Musing 91

One of the many ails we have in this day is that there is little guarding of the gospel. Too often we see praising, or silent acceptance of legalism or other heresies in the church because the particular movement “gets their Christology right”.

The problem is that Christology alone is not the sole line in the sand. Even setting aside the boundaries the OT sets up for false prophets(since these are repeated in the NT!), there are still explicit and near-explicit boundaries set.

First is to acknowledge that yes, Christology is of central importance. Scripture is explicit that “whoever has the Son has life, and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have Life”, and “No one who denies the Son has the Father”. You can’t get much clearer than that.

But Scripture is also clear that such alone is not the only boundary. Even within the NT, there were people who made an idol and named him Jesus. And despite being named Jesus, these idols can only bring condemnation.

Which bring us to Matthew 7, where Jesus tells us that there will be those who call Him “Lord, Lord” (indicating a passionnate devotion), but what is His response? “Depart from Me, for I never knew you, you worker of lawlessness”. Which in turn tells us a second boundary - orthopraxy (ie correct actions/behavior).

The NT most often has to call out some type of sexual sin, but the viewing of sin as good in any context is a clear sign that something has gone wrong. Magic, lying, disobedience to parents, and a number of others are called out as being worthy of death. And we should take care we remember that. Things we make so little of are things the Bible says are worthy of death.

And a 3rd clear boundary is if we deny the sufficiency of Christ alone for salvation. Paul writes Galatians in to people who were being lead away from the gospel by those who say faith in Christ alone is insufficient for salvation and instead need something additional for salvation to occur. While the Judaizers focus on circumcision as the key requisite, Paul’s argument is applicable to anyone who would argue that faith in Christ alone is necessary but not sufficient for faith. Man centered religion always looks to put something into our control for salvation, whether it’s following man made rules, or dressing up following the Mosaic Law as “the way to really be sanctified”, or any other ways of framing “Christ is necessary, but to really experience the fullness of God’s blessing, you need something more”. Two examples I like to pick on are Catholicism and the Bob Jones Baptists. In Rome’s case, the addition of the sacerdotal system, the necessity of participation in the system of penance is so far beyond what the Galatians did that I can’t even begin to imagine the aneurism Paul would have. The Bob Jones Baptists are those who’ll affirm fatih alone, but have so many rules added to what it looks like to be Christian that it is insane. While most of the rules they have originally came from a place of “hey, let’s do this useful thing”, it becomes clear that despite not “officially” saying “you have to follow our rules to be a Christian”, the reality is that it is a matter of course that the man-made rules attained supremacy for people’s problems.”