74 Sermon Illustrations on Doctrine

There is a great line in one of Charles Schulz's Peanuts cartoons. It is raining "cats and dogs" outside the window when Lucy asks the most profound question of the day. "Boy, look at it rain. What if it floods the whole world?" Fully up to the occasion as usual, Linus, the resident theologian, answers that a worldwide flood is impossible since Genesis 9 promises that God will never again flood the earth. Obviously relieved, Lucy sighs, "You've taken a great load off my mind...." Linus's final summation: "sound theology has a way of doing that!"

"If a man had poison mixed with his meat, although the excellence of his digestion or the strength of his constitution might bear him through, yet he would run great hazard." Thus a soul may survive grave doctrinal error; it is possible for it to struggle out of the power of a strong dose of Popery, or Socinianism, or "Modern Thought"; but it runs great risks, of a character so violent that no one should lightly venture upon them. Our safest course is to take heed what we hear, and partake of nothing which comes from doubtful quarters. O, my Lord, do thou feed me with the bread of life. Suffer me not to taste of Satan's dainties. I have no strength to spare. Forbid that I should test it by imbibing the deadly teachings of those who err from thy truth.

"We do not judge a sword to be good merely because it hangs by a golden belt, or because it is set in a jewelled hilt." Neither is a doctrine to be valued because a fine orator delivers it in gorgeous speech with glittering words. A lie is none the better for being bespangled with poetic phrases and high-sounding periods. Yet half our people forget this, and glittering oratory fascinates them. Alas, poor simpletons! The same blunders are made about men, who should ever be esteemed according to their native worth, and not according to their position and office. What mistakes we should make if we considered all the hangers-on of great men to be themselves great, or all the followers of good men to be themselves necessarily good. Alas! the Lord himself had his Judas, and to this day swords of brittle metal hang at the golden girdle of his Church. A man is not a saint because he occupies a saintly office, or repeats saintly words. No; the test of a sword's goodness is to be found in battle. Will its edge turn in the fray, or will it cut through a coat of mail? Will our faith bear affliction? Will it stand us in good stead when we are hand to hand with the enemy? Will it avail us in the dying hour? If not, we may suspend it on the glittering belt of great knowledge, and hold it by the jewelled hilt of a high profession; but woe unto us! Lord, give me the true Jerusalem blade of child-like faith in thee, and may I never rest content with a mere imitation thereof.

"When the thread of the gospel is too fine spun, it will not clothe a naked soul." Nice distinctions and technical phrases may hide the fulness of the word of God, and the simple truth may be treated in such a philosophical manner that its strength and substance may be taken away. Some men preach the gospel, but there is very little of it. It is the night wool, but it is spun too fine. They give milk, it is true, but the water of their own notions so dilutes it that a man might sooner be drowned in it than nourished by it. O to preach a full gospel fully— to give it out with the richness and freeness which poor sinners need. This is one of the great demands of the day. Men are very liberal in their views, but they are not liberal in dealing out the precious things of the gospel of Christ. Cold is this world and bitter are the blasts of conscience, and while they are shivering in their sins, poor awakened souls need all the gospel of grace, and all the grace of the gospel. O that our brethren would give up their fine spinning and wire-drawing of the doctrines of grace, and give us something substantial from the storehouse of the everlasting covenant, and plenty of it. Alas, too many despise the old-fashioned word, and in their heart of hearts hate the very doctrine which they pretend to uphold. We know some who have no more right in the Christian ministry than Mahometans, and yet they say they are followers of Jesus. We have not so learned Christ.

Calvinism and Arminianism, regarded as theological systems, may be compared to the thin, empty, crescented forms of the old and new moon, butting at each other with their sharp-pointed horns from the opposite sides of a darkened disc. Scripture does not alter the position of these two belligerents; but, by illuminating the whole intervening space, it fuses both into one glorious orb of holy light. J. E. Gordon.

A minister travelling through the West, some time ago, asked an old lady on whom he called, what she thought of the doctrine of total depravity. "Oh, sir!" she replied, "I think it is a good doctrine if people would only live up to it."

As he is a traitor to his prince who taketh upon him to coin money out of a base metal, yea, although in the stamp he putteth for a show the image of the prince; so he that shall teach any doctrine that cometh not from God, whatsoever he say for it, or what gloss soever he set on it, is a traitor unto God, yea, a surred traitor, though he were an angel from heaven. Spencer.

After a storm comes fair weather, after winter comes summer: so in the doctrine of our souls, first God teacheth the law, preacheth repentance, threateneth vengeance for sin, casts down man in his own sight, and lets him look even into hell, with fear of conscience for his disobedience; but afterwards he comforts him, raises him up, and heals him. Cawdray.

The two Testaments, Old and New, like the two breasts of the same person, give the same milk. As if one draw water out of a deep well with vessels of different metal, — one of brass, another of tin, a third of earth, — the water may seem at first to be of a different color; but, when the vessels are brought near the eye, the diversity of colors vanisheth, and the waters tasted have the same relish: so here the different style of the historiographers from prophets, of the prophets from evangelists, of the evangelists from apostles, may make the truths of Scripture seem of different complexions, till one look narrowly into them, and taste them advisedly; then will the identity both of color and relish manifest itself.

— Arrowsmith

The Rev. Dr. Miller, of Princeton, N. J., in a note to his sermon preached at the ordination of Rev. Mr. Nevins, in Baltimore, speaking of the dreadful and soul-destroying errors of Arius and Socius, remarks, that in conformity with this view of the subject, the author cannot forbear to notice and record a declaration made to himself by the late *Dr. Priestley*, two or three years before the decease of that distinguished Unitarian. The conversation was a free and amicable one, on some of the fundamental doctrines of religion. In reply to a direct avowal on the part of the author that he was a *Trinitarian* and a *Calvinist*, *Dr. Priestley* said, "I do not wonder that you Calvinists entertain and express a strongly unfavorable opinion of us Unitarians. The truth is, there neither can, nor ought to be, any compromise between us. If you are right, WE ARE NOT CHRISTIANS AT ALL; and if we are right, YOU ARE GROSS IDOLATERS." These were, as nearly as can be recollected, the words, and, most accurately, the substance of his remark. And nothing certainly can be more just. Between those who believe in the Divinity and Atonement of the Son of God, and those who entirely reject both, "there is a great gulf fixed," which precludes all ecclesiastical intercourse.

Our forefathers were very fond of clipping their plants and training their flowers into quaint and grotesque forms; so that we read of great guns wrought in rosemary and sweet briers. He would have been very foolish who would have trembled at cannons which only shot forth flowers and darted perfume. Let the poor trembler who is sincerely seeking Jesus, rest assured that the seemingly dreadful doctrines of election and predestination are not one whit more terrible, and are far more sweetly fragrant.

The follies of the schoolmen should be a warning to all those who would mingle metaphysical speculations or prophetical theories with the simple doctrines of the Bible. There was among those learned men such a rage for Aristotle, that his ethics were frequently read to the people instead of the gospel, and the teachers themselves were employed either in wresting the words of Scripture to support the most monstrous opinions, or in discussing the most trivial questions. Think of men gravely debating whether the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary in the shape of a serpent, of a dove, of a man, or of a woman? Did he seem to be young or old? In what dress was he? Was his garment white or of two colours? Was his linen clean or foul? Did he appear in the morning, noon, or evening? What was the colour of the Virgin's hair? &c. Think of all this nonsense veiled in learned terms and obscure phrases! While human minds were engaged in weaving such cobwebs as these, no progress was made in real knowledge, and the gloom of the dark ages deepened into tenfold night. We are much in danger of the same evil from another quarter. The reign of obscure nonsense and dogmatic trifling may yet return. An ultra-spiritual sect has arisen whose theological language is a jargon, whose interpretations are mystical, whose prophetical hypotheses are ridiculous, and whose arrogance is superlative. To leave the consideration of well-known and soul-saving truths to fight over unimportant subtleties, is to turn our corn fields into poppy gardens. To imagine that the writers of unintelligible mysticism are men of great depth, is to find wisdom in the hootings of owls. True spirituality shuns the obscure and the dilettanti , and delights in the plain and practical; but there is much to fascinate in the superfine shams of the hour. Quintilian justly observes that the obscurity of an author is generally in proportion to his incapacity; and we might add, that the ferocity of a bigot is frequently in proportion to the absurdity of his belief. Some are zealots for a certain theory of 666, and the two witnesses, and the little horn, who would be far better employed in training up their children in the fear of God, or listening for their instruction to a sober preacher of the word of God. It is a most fitting thing to be looking for the coming of the Lord, but a most miserable waste of time to be spinning theories about it, and allowing the millions around us to perish in their sins. Ragged-schools, orphanages, street-preaching, tract distributing, almsgiving, these are the present and pressing questions for the Christian church; whether the stream of the Euphrates is likely to diminish, or the Dead Sea to flow into the Mediterranean, may be settled in less needy times.

It is natural to desire a few firm and unshakable beliefs. If we can only formulate the eternal verities and tuck them away in pigeon-holes ready to our hand when wanted, we feel a certain sense of security. To run the fundamental principles into molds and have them forever after in cast-iron rigidity and indestructibility is surely, we imagine, a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But soon we encounter unexpected and vexatious and puzzling difficulties. Truth has a way of losing its trueness by the very act of being exprest. Exprest, or squeezed out, it does, indeed, too often become; and nothing but an empty husk, a hollow form, remains. How often one has the vaguely haunting and curiously baffling sense that, if one were to say a certain thing, that thing would immediately cease to be so; and, that if one had only refrained from a certain other utterance, the thought intended would not have lost, so unaccountably, its quality of truth! In other words, how many times does truth show itself to be of a nature quite too shy to be caught and tamed, too slippery to be grasped, too elusive to be held fast! To take a homely illustration, Mrs. Smith says to Mrs. Brown, “I am more polite than you,” and straightway an assertion that might have been true, if unuttered, becomes glaringly false. An able lawyer was once arguing a case in court when the judge interrupted him by declaring, “That is not the law.” “It was the law, your Honor, until your Honor spoke,” was the two-edged rejoinder. Some such ironical retort is constantly being flung back at us by the inscrutabilities that we attempt to fathom. We know not well (tho we are learning) the subtle ways they “keep, and pass, and turn again.”

“Outworn creeds” is a phrase familiar to all. But why have we so abundant a heritage of these cast-off garments? Is not their undurability owing to the fact that truth is dynamic rather than static? We must believe that at every instant of time something is true; but that the same thing, stated just so and no otherwise, is true for all time, is not so certain, and he who depends on a fixt creed, of elaborate pattern, to bear him up through all the stormy seas, is likely to find himself clinging to a very poor life-preserver.--_The Christian Register._

Men that work by doctrines are men that think they have found out the universe; they have not only got it, but they have formulated it; they know all about the Infinite, they have sailed around eternity, they know all about the Eternal and the Everlasting God, and you will hear them discuss questions of theology: “No, God could not, consistent with consistency, do so-and-so.” They know all His difficulties; they know how He got round them. One might easily come to think that God was their next-door neighbor. Well, after all, whether it is true or false--their systematic views, their dogmas--the pedagogic views are very important to teach young and middle-aged and old to attempt, by philosophic reasoning, to reach into these unfathomable depths. They produce a power upon the brain of most transcendent importance; they, in their way, may not increase the sum of human knowledge, but they increase the capacity of the human brain for profound thought and investigation. (Text.)

— HENRY WARD BEECHER

How to identify where we are doctrinally in regard to compatibility:

1. Our Principles.

a. What doctrines are vital to us?

b. What doctrines can we live with, even if we don't hold them?

2. Our Preferences.

A fondly-held custom that is not, however, required by Scripture.

3. Our Prejudices.

Close to preferences. What we want to practice. (Xmas tree in church.)

4. Our Priorities.

Where are our emphases? Relative importance of our beliefs.

5. Our Peculiarities.

Areas that may defy rationality. "We've always done it this way."

Sermon in Acts series. Jerusalem Council Acts 15:22-33

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COMPROMISE OR CONSENSUS?

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I. Conflict is a fact of life.

II. Principles cannot be compromised.

A. Issue in Acts 15 is the basis of salvation. Acts 15:1,5

B. Background in book of Galatians. Gal 2:12f

C. There can be no compromise on Christian principles.

III. Preferences should be settled by consensus.

A. Not every issue is worth dying for.

B. The church made its decision together.

C. The restrictions were reasonable. Acts 15:20

D. Sensitivity is important.

IV. Priorities must be kept focused.

A. We must know what we are fighting for.

B. Areas where the church must take a stand today:

1) Godly lifestyles.

2) Sanctity of life.

3) Objective truth of God's Word.

C. In all things practice love.

United Methodists, whether conservative or liberal theologically, foresee a period of critical decision-making approaching on the mainline denomination’s horizon. Though membership declines have lessened in recent years, the United Methodist Church (UMC) is often perceived as a “sick denomination,” one that requires serious rethinking and recommitment if it is to play a role in modern culture. Membership in the United States, now at 8.6 million, has been decreasing for more than 25 years.

Several movements within the UMC are dedicated to furthering reform in the church. Perhaps none has the potential for controversy as much as the so- called Confessing Movement. Not even two years old, this movement, which seeks to reground the church explicitly in its historic statements of theological doctrine and mission, has attracted thousands of supporters and the focused attention of UMC’s leadership.

That attention should only increase next April with the church’s quadrennial general conference.

Confessing Movement leaders say they have assembled a coalition of UM moderates, traditionalists, evangelicals, conservatives, and charismatics to prevent the denomination from losing its historic faith and doctrinal distinctives. To that end, they urge the church to begin a vigorous internal discussion on the lordship and uniqueness of Christ, the status of its founding documents and statements of faith, and its duty to carry out the Great Commission.

The Confessing Movement’s critics assert the movement has set itself up as the arbiter of orthodoxy and thus is a threat to the UMC’s tradition of tolerance.

Yet, movement leaders reject this characterization. “We’re not trying to define one narrow thing you’ve got to believe,” says John Ed Mathison, chair of the movement’s steering committee and senior pastor of Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. “But how much latitude can you have? When you’ve got some people who say you don’t need Jesus Christ for salvation, you’ve gone too far.”

FOCUS ON DOCTRINE: The Confessing Movement sprang from an invitation-only meeting of about 90 United Methodists in Atlanta last year.

That meeting produced “An Invitation to the Church” -- a call to reformation and doctrinal reinvigoration -- which subsequently attracted 13,000 signatures of support. In April, an open meeting in Atlanta saw about 900 attendees adopt “A Confessional Statement.”

This statement emphasizes the centrality of Christ and takes the church to task for tolerating paganism, disregarding the world’s poor, accepting modern norms of sexuality and marriage, resigning itself to racial and gender injustice, condoning homosexual practices, and abdicating its role of support for the unborn and the mother.

At its heart, the Confessing Movement seeks to put boundaries on what is acceptable practice and belief within United Methodism.

It is also a reaction to nearly a century of liberal Protestantism, which it sees as drifting into the orbit of radical Protestants “who are creating their own religion,” according to Prof. William J. Abraham, of Dallas’s Southern Methodist University. He says the notion that the UMC does not have set statements of faith is false, and he points to the Articles of Religion, the Confession of Faith, and founder John Wesley’s Sermons and Explanatory Notes on the New Testament. “It means Methodism is clearly and unequivocally committed to the classical faith of the church, and we’re also committed to distinctives that have always been a part of this church.”

Central to the movement’s hope for dialogue is the reaction of UMC bishops, who are being urged to lead the discussion by exercising their teaching roles. Bishops have demonstrated uncertainty over how to react.

William Oden, UMC bishop of the Louisiana area, welcomes the emphasis on the UMC’s presence in the stream of Christian thought running through Wesley back to the early Christians.

He points to the current debates and to the growth of renewal movements within the church as evidence of Methodist interest in clearing up confusion over its theological core, its mission, and its execution of that mission.

The disagreements grow more serious -- and political -- when it comes to mission execution. The Confessing Movement, like its critics, stresses the Wesleyan imperative of acting out one’s faith in service, and it is not unusual to find congregations on both sides of an issue actively involved in ministry to aids sufferers, the homeless, and prisoners.

Similarly, both sides are eager to play a socially and spiritually reforming role in the United States akin to that played by Wesley and the early Methodists in eighteenth-century England. However, the role of doctrine splits the groups. The movement focuses on the centrality of Christ as the reason and the source for all social involvement. “That is the center out of which all else must move,” says Maxie Dunnam, president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. “Unless we have agreement on the center, you can’t go anywhere.”

Some critics, such as leaders of Atlanta’s Trinity United Methodist Church, argue that too-strict adherence to doctrine can hinder outreach, particularly to homosexuals. Trinity responded to the Confessing Movement by issuing “A Call for Renewal of Theology and Mission in the United Methodist Church,” which enunciates its concerns. “Doctrine is important,” says Trinity pastor Rex Kaney, “but if it blocks us from being able to love others with the same unconditional love that Jesus loves us, then doctrine is in the way.”

GROWING DIVISIONS: The problems of the UMC are not unique among mainline denominations. Commonly there exists a sense of growing division between the views of denominational leaders and everyday believers.

To the extent that a more conservative laity and younger generation is percolating in the UMC, Confessing Movement leaders are not content to wait for a natural generational changing of the guard.

Confessing Movement cofounder Thomas Oden, professor of theology at Drew University’s School of Theology in Madison, New Jersey, says liberals are finding it impossible to ignore what he calls “an emerging leadership of young United Methodist students.” He compares the UMC movement to evangelical Anglicans, who now represent a large and vital force within the Church of England.

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Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

The Christian faith includes essential doctrinal content that the church must believe, teach and confess, R. Albert Mohler Jr. believes.

Preaching from Hebrews 11:1-6 and Acts 16:30-31, Southern Seminary’s president said a clear articulation of central Christian doctrines in a confession of faith is more important than ever for evangelical churches and seminaries because they minister in a postmodern culture that denies the existence of objective truth.

“We must understand that Christianity is not a mood,” Mohler said. “It is not an emotion. It is not a feeling. It is not an amorphous set of beliefs. It is established by the truth of God’s Word, by the saving reality of God’s deeds in Jesus Christ, around certain definite doctrines without which it is not possible to exercise the kind of faith that saves.”

The faith of which Scripture speaks includes irreducible truths such as the character and attributes of God and the person and work of Christ, Mohler said, noting that creeds and confessions are important summary statements of these truths that have a long and venerable history.

“One of the problems of our contemporary age is that when people hear the word ‘faith,’ they tend to think of faith in faith,” he said. “They tend to think of faith as some sort of mental or spiritual exercise. They think of faith as a mere act of the will. They are not thinking of faith that is scripturally defined in terms, first of all, of the truth that is there affirmed, the content of that faith. We are not saved by faith in faith, we are saved through faith in Christ. There is a huge difference there.”

Southern Seminary is a confessional institution, adhering to the Abstract of Principles, a statement of faith that Basil Manly, Jr., a founding faculty member, penned and the school adopted when it opened in 1859. Professors must sign the document, agreeing to teach “in accordance with and not contrary to” its doctrines.

Four members of the Southern Seminary faculty signed the Abstract prior to Mohler’s sermon: T.J. Betts, assistant professor of Old Testament interpretation; Greg Brewton, associate professor of church music; Mark Coppenger, professor of Christian apologetics; and Randy Stinson, dean of the School of Leadership and Church Ministry.

“It is important for us to remember that this is not an innovation,” Mohler said. “We did not come up with this.

“This comes out of a tradition of confessional subscription, out of a creedal and confessional history of the church whereby God’s people, particularly churches, have received the stewardship of biblical truth and have sought to articulate that truth, to perpetuate that truth, to make that truth a matter of common accountability and common faith.... It is done before a watching church by a teacher who says, ‘These are the things that I believe. I take my stand upon these doctrines, defined and definite.’”

Confessions of faith, Mohler said, have been crucial throughout church history because they have helped Christians to distinguish orthodox doctrine from heresy. He pointed to examples such as the Nicene Creed that arose out of the Council of Nicaea in 325. The creed affirmed the orthodox expression of the deity of Christ against the threat of Arianism -- a heresy that argued Christ was merely a created being, that there was a time when He did not exist. The orthodox belief in Christ’s deity as set forth in the Nicene Creed is central to the Gospel and the proclamation of it, Mohler said.

“Why are we here? It is because of who Jesus Christ is and what Jesus Christ has done,” Mohler said. “It is because we know of the existence of God and the character of God and we see the glory of God displayed in the entire drama of redemption.

“All of this is why we are here and we must be able to articulate these things if we are genuinely to know them, to believe them, to treasure them and if we are to perpetuate them. We must have a means of distinguishing the true from the false, the right from the wrong, the orthodox from the heretical. This content requires definition.”

Baptists have been a confessional people throughout their history, Mohler said. Southern Baptists did not adopt a confession until 1925 because the denomination’s churches and associations had their own statements of faith. The SBC first adopted the Baptist Faith & Message in 1925 because denials of God’s truth were rampant in the culture and were threatening churches, Mohler said.

Some argue that the Bible is their only creed, but Mohler note that cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons also claim the Bible as their source of doctrine. Thus, it is important for Christians to know, in summary form, what the Bible teaches. While Scripture is the sole authority for Christians, confessions serve as concise expressions of its most important doctrines, Mohler said.

He concluded with nine reasons why confessions are important. Confessions, he said: define the truth, correct error, operate as standards for God’s people, assist in worship, connect modern Christians to the faith of their fathers, are useful as a teaching mechanism, protect the teaching, summarize the teaching of Scripture and define Christian unity.

It is the task of local churches to believe, teach and confess the doctrines central to Christianity, he said.

“The faith once for all delivered to the saints is articulated wherever the saints are found,” he said. “We wish to speak with the saints these same truths.

“Let us remember we are here because we believe. Let us remember that we are believers drawn to a believing institution serving a believing church in order that we may be believing teachers and believing ministers of the Word of God. Let us remember that faith has essential content. Let us treasure that content, not merely that we would get the doctrines right, not merely that we would teach the doctrines rightly, but that God would be rightly glorified in His church, the pillar and the ground of truth.”

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being inaccurate.]

Much of the language in the New Testament is of a militant nature. Believers are often referenced as soldiers. Warfare is a common theme and words like battle, fight and defeat are used regularly. The real enemy is Satan and this worldly system he superintends.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

Throughout the passing decades of the last half-century the church has, quite ironically, battled itself as much or more than it has battled the world. Frequently, rather than engaging the world and confronting the world, the church has instead taken up arms against itself. Strong opinions about a variety of issues have led to deep divisions, animosity and even church splits. This effectual “turning against one another” has been cause for Satan to break out the celebratory champagne.

Petty battles, however, albeit defending deeply held convictions, may have felt like spiritual warfare to those involved, but frequently these engagements have served to drain the church of its spiritual, emotional and physical energy and sometimes its monetary resources.

And these battles certainly have been cause for delight to the enemy of our souls. Quite simply, believers in recent decades in particular have struggled to identify the real enemy and the real battlefield worthy of their attention.

Believers are called to be warriors in this conflict -- not spectators. They are expected to properly identify the true enemy and his tactics. A warrior has been defined as “a brave or experienced soldier or fighter.” It takes skill, resolve and determination to defeat any enemy. Our opponent is formidable and should never be taken lightly by the church of the Lord Jesus.

Sabine Baring-Gould wrote the great hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” in 1865 (to listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG78M7g9wRo). The hymn has served as something of a “call to arms” for Christians engaged in the battle for Christ in this world. Debates raged in the 1980s within some denominations as to whether to include it in new editions of hymnals because of its militaristic tone.

When Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt met in August 1941 on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales to agree on the Atlantic Charter, a church service was held for which Churchill chose the hymns. He chose “Onward Christian Soldiers” and afterward explained his choice in a radio broadcast. “We sang ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ indeed,” Churchill said, “and I felt that this was no vain presumption, but that we had the right to feel that we were serving a cause for the sake of which a trumpet has sounded from on high. When I looked upon that densely packed congregation of fighting men of the same language, of the same faith, of the same fundamental laws, of the same ideals ... it swept across me that here was the only hope, but also the sure hope, of saving the world from measureless degradation.”

While the hymn may have been highly appropriate for this occasion, the ultimate cause of freedom and of nations is not as great as the cause of Christ. Churchill and Roosevelt primarily were concerned with earthly battles and earthly victories, but Christians have a much greater cause for which to fight.

Warfare is never as glamorous as some of its romanticized depictions. Paul wrote to his young friend Timothy: “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3). A soldier’s life entails plenty of hardships, but Paul admonished Timothy that he must endure.

Unfortunately, to look at the attitude and approach of many professing believers, one might easily get the impression the war has long since ended. Charles Thomas “C.T.” Studd (1860-1931), the great British missionary who served in the Belgian Congo, captured somewhat of the urgency when he famously wrote, “Some want to live within the sound of a church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” Studd also wrote a ditty that gave, rather tongue and cheek, a depiction of how some so casually approached the great daily battles. With words to be sung to the tune of the famous hymn “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus,” he wrote, “Get up, get up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the Cross, a lazy Sunday morning surely means harm and loss; the Church of God is calling; in duty be not slack; you cannot fight the good fight while lying on your back.”

Many Christians today have lost sight of who the real enemy is and are not keenly aware of what he is actually doing. The second stanza of “Onward Christian Soldiers” optimistically states, “We are not divided; all one body we; one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.” Sadly, we could only wish those words were true in our times.

Throughout the passing decades of the last half-century the church has, quite ironically, battled itself as much or more than it has battled the world. Frequently, rather than engaging the world and confronting the world, the church has instead taken up arms against itself. Strong opinions about a variety of issues have led to deep divisions, animosity and even church splits. This effectual “turning against one another” has been cause for Satan to break out the celebratory champagne.

We have been divided across denominations, within our own denomination and even within our own local churches. An army battling within its own ranks is music to the ears of the enemy. While many argue over issues, preferences and other minutia that will not even exist in a few years, the enemy is advancing and the church is often in retreat. Before we are going to be effective soldiers we must first realize there is a war raging and too many believers are not carrying out, or even aware of, their assignments.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #1822]

After three days of heated debate, the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) voted Nov. 16 overwhelmingly to affirm what almost every Christian in the history of the church has always believed -- that God knows everything, including the future decisions of his creatures.

The organization, a professional society of biblical scholars and theologians who affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, brought the issue to the floor after a group of ETS charter members charged that the "openness of God" view being articulated by some society members is outside the boundaries of evangelical conviction.

The non-binding resolution stated that the society believes "the Bible clearly teaches that God has complete, accurate and infallible knowledge of all events past, present and future including all future decisions and actions of free moral agents." The resolution passed on a vote of 253 in favor to 66 opposed with 41 abstentions after a debate that lasted until well after midnight the night before.

The resolution takes issue with the concept of "open theism" held by evangelical scholars such as Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd and John Sanders. God cannot know what will happen in the future, these scholars argue, since future human decisions have not yet been made and thus do not exist to be known. Sanders, a professor of religion at Huntington College in Indiana, presented the open theist case before the society, arguing that an attempt to rule the idea out of bounds could result in an evangelical "Taliban," enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy within the society.

Sanders' view was opposed by a competing presentation by Bruce Ware, associate dean and professor of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky. Ware pleaded with ETS members to recognize that the denial of God's complete knowledge is a dangerous doctrine that will damage the churches. Ware pointed to a host of Scriptures in which God declares himself to know the future, including passages in which God contrasts his knowledge of the future with the idols that have no such knowledge of future events.

"By its denying of God's foreknowledge of future free creaturely choices and actions, open theism is vulnerable to the charge of commending as God one whom the true God declares is false and worthless," Ware said.

The ramifications of open theism include the undermining of the gospel itself, Ware said, since God could not have kept with certainty the prophetic promises of the Old Testament, up to and including the crucifixion of Jesus. Nor, Ware said, can a God ignorant of the future guarantee the future success of his purposes. Ware took issue with statements by open theists who argue that God has made mistakes, including statements by Pinnock that even Jesus was mistaken at least once on a matter of predictive prophecy.

"The cost to doctrine and faith by open theism's denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge is too great to be accepted within evangelicalism," Ware said. "Thoughtful Christians, particularly Christian leaders, must speak out on the openness proposal to say what the glory of God, the truthfulness of Scripture and our own consciences require."

Before the debate on the resolution, Ware pleaded with open theists to repent of their teachings and reconsider the biblical portrayal of a God who knows the end from the beginning.

"You don't have to go this way!" Ware said. "I won't say, 'I told you so.' I will praise God! Come back to the fold."

The vote was preceded by one charter member, theologian Roger Nicole, arguing that the founders of the organization would have been horrified to know that the issue of God's knowledge would ever be up for debate among evangelicals, or that anyone who held such a view would even seek membership. Nicole argued that the society should vote to uphold foreknowledge, thereby signaling to open theists that they should "exercise their precious free will and resign." If the open theists refuse to voluntarily leave the organization, Nicole said, the ETS should then move to expel them through its constitutional process.

"Open theism is a cancer on the Evangelical Theological Society," Nicole said. "That cancer has not been resolved by chemotherapy or radiation. The only remaining option is surgery."

Ware and Nicole, a member of a Florida Baptist congregation, were joined by other Southern Baptists in opposing the open theist position. Charlie Draper, professor of New Testament at Southern Seminary's Boyce College, and Russ Bush, academic dean at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, both argued that a denial of God's foreknowledge is a denial of the inerrancy of Scripture, since a God who cannot know the future cannot guarantee the truth of a Bible that speaks to future events. Draper said the debate might well be "the issue of the century" for American evangelicals.

"If this line cannot be drawn, no line can be drawn," Draper said. "If this view cannot be said to be a denial of inerrancy, then no view can be said to be a denial of inerrancy."

The resolution was opposed by Clark Pinnock, who as a faculty member at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1960s, once championed a very conservative vision of historic Christian orthodoxy, but who has now significantly altered his convictions not only about the foreknowledge of God, but also about the meaning of inerrancy and the necessity of conscious faith in Christ for salvation. Pinnock argued that the ETS should not condemn open theism, but instead should recognize that "the best advice about a new religious movement" comes from the Pharisee Gamaliel in Acts 5:33-39. If open theism is not of God, it will come to nothing, Pinnock suggested.

The Southern Baptist Convention has addressed the question of open theism, first in a resolution offered by Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. at the 1999 SBC annual meeting in Atlanta. The resolution passed by the convention affirmed that God knows all things, including the future. The SBC then addressed the issue in the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statement of beliefs, revising the article on God to affirm that God's "perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures."

The ETS debate was preceded by a flurry of papers presented on both sides of the issue, and by an address by ETS President Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, who argued that sharp boundaries should not be drawn for the evangelical movement. Instead, he argued, evangelicalism may be likened to a "village green," which is defined more by the center than by the boundaries. After the vote, ETS program chair Millard Erickson, a longtime opponent of open theism, predicted that the resolution would not end the debate over these issues within American evangelicalism.

--30-

American Baptist missionaries David and Joyce Reed recently attended a special service to organize a mission, or outreach from an established Mexican Baptist church, called "La Casa de Oración" (The House of Prayer). The service is one of the steps the mission must take before it can organize as an official church of the convention.

David says, "The entire membership studies church doctrine and ecclesiology, and then submits to an oral exam by a clergy council." Mission members were called upon to answer the questions. If that person had a problem, others could help. However, the pastor of the mission could not step in.

Here are some of the questions the Reeds heard that night:

• Name 10 attributes of God.

• How will you interpret the will of God for this church?

• How are we adopted as children of God?

• Can you name the Biblical principles for church discipline?

• What is the church?

David asked, "I wonder how many of these questions the members of our local American Baptist churches in the United States could answer?" The examination took about 90 minutes, followed by a two-and-a-half hour worship service. The end result? A unanimous vote to accept this mission as a new church in the Baptist Convention of La Paz, Baja California Sur!

The 20th century witnessed an increasingly energetic revolt against doctrine. A denial of specific formulations of classical Christian doctrine has been evident in some quarters, while others have rejected the very notion of doctrine itself.

Doctrine has even fallen on hard times even among those who call themselves evangelicals. Some evangelical historians now argue that the defining principles of evangelical identity are not specifically theological -- at least beyond the most general affirmations. If true, that judgment would be a disgrace to any people of God. As it is, however, evangelicals have a proud doctrinal heritage and have historically given careful attention to confessions of faith and doctrinal issues.

Doctrine is, quite literally, the teaching of the church -- what the church understands to be the substance of its faith. It is no substitute for personal experience. Evangelical Christians have given clear witness to the necessity of personal faith in Jesus Christ, but that personal faith is based in some specific understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what He accomplished on the cross. After all, we do not call persons to profess faith in faith, but faith in Christ.

There is no Christianity “in general.” Faith in some experience devoid of theological or biblical content -- no matter how powerful -- is not New Testament Christianity. Those called to Christianity in general may believe nothing in particular. But faith resides in particulars.

Some churches seem to think that doctrine is a concern for those of a certain intellectual bent, but unnecessary for most Christians. Interest in doctrine amounts to something like an intellectual hobby. Others steer clear of doctrine for fear of argument or division in the church. Both factors indicate a lack of respect for the Christian believer and an abdication of the teaching function of the church.

Those who sow disdain and disinterest in biblical doctrine will reap a harvest of rootless and fruitless Christians. Doctrine is not a challenge to experiential religion; it testifies to the content of that experience. The church is charged to call persons to Christ and to root them in a mature knowledge of Christian faith.

Sociologists and historians observing the American church scene indicate that one of the first signs of denominational decline is a lessening of doctrinal attention. Many mainline Protestant denominations have followed this course, with a weakening concern for biblical doctrine followed by decline in membership and evangelistic outreach.

Yet, evangelicals should not recapture a healthy concern for biblical doctrine merely as a means of avoiding organizational or congregational decline. We must do so because nothing less is worthy of a New Testament people. The essential issue for the church is faithfulness.

Churches lacking an intentional and effective program of doctrinal instruction risk becoming the company of the confused. Charles Spurgeon told the painful story of the Irishman who attended a sectarian religious society meeting. Telling of the meeting, the man recounted: “Oh, it was lovely: none of us knew anything and we all taught each other.”

American evangelicals must curb the decline of doctrinal concern in our midst and recapture the teaching responsibility of the church. Doctrine without piety is dead, but piety without doctrine is immature at best, and inauthentic at worst. Faithful Christians are always concerned with the development of true Christian piety and discipleship in believers. Yet, as John A. Broadus commented over a century ago, doctrinal truth is “the lifeblood of piety.”

Those who call for a “doctrineless Christianity” misunderstand -- or misrepresent -- both doctrine and Christianity. Pragmatism and program concerns dominate the lives of many Christians and their congregations. The low state of doctrinal understanding among so many evangelicals is evidence of a profound failure of both nerve and conviction. Both must be recovered if there is to be anything even remotely evangelical about the evangelicalism of the future.

*

If, at the tent door, the Arab offers to the thirsty passerby a cup of water, clear, cool, and sparkling in the cup, but in which he has cleverly concealed a painful and deadly poison, he would deserve and receive the anathema of all honest men. Much more terrible shall be the doom of him who, pretending friendship with the souls of men, and offering them in their need, instead of the pure water of life the deadly poison of false doctrine, shall bring down upon himself the righteous and unerring anathema of God.

In every generation, the church is commanded to “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” That is no easy task, and it is complicated by the multiple attacks upon Christian truth that mark our contemporary age. Assaults upon the Christian faith are no longer directed only at isolated doctrines. The entire structure of Christian truth is now under attack by those who would subvert Christianity's theological integrity.

Today's Christian faces the daunting task of strategizing which Christian doctrines and theological issues are to be given highest priority in terms of our contemporary context. This applies both to the public defense of Christianity in face of the secular challenge and the internal responsibility of dealing with doctrinal disagreements. Neither is an easy task, but theological seriousness and maturity demand that we consider doctrinal issues in terms of their relative importance. God's truth is to be defended at every point and in every detail, but responsible Christians must determine which issues deserve first-rank attention in a time of theological crisis.

A trip to the local hospital emergency room some years ago alerted me to an intellectual tool that is most helpful in fulfilling our theological responsibility. In recent years, emergency medical personnel have practiced a discipline known as triage -- a process that allows trained personnel to make a quick evaluation of relative medical urgency. Given the chaos of an emergency room reception area, someone must be armed with the medical expertise to make an immediate determination of medical priority. Which patients should be rushed into surgery? Which patients can wait for a less urgent examination? Medical personnel cannot flinch from asking these questions, and from taking responsibility to give the patients with the most critical needs top priority in terms of treatment.

The word “triage” comes from the French word “trier,” which means “to sort.” Thus, the triage officer in the medical context is the front-line agent for deciding which patients need the most urgent treatment. Without such a process, the scraped knee would receive the same urgency of consideration as a gunshot wound to the chest. The same discipline that brings order to the hectic arena of the emergency room can also offer great assistance to Christians defending truth in the present age.

A discipline of theological triage would require Christians to determine a scale of theological urgency that would correspond to the medical world's framework for medical priority. With this in mind, I would suggest three different levels of theological urgency, each corresponding to a set of issues and theological priorities found in current doctrinal debates.

First-level theological issues would include those doctrines most central and essential to the Christian faith. Included among these most crucial doctrines would be doctrines such as the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, justification by faith, and the authority of Scripture.

In the earliest centuries of the Christian movement, heretics directed their most dangerous attacks upon the church's understanding of who Jesus is and in what sense He is the very Son of God. Other crucial debates concerned the question of how the Son is related to the Father and the Holy Spirit. The earliest creeds and councils of the church were, in essence, emergency measures taken to protect the central core of Christian doctrine. At historic turning-points such as the councils at Nicea, Constantinople and Chalcedon, orthodoxy was vindicated and heresy was condemned -- and these councils dealt with doctrines of unquestionable first-order importance. Christianity stands or falls on the affirmation that Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God.

The church quickly moved to affirm that the full deity and full humanity of Jesus Christ are absolutely necessary to the Christian faith. Any denial of what has become known as Nicean-Chalcedonian Christology is, by definition, condemned as a heresy. The essential truths of the incarnation include the death, burial and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who deny these revealed truths are, by definition, not Christians.

The same is true with the doctrine of the Trinity. The early church clarified and codified its understanding of the one true and living God by affirming the full deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit -- while insisting that the Bible reveals one God in three persons.

In addition to the Christological and Trinitarian doctrines, the doctrine of justification by faith must also be included among these first-order truths. Without this doctrine, we are left with a denial of the Gospel itself, and salvation is transformed into some structure of human righteousness. The truthfulness and authority of the Holy Scriptures must also rank as a first-order doctrine, for without an affirmation of the Bible as the very Word of God, we are left without any adequate authority for distinguishing truth from error.

These first-order doctrines represent the most fundamental truths of the Christian faith, and a denial of these doctrines represents nothing less than an eventual denial of Christianity itself.

The set of second-order doctrines is distinguished from the first-order set by the fact that believing Christians may disagree on the second-order issues, though this disagreement will create significant boundaries between believers. When Christians organize themselves into congregations and denominational forms, these boundaries become evident.

Second-order issues would include the meaning and mode of baptism. Baptists and Presbyterians, for example, fervently disagree over the most basic understanding of Christian baptism. The practice of infant baptism is inconceivable to the Baptist mind, while Presbyterians trace infant baptism to their most basic understanding of the covenant. Standing together on the first-order doctrines, Baptists and Presbyterians eagerly recognize each other as believing Christians, but recognize that disagreement on issues of this importance will prevent fellowship within the same congregation or denomination.

Christians across a vast denominational range can stand together on the first-order doctrines and recognize each other as authentic Christians, while understanding that the existence of second-order disagreements prevents the closeness of fellowship we would otherwise enjoy. A church either will recognize infant baptism, or it will not. That choice immediately creates a second-order conflict with those who take the other position by conviction.

In recent years, the issue of women serving as pastors has emerged as another second-order issue. Again, a church or denomination either will ordain women to the pastorate, or it will not. Second-order issues resist easy settlement by those who would prefer an either/or approach. Many of the most heated disagreements among serious believers take place at the second-order level, for these issues frame our understanding of the church and its ordering by the Word of God.

Third-order issues are doctrines over which Christians may disagree and remain in close fellowship, even within local congregations. I would put most of the debates over eschatology, for example, in this category. Christians who affirm the bodily, historical, and victorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ may differ over timetable and sequence without rupturing the fellowship of the church. Christians may find themselves in disagreement over any number of issues related to the interpretation of difficult texts or the understanding of matters of common disagreement. Nevertheless, standing together on issues of more urgent importance, believers are able to accept one another without compromise when third-order issues are in question.

A structure of theological triage does not imply that Christians may take any biblical truth with less than full seriousness. We are charged to embrace and to teach the comprehensive truthfulness of the Christian faith as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. There are no insignificant doctrines revealed in the Bible, but there is an essential foundation of truth that undergirds the entire system of biblical truth.

This structure of theological triage may also help to explain how confusion can often occur in the midst of doctrinal debate. If the relative urgency of these truths is not taken into account, the debate can quickly become unhelpful. The error of theological liberalism is evident in a basic disrespect for biblical authority and the church's treasury of truth. The mark of true liberalism is the refusal to admit that first-order theological issues even exist. Liberals treat first-order doctrines as if they were merely third-order in importance, and doctrinal ambiguity is the inevitable result.

Fundamentalism, on the other hand, tends toward the opposite error. The misjudgment of true fundamentalism is the belief that all disagreements concern first-order doctrines. Thus, third-order issues are raised to a first-order importance, and Christians are wrongly and harmfully divided.

Living in an age of widespread doctrinal denial and intense theological confusion, thinking Christians must rise to the challenge of Christian maturity, even in the midst of a theological emergency. We must sort the issues with a trained mind and a humble heart, in order to protect what the Apostle Paul called the “treasure” that has been entrusted to us. Given the urgency of this challenge, a lesson from the emergency room just might help.

“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” Written in 1939, George Orwell’s words might well be addressed to the leaders of today’s biblically illiterate church.

J. I. Packer, on his 80th birthday, said that the greatest challenge of evangelicalism is to re-catechize our churches. More than ever, Christians need to be able to speak intelligently and courageously about the hope that lies within.

Personal faith is of course vital, but it is not sufficient. And yes, doctrine has often been taught so that it comes across as dry and dusty. But as Dorothy Sayers noted, once we grasp what Christian doctrines teach, “The Dogma is the Drama.”

The determination to restore orthodox faith — the faith “that was once for all entrusted” (Jude 1:3) — brought about the Reformation, of which we are heirs. A new emphasis on orthodox doctrine could also transform the church and culture today.

Orwell was right: In a crisis, we often have a duty to restate the obvious. The greatest challenge for serious Christians today is not re-inventing Christianity, but rediscovering its core teachings.