Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Cross in the Middle Should have been and Was His:Modern errors in thinking about Salvation




It is never easy to conduct discussions of doctrine in the modern Church, of whatever brand. The other day on youtube, I found even a seething, volatile launch against a subgroup of hyper-preterists complete with star wars effects and music. Much of doctrinal disagreements come from one overriding problem: a lack of Bible Study in the House of God which is profound, mixed with erratic study using several hundred 'versions' of God's word. No one knows what is taught outside of what their Church creed or most recent Sundays sermon .

Many disagreements also come because we try in human reason to understand what only the Holy Spirit can shed light on. How many of us profusely pray for the teaching, guidance and direction of the the Holy Spirit, the 'Ruach Ha Kodesh' to open our eyes to the Word : instead we pull out our commentaries, encyclopedias, concordances and go to war outlining what other authors tell us the Word says, failing the God given precepts for the study of His Word.

There are a few main doctrines though, especially regarding Salvation, so central a topic, that need to be clarified. We say things we hear at every rally, festival and church service without even going to the Scriptures to be the 'Bereans' we should. Below are a few common 'misconceptions' or 'partial' conceptions:

Jesus Died in Our Place

Guess what? While this has been repeated over and over, in songs and sermons, (e.g. 'the cross in the middle should have been mine) it has a serious error in it: even if Jesus had never come, incarnate God that he was, our dying on that cross would have made no difference whatsoever in the salvation of mankind. We say the above all the time, grateful for salvation, thinking of Him as taking the place of the ones who would have suffered that fate if not for him. There is of course a kernel of truth here: He died FOR us, no doubt, but He was the ONLY one who could have held that place. No mortal person could have accomplished the finished work of the cross. NONE. They had to be a one unique nature, God made Man, never before and never again. Is this nitpicking? Not really. Jesus was not the 'great martyr of the First Century': He was the Lamb of God, sacrificed to put an end to the curse of sin, and reunite God with man, after the Fall. He died to fulfill the great Covenant promised since Genesis 3:16: but in His own Sovereign place and divine person: he did not merely 'take our place', but offered the one great gift of the history of the world.

2. Asking Jesus into our hearts, brings Salvation.

So often on TV Christian shows, in pamphlets and at rallies one hears 'ask Jesus into your heart right now..." etc. Asking Jesus into your heart and life, may very well bring the Sovereign Lord into your world and awareness (as if He had not been), but the working of Salvation, is by BELIEF, in the finished work of a blood Covenant on the Cross. Leave out the blood? So many churches try, but the whole Word from the first pages of Genesis to the last of Revelation teaches that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Even when condemned by their sin, Adam and Eve were given coverings of animal skin, necessitating a blood sacrifice. Priests made intercession and blood sacrifices for the sins of Israel from then until Messiah came. One sin, one blood sacrifice until One Sacrifice, covering all sin. Believers and unbelievers get hung up on why it had to be that way and here is the reason: we are not told. Faith and mystery require trust. We are told it IS that way, and that those who 'look and believe' are saved. When our children are very little we say 'don't touch that, it's hot'. We do not explain how heat works or coils and energy transfers work, or what electricity is: we say 'don't' and it only takes one burn on a little hand, and the child knows that the parent told the truth. We are not told why the blood completed the Covenant, only that it had to be applied. We are told to BELIEVE. Over and over, that is the command: believe. When we believe in all sincerity we are given the earnest of redemption, the Holy Spirit. You are not saved without God's earnest deposit: the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, 'pneuma' as in breath or wind, or 'parakletos', the comforter or one who walks beside, the Holy spirit of God comes to live IN us. There is a difference between believing there was a Jesus, or that you can call on his name, and trusting in the blood as the finished work of salvation. The second exacts salvation, the first only admits He is probably real.

"Jam 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. "


3. Mere belief does not require trust.

this point is a natural outgrowth of the point before, that once we truly believe, we TRUST. I believe that there is tightrope 70 feet in the air. Will I walk on it if someone tells me I will not fall? The second involves TRUST. Believing in the Lord, well, millions, billions of people of marginal belief do that. TRUSTING few do. I knew someone once who described trusting the Lord for a parking space. Its not that its wrong to trust the Lord in the small things, no trust in the Lord is wrong, but that is where most believers leave their trust: small stuff. Jesus said though that we could move mountains, He said his followers could do greater works than the ones they saw him do when He returned to the Father.

Jhn 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater [works] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.


The first trust though, and many 'charismatics' and 'pentecostals' have to get ahold of this also: is in the finished work of a blood Covenant wrought by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Yshua HaMeschiach, on Golgotha. He defeated death. He conquered and removed the curse of sin. He imputed His righteousness on us through faith. He paid the price of our sin we could not pay. And he literally, not figuratively, rose from the worst death imaginable, showing that the power of God was not encumbered by mere corruption and death. Do you really trust that first? All else is merely watching God work in this world in our defense and in defense of His Word, the Gospel of God.

4. The Resurrection and Miracles are not archetype and Metaphor.


When I first came to the Lord, my 'modern mind', trained in psychology at the University of Florida, had two great difficulties: Genesis and origins with a six day creation, and the resurrection. I had no real problem trusting that they were true, because I found all to be true that the Lord taught, but having been schooled in Evolutionary thought, and being a very pragmatic person, while I trusted, it was sometimes a struggle. Further down the line, though it is not only not a struggle, but I wonder why he decided to take 6 days. And resurrection from death, while the most remarkable thing that has every occurred also is not difficult to see when one gets ahold of God's sovereignty. A potter forms the clay any way he chooses. And the power, healing and miracles of God I have seen firsthand. Its not archetype!! I laugh now at the TV theologians who speak of how there were 'christ-figures' or archetypes of saviors or virgin births in all cultures as if that discounted the real thing! When I was an unbeliever, I used that to dismiss the reality of Christ. When I became a believer, I realized it was the Lord pointing even in other cultures and times who did not yet have the Word of God to the event that would occur. How foolish to think that because stories and myths which were untrue had elements of the forthcoming Gospel that it did not mean the Gospel was true: it was god preparing the minds of pagans to comprehend His Word when it was delivered to them at a later point in history. We teach 1/52nd of the time on the resurrection, and a little more on the Cross and atonement and most of the time on something else. We have become backwards in our views.

I will continue in the next post with more undetected 'errors' in modern belief.
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