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February 19, 2007
I am a Fundamentalist
I am a fundamentalist. Do you still love me?
Now, before you freak out, please understand what this means, not in terms of the "hot-button" association this word has with bigotry and intolerance. By definition, Fundamentalists believe:
1. In the infallibility of Scripture. By infallibility, we mean that it is the Word of God, and you can count on it. The literary consistency and reliability of the Bible as a document is so far beyond any other document ever in existance, so it's not only a legitimate document, but the words are actually from God. It was men who penned the letters on the page using ink and papyrus, but they were directly inspired by the Holy Spirit while they were writing, in a way that no other writer has ever been inspired since. When the canon of Scripture was closed, the Holy Spirit didn't stop inspiring people, but no writer after that ever had the authority of saying his words were God's. (Contrast this to the supposed "infallibilty" of the popes in Catholic dogma, when we all know they are sinful men who cannot be trusted.)
2. We believe in the diety of Christ and his virgin birth. This means that Jesus is God. Not just a hippie peasant with product in his hair who was really nice and said some cool stuff and taught that we should all be nice, too. Yes, Jesus was a man as well. He was both God and man. But he set his godhood aside while he became incarnate and "took the form of a servant". Closely linked to this is the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is at one time Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that these are three distinct persons yet one God at the same time. Unlike all men since Adam, he didn't have a sinful nature. Mary was a virgin. Jesus' father was God, not Joseph. The doctrine of Original Sin and its cancellation through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our sins require both the diety of Christ and the virgin birth. If you don't believe this, you don't have Jesus.
3. When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn't just because everybody hated him and wanted him dead for his "revolutionary" teachings. His death was the point of his incarnation. He died for your sins. This is what we call the "substitutionary atonement" of his death on the cross. The Jewish Law demanded sacrifice for sins, but once you made your sacrifice and left the temple, you naturally went out and started sinning again, due to your sinful nature, thanks to great-great-[...]great-grandfather Adam. The prophets and the psalmists saw the futility in this, that even if you could do one bull or goat for every sin you committed, it's going to require a lot of blood, and you might eventually run out of bulls and goats. "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten-thousands of rivers of oil?" (Micah 6:7a, ESV) No, he will not. The point is whole-hearted obedience and devotion, and we are incabable of that on our own, due to Original Sin, and sacrifices cannot help in that regards. "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4, ESV) So God ordained to send His Son into the world as a sacrifice for our sins. Because Jesus was so infinitely perfect, his one sacrifice was sufficient for all. "...when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10: 12-14, ESV).
4. We believe in his literal resurrection from the dead. This is not all there is. There is life after death, and some people are going to heaven, and some people are going to hell. Forever.
5. We believe in his literal return at the Second Coming. This is not all there is. He's coming back, and he's going to be angry with some people. Revelation says he will be on a white horse, wearing a blood-spattered robe, with a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth, and tattoos on his leg. And he's going to be "trampling down the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored". The subsequent verses in Revelation 19 carry a very graphic portrayal of the feast that there will be for the carrion vultures due to all the enemies of God being slain. Try to reconcile this with your Swedish hippie Jesus. The Jesus of the Gospels is the same as the Jesus of Revelation, and you need to know him both as incarnate and exalted.
I have a lot of friends who are part of a church where these truths have always been affirmed. But a subordinate ministry of this church that's geared towards young adults is now taking part in "conversations" using source material in which these truths are no longer affirmed. Heretical teachings are being promoted, which come from authors who may say that they personally agree with the doctrines of the Trinity and the Virgin Birth, but they do not consider these doctrines as necessary, merely as helpful. Like a trampoline where you can remove one or two springs from around the edge, but the thing will still work. My friends are promoting books by authors who do not believe in the infallibility of scripture, who teach that truth is relative and that you can pick and choose what you like, and that the Bible is "open-ended", more of a narrative rather than timeless truth. Who teach the Pelagian heresy that you have the power to follow God's commands in and of yourself, without the need for grace. If my friends believe the things that are said in this book, then they have stopped being Fundamentalists. And this makes me very sad. This is a church that tries to be a "middle-road" church. Recently this church kicked out all the Calvinists and removed all books by Calvinist authors from their bookstore, because of this middle-roadedness. I will be curious to see what they do with this. The Pelagian-sounding teachings of the books these guys are reading are so much further off course on the other side.
Have you heard the Johnny Cash song, "God's Gonna Cut You Down?" Please, return to the height from which you have fallen, before it's too late. I love you.
Posted by aaronlord at 04:33 PM | Comments (3)
