY
The battle cry among evangelicals is their supposed stand for
the verbal inspiration of the scriptures and their conviction
that all beliefs must be based solely on them and not man-made
tradition. This of course is a premise in which I stand in
perfect agreement. If the truth is to be known at all, it
is to be known only by divine revelation, of which the
scriptures are the only current source extant. But does
evangelical theology really represent sound Biblical teaching?
Evangelical apologists
couch their arguments in language that leads one to believe that
their beliefs alone stand on a firm scriptural foundation, while
all other groups, which they consign to the category of ‘cult’
or ‘sect’, supposedly arrive at their belief systems only
through human ingenuity or a ‘twisting’ of the scriptures.
While this type of language may impress those who are looking
for security and for a voice of authority to tell them that what
they believe is the truth, thoughtful unprejudiced investigation
tells an altogether different story. When the evangelical
doctrines of today are examined, it can be shown rather easily
that in every way in which they accuse others of ‘twisting the
scriptures’, they themselves are equally as guilty, and in many
cases, more so.
Take for example the
doctrine of the ‘trinity’, which is considered to be the central
doctrine of the ‘Christian Faith’. This doctrine more than
any is used as a spiritual litmus test in determining which
groups can be considered ‘evangelical’ and which are ‘cults’.
Not only is there no clear statement of this doctrine in
scripture, but there was no formal affirmation of this doctrine
until the council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Even then it was
only accepted through much controversy and protest. Because the
language of the Nicene creed has much more in common with Greek
philosophy than anything in the New Testament, it is absolutely
naïve to think that anyone who knew nothing of Christianity, if
given only the New Testament to read and study, would formulate
this doctrine by himself or herself. Yet to deny this doctrine
in evangelical or fundamental circles means to brand one’s self
a cultist!
The Encyclopedia Britannica states:
Neither the word Trinity nor the
explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus
and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old
Testament: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord”
(Deuteronomy 6:4)…
The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and
through many controversies. Initially, both the requirements of
monotheism inherited from the Old Testament and the implications
of the need to interpret the biblical teaching to Greco-Roman
religions seemed to demand that the divine in Christ as the
Word, or Logos, be interpreted as subordinate to the Supreme
Being. An alternative solution was to interpret Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit as three modes of the self-disclosure of the one God
but not as distinct within the being of God itself. The first
tendency recognized the distinctness among the three, but at the
cost of their equality and hence of their unity
(subordinationism); the second came to terms with their unity,
but at the cost of their distinctness as “persons” (modalism).
It was not until the 4th century that the distinctness of the
three and their unity were brought together in a single orthodox
doctrine of one essence and three persons.
The Council of Nicaea in 325 stated the crucial formula for that
doctrine in its confession that the Son is “of the same
substance [homoousios] as the Father,” even though it
said very little about the Holy Spirit. Over the next half
century, Athanasius defended and refined the Nicene formula,
and, by the end of the 4th century, under the leadership of
Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus
(the Cappadocian Fathers), the doctrine of the Trinity took
substantially the form it has maintained ever since.
It seems to me the height
of absurdity to claim that this doctrine which only arose over
many centuries and through much controversy should be used as
the ultimate test of what is ‘orthodox’ and what is not. But
this is precisely what is done in evangelical circles today.
However, should any non-evangelical group advance a doctrine for
which no explicit statement exists in scripture, they would be
immediately denounced as a dangerous cult. Why most people in
evangelical circles seem unconcerned about such blatant
hypocrisy is a mystery indeed.
In many other cases, the
clearest statements of scripture are explained away when they
clash with an accepted evangelical doctrine. Many times these
glaring contradictions are brushed off in ways that, to thinking
people. border on the ridiculous. Take for example the following
verse:
For David is
not ascended into the heavens:
but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou
on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Acts
2:34-35
Our evangelical leaders
assure us with the utmost confidence that this statement cannot
be taken at face value, and that these words do not at all mean
what they so clearly seem to teach. In fact, we are instructed
to believe just the opposite; that David is in fact in heaven
despite the most emphatic statement that he is not! Evangelicals
must resort to their own ingenuity to explain away this clear
Biblical statement, even though this is precisely what they
accuse the ‘cults’ of doing. Quite often it seems that
evangelicals are the ONLY ones who seem to buy some of these
explanations.
The explanation given here is, of course,
that David himself ascended into heaven, but that his body
is not there yet. But who would ever deduce such a thing
from the text itself unless you approached it first with the
pre-conceived idea that David MUST be in heaven because nineteen
centuries of 'Christian theology' say he is!
Yet another example of this
same type of reasoning can be found in the following verses:
For the living know that they shall die:
but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any
more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten Eccl 9:5
The dead praise not
the LORD,
neither any that go down into silence. Ps 115:17
Again, neither of the above
verses is in any way ambiguous, yet we are informed that they do
not mean what they explicitly say! Quite to the contrary we are
told that the dead are really more alive than ever, and that the
faithful dead now praise God day and night in heaven.
Consequently these verses must be ‘explained away’. We are
informed once again that these verses refer only to dead bodies,
although such an explanation reduces these verses to obvious
meaninglessness. But, should non-evangelicals resort to
such tactics in order to 'explain away' such explicit passages
of scripture they would immediately be accused of twisting the
scriptures to suit their own interpretations.
Yet another example will
serve to show that many times the evangelical criticisms of
‘cult teachings’ are simply not valid at all. Consider the
following verse as it stands in the King James Bible:
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him,
saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the
other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God,
seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed
justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this
man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus
said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou
be with me in paradise. Luke 23:39-43
Many students of the Bible
have pointed out that they do not agree with the punctuation of
the last verse and that it should instead be read as:
Verily I say unto thee this day, thou shalt be with me in
paradise.
Evangelical leaders and
apologists howl in protest that those who read this verse in
such a way have ‘changed the Bible’ or ‘twisted the scriptures’
to teach what they do not say. But is this criticism even
valid?
Anyone who is familiar with
the Greek language in which the New Testament was originally
written knows that punctuation did not exist in the original
text. Therefore, those who would read this verse in a
different way by changing the punctuation have certainly NOT
‘changed the Bible’ or twisted anything at all! In fact,
because the punctuation was not part of the original inspired
text, it would be just as easy to say that it is the
evangelicals that are twisting the verse to suit their
needs!
Evangelicals will sometimes
point out that there is ‘not one eminent recognized scholar who
believes that the punctuation of Luke 23:43, as it stands in the
King James text, is in error’. But once again, this
argument means absolutely nothing. Actually there is no shortage
of scholars who believe that the comma in Luke 23:43 is in the
wrong place (Rotherham, Bullinger, etc.). What the
Evangelicals really mean, is that
they do not accept any scholar who happens to disagree with
them!
I remember listening to one
popular syndicated radio broadcast where the speaker pointed out
how a certain 'cult' had 'changed the Bible' by moving the comma
at Luke 23:43. This man was of significant learning and
reputation and almost certainly knew that he was not telling his
listeners the whole truth. You cannot 'change the Bible' by
moving punctuation, because there was no punctuation in the
original text. This speaker was clearly counting on
the ignorance of his audience in order to prove his point. Is
this honest? Isn't this exactly what this man was accusing
the 'cults' of doing?
In still more instances
Evangelicals will freely quote their own erroneous
interpretations of the Bible as if they were actually quoting
from the Bible itself. A few of examples of this are:
“Jesus talked about hell more than
heaven”
“Jesus said that hell is a place of
weeping and gnashing of teeth”
“Paul said ‘To be absent from the
body is to be present with the Lord’”
“The Bible says that hell is a lake
of fire”
"The rapture precedes the seven year
tribulation"
None of the above phrases
is correct from a truly Biblical perspective although most
evangelicals will swear that they are. All of these statements
are derived from certain pre-conceived ideas and assumptions
which evangelical theology brings to the Biblical text. But
nowhere does the Bible explicitly teach any of these. This
betrays a lack of serious Bible study, but once again, isn’t
this precisely what they accuse the 'cults' of?
So we see from the examples
above; the doctrine of the trinity which one must profess to be
considered orthodox, clear verses concerning the state of the
dead which flatly contradict the current evangelical teaching,
the punctuation of Luke 23:43 where the protests of ‘twisting
the scriptures’ are simply invalid, and ‘scriptural' statements
which are simply not correct, that evangelicals simply do not
tell the truth when they state that only their beliefs
are based on the Bible. The cases discussed briefly above are by
no means isolated examples and such cases could be easily
multiplied.
The sad fact is, that in
almost every way the evangelicals today criticize those who do
not agree with their teachings, they also indict themselves.
They may have convinced themselves and their followers that
their teachings are based on sound scholarship, but the facts
tell an entirely different story. It is time that Christians
begin to wake up and see that in many cases they have been
deceived into believing exactly the opposite of what the Bible
teaches! To abandon these teaching is not to abandon the 'faith
once delivered to the saints' but to free oneself from an
apostate system which will be held accountable to God for its
unbelief and which stands in danger of severe judgment.
Evangelicalism has become
the most prominent, visible manifestation of ‘Christianity’ in
our time. It is a system that over the past century has
erected an enormous monstrosity of conflicting doctrines whilst
all the while vehemently proclaiming it’s self to be ‘the faith
once delivered to the saints’. Is it any wonder that many
in our day reject Christianity entirely?
If, as most evangelicals
teach, we are truly living in the last age just prior to the
return of Jesus Christ, then each of us should be even more
driven to make certain that those things which we have been
taught for so long are true. None of us will be able to
plead ignorance before the judgment if we let our Bibles collect
dust while simply believing everything we were told. The
Bereans were considered more noble because they searched the
scriptures to make sure that what they were being taught was the
truth. Can we say that we have truly done the same thing?
The Harvest Herald is simply an invitation and a challenge to
all Christians to dare to think differently, and to have
enough courage and faith in God to believe that He can guide you
into all truth. If we can be of any help at all in your personal
search for Biblical truth, please let us know. |