3 Feb 2024

We have spent substantial time to share on the importance of theology and Scripture for Christian living; this is particularly relevant as many believers today may feel that theology is not significant for believers and the Bible (Scripture) – only understanding the basics is sufficient – and this leads to wrong teachings, distorted doctrines infiltrating the church without the conscious awareness of believers, not just today but throughout the history of the church. Not only ordinary believers, but even the leaders of the Christian community have gone so far wrong in the past as well as presently.

We have shared that Luke, in writing the Gospel, sought to ensure CERTAINTY on the CONTENT, CREDIBILITY, and COMMUNICATION of the Gospel. Christians must ensure that this certainty of what and why they believe should be assimilated into their lives and faith.

It is helpful, for instance, to distinguish the substance of the Christian message and the style of the ministry or presentation – between the content and the form of the message. Why so? Various ones may insist that the content of the message must be adapted to the situation. This may involve simply attempting to modify the style, but to such an extent that the content or the substance becomes altered in the process; this has resulted in the content of the gospel being altered to fit the situation such that the substance and doctrine of the gospel becomes unrecognisable.

An example is the doctrine of sin – there has been a considerable muting of the motif, out of a desire not to offend the hearer. It is no longer ‘fashionable’ to call ‘sin’ as sin; a less offensive term may be preferable. Once ‘sin’ is no longer regarded as sin, the whole message and content of the gospel is not just ‘suppressed’ but it becomes a “lame’ message that has nothing to do with God’s judgment, God’s holiness and justice, man’s rebellion against God and the like. This gives rise to the emergence of liberalism, which rejects the literal form of the doctrine and replaces it with the experience that underlies the doctrine – this ends up with not preserving the original content of the gospel. The liberal theologian had smuggled in, without our awareness and perhaps even without his, a specific form of teaching that has resulted in a change not only in style and form, but also the substance or content.

There are numerous places in Scripture where the importance of the content or doctrine is emphasised: the emphasis in the Ten Commandments, the contest on Mount Carmel, and elsewhere, of relating to the right God (and not a god of our imagination or of our own creation) – this means having the right understanding of God.
In his famous speech to the Areopagus in Athens, Paul dealt with people who were very religious, who definitely believed in a god of some sort. Yet Paul insisted that their belief in the unknown god was not sufficient and he proceeded to declare the true God and the gospel to them.

In church history, the belief that it is sufficient to believe in the deity and humanity of Jesus, and to allow variations in the understanding of what the doctrines mean was in order. This had given rise to serious distortions and untrue conclusions on these doctrines: Arianism taught that Jesus was a god, the highest of the created beings; Apollinarianism proposed that Jesus had a human body but only a divine psyche; and Eutychianism held that Jesus had only one nature, a hybrid of deity and humanity; from here Gnosticism arose, and so on. Should there be allowable variations for the sake of relating to a specific situation?

Apostle John dealt with a similar case. The problem that apparently was vexing some of the churches at the time John wrote his first letter was something called docetism. These people believed fully in the deity of Jesus, but they had some questions about his humanity. In its fully developed form, docetism wasa the teaching that Jesus’ supposed humanity was only an appearance. John’s reply was clear and firm:
“This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:2-3). John referred to those who denied Christ’s full humanity as “false prophets”.
We have studied Galatians and in this book the Apostle Paul insisted on the right understanding of grace. Some might be inclined to see salvation as of grace, but also require some measures of work to complete it. Paul strongly identified the view of the Judaizers, who were proposing the need to observe the law (in particular highlighting circumcision) as being a different kind of gospel (Gal:1:8-9). Paul was unequivocal in his denunciation of such a teaching and also the one who taught this.

Scripture indicates a fundamental conflict between Christianity’s teachings and non-Christian views of reality. This is often put in terms of the relationship between the things of Christ and the things of the world. There will always be some point of conflict or disagreement between the Christian message and any current human philosophy. But the question is: do believers know the disagreement and the points of conflict? Without knowing these, believers and the church can be seriously led astray as seen in church history, and the consequences can be very serious in the eyes of God and in the light of eternity.

Identifying the disagreement and the points of conflict require accurate understanding of doctrines (theology) and the Scripture. If we are ignorant of both, we are vulnerable to wrong teachings and false teachings, instigated by the evil one.