This is where Christianity departs from liberal thinking. Liberals want to allegorize Scripture. They wish to broaden the way to God by making Christ a way like flavors of ice cream; don’t like vanilla? Just have cherry instead! They want to dismiss the more “embarrassing” passages of Scripture as mythical. They want to strip Christ of His unique place as God-man and only Savior.
They want to break boundaries between Christianity and man-made religions. They want to assume that man is good and can help in his own salvation. They want to rid the Bible of “wicked” doctrines such as Hell and damnation. If left in the hands of liberal Christianity there would be nothing left for faith to hold onto and an emasculated “God” unworthy of worship and incapable of saving anyone. As one minister lamented, “I cannot see why anyone would go to the trouble to crucify the Jesus of liberal Protestantism.” Liberal theology errs in the respect that man comes, of his own unfounded opinion, to believe that he knows more about eternal issues and God’s character than God does.
John gave disciples a test of discernment regarding new teachings in his first epistle. He told us that all new teachings were to be measured by what they said regarding Jesus Christ. To testify for Christ is to declare that God came as a man, and that man was Christ Jesus, the Savior. His death on the cross redeemed us from our sins and we may receive eternal life as a free gift when we place our faith in God’s sinless offering. Those who deny giving Jesus this place in their teaching as the only and unique Son of God and propitiation for our sins speaks not from God, but from the spirit of antichrist, 1st John 4:1-3. Look for yourself at what liberal theology, cults, pseudo-Christian sects and more have done to reconstruct Jesus and you will not find the historical Jesus of the Bible. You will find an imaginary one that reflects not the person and glory of God, but instead reflects the personality of the men reinventing Him. Liberal theology wants to broaden the road that leads to Heaven, but Jesus warned that the broad road led to Hell, Matthew 7:13-14. Why?
Because there cannot be an abundance of contradictory truth. To declare all things true is a cunning way of saying that error doesn’t exist. And if there is no error then there actually is no objective truth either; and this conversation is at an end. Christ claimed that since He came from Heaven and knows what He is talking about He alone is qualified to declare heavenly matters, John 3:12-13. We may either choose to believe Him and worship Him as Savior, or we may reject Him entirely. The option Jesus did not leave open was the one liberals desperately attempt to travel down: reinventing Jesus to fit their own tastes. Cut here, add there, change this, remove that, and viola! You have a palatable caricature of the true Redeemer guaranteed to offend no one. I agree; it is difficult to be offended by a fictional person. That is why the Son of God is offensive; the New Testament is a historical narrative of Jesus that portrays Him as the miraculous, unyielding, almighty Son of God who will not be dismissed. Love Him or hate Him, but stop altering Him and making Him something He is not.
In short, liberal Christianity is a soft way of saying that you have no faith in the truth God elected to reveal through the Bible. You have no faith in the truth God chose to reveal in Jesus Christ, the perfect revelation of God’s person and salvation. You would rather be thought well of by men and gain the acceptance and goodwill that follow, such as Pilate and Herod found when they together mistreated Christ and sent Him to His death, Luke 23:12. To be a Christian is to be a follower of the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. To deny these teachings and still endeavor to retain the title is an oxymoron. Do we reinvent our Lord so we don’t look so puny beside Him any longer? An invented Lord cannot save you. May God convict those erring and straying from Christ—the true Christ—to return and repent of their evil. I am commanded to turn wanderers back from the error of their way, James 5:19. Whether you heed the message or not is your own choice, but I warn you that along with that choice you have accepted its consequence. I pray that it is not an eternal one. God bless.
Friday, September 16, 2011
1 comment:
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," 2nd Timothy 3:16.
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The Bahai teaching that all religions are right is an extreme example of the foolishness of such doctrine. If most other religions teach that it is wrong to kill and the Muslim extremists teach that it is their obligation to kill everyone that doesn't agree, then in effect the Muslim group has the right to kill all Bahai's as well as every other group, leaving only extremist Muslims alive. It demonstrates how little thought has been devoted to some of the "liberal" positions.
ReplyDeleteChristians have no mandate to go out and kill those who disagree, but they are told to warn them. If the liberal was truly liberal, he should have no problem with that, but they usually do.