Timeline of Roman Catholic Doctrines in Church History
The Roman Catholic faith has been an evolution over many centuries. Catholics teach their faith was handed down from the Apostles and they only formally established these doctrines as the need arose yet a careful study of the writings of the church show that most of these doctrines were not held by the early church and were later additions. Events in red boldface are those pertaining to doctrine. The rest are historical events not directly related to RC doctrine.
TIMELINE
| DATE | EVENT |
| 250 BC | OT canon is universally accepted |
| 33-100 AD | Apostolic age |
| 60 AD | Paul returns to Rome |
| ~68 AD | Paul dies; Peter dies around the same time |
| 95 AD | Clement of Rome mentions at least 8 NT books |
| 100-325 AD | Ante Nicene period (separation of Christianity from Judaism and growth) |
| 108 AD | Polycarp, acknowledged 15 books |
| 115 AD | Ignatius of Antioch acknowledges about seven NT books |
| 170 AD | Muratorian Canon[BV1] includes all of the NT books except Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John |
| 185 AD | Irenaeus mentions 21 books |
| 170-235 AD | Hippolytus recognizes 22 books |
| 200 AD | Under Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, a basic version of Catholic structure was installed with Roman direction |
| 300 AD | Prayers for the dead began |
| 313 AD | Emperor Constantine legalizes Christianity and moves the Roman capital to Constantinople |
| 325 AD | The First Council of Nicea, called by Constantine, attempted to structure church leadership around a model similar to that of the Roman system and formalized some key articles |
| 363 AD | Council of Laodicea states that only the OT books (along with one book of the Apocrypha[BV2] ) and 26 books of the NT (everything but Revelation) were canonical |
| 375 AD | Veneration of angels and dead saints, and the use of images |
| 393 AD | Council of Hippo affirmed 27 books |
| 394 AD | The Mass as a daily celebration |
| 397 AD | Council of Carthage affirmed 27 books[BV3] |
| 431 AD | Start of the veneration of Mary and first use of the term “Mother of God” at the Council of Ephesus |
| 500 AD | Priests began to dress differently than layman |
| 526 AD | Extreme Unction |
| 551 AD | Council of Chalcedon declares the church in Constantinople to be the head of the eastern branch of the church and equal in authority to the Pope |
| 590 AD | Pope Gregory I becomes Pope and the church enters into a period of enormous political and military power. Some call this the beginning of the Catholic Church as it is known today |
| 593 AD | The doctrine of Purgatory established by Gregory I |
| 600 AD | The Latin language imposed by Gregory I |
| 607 AD | Title of pope, given to Boniface III by emperor Phocas |
| 632 AD | Islamic prophet Mohammad dies beginning a long conflict between Christianity and Islam |
| 709 AD | Kissing of the pope’s foot began with pope Constantine |
| 786 AD | Worship of the cross, images, and relics authorized |
| 850 AD | Holy water, mixed with a pinch of salt and blessed by a priest |
| 927 AD | College of Cardinals established |
| 995 AD | Canonization of dead saints, first by John XV |
| 998 AD | Attendance at Mass made obligatory |
| 1054 AD | The great East-West schism marks the formal separation of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox branches of the Catholic Church |
| 1079 AD | Celibacy of the priesthood decreed by pope Gregory VII |
| 1090 AD | The Rosary invented by Peter the Hermit |
| 1184 AD | The Inquisition instituted by the Council of Verona |
| 1190 AD | The sale of indulgences begun |
| 1215 AD | Fourth Council of the Lateran – ratified the teaching of transubstantiation. Also the confession of sins to a priest |
| 1439 AD | Purgatory proclaimed as dogma by the Council of Florence |
| 1517 AD | Luther publishes the 95 Theses |
| 1534 AD | King Henry VIII of England declares himself to be the supreme head of the Church of England, severing the Anglican Church from the Roman Catholic Church |
| 1545-1563 AD | Catholic reformation begins |
| 1545 AD | Tradition declared of equal authority by the Council of Trent |
| 1546 AD | Council of Trent official accepts 11 of the Apocryphal books as canonical[BV4] |
| 1854 AD | Immaculate Conception of Mary proclaimed by pope Pius IX |
| 1870 AD | The First Vatican Council declares the policy of Papal infallibility |
| 1950 AD | Assumption of Mary (bodily ascension into heaven) proclaimed by pope Pius XII |
| 1960s AD | Second Vatican Council |
| 1965 AD | Mary proclaimed Mother of the Church by pope Paul VI |
[BV1]The Muratorian Canon was discovered by Italian historian Ludovico Muratori in the Ambrosian Library in northern Italy in 1749. The copy his discovered was written in Latin and dates to the 7th or 8th century. Internal evidence suggests an original version around AD 180.
[BV2]See What are the Apocrypha / Deuterocanonical books? | GotQuestions.org
[BV3]The Council of Carthage listed the 27 books of the NT as well as the 39 books of the OT but included a few Apocryphal books such as Maccabees and Esdras. Prior to and after this council, most Christian and Jewish scholars held the Apocrypha to be non-canonical. They are omitted from the works of Philo, Origen, Melito of Sardis, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, and Athanasius. They were also excluded at the Council of Laodicea held less than 40 years prior.
[BV4]Trent declared both Scripture and tradition as authoritative. Salvation by grace alone through faith alone was rejected in favor of sacramental grace and righteousness based on an admixture of grace and works. The council also confirmed belief in transubstantiation. The council must be understood in its historical context. It has been called the anti-reformation council. Much of what it affirmed was in response to challenges coming from early Protestantism. The Apocryphal books contained support for doctrines such as prayers for the dead (purgatory) and indulgences.
Was Peter the First Pope?
The title “Pope” was first used by Tertullian in the early part of the 3rd century. He used the term in a sarcastic rebuke of Pope Callixtus I who he felt was exercising too much power in the church. The title is not found in Scripture.
Catholics will point to the account in Matthew 16 where Jesus asks the disciples who they say he is and Peter replies by calling him “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus comments that this revelation did not come from Peter but from the Father. He then makes a statement that the Catholic Church has used ever since as justification for their belief that the church is built on Peter and he was the first Pope.
13 xNow when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say yJohn the Baptist, others say zElijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, a“You are bthe Christ, cthe Son of dthe living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, e“Blessed are you, fSimon Bar-Jonah! For gflesh and blood has not revealed this to you, hbut my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, iyou are Peter, and jon this rock2 I will build my church, and kthe gates of lhell3 shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you mthe keys of the kingdom of heaven, and nwhatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed4 in heaven.” 20 oThen he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
Much has been made by the Catholic Church on verse 18. To Catholics, this is proof Jesus singled out Peter to be the head of Christ’s church on earth, and by extension, his successors. Arguments have been put forth about the play on words taking place. Peter’s name means “rock” in Greek but two different Greek words are used in the text. Peter’s name is written as Petros which we are told means “small stone” whereas “on this rock” the word Petra is used which means a boulder. Thus, two different “rocks” are in mind.
Catholics will counter that Jesus would have been speaking in Aramaic and in Aramaic, there are not two different words for rock as in Greek, and that Greek grammar necessitated using the two different forms of “rock” not any play on words by Jesus. That ignores the fact that Matthew’s gospel was written (and inspired) in Greek and the different words may have been intentional to point out that Jesus did not mean that Peter was the foundation of the church.
Catholics will point out that there are other Greek words for “rock” beyond those two. One of them more clearly means boulder or foundation. So why didn’t Jesus use that word rather than Petros? One could respond, why didn’t Jesus say “on you Peter I will build my church?” That would have made it abundantly clear.
Personally, I would not try and resolve this dispute based on the wording. To my mind, Jesus could have had Peter in mind or Peter’s confession of faith. So how do we know which it is? This is where we must look at all of Scripture to find out the answer.
What’s interesting is that nowhere else in the NT is any mention made of Peter having a special role or being the head of the church. Tradition has it that James, half-brother of Jesus, was the head of the Jerusalem church. In Acts 15, we have recorded a record of the so-called Jerusalem conference. The occasion is Paul’s return to Jerusalem after several years of missionary church planting. He is bringing an offering of money collected for the relief of those suffering from famine in the city. He meets with his fellow Apostles to update them on his journeys and he shares with them an issue he has run into with the Gentile converts pertaining to the eating of meat sacrificed to idols. Those gathered discussed the issue (we are not given the dialog) and finally Peter speaks out and gives an opinion which reads like a summary of what has been discussed. James, acting as the presiding leader, summarizes and assigns himself the task of writing a letter to be distributed regarding these matters.
Catholics see in this Peter acting as “pope” in that he gives the answer and sees James as merely a scribe or secretary tasked with documenting Peter’s decision. Others see James acting as the leader and making the final decision which is in keeping with his being the bishop of the church in Jerusalem. I think several points are worth noting:
- This is the only meeting of the Apostles to discuss an issue we know of. One conference is not enough to make assumptions about roles especially when the details are sparse. The description in Acts does not identify anyone as presiding or use any titles.
- We are not given the entire dialog. We don’t know if what Peter spoke had already been said by others and he was just summarizing or if those were his thoughts alone. We don’t have enough of the dialog to draw any conclusions.
- History identifies James as the bishop of Jerusalem, not Peter.
If Peter were the head of the church, this would have been an opportune time to identify him as acting in that role. Luke could have written that “Peter, acting as head of Christ’s church on earth, decided that…” but he wrote no such thing. There is nothing about this account that identifies Peter as acting in any official leadership position. Those who see that are importing a belief into the text.
When Paul writes about the foundation of the church, he says:
Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God in His Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22) (emphasis added)
“God’s household” is the church. Paul says it is built on the foundation of the apostles (plural) and the prophets but shows Christ as the true foundation on which all depends. This would have been a great opportunity to identify Peter as the earthly foundation of the church but Paul does not mention Peter except indirectly as part of the Apostles. We simply find nothing in the Book of Acts that shows Peter as head of the church. Peter himself makes no mention of being the head in his letters (epistles).
Another interesting point of consideration is the gospel accounts of the same discussion found in Matthew 16. Let’s compare them:
MATTHEW
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He questioned His disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15“But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!b For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
20Then He admonished the disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ. (Matthew 16:13-20)
MARK
Then Jesus and His disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way, He questioned His disciples: “Who do people say I am?”
28They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
29“But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
30And Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about Him. (Mark 8:27-30)
LUKE
One day as Jesus was praying in private and the disciples were with Him, He questioned them: “Who do the crowds say I am?”
19They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that a prophet of old has arisen.”
20“But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” (Luke 9:18-20)
JOHN
So Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you want to leave too?”
68Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We believe and know that You are the Holy One of God.f”
70Jesus answered them, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” 71He was speaking about Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. For although Judas was one of the Twelve, he was later to betray Jesus. (John 6:67-71)
Note how only in Matthew’s account is the part about Peter and the rock mentioned. Nothing is said about it in the other three gospels. Mark’s account is especially interesting. Mark, or John Mark, traveled with both Paul and Peter and it is assumed Mark got the information for his gospel from Peter. John Mark was a young man when Jesus was with the Apostles. He was not an Apostle and did not overhear these things himself. His information would have come from Peter.
His account says nothing about Peter being “the rock” upon which the church is built. Had Peter been “the rock”, surely Mark’s account would have mentioned it. Peter would want it to be known that the Lord chose him to lead the church. Not in a prideful sense but simply to make clear the Lord’s wishes. These gospels were written by different men in different places at different times. The authors weren’t gathered comparing notes and deciding who would include which details. The fact that only Matthew’s account includes the part about the rock, the keys, etc, does not mean Jesus did not say those things. Matthew was inspired as were Mark, Luke, and John. However, two of the four gospel authors were present (Matthew and John) and Mark got his information from Peter who was present. Yet only one account includes the part about “the rock.” Not many accounts of Jesus are included in all four gospels. This one is yet only one of the four accounts that include the comment on “the rock.” If Jesus had meant that Peter was “the rock” on which his church would be built, it seems odd that only one account mentions that important proclamation.
The Catholic Church argues that Jesus made Peter the “rock” or foundation of the church. An equal or greater argument could be made that it was Peter’s confession of faith that is the foundation for it is by that same confession of faith we become part of Christ’s church. Those present would have known which meaning Jesus had in mind. We can debate what Jesus meant but they would have known. Yet only one account even includes that part of the discussion which would seem to be a major omission if Peter was commissioned by Jesus to lead the church. That would be a major truth they would want to be recorded.
We don’t see Peter identified as the leader of the church in the Jerusalem council. Three of the four gospels don’t include Jesus’ words about “the rock.” None of the NT epistles make any mention of Peter being the head of the church. Despite the profound silence of the NT on Peter being the head of the church, the Catholic Church clings to Matthew’s account insisting it establishes Peter as the head of the church even though it could rightly be understood to be his confession of faith that is the foundation of the church. Even history does not establish Peter or anyone following him as leading the church. We are not even sure Peter visited Rome so how did the bishop of Rome become the supreme head of the church? Why not the bishop of Jerusalem? Is that not where the church started?
Scripture does not establish Peter as the head of the church. That was a later development by the church in Rome that was then backdated in an attempt to establish a line back to Peter yet no one was functioning in any capacity as “pope” until centuries after Peter. The Eastern churches never accepted the Bishop of Rome as having authority. This eventually led to a schism between the eastern and western churches that remains to this day.
Too Many Churches?
One argument I keep hearing against Protestantism is that there are so many Protestant denominations and surely God is not the God of confusion and would not let His church become so fractured. The implication is that Protestantism cannot be what God had in mind. This is in opposition to churches that feel they can trace their founding back to the first century as though having such a history is somehow a guarantee of orthodoxy.
This begs an important question. Should we expect, on earth, to find a perfect church that represents everything God had in mind when He started the church? If we look at the history of Israel, we see how even a near-theocratic nation, led by God, could get fractured. Israel had false prophets, false teachers, unbelieving Jews, legalistic Pharisees, doctrinally challenged Sadducees and a history of wandering from the faith. God always preserved a remnant, but the preaching of the Prophets shows God time and time again calling His people to repentance and more than once they were sent into captivity as a judgment on their sins.
What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?2 Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God. (Romans 3:1-2)
Despite having the Prophets, the Temple, the Scriptures (OT), and a cultural history of walking with God, the Jews often strayed and divisions existed. Unlike Judaism, which resided almost exclusively in Israel for centuries, Christianity spread beyond Israel almost from the start. It spread to Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, and people from all over. It spanned many languages and cultures. While it completed the message of the OT, it still brought change such that everyone was a convert at first. Being a Jew before becoming a Christian was not always an advantage as we see personified in the Judaizers. Some Jewish Christians brought the Law with them and attempted to add it to the Gospel. Many were initially uncomfortable with a faith without a Temple and a ceremonial law. It was a cultural shock to see Gentiles, once among the lowest of the low, suddenly on equal footing in the worship of God. In some ways, it was easier to come to Christ from a pagan background.
Not only were the Judaizers an early thorn in the side of the church but so were the Gnostics who tried to marry Platonian philosophy with Christianity. There were also false teachers and those who thought the gifts of God could be purchased. These things plagued the church while the Apostles were still alive. How much more so would they attack once the Apostles were gone? God did not spare the early church from division and strife. Paul wrote extensively to combat the false teachers and to address the divisions in the very churches he had established. These things were happening while the Apostles still lived. If God planned to preserve His church in unity, we don’t see evidence of it. Divisions existed right from the start.
And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and and behaving like mere men? 4 For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? (1 Corinthians 3:1-4)
To expect to find a church today that lacks division or false teachers is a failure to learn from history. Paul warned us that there would be false teachers. Men who would tickle our ears. The Apostles battled false teaching by writing down the real teaching of the Lord and having it circulated among the churches. Their written record not only served as a hedge against false teaching 2000 years ago but serves that same purpose today.
There was never an earthly church preserved from error. Not even while the Apostles were alive. Jesus described tares growing up among the wheat to be separated on judgment day. Israel never had perfect unanimity and neither did the church. God always keeps a remnant though and that remnant is not confined to any one church, people group, social, or cultural group. It is comprised of those who cling to the truth, who study and show themselves approved, and who search the Scriptures.
In Biblical times it was not as easy to start a church as it is today. Most people walked to get to church. Most cities had but one church. You attended that church or none at all. Under different conditions, other churches might have sprung up like we see today.
What started on the Day of Pentecost, was the CHURCH, not a church. It was the church universal not to be confused with any particular church or denomination. The only sure teaching we have are those of Scripture. Anything else, no matter how godly, is the opinion of men. Only the Scriptures are divinely inspired. The writings of the early church fathers, while important and illuminating, are not on par with Scripture. If there were false teachers and false doctrine while the Apostles still lived, there certainly were 50, 100, or 200 years later. Even among these early writers, we see differences.
Does this leave us with no trustworthy faith? No! We often confuse that which is essential with that which is non-essential. In criticizing the many Protestant churches, the focus is always on their differences while turning a blind eye to their overwhelming similarities. A church’s style of worship, choice of eschatology, practice of speaking in tongues or not, … are not serious disagreements on the Gospel. Does one church’s decision to only sing hymns and another’s use of contemporary worship music constitute wholly different churches? Must all churches fall under one organizational structure? Where does Scripture teach that? We must not confuse the NT’s teaching on the church universal with that of the church local. We all want to claim we are THE church as though God confined all truth and righteous worship to just one group forever preserved from error. He did not so preserve Israel. He did not prevent division and false teachers in the Apostolic church. Why do we claim so now?
I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)
What did Jesus mean by “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it?” Prevailing means overcoming and defeating. That would be the case if the truth was silenced and God had no remnant. That verse does not teach his church would not be attacked, not have divisions, and be preserved from all error. The tares will still grow among the wheat. Satan will not prevail against God’s church (the church universal). Satan will never stamp out faith on earth.
Sticking to a liturgy or structure for centuries is not a guarantee of truth. There was error mixed with truth from the very start of the church. We must always test all things against Scripture and distinguish between that which is tradition and that which is Scripture. Between that which is prescribed and that which is preference. OT worship was highly prescribed, yet it still did not stop false teachers and those with false hearts. The Pharisees were experts on what was prescribed yet added to it and were more concerned with the form than the substance. Jesus rightly called them empty tombs filled with dead men’s bones. He told us that the Father seeks those who worship in spirit and in truth. Having a tightly prescribed form still produced the Pharisees. It was not a guard against error. Truth was found in the Scriptures. The Pharisees neglected them and created a legalistic, manmade religion. They did not worship “in spirit and in truth.”
Would the Father prefer we had just one church we all belonged to? Perhaps but He is more concerned with preserving the wheat and keeping a faithful remnant. We worship in different languages in different places. We follow different liturgies or lack of liturgies. We sing different songs and have different histories but if we hold to the Gospel and worship in spirit and truth, those differences don’t matter. They are not the substance. There is nothing in Scripture that should make us assume there will be one church, preserved from error, that will endure. Instead, we see THE CHURCH, the church universal, that will prevail. That Jesus promised.
In the beginning, God created…
For a long time, scientists thought the universe was eternal and static. By eternal, they meant the universe had no beginning and likely would have no end. It just always was. This meant the universe would not need a creator. By static, they meant the universe would neither expand nor contract. It would stay the same size.
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity suggested the universe had a beginning. This was confirmed by the American astronomer Edwin Hubble who in 1929 captured the red-shift of light far out in the universe. This proved that the universe was still expanding at an ever-increasing pace. All this pointed to the universe having a beginning. In other words, there was a time when the universe did not exist.
This begged the question, what caused the universe to come into existence? Philosopher William Lane Craig advanced an argument known as the kalam cosmological argument. His argument had three premises:
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
(Craig, William Lane and James D. Sinclair, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument”, The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland. West Sussex, UK:Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)
This is indeed consistent with our experience. Everything in our universe has a cause. At least so far as we can determine. There are things we have not yet discovered the cause of but we are certain there is a cause. So then, what about God? Did God have a cause? The answer is no. God had no cause because God never began to exist (see premise #1 above). God has always existed. He is without beginning or end. God is eternal. In other words, God is uncaused. This makes logical sense. If everything has to have a cause, to come into existence, then something, in the beginning, had to be without cause. Without that, nothing could come into being.
Science has confirmed the universe had a beginning. It had a cause. Therefore, the universe had to be caused by something. Since Hubble’s discovery, science has been trying to find a naturalistic explanation for the origins of the universe. Naturalism, in this context, means the material universe alone exists. Nothing exists outside of it. If true, then how did the universe come to be?
According to physicist Stephen Barr, naturalism is the view that “nothing exists except matter, and that everything in the world must therefore be the result of strict mathematical laws of physics and blind chance.” (Barr, Stephen. Modern Physics and Ancient Faith. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003)
If we dissect that statement, Barr is positing that matter is eternal. Matter is uncaused. Yet he states that matter was acted upon by “strict mathematical laws of physics.” Where did those laws come from? We know what the laws of physics are very exacting. They have to be exactly what they are in order for the universe to exist and life in it. Furthermore, the conditions at the beginning of the universe had to be very, very precise. Physicists call this the fine-tuning of the universe. Math is not a force. Math cannot cause anything to happen. Mathematical laws only describe how things behave once caused. If matter was eternal, mathematical laws could not cause that matter to form a universe. He also states that it was not just mathematical laws of physics but also blind chance. Chance also cannot cause anything to happen. Chance is a term we used to describe a mathematical probability. If you flip a coin, the chances of it coming up heads are 50%. Chance cannot flip the coin. Chance can only state the odds of the flip resulting in heads or tails. Blind chance is a non-sensical term. Chance neither sees nor is blind. Chance is a cold mathematical probability unbiased by anything. If chance were not blind, it would not be chance.
This all points to matter being a mere building block much like a brick. It can be used to create things and behaves when acted upon according to the laws of physics. Matter itself is not intelligent. If matter were intelligent then blind chance would not be necessary. Scientists like Barr want a naturalistic explanation of the universe yet have to make up causes like mathematical probability and blind chance neither of which are or can cause. They are trying to assign causal effects to something that can’t act.
This blind devotion to naturalism is what brings us other modern naturalistic theories like Multiverse Models, String Theory, Quantum Cosmology, and so on. Each of these theories fails to explain the origins of our universe. They all fail to identify the cause of it. If one limits themselves to naturalism then they will forever miss the answer. The first words of the Bible provide the answer. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God is the uncaused agent that caused the universe. While science purports to “follow the data” it violates that principle when it comes to the origins of the universe. I would suggest a reason.
Humanity does not want there to be a God. If we concede there is a God then we have to answer to that God. Coupled with the fact that God has identified Himself through the Bible such that we know what He requires from us, we now have to consider our actions and their morality. If, on the other hand, the universe is the product of blind chance with no creator, then we can decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. We can live however we want. Ever notice how people are generally accepting of philosophies or beliefs that are non-propositional? These are philosophies or beliefs that do not make any demands or believe in absolute truth. The Romans conquered many lands. They had their gods and many of the peoples they conquered had gods of their own. The Romans were happy to let them continue to worship their gods. They detested the Jews precisely because the Jews were monotheistic (the belief there is only one God). Jewish beliefs were an affront to the Romans because the Jews only worshipped Yahweh and thus rejected all the Roman gods. As soon as anyone insists on one truth, that offends people who want to be their own gods and decide right from wrong. Science is committed to atheism. There are non-atheist scientists but they are the exception in modern times. Science is biased but has convinced most people that they are not and only consider the facts. More on this…
The Chosen – Was Mary Blasphemed?
There is a new TV series out called The Chosen. As of this writing there are two seasons but a third is hoped for and the creator envisions seven seasons. It is a crowd funded series so it is not up to the whims and ratings of a network but still needs finances to be filmed. The series depicts the lives of the early disciples of Jesus and how they were each called as well as the parallel events going on in the life of Jesus. One of the characters is Jesus’ mother Mary.
The creator of the series is not Catholic although the actor who plays Jesus is. There are some Catholics who are upset about the portrayal of Mary in the series. They do not believe enough honor is given to Mary and that blasphemous things are said about her. That’s an interesting accusation because Biblically blasphemy is a crime against God and God only. The Pharisees accused Jesus of blasphemy, because He claimed to be God and, in their eyes, he was only a man. When Jesus acknowledged that He was the Christ, the Son of God before the High Priest, the High Priest tore his outer garment as a show of indignation that such blasphemy had just been spoken. By Jewish law a blasphemer was to be executed. So, to accuse people today of blaspheming against Mary equates her to God! It puts her in a category reserved only for God.
According to one Jewish source:
What Is The Jewish Law Of Blasphemy? – chicagojewishnews.com
The punishment for blasphemy is death in Leviticus 24:16. The Seven Laws of Noah, which Judaism considers applicable to all people, prohibit blaspheming the name of the Lord, which is the only form of blasphemy that is punishable by death in Jewish law.
A person who says something disrespectful to God is considered to be blasphemy.
It was not just saying something disrespectful to God but also falsely claiming to be God.
Matthew 26:63–66 (ESV): 63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.”
That is blasphemy by Jewish law. They were of course mistaken because Jesus truly was the Son of God, but believing He wasn’t they correctly charged Him with blasphemy. To consider any statement regarding Mary as blasphemy is clearly going outside the definition and has the effect of placing Mary on the same level as God.
Let me show you how and where this allegation was made:
You can read the accusation here. The author, Fr. Nix, is a Catholic priest. He writes, quoting dialog from the TV series:
Part 1a: The Script from Section A. Rama says, “I feel like I need to not make anymore mistakes” and Mother Mary responds, “How do you think I felt?”
Part 1b: The Theology. This is blasphemy against the Immaculate Virgin Mary because she was sinless and faultless and this script implies she was not by making “mistakes.” Is a mistake the same as a sin? Not necessarily, but even evangelical songs of praise and worship now use “sin” and “mistake” interchangeably, so claiming a “sin” is not the same as a “mistake” no longer holds water in the year 2021. And if “mistake” is not tantamount to “sin,” that is, if “mistake” only means: “accidentally adding too much salt to the bread” then why did Rama express so much conviction in saying, “I feel like I need to not make anymore mistakes”? Yes, if mistakes are accidents, then the Chosen‘s Jesus is making His own disciples feel great shame and guilt for putting too much salt in the bread. And Mother Mary has apparently corrected herself on this, too.
Fr. Nix considers this blasphemy because He believes (Catholics believe) Mary was “sinless and faultless” and therefore would not make mistakes. While his logic is dubious in equating mistakes to sins, he still feels Mary is being slighted, blasphemed. Why?
Part 1c: The Bible and Fathers. The Bible uses the Greek word κεχαριτωμένη to speak of the Immaculate Virgin Mary: And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.—Luke 1:28. The Greek word for “full of grace” there is κεχαριτωμένη and it is the perfect past participle of both the noun and verb GRACE. Put this together and it means the Angel Gabriel is saying to the Immaculate Virgin Mary that she is already fully graced perfectly—hence the perfect past participle of the verb)
The Church Fathers were unanimous as to the sinlessness of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. The Eastern Fathers called her in Greek PAN-HAGIA (all holy.). When someone asked St. Augustine about this, he replied “I wouldn’t even use ‘sin” in the same sentence as her.” Not a single Christian in the first 1000 years of Christianity has ever doubted the sinlessness of Mary.
Pope BI. Pius IX wrote Ineffabilis Deus in 1854 including the following: “Far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.”
Here, Fr Nix tries to give us a Greek lesson. He quotes from an English translation taken from the Latin Vulgate. He claims the Greek word κεχαριτωμένη means “full of grace” and then says it was used in the perfect past participle meaning Mary was already “fully graced perfectly”, or in other words, sinless. His understanding of Greek is flawed.
First, a better translation of the word would be “highly favored.” That is consistent with how the word is used in other verses and its Greek origin. The angel was not saying Mary was sinless but rather saying she was highly favored by God. To quote one source:
Κεχαριτωμένος is a perfect passive participle (a verbal adjective) derived from χαριτόω, “to show favor”. Here it is inflected as a feminine singular in the vocative (addressing) case. The inflected meaning is roughly, “O woman who has been shown favor”. No agent is stated as the originator of favor. This is sometimes termed a “divine passive”; the agent is unstated on the grounds that it is obvious to everyone that it is God.
(greek – Is κεχαριτωμένη synonymous with πλήρης χάριτος? – Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange)
Nothing about this verse proclaims Mary “full of grace.” You could perhaps say she was shown grace by God in being highly favored but neither the word nor the Greek tense, voice, and mood imply what Fr Nix and the Catholic Church want it to.
Part 2a: The Script from Section A. She says, “I had to clean him off. He was covered in, uh, I will be polite. He needed to be cleaned.”
Part 2b: The Theology. All of the Church Fathers hold that the birth of Jesus was painless to both Jesus and Mary and miraculous, likening this to “the emergence of Christ from the sealed tomb, His going through closed doors, the penetration of the ray of sun through glass.”—Ott 206
Part 2c: The Bible and Church Fathers. Mary’s painless giving birth to Jesus is prophesied in Isaiah 66:7: “Before she was in labour, she brought forth; before her time came to be delivered, she brought forth a man child.” Furthermore, even a non-Catholic Christian should have been able to identify that a painful and messy birth is the effect of sin from Gen 3:16. Mary, who was sinless as proved above, was spared this. The infallible Lateran Synod in 649 under Pope Martin I said “She conceived without seed, of the Holy Ghost, generated without injury [to her virginity] and her virginity continued unimpaired after the birth.”
In the 20th century, Pope Pius XII wrote in his encyclical Mystici Corporis that “It was she who gave miraculous birth (mirando partu edidit) to Christ Our Lord.” One of the Eastern Church Fathers, St. Basil, wrote “The friends of Christ do not tolerate hearing that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin.” Yes, all of this shows that every Christian in the first 1000 years of Christianity (except heretics) would be disgusted at a blasphemous line such as, “I had to clean him off. He was covered in, uh, I will be polite. He needed to be cleaned” in reference to what every early Christian and Church Father knew (via Scripture and oral tradition) to be a miraculous birth.
This is another peculiar tenant of the Catholic faith. They hold that Mary was born without original sin, never sinned, and remained a virgin throughout her life. None of that can be found in Scripture. The Roman Catholic church reasons that Mary had to be sinless or else Christ would have been stained by original sin through her and thus Christ could not be sinless. We know Jesus was immaculately conceived so he had no biological father. Most scholars agree that original sin began with Adam and is passed down through our fathers (i.e. not the mothers although they contain the stain of original sin as well but it is accounted through the father). Jesus did not need Mary to be without original sin for Him to be without it. Furthermore, Mary never claims to be sinless. In Luke 1:46-47, Mary says:
“My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour”
If Mary was sinless, why would she call God her Savior? Only a sinner needs a savior. She didn’t thank God for creating her sinless so she didn’t need a savior. This is a position the Catholic church has backed itself into because of their insistence that Mary had to be sinless to not pass original sin to Jesus.
What about Mary being “ever virgin?” This is another unscriptural assumption the Catholic church makes. Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born. The definition of being a virgin is that you’ve never had intimate relations. The process of birthing a baby does not remove your virginity. Granted, in our day and time that possibility is pretty narrow, but suppose a doctor could inject a fertilized egg into a woman’s vagina and create a pregnancy? Would that woman no longer be a virgin? What aspect of Mary having a normal labor negated her virginity? Of course, there was blood. Jesus was still a baby in the womb surrounded by fluid and blood. No baby is birthed perfectly clean. Yes, God could have had the baby Jesus born perfectly clean, but nothing in Scripture demands that. What about Mary having no labor pains? Maybe the Lord spared her. I wasn’t there but there is nothing in Scripture that precludes the possibility of her having had labor pains. The passage quoted from Isaiah 66:7, is not talking about Mary. It is talking about the birth of the church. It meant the birth of the NT church would come suddenly and quickly without difficulty. That passage has nothing to do with Mary. In Isaiah 66:8, the prophet asks “Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?” He’s not talking about a baby being born. This is the birth of the church!
Another issue Fr Nix has is this:
Part 3a: The Script from Section A. “It actually made me think for just one moment, is this really the Son of God? And Joseph later told me he briefly thought the same thing. But we knew he was. I don’t know what I expected.”
Part 3b: The Theology. Mary knew Christ was the Son of God. The Angel told her so. She never doubted this, and certainly not 9 months after the Annunciation.
Part 3c: The Bible and Church Fathers. The Church Fathers are not even needed for this one. It’s absolutely unbiblical and blasphemous for Mary to say at any point following the birth of Jesus that she asked herself (or Joseph) “Is this really the son of God?” Mary is the greatest prophetess who ever lived, so she probably intuited all of this at the Annunciation and Incarnation (if not before) but we have proof in the Gospel of St. Luke that nine months before the birth of Jesus, Mary already knew He was the Son of God for the Angel Gabriel directly announced to the Immaculate Virgin Mary: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.—Luke 1:35. If you had an angel appear to you who called Christ the Son of God and then had a miraculous birth, would you utter the words a few months later, “It actually made me think for just one moment, is this really the Son of God?”
I am not affiliated with the show in any way nor an apologist for it. It follows the Biblical accounts very closely but as the show’s disclaimer states, they had to use a little creative license to try and build a story around the Gospel narratives. So Scripture does not contain this fictional conversation. However, I think what the writer of the narrative was trying to convey, was the wonder Mary and Joseph had that this tiny baby was actually the Son of God. Yes, they knew He was. I don’t believe they doubted that for a second. Still, here she was holding a tiny life helpless like all babies are and dependent on their parents. Would God have allowed the baby Jesus to die of neglect? Of course not! Remember though, Jesus was still a man. He still got hungry, tired, thirsty, bled. Mary and Joseph still needed to care for the newborn Messiah the same as any parents would care for a newborn child. It is in that sense I say he was helpless.
It is one thing to be told your child will be the Son of God, which in incredible acts of faith, both Joseph and Mary believed. Jesus was miraculously conceived. Yet, experiencing that as parents is quite another thing. The Bible is pretty much silent on Jesus’ childhood. Other than the time he stayed behind in Jerusalem to converse in the Temple, we are not told anything. There is nothing in Scripture though to suggest the young Jesus was doing unusual, miraculous things. His miracle at Cana of turning water into wine is described as His first miracle. He was nearly 30 years old when that happened. I can imagine Mary and Joseph watching Jesus grow and mature knowing He was the Messiah yet still seeing a normal boy who helped Joseph with his carpentry and probably played normal childhood games with his half siblings or neighboring children. Being the Son of God did not stop Mary from being worried when it was discovered that Jesus was not in the caravan returning from Jerusalem. Like any parents they rushed back to Jerusalem to look for Him and were relieved to find Him. His story of having been in the Temple conversing with the teachers must have amazed them. What boy that age does that? Not only that, but the young Jesus knew more about the Scriptures then the teachers He was talking to! Why did Jesus answer by saying He needed to be in His father’s house (i.e. the Temple)? If they fully knew He was the Messiah, and understood all the ways that would manifest itself in His young life, they would have said “Well, that makes sense. Of course you were!” The reality is, they were two human parents trying to comprehend that their son was no ordinary boy but the Son of God!
Saying Mary was a prophetess is not Scriptural. Nowhere in Scripture are we told Mary was a prophet. As noted earlier, we are not told she was immaculately conceived nor that she was “ever virgin.”
The idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary is unbiblical. Matthew 1:25, speaking of Joseph, declares, “But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave Him the name Jesus.” The word until clearly indicates that Joseph and Mary did have normal sexual relations after Jesus was born. Mary remained a virgin until the Savior’s birth, but later Joseph and Mary had several children together. Jesus had four half-brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matthew 13:55). Jesus also had half-sisters, although they are not named or numbered (Matthew 13:55–56). God blessed and graced Mary by giving her several children, which in that culture was accepted as the clearest indication of God’s blessing on a woman.
One time when Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd proclaimed, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed” (Luke 11:27). There was never a better opportunity for Jesus to declare that Mary was indeed worthy of praise and adoration. What was Jesus’ response? “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” (Luke 11:28). To Jesus, obedience to God’s Word was more important than being the woman who gave birth to the Savior.
Nowhere in Scripture does Jesus or anyone else direct any praise, glory, or adoration toward Mary. Elizabeth, Mary’s relative, praised Mary in Luke 1:42–44, but her praise is based on the blessing of giving birth to the Messiah. It was not based on any inherent glory in Mary. In fact, after this Mary spoke a song of praise to the Lord, extoling His mindfulness to those of humble state and His mercy and faithfulness (Luke 1:46–55). (What does the Bible say about the virgin Mary? | GotQuestions.org)
The Roman Catholic teachings on Mary are largely from outside of Scripture. As one historian noted, the veneration of Mary is virtually absent from church history until AD 250. She is not portrayed as a significant figure in the life of the early church as recorded in the Book of Acts. We don’t see the Apostles looking to her for guidance or her leading their efforts. None of that is a slight on Mary. She was a wonderful example and devout woman but the truth is, she was born a sinner like us all, she did not lead a sinless life, she bore other children after Jesus, she needed a savoir, and she died like all people and was buried. To teach otherwise is to stray from Scripture and make things up that Christ and the early church never taught.
I don’t have a written out history of the veneration of Mary. I can tell you that if you read through the writings of the early church fathers up to AD 250, you won’t get even a hint of Mary worship. The Roman Catholics and Orthodox like to point to a manuscript that is dated to about AD 250 and is anonymous that mentions praying to Mary. I can’t remember exactly what it says, but it calls her Mother of God. So it’s possible, even likely, that veneration of Mary began that early. In the second century, though … nothing.
(What Is the History of Mary Worship? (christian-history.org))
The Roman Catholic Church has elevated Mary to a place the Bible never did. She has been called a co-redemtrix and Catholics are encouraged to pray to her reasoning that a son will listen to his mother’s petitions. They cite Jesus turning the water into wine as an example of Jesus listening to His mother. Yet prayer is defined as a dialog between God and man. Attempts to contact the dead are expressly forbidden. Yes, they contend Mary never died but was assumed into heaven, but that doesn’t stop them from encouraging prayer to a litany of “saints” all of whom died regular deaths. Mary was a wonderful woman worthy of our admiration (not adoration or worship). Let’s stick to what Scripture teaches us about her and not all the made-up theology of the Roman Catholic Church concerning her.
Words of a Skeptic
“Especially when you consider that the Bible itself wasn’t written by Jesus, but by men who say they were inspired by him and lived 500 years after he lived.
People often assume I’m anti-Christian, but I still have a relationship with Christ in my own way. What I don’t have a relationship with is The Bible, which was written by fallible men and edited several times by even more fallible men and then translated by equally fallible men into the contradictory tome it is today. Unless you never eat pig or wear clothing made of two different types of fabric, then you too have recognized that not every rule spelled out in the Bible is relevant to today.”
This is typical of comments I get at times from those who have rejected Biblical Christianity. I am not going to go into great detail on these subjects. I would recommend an excellent book titled “Evidence That Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell. It is a classic and one of the best written books defending the Christian faith and the Bible. I will point out some things but focus on the thinking behind such words.
It’s true the Bible wasn’t written by Jesus (by his hand) but it’s not true it was written by men who lived 500 years after Jesus. Jesus died around 33 AD. The last book of the NT was written around 90 AD or shortly after. All the books of the NT were written by men who knew Jesus or disciples of those men. Most of the authors of the NT were apostles. I don’t know where this person got the idea it was written 500 years later.
According to Got Questions:
For the New Testament, the process of the recognition and collection began in the first centuries of the Christian church. Very early on, some of the New Testament books were being recognized. Paul considered Luke’s writings to be as authoritative as the Old Testament (1 Timothy 5:18; see also Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7). Peter recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). Some of the books of the New Testament were being circulated among the churches (Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27). Clement of Rome mentioned at least eight New Testament books (A.D. 95). Ignatius of Antioch acknowledged about seven books (A.D. 115). Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle, acknowledged 15 books (A.D. 108). Later, Irenaeus mentioned 21 books (A.D. 185). Hippolytus recognized 22 books (A.D. 170-235). The New Testament books receiving the most controversy were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John.
The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in AD 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. In AD 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with one book of the Apocrypha) and 26 books of the New Testament (everything but Revelation) were canonical and to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (AD 393) and the Council of Carthage (AD 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative. (https://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html)
As you can see, the completion of the NT happened hundreds of years earlier than “500 years after Jesus.”
While Jesus did not write the NT, the writers of the NT were inspired by the Holy Spirit. God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God in three persons. It was the person of the Holy Spirit that inspired the writers of the NT. So it was divinely inspired whether it was written by Jesus or His followers.
To say the Bible today is a “contradictory tome” is misleading. Yes, there are passages that are debated but the core of the Christian faith is solid. It is not debated. Often those who claim contradictions read that on some website. Rarely have they even looked into the contradictions themselves. They are simply repeating something they read. Many scholarly books have been written about these so-called contradictions explaining them. There are people just looking for excuses to write-off the Bible. They don’t like the message of the Bible so they look for any reason to dismiss it. They find some website that claims contradictions and that’s good enough for them. That’s not examining the evidence. The truth is, there are no legitimate contradictions.
The implication was made that the Bible was edited by fallible men, and translated by fallible men therefore introducing error. She cited no evidence for the alleged edits. What we do know is that over 26,000 full or partial manuscripts exist of the NT. These range from the 100’s AD on. They have been studied and compared. Amazingly few discrepancies have been found. Less than 1% of the text has been found to at all changed and most of those changes were mere spelling changes. Nothing has been found that calls into question any of the essential teachings of the Bible.
People love to imply the Bible has been changed yet seldom is any evidence cited. For those looking to discredit the Bible, evidence is not needed. They are willing to take anyone’s word that changes have been made. Instead of the burden of proof being on them as it should be, they use silence as their argument. If we can’t prove no changes have been made, they take that as evidence changes have been made. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. When the Bible is compared to other works of antiquity, the preservation from change is amazing. The people who made copies took great care knowing they were copying the very words of God.
The final comment suggests we have no idea what commands in the Bible are relevant today. This too is false. Much of the OT was written for the nation of Israel. The requirements around which foods to eat, or the sacrificial system, have been done away with. This is clear from a reading of the NT.
What they suggest is that we are free to choose which parts of the Bible to believe in and which to reject. It makes us God deciding what is right and what is wrong. Instead of God revealing His will to us, we are deciding for ourselves what is God’s will. If you are going to reject any of the Bible then we should reject all of it. How can we decide what is correct and what is in error?
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)
Can our finite minds discern the truth? The evidence is that the Bible was written by men who knew Jesus or close associates of those men. The evidence is that the Bible has not been edited or corrupted. The evidence is that the Bible has changed countless lives and the face of history. Usually those who question the Bible do so not because they have seen evidence suggesting the Bible has been corrupted but rather are looking for reasons to reject it because they don’t like what it says. If they doubt the authenticity of the Bible they can justify and departure from it. They are free to fashion their own beliefs which naturally accommodate their own morality. They set themselves up as God deciding what is right and what is wrong. Why they claim any belief in Jesus, as some do, is illogical. Based on what evidence? The evidence they claim is corrupted? She said she had a relationship with Jesus but not the Bible. How, then, does she know anything of Jesus if not from the Bible?
Chakras: Fact or Fiction?
While attempts have been made to prove the existence of chakras, or energy centers in the body, nothing very concrete has been discovered. It seems to me to be more psychosomatic than physiological and I don’t think the difference matters to most believers in chakras. To them they simply exist. They believe they feel the flow of energy and the concentration of it in these centers. They believe they can feel blocked or unblocked. They don’t need medical science to validate their beliefs. The only ones who seem to care are the few that want some credibility in the eyes of the western establishment.
In my own study, I’ve come to believe what chakra practitioners mean by “energy” is something different than what I mean and what science would describe. As humans, we get chemical energy from the foods we eat. Our bodies convert the food we consume into nutrition that is spread through our blood stream to our tissue and organs and enables us to live and move. That is a form of chemical energy. Our bodies also turn some of this into heat. We call this thermal energy. That is why we are warm and when two bodies huddle they can give off a lot of shared heat. Our nervous system is made up of millions of neurons. Neurons have one or more dendrites, or tentacles, that act as antennae and receive information from other neurons. Within each neuron, chemicals (potassium and sodium) cause a polarity difference which results in an electrical signal moving across the body, or axon, of the neuron. When the electrical signal reaches the end of the neuron, it causes the neuron to release small chemicals called neurotransmitters which cross the synapse to a neighboring neuron where the process repeats. Thus the nervous system is able to send signals throughout the body. Sensory neurons receive information from receptors like the skin, the eyes, the nose, the tongue, etc. as well as from internal organs. Only small amounts of electrical energy can travel from one person to another. While it’s possible to feel a small shock when static current forms between people, these are small quantities of electricity and harmless.
The only conduits of electrical energy in our body are the nervous system. There are no storehouses or repositories of energy other than fat which is a formed of stored food energy. Each neuron contains the chemicals it needs to produce these small charges. To suggest one person can impart energy to another or direct it’s flow is not supported by science. Touching another person may cause a small, temporary static current, it is short-lived and not an ongoing exchange of energy. Humans get energy through the foods we eat. We don’t get it from other people or the sun or the earth, etc. The sun is needed for our food to exist but we don’t absorb energy through the skin. It is chemically produced by nutrition. When we describe feeling someone’s energy, we are really describing the changes in our receptors and how our minds interpret that information but there is no actual flow of energy. Our minds, if so inclined, may interpret it as such but physiologically there is no flow or exchange of energy. We may feel thermal energy or heat. We note the sensation of touch, even subtle changes in the air as someone’s hand gets near us. Yet this is not the same as saying their energy is flowing to us. We transfer energy through movement. When I cock my arm and throw a ball, the potential energy in my muscles is transferred to the ball to make it fly. In massage, muscular pressure can cause heat and movement of another’s muscles. However, that is not a transference of energy but rather the outcome of potential energy being applied. I cannot give you my energy. I can use my energy to move you (say pushing you) but I am not adding energy to your body.
I saw a demonstration at a tantric massage class where the instructor and an assistant lit a light bulb by touching each other in two places. The instructor cited this as evidence that energy can flow between people. If they only touched in one place, the bulb did not light. This experiment did not prove what he implied it did. Energy did in fact flow between them, but only a small amount of static electricity. At any moment, the human body produces the amount of electricity in a 100 watt light bulb. By touching in two places the instructor and his assistant were merely completing a circuit. The energy transference was minor. In his teaching, energy enters the body through transference either by touch or through our heads from the world around us. We are grounded when we have our feet flat on the ground. This instructor even went so far as to say that if you sat cross-legged you were not properly grounded. Your legs should not be crossed. This makes no sense as were energy flowing, as he believes, bends in knees would hardly stop the flow. I think it was said for effect and to make him sound more knowledgeable.
Psychology plays a great role in beliefs such as this. If someone is “trained” to sense energy in others and it’s suggested they will notice concentrations in specific areas, they might falsely interpret minor bits of thermal energy or subtle changes in airflow to indicate the presence of energy. They might say an area feels hot or cold. There could be a myriad of explanations for what they feel including that their minds are making it up. Likewise, the patient might be susceptible to suggestions. If they are told a certain area of their body feels hot, that might trigger their minds to send some nervous response to the area that causes them to feel there is something going on there. To them it is real and trying to suggest otherwise is very difficult.
Aside from the lack of scientific support, my main concern is actually the spiritual underpinnings on which this is built. Depending on who you read, some believe the concept came from ancient Egypt then was passed on to India. Others believe it started in India. There have been many different forms of the concept and many different numbers of chakras suggested. In one article I read said Westerners have completely misunderstood the true origin and meaning of chakras. The author claims that in the original Sanskrit, chakras were meant as objects of meditation and not representations of physical points in the body. (https://hareesh.org/blog/2016/2/5/the-real-story-on-the-chakras).
Originally, chakras were part of a meditative practice around Hindu deities. They have been westernized and repurposed and given a different focus such that what most westerners believe about chakras is quite different than the origins of them that the west claims to follow. It is these religious underpinnings that concern me. As a Christian, I want nothing to do with ancient Hindu scriptures and Hindu deities. I have often found that in the end, the belief in chakras is defended by saying that if you believe they are real and work for you, then they are real. If I believe I can fly and step off a cliff will that belief make me fly? No. I will fall to my death. We don’t create truth by our beliefs. Truth is objective and contradictory truths cannot exist. At least that is how the Bible defines truth. Once you step away from that, then truth is whatever you believe it to be. It is no longer rational or objective and thus contradictory truths can exist. I’ve seen many Christians get pulled off the path to chase after these mystical practices and beliefs. They fail to be discerning and grounded in the truth. They don’t see how they are disobeying and contradicting the Christian faith they claim to hold. They fail to look into the beliefs behind these practices and see no contradiction with their faith. The average Christian fails to get properly grounded in Scripture.
How Old is Christianity?
One misunderstanding some people have about Christianity, Judaism, and the Bible is that they are not the oldest religions and others predate them. They will cite some eastern religions as being older. When it comes to ancient religions, we can date their origins by surviving records, secular references, or their own claims as to when they started.
The problem with ancient religions is that they are ancient. Thousands of years ago they did not have computers or even printing presses. They wrote on parchments and other materials that would not last forever. Some faded or fell apart. Some were lost in fires, or attacks. Some were buried over time. Only a fraction of what might have existed survived to our time. This makes precise dating all but impossible.
In the case of the Bible, its story begins with creation itself. Genesis tells us of the creation of the universe and of humanity. God walked in the Garden and talked with Adam and Eve. They were the first believers. God appeared to their children and grandchildren and so on. Eventually the nation of Israel was formed from this line of believers. Moses, wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, before the nation of Israel fully existed. He was given the history by divine inspiration. Since no history predates creation, and since the story of creation is the beginning of the Bible, the Bible and belief in the God of the Bible, predates all manmade religions. While we see Judaism and Christianity as separate religions, the New Testament teaches that Christianity is the completion of Judaism. Judaism was meant to lead to Christianity with the coming of Jesus Christ the Messiah long-awaited by the Jews. Christian history begins with Genesis just as Judaism does. Based on that, I would date Christianity and Judaism as the oldest religions on earth.
When people claim these two religions borrowed stories from older religions (like the flood, resurrection, etc) they are not allowing for the possibility that Judaism and Christianity might be older and these other religions borrowed from them. Naturally, some people will debate this but I will never concede the point that any religion predates Judea-Christian history. Besides, being first does not necessarily make you right. When friends have tried to explain certain eastern traditions to me, and I have responded with Scripture, they often say “Well this stuff was around long before the Bible.” While it may have been written before the Bible, that does not mean it occurred before the Bible nor that it’s correct.
Secular scholars date Hinduism (or at least the root of it) as the oldest religion dating from 15 BC to 5 BC. They claim Judaism dates from 9 BC to 5 BC. Some claim Judaism is rooted in Atenism which is an old Egyptian monotheistic religion. The only similarity between Atenism and Judaism is that both were monotheistic. Atenism was based on the Sun god. That Judaism is monotheistic in no way proves it had any connection to Atenism. According to the Bible, belief in a single God goes back to Adam and Eve thousands of years before Atenism. Dating a religion upon the earliest writings or artifacts ignores the fact that so much of antiquity has been lost to the sands of time. Did Adam and Eve write anything down? Did Abraham? We don’t know but nothing has survived to us but that should not be surprising given the amount of time that has passed and the materials they used for writing. Note too that Moses was believed to live around 15 BC thus at the earliest suggested date for the start of Hinduism and Moses is far from the first person mentioned in the Bible.
Ultimately, this is an argument you won’t win as your friend may not accept your statements about the Bible being older. I would rather attempt to get them to admit that what we know is only known from surviving fragments or artifacts. It’s possible there were religions before Hinduism that simply did not survive. Secular science believes life began in Africa requiring many years before any descendants would have made it to the east. Who’s to say they did not have beliefs that predated Hinduism? Perhaps if they will admit we can’t be 100% certain then they will have to admit that you could be right about the Bible.
A Note on God and Science
To many, God and science are like oil and water. They just don’t mix. To many atheist or agnostic scientists, religion has nothing to offer to the explanation of cosmology. They see religious information as mere stories and myths. The answers, they believe, lie in science. I believe they both have their place.
If you drew a big circle on a whiteboard, you could label it “truth” and it would contain all truth, all knowledge. You could then draw a smaller circle inside it and label it “knowable truth.” That is, truth that can be discovered by human effort. How big this circle would be in relation to the larger circle is unknowable. The “truth” circle is known by God. The “knowable truth” circle contains all those things God has made available to man to know. That is where science comes in. Science is a tool to explore the “knowable truth” circle. Its use is limited to that circle. What lies beyond that circle is supernatural to us and by definition outside the purview of science. A strict scientist cannot consider anything supernatural.
It’s like a blind man who discovers the world through touch, taste, and sound. He can feel things, smell them, and taste them. If presented an elephant he would run his hands over it’s skin and feel the size and texture. As he continued to explore, he would discover legs, a trunk, ears, etc. His nose would also pickup the scent of the elephant. He could in this manner learn much about the elephant but without vision he could never know its color and what that elephant “looked” like in his mind, may not be a truly accurate representation of the elephant. He would need sight, in addition to his other senses, to truly know the elephant. Now imagine a world where everyone was born blind. Everything they learned came through the use of those non-visual senses. Overtime they might consider their way of exploration as science and come to believe that over time they could discover all there is to know this way. To someone who had sight, we would recognize that while their methods could indeed teach them much, they could not know everything. If suddenly given sight, they would realize they had only known part of the truth.
God has revealed some “unknowable” things to us through revelation in the Bible. These are things we could never have discovered on our own. When science tries to discover the origins of the universe, it runs into the limit of the knowable. In trying to discover the ultimate origin of the universe, they keep hitting their heads into a brick wall. They are looking for answers they will never find. Their theories are increasingly strained and still leave an unanswerable question. Namely, how did our universe come from nothing? Some have tried to dodge this question by saying time did not exist until the universe came into being thus there is no “before.” Therefore, they reason, it is pointless to consider anything “before” they universe existed. They think this eliminates the search for an answer to where did the universe come from.
No matter how you slice it, in the end, something had to be self-existent and outside of time and space. I believe that something is God. In saying that, I don’t mean “god” as in a higher power or an undefined force. I mean the God of the Bible. The God who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. The God who transcends both time and space and that which lies outside of it. Science might postulate that matter was somehow self-existent and possessed inherent properties that we call the laws of physics. I think if scientists could look outside our circle, they would find God looking back. Fortunately, we don’t have to see outside the circle to know God. He occupies all of both circles and has made Himself known to us.
Quantum Physics and God
Although Quantum Physics has been around for over 100 years, it still feels like the “new thing” in physics. If you’re not familiar with the term, it is a branch of physics that describes the world of sub-atomic particles. The great British physicist, John Newton, was the father of what became known as Newtonian Physics. Also called Classic Mechanics, it is the world of macroscopic objects. This is the world and universe that we can see. Planets, stars, giant gas clouds and so on. It is the world of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Special Relativity. Quantum Physics, aka Quantum Mechanics, is the world of objects too small for the unaided human eye to see. It turns out physics in this unseen world works differently than in the macroscopic world. While the world of Newtonian Physics is orderly and predictable, the world of Quantum Physics is unpredictable and illogical.
One outcome of Quantum Physics is the concept of nothing. Imagine an airtight box we suck all the air out of creating a perfect vacuum. What’s then inside the box? Our usual answer would be to say there is nothing inside the box. There is no thing(s) inside the box. It is empty. This is how we classically viewed the vacuum of space. What lies between the earth and the moon? Empty space full of nothing although it’s nonsensical to say something is full of nothing. If I say after a meal, I am full I certainly don’t mean I ate nothing. No, I am full because I ate a lot and filled my stomach. We say the space between the earth and the moon is full of nothing because that space has the property of distance. The moon is 250,000 miles from the earth, so to get there you have to pass through 250,000 miles of a vacuum. If there was nothing there then why would the moon not be right next to the earth? Afterall, there is nothing between us.
Actually, quantum mechanics tells us that the nothing of space has pairs of matter and anti-matter appear and disappearing all the time. Each pair contains an identical amount of matter and anti-matter and within a very small amount of time they collide and cancel each other out. They disappear. Their energy is returned to the nothing. This is happening continuously. So, while the vacuum of space would appear to contain nothing it actually contains something. Just something too small and too short-lived to see.
If I sent you to an empty room in my house and when you returned asked you what was in the room you would say “nothing, it was empty.” Now we both know there was not nothing in the room. How then did you breathe? Ah, there was air in the room. How did you see that the room was empty? Ah, there were particles of light. Even if the room was pitch dark with no light, the air would still be there and your feet would be kicking up unseen dust. We say there was nothing there because there was nothing we could see. The vacuum of space is like that. It appears to contain nothing yet it contains light, and radiation from the sun. What if you could travel to some far location in the universe that had no stars close enough to it that their light had reached that location? It would be pitch dark. No light. A cold, dark vacuum. Even then there is something there. Those pesky particles of matter and anti-matter keep coming and going. That nothing is teeming with activity.
According to quantum physics, every few billion pairs of matter and antimatter would suddenly produce a singleton particle of matter with no antimatter twin. Lacking its antimatter counterpart, that singleton would remain. Over time those singletons would together form amounts of matter from which the things of the universe could be created. Thus, something was created from nothing. Of course, not really from “no thing.” It was those unpaired particles of matter.
Some atheist physicists like the late Stephen Hawking, saw this as an explanation of the creation of the universe “out of nothing.” To him this implied that no “god” was needed. Biblical theology says God created the universe ex nihlo, Latin for “out of nothing.” Yet the Bible and quantum physics are not saying the same thing. The Bible’s nothing is truly “not a thing” whereas quantum physics nothing contains matter and antimatter and an accumulating amount of singleton particles of matter. This begs the question of where did those particles of matter and antimatter come from? How did they get created “out of nothing.” Where does their energy go when destroyed? How is it that occasional singleton particles of matter show up? The answer to the Christian is obvious. “In the beginning, God created…” (Genesis 1:1). What does beginning refer to? It refers to the start of time. Einstein taught us that time requires space. Without space there is no time. Before there was something there was no concept of time. Time did not exist. When God created “in the beginning”, the cosmic clock began ticking. The Bible tells us that to the God, “yesterday, today, and tomorrow” are all the same. In other words, God lives in the eternal now which is another way of saying God’s existence is not bound to a space-time continuum. God is omnipresent and thus is everywhere all at once which includes our universe yet God’s existence does not depend on the universe. God exists independent of the universe. Since God’s existence is not dependent on space, God is not subject to time. To God it is always now. When the Bible uses time-based language, it is for our benefit as we are creatures bound to time and space at least physically. God created our souls to be able to live independent of time and space. The Book of Revelation tells us God will burn up the elements in intense heat and recreate a new universe with a new earth. If God was bound to this universe and if our souls were as well, then we could not survive the complete destruction of this universe.
Modern man sees a conflict between science and religion. Many of the early great minds of science did not see conflict. They understood that science is the method by which man discovers what can be known of God’s creation. God gave us minds capable of great discovery. We can comprehend complex mathematics, physics, art, music, literature… Yet God has not revealed or made possible for us to discover everything. There are somethings knowable only to God. He has revealed some things to us supernaturally like the fact that He is, that He crated the universe. Science is very good at discovering how the universe works and even how it has grown and changed. How stars form and how atoms work. Yet science can only go back so far then hits a dead-end. Science cannot explain where matter came from or how it got the properties it has. That is unknowable except to God. If you picture all truth as a big circle on a whiteboard, you could draw a smaller circle inside of it that represents all knowable truth. That is what man can potentially discover and know although mankind may run out of time before he fills in that circle. What lies outside that circle is all those things known only to God. That is why science will never be able to explain or prove the existence of God. It lacks the tools to do so. As intelligent as man is, our minds cannot comprehend God in all His fulness. There are truths outside our circle that God could not even explain to us as we lack the ability to understand. There are other things He could, and has, told us that we could understand yet would never have discovered it apart from God’s revelation. Maybe in heaven God will expand our minds to understand more than we can now but we will never fully comprehend God because we would need the mind of God to comprehend God and we are not and never will be God’s equal.
Science keeps trying to explain away the need for God. Yet God does not exist because we need His existence to explain our existence. God exists because He is. He would exist even if we didn’t. He does not exist out of our need. He is self-existent. We do need God, but not to explain everything. We need God because He created us and designed us to have fellowship with Him. Our need for God is more like how we need air to breathe or the flower needs sun and water. God is not the product of our mind’s need for answers though that is what many atheists assume. God is the God of nothing, of Quantum and Newtonian Physics. They do not explain Him but can be useful in explaining His creation. The mathematics of physics is mind-boggling. The equations men like Einstein came up with to explain the laws of physics are truly amazing. Very few of us could even begin to understand it much less understand how they came up with it. For thousands of years, mankind has been growing in its knowledge of the universe and how it works. If it takes the smartest of men to begin to describe and define creation, how could creation be the product of random chance? Does it not give evidence to a great Design by a Great Designer? Did not God give men like Einstein a mind to understand such things? Creation is not by chance. Chance cannot create anything. Chance is an expression of probability. Chance is not a force that can create. We are not here by chance nor did the universe come into being by chance. The fundamental truth is contained in these four words, “In the beginning, God…”
Where Does Our Hope Come From?
What concerns me is the degree to which American Christians have become involved in politics and in so doing are compromising their faith to back the “lesser of two evils.” In the NT, we see no mention of politics whatsoever except the command to “obey the governing authorities.” When the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus into either supporting Rome or disobeying Rome, He turned their question back on them telling them to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Israel, at the time of Jesus and the Apostles, was a Roman province under the rule of a Roman governor and the Roman army. Israel’s laws were pre-empted by Roman law. Despite Roman injustice, neither Jesus nor the Apostles spoke out against Roman rule. While Paul made many missionary journeys and even spent time under house arrest in Rome, his message never turned political. The focus of Jesus and the Apostles was to spread the Good News. Physical freedom meant nothing if one were in slavery to sin.
Yet in our time American Christians have become obsessed with politics. We put more time and energy into politics than we do into evangelism. We think that by involving ourselves in politics we can slow the decay of society and maybe even bring about revival rather than realizing this world is not our home and our job is to preach the Gospel no matter the times in which we live. Surely, we know we can’t legislate morality or salvation. We have become mired in America’s two-party system equating Republicanism with Christianity and the Democratic Party with secular humanism. The reality is that secular humanism has infected both parties and there is no such thing as a Christian party. While the Republican Party is pro-life in its platform, many other policies of the party put financial gain as the highest good despite the Bible’s teaching that money is the root of all sorts of evil. We bend over backwards to excuse the many sins of President Trump believing he is a “baby Christian” and thus we must not expect him to be perfect. Yet the free pass we give to his behavior and lying is making Christians look hypocritical to the world. When we fail to exhort and admonish the President we fail to live up to what the Scriptures teach us. We are not going to our brother in sin and calling him to repentance. We assume his spiritual advisors are taking care of such things despite the lack of evidence of change. We think because Trump is pro-life and pro-Christian everything else, he does can be excused.
No president will ever be perfect. We can’t expect Trump to be. That is not a fair standard but remaining silent on his sins is also not acceptable for those sins committed in the public realm as he executes his office. His private sins are another matter. If as president, he lies, he breaks the law, he is a poor witness, then an unqualified endorsement does not seem proper to me even if the alternative is an even worse candidate. Our witness demands we be consistent. If we are going to attack another candidate for unchristian views, we cannot turn a blind eye to president Trump.
When I discuss president Trump with fellow Christians, I often encounter a lot of white-washing of his conduct. Rather than truly analyzing his actions, I too often hear back the press briefing talking points. I’m not encountering much critical thinking.
I know to some Christians, questioning Trump is near heresy. I’m treated as if questioning Trump is “going over to the enemy.” It’s back to the binary politics we’ve accepted in this country. I feel we have to be consistent. We need to fight corruption and lying and not give free passes to public officials even if they are Christians. Otherwise we are perceived by the world as being just as corrupt.
The government is not our savior. We need to reach individual hearts not political parties. A Christian president is not going to fix this broken land. It is well and good to promote Christian values and vote for good candidates but our hope is in Christ, not politicians.
Proof Texting
Non-Christians often quote Scripture to make a point but in doing so they are guilty of proof texting. What is proof texting? It is when a single verse is pulled from the Bible in support of a particular belief or doctrine. The problem is that you cannot properly understand the Bible by pulling verses out of their context in a stand-alone fashion. Verses must be understood in their Biblical context understanding who wrote it, what historic or grammatical understanding is involved, what the rest of Scripture have to say on the subject, etc. Many verses in the Bible can be made to say all kinds of things if not understood in their proper context. Sometimes people are quoted “out of context” and when accused of saying something offensive, will protest that their words were taken out of context. We all understand that context is key to understanding words. Depending on the context, the same words can mean different, sometimes even contradictory things.
I recently ran across an example of this in a blog. It was a counseling blog and followed a question/answer format. The question came from a woman who was wrestling over feelings of shame over her sexual feelings. She was in her 30’s and was raised in a religious household and felt the teachings of her parents have led to this sense of shame.
In her response, the licensed psychotherapist responded to the writer having called herself a “child of God.” She stated that sex and sexuality are integral and an intimate part of a person’s very being and is the very opposite of shame. She then quoted Ephesians 5:29 (which she misattributed to Ephesians 5:20). She wrote:
You write that you are a “child of God.” I don’t know how you express your spirituality, but I wonder if you have come across this quotation from Ephesians 5:20: “For no one has ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, as the Messiah does the church.” In short, take care of yourself, body and soul, with complete love. (Somerstein, n.d.)
She then asked the writer a rhetorical question regarding her self-care and suggested counseling to deal with her negative emotions. I cite this as an example of proof texting because in context the verse does not teach anything about loving yourself. When you read the passage, the Apostle Paul was giving teaching on marriage. He specifically was addressing husbands and instructing them to love their wives like they love their own bodies. He adds that “no one has ever hated his own body.” In other words, Paul assumes we all love ourselves and take care of ourselves and so as a husband loves his own body, so should he love his wife. As he would nourish and cherish his own body, he should nourish and cherish his wife. Paul gives and even greater example, Jesus’ love for the church. As Jesus loves the church, so a husband should love his wife.
The psychotherapist is implying the verse teaches that the Bible teaches that we are to love and care for our own bodies and that since (in her opinion) expressing your sexuality is a loving thing, the Bible therefore would encourage such thoughts and not be a source of shame.
The verse actually assumes we love our own bodies. It also gives no teaching on what proper self-love entails. It is also not at all given in the context of sexuality and its context is marriage which is not the state the writer was in. What the Bible teaches on self-love and sexuality are found in other passages. Using this verse as a proof text for what the Bible teaches about self-love and sexual shame is totally taking the verse out of context. To conclude it teaches you should “take care of yourself, body and soul, with complete love” is reading a meaning into the passage that it’s author never intended. Theologically we call that isogesis (reading into). Proper understanding of the Bible comes from exegesis where you read the meaning from the text taking into consideration the context, the grammar, the history, etc.
While the earliest comments left on the article date back to late 2016, not a single commenter pointed out the psychotherapist referenced the wrong verse leading me to conclude none of them looked up and read that verse for themselves. One commenter called it a “beautiful verse” but no doubt took it with the meaning the psychotherapist gave it.
Proof texting happens all the time. Often secular writers employ it to try and suggest the Bible teaches something different than what Christians take it to teach. In many cases I suspect they got the verse from another’s writings and did not read it for themselves. One person’s proof texting gets multiplied many times over each reuse assuming they understand the verse. Sadly, the recipients of this proof texting never look up such verses for themselves and thus continue propagating the misrepresentation.
We will never be able to prevent the use of proof texting. Sometimes it is intentional but often the result of sloppy research. The author has a belief or bias and thinks they see a Bible verse that supports that belief or bias and builds an argument around it. Satisfied they have the proper understanding; they never bother to read the verse in context for themselves. All we can do in such cases is to gently correct and point out the misuse of the verse.
Non-Christians often make assumptions about what Christians believe or what the Bible teaches. In doing so they are often guilty of proof texting.
Works Cited
Somerstein, L. (n.d.). https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/dear-gt/how-do-i-overcome-shame-of-sex?unapproved=721820&moderation-hash=e6f028786c1f6ea8629b6609263eb5e7#comment-721820. Retrieved from GoodTherapy.
Will the Church Go Through the Tribulation?
The Doctrine of Imminency
The return of Christ has been expected by the Church since the time of Christ. This expectation that His return could happen at any time with no preconditions is known as the Doctrine of Imminency. The Church is told to “watch” and to “look” for his return. In the description of the Rapture of the Church, we see believers going about their daily lives working in the fields and doing other normal activities. Suddenly some are taken while others are left behind. To me this suggests they were not aware the Lord was about to return (other than knowing it could happen at any time. If any of the events described as occurring in the Tribulation had to occur before the Rapture, then Christ’s return would not be imminent. We would have recognizable events we would expect to see first. This contradicts all the Scriptures that depict His return as imminent and without warning.
The Church in the Tribulation?
In John 14:1-3, in connection with the promise of Christ, “I will come again,” the purpose of His coming is revealed to be to take believers to “my Father’s house,” by which term He describes heaven. After He meets the church in the air, He will take them to the place prepared. In contrast, at His coming to establish the millennial kingdom, all believers remain in the earthly scene. In 1 Thessalonians 5:4-10, believers are assured that they are children of light, not children of darkness. They are comforted with the promise that the day of wrath will not overtake them as a thief, as it will the world. They are promised, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9). In 1 Thessalonians 1:10 our hope is stated: “To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.” If believers are delivered “from the wrath to come,” why inflict upon them a day of wrath designed for the ungodly? Are not believers assured: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Rom. 5:9)? In Revelation 3:10 the godly church at Philadelphia is promised: “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” In a word, they are promised that they will be kept “from” the period of tribulation ahead. That is different from being kept “through” this time. (https://bible.org/seriespage/6-will-church-go-through-tribulation)
We see in Scripture two programs of God. First, God established the nation of Israel and revealed Himself to them. There were many faithful Jews who responded to God’s revelation and faith in the future-coming Messiah. Not all did, however. Many strayed and by the time of Christ’s first coming faith among the Jews was waning. They thought themselves righteous by virtue of lineage and thinking they were keeping the law. While much of Jesus’ ministry was to Jews, not all of it was. He spoke of “other children” and in the Book of Acts we see the Gospel going to the Gentiles which had been God’s plan all along. While some Jews came to accept Jesus as their Messiah, the majority have not. In 70 A.D. Roman soldiers sacked the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple putting to an end the sacrificial system of Judaism. Jesus’ death on the cross had already rendered that system of no further value. It was to point to the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus. Once Jesus died, there was no longer a need to sacrifice in the Temple (see Hebrews 10.) Most of the Jews rejected Jesus and continued in their useless ceremonies until the Romans destroyed their Temple and dispersed them.
In the over 2000 years that have followed, we have been in the Church age where God’s focus has turned to the Church though He has not forgotten Israel. The Church age will culminate with the return of Christ and the Rapture where His church will join Him in heaven to dwell with Him forever. That is not the end though. As God always saved a faithful remnant of Jews in the OT, He will also save a remnant during The Tribulation. God’s gaze now returns to Israel and the fulfillment of His plan for them. Some Jews and some Gentiles will come to believe during the Tribulation. They are who are in view in Revelation 13:7. They will suffer for their faith but spend eternity with God. At the end of the seven year Tribulation, Christ will return again with His angels and end the reign of the Antichrist and bound up Satan and the demons and the 1000 year Millennial Kingdom will begin.
Romans 13: Obey the Governing Authorities
Anyone living in the United States today knows we are in a political mess. Our nation is more polarized than it has been since perhaps the run up to the Civil War. We have two parties diametrically opposed . If one says black the other says white. They seem obsessed with opposing each other. Both parties was the “Holy Grail” of having the Presidency, the House, and the Senate under their control. Then they can push through all their legislative priorities.
Of course it rarely happens that all three line up under the same party and even when it does, the next time the other party has control they attempt to undo whatever the first party accomplished. The two parties are so gridlocked that increasingly our Presidents are resorting to executive orders to accomplish their goals. Rather than debate budget priorities, now the solution seems to be giving both sides whatever they want resulting in huge deficits.
Each party automatically opposes anything the other party proposes. At the very least they must find some fault with it they can correct and thus take partial credit. Politicians live for re-election and parties live to gain control. It now takes millions of dollars to get elected President requiring huge political organizations. Without the backing of a one of the two major parties, getting elected is nearly impossible. Unless you are a very rich person capable of funding your own campaign, it’s impossible. It takes more than money though. You need media consultants, political consultants, grass root workers, speech writers, and on and on. The two major parties have such people and tend to use them regularly so there are not a lot of people like that waiting to be employed. So while we have more than two parties, for all practical purposes we have just two.
Consider also that in Congress the majority leader of each legislative party gets to be the leader of that body. They are voted on by their own party. A minority leadership position is given to the minority party. What about members from other parties like independents? Bernie Sanders, while an Independent, still aligned himself with the Democratic Party each time he ran for President. He know as an Independent he could never fund and run a successful campaign. Our two-party system also results in each party nominating their most popular candidate to run in the general election. There is no chance for the public to choose among multiple Republicans or Democrats.
Countless hours and millions of dollars are wasted in each party opposing the other. Instead of accepting their have different visions and compromising to get things done, they dig their heels in and refuse to compromise except on minor issues or when forced to. Agreement between the parties seems like a pipe dream and the national debt just keeps piling up.
What should we do as Christians? Romans 13 tells us:
13 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (ESV)
Some Christians have thrown themselves into politics and made it a personal crusade to support whomever they feel is most conducive to the Biblical worldview. While this is the right and privilege of every citizen we should remember Jeremiah 17:9 tells us:
“The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?
Sinful hearts will never lead to perfect government. Until Christ reigns on earth, there will be corruption, strife, and disorder. While we should strive for good government we have to understand the limitations of human nature. Unless redeemed by God, man is foolish, willful, prideful, and corrupt. Yet we are still told to submit to the governing authorities as they are instituted by God.
The Pharisees tried to draw Jesus into politics hoping to trap him between the people and Rome. When asked about paying taxes, Jesus answered that they should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s. They had hoped if he told them taxes were unjust they could get him in trouble with the Roman authorities. If he told them to pay taxes they hoped the people would turn on him for being a “Roman lover.” Yet his answer disarmed them. As oppressive as Rome was on her subjects, Jesus never spoke out against Rome. Neither did the Apostle Paul who was in chains due to Roman justice. Their focus was always on saving souls not saving governments. Only by changing hearts could society change. Laws will never what the Spirit of God can.
The Supreme Court may change it’s make up and reverse former rulings but they do not determine truth. The Constitution was written over two decades ago and applying portions of it to today’s world leads to different interpretations. As justices retire, who replaces them is largely up to the President. The balance of power between conservative and liberal is ongoing. Justices are not ruling based on God’s Word.
We can’t and shouldn’t expect our government to save us. Nor should not despair if our government is corrupt. Our missions remains unchanged. We are to love the Lord our God, which all our heat, soul and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves. We are then to fulfill the Great Commission taking the gospel to the world. As citizens of this country, we should be informed and participate but not get distracted so much by politics that we forget our mission. We should not fear government but rather fear God who can throw both body and soul into everlasting fire. Rome did not last forever. Kings and rulers come and go. Only God is everlasting. Live not in fear and despair but in joyful expectation of the return of our Lord.
Church History
Let’s look a bit at the development of the church as seen in Scripture and history. Jesus died around 30 A.D. Starting about 30 years later, the Apostles and a few authors directly associated with them began writing what we know of as the New Testament. Their writings were circulated among the many fledgling churches scattered throughout the Mediterranean area. Copies were made. The early church, as recorded in the Book of Acts, largely met in people’s homes. A few got to use the facilities of Synagogues but Cathedrals and modern style church buildings were still centuries away. Scripture does not give us a blueprint for their gatherings. It only tells us what the major elements were. They sang hymns and spiritual songs, they prayed and worshipped, they were instructed from those early writings and the teaching of men who either were Apostles or trained by them. They also broke bread and remembered the Lord’s death and resurrection through communion.
There were no priests, choirs, mentions of incense, robes, specific prayers, the order of affairs, etc. No liturgy. Anything that was later added by churches as the “proper way to do things” was not described for us in the Bible. They are manmade traditions we’ve added and like all things must be judged by Scripture.
Scripture (the Bible) is the Word of God. It alone is God’s perfect revelation to man. While it was written by men, those men told us they were moved by the Holy Spirit to write what they wrote. It wasn’t something cultic like automatic writing but the Holy Spirit, using their vocabulary and writing style, guided them in writing each and every word. It’s true the formal declaration of what constituted the canon of Scripture (i.e. the official books) did not happen until much later, history tells us that the books chosen were universally recognized as meeting some important criteria. They had to be written by an Apostle or someone closely associated with an Apostle (e.g. Luke who traveled extensively with Paul). There had to be evidence they were widely accepted and changed lives. Through these and a few other criteria, it was obvious what belonged. This became the New Testament. Together with the Old Testament, It is our only source of revelation from God. It was understood that these writings were unique as were the men who wrote them. Future writings would have to be judged by these writings. They set the once and forever standard. No future writings or teachings could be added to them.
As the early church grew and spread, it continued to be guided by these early writings and Apostolic teaching. We have recorded one time when the Apostles met as a group with Paul to discuss a few matters Paul brought to them. Otherwise, the Apostles themselves eventually left Jerusalem and ministered in different places. There was no ongoing Apostolic council. There was no hierarchy, no single leader. The NT speaks of teachers, elders, and deacons. No mention is made of priests, bishops, cardinals, or a pope. No nuns or monks. No presbyteries, church committees, or denominations. There was no central authority except that of the Scriptures.
In the mid-300’s A.D., the Roman Emperor Charlemagne converted to Christianity. After centuries of persecution, Christianity finally had a patron in a position of power. The Emperor. This is when we start to see some formal organization beginning. Being Emperor of the vast Roman Empire required much delegation and organization. Charlemagne expected the same of the church. He wanted someone in Rome who could be his appointed head of the church so he had someone in a position of power to deal with. Thus was born the office of the Bishop of Rome. Prior to this, there were some learned teachers who were called Bishops in recognition of their gifts but not yet part of any larger organizational structure. It was more a title of honor.
We have some writings of these early church leaders that have survived. They are often collectively referred to as the Church Fathers. None of these men were Apostles or alive during the time of Christ. The earliest or their writings are from time after the Apostles were all gone. Much of their writings come hundreds of years later. While their writings are of great historical value to us, their writings are still the writings of men and not Scripture. Their writings were not chosen to be part of the NT. Jesus lived in an age where there were no recording devices. Spoken words had to be written down then copied. That is one of the reasons a criterion for writing to be part of the NT is that it had to be written by an Apostle or someone in direct contact with an Apostle. Any writing outside of that could not be trusted and had to be judged by those writings. Even today, with all our technology, we don’t have perfect or complete information about things that happened 100 – 200 years ago. There are elements of the story of the founding of the United States that are rumor and not verified fact. The Church Fathers were not writing Scripture. Their letters and other writings were their own thoughts and must be compared to Scripture. We are not free to consider their teachings on par with Scripture. Nothing is on par with Scripture. No subsequent teachings or writings. The Scriptures are the only revelation given by God for our instruction. All teachings must be based on them.
Over the centuries after Charlemagne this new Roman Church, led by the Bishop of Rome, began to expand its power and influence added many traditions and teachings not found in Scripture. While some were consistent with Scripture and allowable, others weren’t. Worse, some of these teachings and traditions were treated as equal to Scripture. Certain decisions and declarations made by this new Roman Church were considered church canon and carried the weight of the Scriptures. All the major teachings of the Roman Catholic church came into being after Charlemagne. Things like the mass, the office of the Pope, Papal infallibility, Mariology, etc. The seeds of some of these traditions may have existed earlier but were not practiced by the early church. Over centuries the Roman Catholic church claimed the authority to establish these things and declared them on par with Scripture but by what authority? They could not claim the authority of Scripture as they were adding to it. Their attempts to find support in Scripture have been contested by many and often are misinterpretations or insufficient. The fact that Peter made the summary statement when the Apostles met with Paul in Jerusalem is often cited as proof he was the early head of the church and thus the first Pope. Some claim Peter was the original organizer of the church in Jerusalem. Even if he was, that does not establish the office of the Pope. As the church scattered, some Apostles stayed primarily in Jerusalem while others made extensive missionary journeys. Naturally, they took on different roles. Paul was the leading missionary of the Apostles whereas Peter ministered more extensively in Jerusalem. Neither one was over the other. In fact, Paul later publicly called out Peter for his hypocritical behavior as recorded in Scripture. They were equals. The Apostles as a group were unique and never repeated but among them, there was no hierarchy. Scholars agree that for centuries the church had no overarching organization of leadership. No Pope can be found. It wasn’t for centuries that the Roman Catholic church sought to establish the office of the Pope and then tried to look back through history and claim a line of succession starting from Peter. Based on what? How good were their records to really know these men they were declaring Popes centuries later? Why is there no record of these men acting as some universal head of the church in their time?
We would do well at this juncture to remember what the “church” is. The church began on the day of Pentecost. Simply put, the church is the collection of believers across the world and throughout history. It is all those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus as their Lord in Savior. The church is not a building, an organization, or those who hold to certain interpretations of Scripture. While Charlemagne was establishing the Bishop of Rome (the forerunner to the Pope and one of the many titles for the Pope) the church already existed and had since the day of Pentecost. What we know as Roman Catholicism is a manmade institution created over time by those claiming authority and thereafter establishing their rule of what correct doctrine and practice should be. There has always been those outside of the Roman Catholic church that were still a part of the church. One did not have to come under the authority and practice of the Roman Catholic church to be a part of God’s church. Eventually, there was a great schism in the Roman Catholic church in 1054 which lead to the east-west split. Later, in the 15th century, the Protestant Reformation caused another schism. So which tradition is right? Is there an overall leader of the church? The answer is found in the Scriptures as it should be.
The church is all those who belong to Jesus. It is not a function of what local church or denomination they belong to. They are subject to no Pope or other ecclesiastical authority. Scripture only defines accountability to one another and to local elders. The Roman Catholic Church has priests leading their local churches across the world. Yet Biblically, Priests were unique to the OT and the Temple. They belonged to an era, pre-Christ, when man still needed representation before God in certain functions. The Book of Hebrews teaches that in Jesus the entire OT religious structure, including priests and the Temple, were done away with. Jesus became our new high priest. Scripture declares that there is now no intercessor between God and man except Jesus Christ. The Roman Catholic function of the priest came about in the 2nd century when some churches began to formalize communion feeling it ought to be administered by those holding a priestly office. This is not found in Scripture. As Paul established churches, he appointed elders who were put in charge of the church but did not give any teaching as to how communion was to be celebrated. The early church met in people’s homes. There were no priests presiding over these meetings or the celebration of communion. If only a priest can preside over communion (later called by the Roman Catholic church the Eucharist) then was the early church’s practice of celebration communion invalid? Over time, the role of the priest expanded to hearing confessions and granting absolution. After Christ freed us from the need for representation, man was reinstituting it. When Jesus died on the cross, Scripture tells us the curtain in the Temple was torn from top to bottom. This was a very thick curtain made from sewing many layers of material together. Tearing such a curtain in half would be like trying to tear a phone book in half a feat very few can do. It happened in an instant and not by the hand of man. Scripture tells us that the renting of that curtain represented the removal of the veil between God and man. We no longer need sacrifices, a Temple, or priests. We have direct access to God through Jesus. We can confess our sins to Him in prayer. Why do we want to go back to the OT and have to have others ministering on our behalf when we have been given the great freedom and blessing to go directly to God! The Jews were afraid to even say the name of God. They took the vowels out of Yahweh and abbreviated it so they would not speak His name. God was always approached very formally. Yet in the NT we are told we can call God “Abba” which means father or more intimately, daddy. We have been given a great privilege, why do we reject it and feel we have to go through others? We are trying to overlay OT ritual over the NT freedom we have in Christ. Jesus described the OT law as a yoke too hard to bear. He’s freed us from that yoke! Why do we want to put it back on?
If you want to see the church that began on the day of Pentecost, read the Book of Acts but keep in mind that for the birth of the church age, God gave signs and wonders and appointed Apostles. We see them planting churches, spreading the Good News, appointment elders and deacons to carry on the work, performing signs and wonders to give testimony to the Gospel and to their unique office, and then they fade from history except through their writings. As they left us so did the signs and wonders that accompanied them and so did the office of Apostle. Their work complete, they joined their Lord in heaven. Their writings became the NT and their pattern of evangelism and church planting was left for us to carry on.
Centuries later men started to add to the church things that are not found in Scripture claiming an authority only the Apostles had. They claimed their teachings were equal to those of the Apostles. This is nothing but the work of man claiming to be the work of God. This is why our faith and our worship must be grounded on Scripture. Many have come forward in the centuries since claiming new revelations from God. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claimed to have received revelation from God to restore the “gospel.” With no proof the Gospel was ever lost, he preceded to offer new teaching that was not in agreement with Scripture. He set himself up as a prophet and claimed new revelations. Sadly, he deceived many and continues to today although the deception is from Satan with Joseph Smith only being Satan’s tool. Countless cults have come and gone some in bloody endings. The Roman Catholic church continues on yet has been racked in recent years with terrible revelations of child abuse often hidden by the very church that claims to be God’s true church on earth.
The church is not an organization, a denomination, a building, or a local gathering. The church is all who have put their faith in trust in Jesus Christ and who worship in spirit and in truth. It is built upon the Word of God and the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God who died for our sins and rose on the third day and will come again to judge the living and the dead. We have direct access to the Throne of Grace through Jesus Christ. We don’t need priests or prophets or those claiming special anointings. We are called the children of God and saints. Not saints as invented by the Roman Catholic church but true saints – disciples of Jesus.
Jesus had barely returned to heaven when false teachers arose. Paul wrote extensively about the Judaizers and Gnostics and other false teachers. Satan loves to counterfeit the things of God to mislead us. Church history is full of such counterfeits. Scripture must be our rock, our foundation against which all things are tested and judged. Any human organization that claims to be the true church or is headed by someone claiming to be God’s representative speaks falsehood. If we build on anything but the solid rock of Jesus Christ as revealed through the Scriptures, we build on shifting sand and what we build will not last.
What Christmas Means to Me
That’s What Christmas Means to Me
I don’t have decorations or a tree,
They’re not what Christmas means to me.
No stockings or cookies or gifts to see,
That’s not what Christmas means to me.
No holiday parties, no cards or carols.
You must think I’m the Grinch,
With no heart and no Christmas apparel.
It’s actually a birthday, I hope you can see.
A savior was born amid the debris,
Soon there were wise men, down on their knees.
He put aside His crown,
For the earth to come down.
He lived His life to die for you and me,
That’s what Christmas means to me.
Jesus is the reason I celebrate the day,
He was God’s gift as He lay in the hay.
So as you gaze upon the star atop your tree,
Remember that first Christmas and who was born for thee!
His love is a gift, no cost it’s free.
You just have to ask Him down on your knees.
Then next Christmas you will say indeed,
Jesus is the reason, that’s Christmas for me.
Justification
Whole books have been written on justification and imputation. I am not going to attempt to replicate them or give as full of a treatment. My purpose here is only to give an overview.
Let’s start with the term impute or imputation. It comes from Latin and is an accounting term that means “to apply to one’s account.” In finances, expenses are debited and income is credited. So, if something is imputed to you, it is credited to you or your account. The Reformer’s chose this term to differentiate it from the term the Roman Catholic church used which is infuse or infusion. When something is infused it is added to and mixed in with what is already there. Some people have health conditions that require them to receive infused medication. Instead of receiving a pill or a shot, they spend hours hooked up to an IV that drips and infuses the medication into their blood. An example of this is chemotherapy. Theologically, the term double imputation is used. Consider 2 Cor. 5:21:
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This verse (though not only this verse) shows us double imputation. The first imputation is that of ours sins being imputed to Christ: “for our sake he made him to be sin.” Our sins were not infused into Christ’s as He “knew no sin.” No, our sins were imputed to Christ. Though He had never sinned he took upon Himself all our sins. God did this so that Christ’s death could atone for our sins. Jesus had no sins of His own to atone for but by imputation, he had our sins to atone for. The second imputation is that His righteousness was imputed to us: “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The righteousness of God is a righteousness that only God can have. We can never, on our own, posses such righteousness. We become “the righteousness of God” through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
Infusion says Christ’s righteousness is added to ours and it is this mixed righteousness that becomes our righteousness before God. What can we add to the righteousness of God? Since God’s righteousness is perfect and complete there is nothing we can add to it. Can you add more time to eternity? Can you add more numbers past infinity? If you have the righteousness of God then you have perfect and complete righteousness. The very righteousness of God Himself! That is what this verse teaches us. Christ took on our sin and atoned for it so that we could take on His righteousness and be saved. One theologian said that two of the most beautiful words in the Bible are for us. Jesus lived, died, and resurrected for us. For us, He took our sins upon Himself and shed His blood to atone for them and gave us His righteousness.
Underlining has been added for emphasis:
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” (Romans 1:17)
For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. (Romans 4:13)
What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith (Romans 9:30)
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction (Romans 3:21-22)
But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30)
Note here we become “righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” Sanctification is listed as separate from righteousness and after it.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4)
“In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The LORD our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23:6)
“For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17)
Note that righteousness is a gift. If it was something, even in part, we earned it would not be a gift.
But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4:5)
Here we see the world credited which is the same concept as imputation. This verse expressly says faith is “credited as righteousness” to “the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly.” God justifies “the ungodly.” That does not sound like someone who has had Christ’s righteousness infused into his own. Were that the case, he would not be ungodly. What is credited to him as righteousness? His faith. It is his faith, not his works that are credited as righteousness.
I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19)
for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26)
Who does God justify? The “one who has faith in Jesus.” Faith, not works.
and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith (Phil 3:9)
Again, our righteousness is not derived from the Law (works) but “through faith in Christ.” That righteousness “comes from God on the basis of faith.”
I hope these verses show that we are justified on the basis of having been imputed the righteousness of Christ on the basis of our faith in Him, itself a gift of God.
As I have previously written, sanctification necessarily follows justification. Sanctification is an ongoing and progressive work in our lives as we gradually become more and more like Jesus Christ:
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6)
Sanctification is that ongoing work that God has begun and will one day perfect.
One misconception I find about salvation by faith alone, is that it becomes a license to sin. Since you are “saved by faith alone” then you can sin all you want once you express faith. Paul addressed this and wrote “May it never be!” Here is the fallacy in that. First, you can express faith but not possess faith. In other words, no expression of faith saves you unless you truly possess faith. You can say all the right words but if in your heart you don’t truly believe what you are saying then that is a counterfeit faith. Ever heard the term, “foxhole faith?” It’s been said “there are no atheists in foxholes.” In times of crisis men will sometimes cry out to God for protection or deliverance. Such faith may not be genuine. It may be just a “hail mary” (i.e. just in case God exists I will ask for his help). That’s not to say deathbed faith or foxhole faith is never genuine. God, who alone sees the heart, knows. True faith, while it can be born in a crisis, remains even when the crisis has passed. In His parable of the seed, Jesus talks about how some of the seed sown gets choked out by weeks or never grows. There are those who respond to an invitation of faith, but we see over time that their faith was not genuine. The thief on the cross, one might say, was a “foxhole believer” yet Jesus said he would be with Him that day in Paradise. While his faith might have been expressed under extreme crisis, He possessed true saving faith.
I wrote previously, that God saves us to “walk in good works He prepared beforehand for us.” If you truly possess saving faith it will produce fruit in your life. When God declares you just on the basis of Christ’s righteousness through your faith, He doesn’t just change your status from sinner to saint and then leave you alone. That is a misconception! That is not what salvation by faith alone teaches! When God saves you, He changes you. You are given a new nature. That new nature cannot help but produce faith. Thus, a changed man will not have an attitude of “I can sin all I want because I am saved by faith alone.”
When we realize how sinful our sin is, and how Christ took our sin upon Him, how can we not want to please and obey Him? If someone saves your life, would you not be grateful to them? If we would be grateful to someone who saved our physical life, would we not be much more grateful to someone who saves our spiritual life and thus our eternal soul?
Sometimes, to try and question salvation by faith alone, people will put hypothetical questions to you like “Could you murder someone, feel no remorse, and still be saved?” My answer would be no! It’s possible a saved person could murder someone (though unlikely) but not without remorse. The Holy Spirit would convict their conscience of their sin. Usually these hypothetical questions presuppose situations that would never occur with a truly saved person. However, if you answer (even with qualification) that yes that person would still be saved, they say “Aha! See, you don’t think how someone lives matters at all. You can say you believe, live like the devil, but still be saved.” If someone is “living like the devil”, and never repents, then I would seriously question their possession of saving faith. I would suspect they never had saving faith and thus are not saved. It is exactly this time of “easy believism” that James and other NT authors write against. Their writings do not teach that we need works to be saved, but that without works we weren’t saved. God does not wait to see those works before He saves us. He saves us when we possess no good works, but transforms us such that good works necessarily follow.
I believe the key to all this, is to understand that saving faith is a gift. God choses who receives this gift. The possession and expression of saving faith is a work of God through us. Without that gift, we can express faith but it is an empty faith and not from God. We should not confuse the two. If you merely express faith without possessing it, you might “live like hell” or have an attitude that you can sin all you want because you are saved by grace, but you will be mistaken and find yourself on Judgment Day hearing “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23)
James 2:24 – Faith vs Works
In examining the difference between the Catholic understanding of James 2:24, and the Protestant understanding, I am going to begin by asserting that the Scriptures contain no true contradictions. We may see apparent contradictions (which atheists love to point out without sharing how those apparent contradictions are resolved), but if God is the author of Scripture (which both Protestants and Catholics affirm), then God does not contradict himself. If we think there is a contradiction, then the error is with us, not God. We also must admit that all of Scripture must be considered and we cannot pull one verse out and have it stand on its own. We must consider not only the immediate context but the context of all of Scripture.
Some people think they see a contradiction between Paul’s teachings and James’. They say Paul teaches salvation by faith alone whereas James says saving faith requires works. Who’s right? If we begin with our earlier assumption, that Scripture contains no contradictions, then we must dig deeper if we are to resolve this apparent contraction.
In Ephesians, Paul writes:
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB emphasis added)
Here, Paul clearly states that we are “saved through faith”, and to further clarify salvation is by faith alone, Paul adds “not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” His words are very clear as is his meaning. Salvation is by faith alone. Yet, in verse 10, Paul concludes that we (those saved) are God’s workmanship “created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Why does Paul add this right on the heels of saying salvation is by faith alone? Why mention works at all? Paul does so to show that good works are something God “prepared beforehand” so that we would “walk in them.” In other words, God has prepared good works for us to do once we are saved. God does not save us and then leave us as we were. He gives us a new heart, a new nature, no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness.
“Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:18)
As the saying goes, salvation is by faith alone but faith is never alone. In order for us to walk in those good works God prepared beforehand for us, we must first be saved and changed. God must swap our old heart dead in sin, for a new heart that is a slave to righteousness. Then, and only then, can we walk in those good works prepared beforehand for us.
In Romans, Paul spends a lot of time contrasting the Jewish understanding of salvation with true salvation. The Jews thought that works made them righteous. God gave them the law and they thought by keeping the law they would make themselves righteous. Yet none of them (or us) could perfectly keep the law. James writes:
“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” (James 2:10)
You don’t have to break every law. If you break even one, you are guilty of breaking all. It’s interesting that James (who some think is arguing for works salvation) would say this. If our works are necessary for salvation, what happens when we stumble on one point? We become guilty of breaking all the Law. Since none of us (save Christ) can keep the whole Law perfectly, how can we hope to be righteous on our own when even one failure makes us guilty of breaking the entire Law? Obviously, we can’t be righteous on our own.
Back in Romans, Paul anticipates the person who heard his words thinks that if salvation is by faith alone, by God’s grace, then why not go on sinning? After all, our sins are forgiven and covered by God’s grace! Paul answers that thought with an emphatic negative when he writes:
“Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!” (Romans 6:15)
So, we are saved by faith, not works, and we are now slaves to righteousness but if we stumble in even one point of the Law, we are guilty of breaking the whole Law. Thankfully, Paul adds that we are now under grace and no longer under the Law. Therefore, we do not have to keep the whole Law perfectly. Does that mean the Law was pointless and of no importance? Paul answers this:
“So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” (Romans 7:12)
The problem, Paul writes, is not the Law but rather sin which dwells in us. The Law itself is holy and righteous and good. Jesus said He came to fulfill the Law:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)
Jesus perfectly kept the Law and thus fulfilled it. When we believe, we receive the righteousness of Christ. We are justified. It is “just as if” we never sinned.
We already saw that Paul says that once we are saved, we are no longer slaves to sin. We are slaves to righteousness instead. He goes on to say:
“But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” (Romans 6:22)
After having been freed from sin (a result of salvation) we derive a benefit namely sanctification (that change and the walking in the good works God prepared beforehand). The ultimate outcome is eternal life.
Given that, how are we to understand Jame’s writing?
If we return to our assumption that Scripture does not contradict itself, then there is only one possible way to understand James. He is writing to warn us, that true saving faith will produce good works. This should not surprise us, as early we read that we were to walk in the good works prepared beforehand for us by God. So works are a necessary and guaranteed outcome of saving faith. Only God can see the heart. Anyone can claim to have been saved based on a confession of faith. Faith though is not just a matter of saying certain words. You have to mean what you say and truly put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savoir.
People have all kinds of mistaken ideas about salvation. They think if you were baptized or if you attend church or if you “lead a good life” you will go to heaven. Other ideas abound. Yet none of these things save you. In multiple places in the NT, we are told to test or examine ourselves to see if our faith is genuine. There could be nothing worse than thinking you are saved when in fact you are not. Scripture does not give a list of required characteristics of someone who is saved, but by studying Scripture you can arrive at a pretty good idea of the kinds of that ought to be true of a believer, and if you see these things in your life, and you’ve put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you can know you are saved.
“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5)
“Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. ” (2 Peter 1:10-11)
Much of what James writes is about those marks of a true believer. James contrasts for us the true believer from the false believer. To quote John MacArthur “The error James assails is faith without works; justification without sanctification; salvation without new life.” (https://www.gty.org/library/questions/QA81/does-james-2-contradict-romans-4)
Someone who thinks they are saved because they prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, or did some other religious act, will have to examine themselves by James’ words. They say they are saved. James said, show me your salvation by your works. James point is that faith without works is a dead faith because true saving faith will always produce good works as we saw earlier. God has prepared “beforehand” good works for the believer to walk in. If we are not walking in good works, then we have a problem and better be questioning our faith to make sure we have not deluded ourselves into thinking we are saved when we aren’t.
The issue between Protestants and Catholics is that Catholics say salvation requires sanctification and thus is not by faith alone. Yet if we make sanctification a requirement for salvation then salvation requires works and Paul clearly wrote that salvation is a free gift of God based on faith alone (not on works that no man should boast…). At times I almost think Protestants and Catholics are saying the same thing but differently. Protestants affirm a saved person will show the fruit of sanctification by good works. If not, they presumably were not ever saved. The exception, of course, would be someone whose salvation happened immediately before death or some severe health crisis (a coma for example) and thus is not able to show the fruit of sanctification. Such a person is still saved. The thief on the cross is the classic example given. Thus, from the Protestant perspective, a saved person will be sanctified. It’s just that sanctification is a process that begins after salvation. Catholics say you have to have sanctification in order to be saved. They allow the exception of the thief on the cross saying he lacked the opportunity to become sanctified (sounds like he was saved by faith alone…). For them, sanctification must happen before salvation. So both say faith is required for salvation. Both say sanctification is a mark of a believer. The difference is when sanctification occurs. Does it come after salvation (Protestant view), or before (and a requirement for) salvation?
If Scripture contains no contradictions, then the answer must be after salvation or Paul’s statement that salvation is by faith alone, not by works, could not be true. To take the Catholic view, you must conclude Paul is wrong in saying salvation is by faith alone.
I don’t know why the Catholic church wants to add sanctification to faith (presumably their understanding of Scripture though to my mind it requires the belief in a contradiction in Scripture). I can see some human reasons why someone might want to add sanctification. One reason is that salvation by faith alone leaves man out of the equation. Since we are told that our faith is a gift of God, then man has nothing to boast about. He can’t say “I did my part.” He can’t say “my salvation is 99% God and 1% me.” No it’s 100% God. Human pride wants to believe we played some part in our salvation. In the Catholic view, you get this. Even though they say faith is from God and sanctification is from God, yet they believe that a single “mortal” sin is sufficient to completely kill all of the grace you possess and send you to hell. They believe you have free will to choose whether or not to commit a mortal sin so in the end, you could always say “I chose not to commit a mortal sin” and therefore I played a small part in my salvation.
I also think we like the idea because we want a way to measure ourselves. We want to make examining ourselves easier. If we can say, I’ve done good works and never committed a mortal sin, then we can feel good about ourselves. From the church’s perspective, it is a good way to keep the faithful in line. If you feel like you better have good works and need to avoid mortal sins, then you’ll tend to do as you’re told. Fear can be a powerful motive. That’s one thing I found sad about my Catholic mother and other Catholics I have known. While they all felt they would go to heaven, they were never totally sure. There was that fear that after leading a good and faithful life they might lose it all with a mortal sin or get to heaven and find out they did not have enough good works. The Apostle John wrote:
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.” (1 John 4:15-18)
Notice John says that “we may have confidence in the day of judgment.” He also says that perfect love casts out fear. We don’t need to be fearful about our eternal state. Or, as Paul puts it:
“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13)
The word translated “know”, is in the perfect tense in Greek. That means it speaks of a permanent knowledge and the Greek word means to know with absolute certainty without a doubt. Therefore, if we can know with a permanent, absolute knowledge that we are saved, then there is no reason to fear and no chance we can lose that salvation which is an issue for the Catholic belief in a class of sins known as mortal sins.
So, in conclusion, if we can know now that we have eternal life, and have no reason to fear, then our salvation is sure. We cannot lose it. We are saved by faith alone, a faith that is a gift of God. That faith is followed by a lifetime of sanctification as we walk in the good works prepared beforehand for us. There is so much more than could be said, but I will stop here.
Why is this important? Paul said if anyone gives you another gospel, other than the one he delivered, such a person should be anathema (cursed or excommunicated). If we love the truth then we cannot tolerate a lie. A salvation that includes works as a requirement, is a lie. Some Catholics will say, they do not believe in works salvation but rather faith plus sanctification. They try to say sanctification is not a work. What is sanctification then? It is a process in which we live according to our new nature and walk in good works. What Catholics are saying, is that your faith must be accompanied by a sanctified life that produces righteousness. Not as a result of salvation but as a requirement of it. That is by works. If you read the anathemas of the Catholic Council of Trent, anyone believing salvation is by faith alone is to be anathema. According to the Catholic church, this is a grievous error. If so, then we must say their misunderstanding of salvation, and teaching others the same, is also most grievous. You cannot have it both ways. You are either saved by faith alone or faith plus works. Paul answered the question for us; salvation is by faith alone.
Differences: Catholicism vs the Bible
I grew up Roman Catholic. My Mom was a devout Catholic so I did it all from infant baptism to first communion and confirmation plus catechism classes every Sunday until I graduated from high school.
There was a kid at my high school who was in my class but I did not know him well. He approached me in the spring of my freshman year and asked if he could share the “Four Spiritual Laws” with me (Campus Crusade for Christ pamphlet). I said he could but would not have time after school until track season ended. With about 2 weeks left in the school year we met in a classroom after school. I can still picture the room. He went through the booklet and asked me if I wanted to pray to receive Christ into my heart.
Now after all those years of Catholic education you would think I would have told him I already had Christ in my heart. After all I had been baptized and confirmed. I had committed no mortal sins. Yet I wanted to pray that prayer. I felt no pressure. It was just him and me and God. I didn’t care what this kid thought of me. I knew, by the grace of God, that I needed to give my life to him. Those things I had done as a Catholic were just a matter of following the plan. You did those things because it was time and expected. I don’t recall the nuns ever saying confirmation, for example, was optional and we shouldn’t participate if we weren’t sure. I imagine my mom would have been perplexed had I announced I didn’t want to get confirmed and the nuns would have been talking to me… It’s not that I didn’t want to get confirmed when that time came but I did it because it was expected. I didn’t really feel like I was making a commitment or a decision. It wasn’t being done on my initiative. Now I was deciding on my initiative that I wanted to give my life to Christ. No one knew what was happening that afternoon except me, this boy, and God. So I prayed.
The heavens didn’t open and I felt no different, though I felt at peace. Yet what a change started in me! We had an over sized, soft covered, gold edged, Catholic Bible sitting on our coffee table at home collecting dust. My Mom had filled out the section at the front with birth dates and such but otherwise that Bible was never opened. No one told me to read the Bible. Not the kid at school, not the nuns or priests, not my parents. The Holy Spirit led me to pick that Bible up and start reading. I started in Genesis and over several months read to the end of Revelation. I became the first person in my family to read the entire Bible. Over the remaining three years of high school I read that Bible completely three more times. Not normal reading for most high school kids especially kids who went to the Catholic Church and had no one encouraging them to read the Scriptures. I learned so much. I quickly learned far more than I ever learned at church or in those Catechism classes. As I read, I encountered truths that did not agree with doctrine taught by the Catholic Church. Once you read the Bible for yourself, you realize it’s not that complicated or difficult to understand. A few things are, but not the Gospel and many, many other things. I didn’t need a priest to tell me what those passages meant. No priest or Pope could be a better teacher than the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God.
My faith was now in Christ. He was my mediator. Not a church, not a priest or Pope. In time I left the Catholic Church after sharing the Gospel with a priest at the church. He believed that people were leaving the Catholic Church because they wanted something nicely laid out for them in black and white whereas in the Catholic faith you had to think for yourself and wrestle with the gray. I will grant there are some Protestant churches that overstep Scripture and try to run people’s lives, but most just teach the Word of God and let us pray and decide how to respond to it. Scripture is usually pretty clear. In the Catholic Church everything has to be approved and blessed. Priests read everything when saying the Mass. Other then their homily (mini sermon) the rest is all scripted. Altar boys and girls hold open books for them to read their prayers from. That seems a lot more black and white to me.
I have Catholic friends and it always strikes me how they talk a lot in terms of their church. It’s the church this and the church that. When they have questions, they don’t turn to Scripture, they go ask a priest. I was talking to a Catholic lady friend the other night, and she shared how she went to her priest to ask him about sex before marriage because a friend had asked her and she wanted to know for her and her friend. At first I was shocked she didn’t know the answer. She’s in her 50’s and been a lifelong Catholic. How could she not know? Then I was sad because she’s probably never read the Bible because if she had she’d know the answer. I asked her what answer the priest gave her. This was an 89 yr old man who had been a priest since his 20’s. Not someone you would expect to hesitate to answer such a question. His answer was not an answer at all but merely an irrelevant observation. He said that people today have a lot more sex than they used to. I asked her if he said anything else and she said no. She then added that “he didn’t say it was wrong.” True, but really he didn’t say anything. Perhaps she made that remark because that’s the answer she was looking for? I can understand her thinking that he is an ordained priest charged with shepherding the faithful so he would be obligated to tell her if something was sin even if he knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. Therefore, it was (in her mind) reasonable to assume his lack of prohibition against premarital sex was implied permission. Sad that a supposed minister of God could not give a straight answer or quote a single Scripture. Maybe that is what my old priest meant when he said people liked these Protestant churches because they made everything so black and white. What he should have said, is that they use the Bible to answer questions, and if the Bible clearly addresses the issue then there’s the answer. My friend’s priest left her with a non-answer, total murky gray.
When we stand before God, the question won’t be “did you believe in the church and put your faith and trust in her?” No! It will be “did you believe in Jesus Christ and put your faith and trust in Him?” Yet millions of Catholics are trusting in their church for their salvation. They don’t know the Gospel. I never heard it in the Catholic Church. Yes there are some Catholics who have come to know the Gospel and accepted it. Praise God! Some say they have stayed in the church hoping to reform it. How did that workout for Martin Luther? They will never grow if they stay in a church that won’t teach the Word. If I were to ask my friend why she didn’t just open a Bible and find the answer I am sure she would say it was quicker to ask her priest as after-all he has already studied these things. If she is depending on her church to teach her all she needs to know for life and salvation then her faith is in her church and not in
the Lord. Church teaching is all well and good but we are called to be like the believers in Berea who did not just take the Apostle Paul’s word but searched the Scriptures to see if he was teaching the truth. Do Catholics think their priests or even the Pope is greater than the Apostles? If Paul commended them to search and check the Scriptures for themselves would he not say the same to us today?
I am so thankful, God is His grace, gave me faith and led me to read His Word. What a treasure so many miss out on. How can we hope to obey and serve God if we don’t even read His words to us?
The Great Secularization of America
Christmas is always a touchy time of year. It’s America’s favorite holiday but also fraught with political correctness. Afraid of offending customers, retailers long ago changed the season’s greetings from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays.” Nativities and other public displays of the Christian celebration of Christmas were banned from public display. The holiday tunes played in the background at stores were cleansed to remove the more religious ones.
Christmas in America is big business. Estimates put annual retail sales during the Christmas season at 30%. That is almost one third of annual sales done in a little over a month. We have Black Friday and Cyber Monday and a plethora of sales and daily specials. No parent wants their children to wake up Christmas morning to a tree not laden with presents. We go into debt and run around like chickens with their heads cutoff looking for presents, buying wrapping paper, getting holiday meal fixings, and whatever else needed to fulfill the expectations of the holidays. It is a month plus dance that is over all too quickly as children rip through unopened presents. What took hours to shop for an wrap are opened in a matter of seconds.
I read an interesting article in USA Today by Tom Krattenmaker. The title of his article is “Jesus doesn’t need Christianity. His example is powerful without any religion at all.” The crux of his article is that Jesus is a great moral example and if we just separate him from the religious beliefs about him, then we have something honorable we can all celebrate. Just separate Jesus from his claim to be the divine Son of God and view him as a philosopher and teacher and bingo – problem solved.
Of all the world’s major religions, Jesus is unique. He alone claimed to be God. Mohammed only claimed to be a prophet. Confucius and Buddha were teachers not gods. None of these men predicated their own death and resurrection and rose from the dead. If you take the divinity from Jesus and he’s just another holy man, guru, sage, with insights we can benefit from. To quote Krattenmaker,
“If secular people can focus on the values and teachings of Jesus without getting tripped up by the religious context — which comes naturally for some, not so easily for others — they might find a surprisingly relevant source of guidance and uplift.”
Does that sound much different than this description of Buddha by Barbara O’Brien?
“The Buddha who lived 2,600 years ago was not a god. He was an ordinary person, named Siddhartha Gautama, whose profound insights inspired the world.”
You could almost rewrite her description of Buddha so it reads:
“The Christ who lived 2018 years ago was not a god. He was an ordinary person, named Jesus of Nazareth, whose profound insights inspired the world.”
For years secularists and atheists have sought to eliminate Jesus but failed. Atheistic dictators from Stalin and the communists in China have sought to eliminate all religion including Christianity yet underground churches have sprung up all over their lands. Since that strategy has failed, “if you can’t beat ’em, redefine them.” The problem isn’t Jesus, it’s relgion and the religious beliefs about him. That’s what causes division and offense. So simple. Secularize Jesus and focus on his moral teachings and now you have a Jesus we can all celebrate. As Krattenmaker put it:
“Just as the person of Jesus came before Christianity, so might the figure of Jesus — philosopher, teacher, moral exemplar — outlast American Christendom.”
Of course Kratternmaker is wrong. Jesus IS Christianity. He did not come before it. God’s plan of redemption and sacrifice began long before Jesus’ advent in the life of the nation of Israel. Jesus’ incarnation was the continuation and culmination of God’s plan of redemption. To say Jesus came before Christianity is like saying Martin Luther King Jr came before Civil Rights. Christianity was not founded by the followers of Jesus after his death. Jesus discipled them to carry on and spread the faith after his resurrection. Christianity is not a man-made religion started after Jesus’ death. Jesus started Christianity.
It’s true America is in it’s post-Christian era. While belief in “God” is still prevalent, what “God” means to people is all over the map. A century ago when people said “God” they meant the Judeo-Christian God. Not “God” can mean anything and everything. Even among church goers faith is down. Many attend out of a sense of tradition more than a sense of conviction.
Christian author Josh McDowell wrote a classic book titled “Evidence That Demands a Verdict.” In it he says you have three choices when it comes to Jesus: He is either Lord, liar, or lunatic. Jesus claimed to be God, a claim which caused the Jewish leaders to label him a blasphemer and seek his death. They did not view him as a harmless moral teacher. They viewed him as a liar who blasphemed by claiming to be God. To the Romans he was a harmless lunatic crucified ultimately because the Roman governor Pilate feared unrest and how it would affect his career even though he believed Jesus to be innocent of anything deserving death. His disciples and millions or billions since viewed him as Lord. God incarnated. You cannot reduce Jesus to a mere man who had inspiring insights. If he is not God then he is either a liar or a lunatic. Are liars and lunatics the source of inspiring insights?
There may be a post-Christian place for Jesus in America but if so it will be the latest chapter in the great secularization of America. We’ve tried to eliminate Jesus, marginalize Jesus, but those efforts have failed. So now we will embrace him but not the real Jesus but a homogenized Jesus who gives no offense. We are seeking harmony by blending the moral teachings of the world’s religions to something we can all embrace. Religion is being replaced by philosophy and personal truth. Absolute truth is strictly forbidden. Embrace the moral teachings of Jesus and that’s okay. To claim, as Jesus did, that he is “the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father but through {him} me” and now you are offensive and intolerant.
I do agree with a sentiment expressed by James S. Robbins, in another USA Today op-ed piece. He writes:
“Americans have a right to celebrate holidays in whatever manner they wish, and not to be shamed and bullied by the PC police. People are only driven further apart when they are forced to walk on eggshells out of fear that some sullen victim-in-waiting will take exaggerated offense at their innocent, heartfelt expressions of good cheer.”
He goes on to say:
“People should say Merry Christmas — or Happy Hanukkah, Happy Diwali, Eid Mubarak, or any other holiday greeting proudly and happily, and hope others will take it in the festive spirit it is offered. Americans can — and should — be kind and joyful for each other, no matter what they believe.”
Isn’t that true diversity? We preach the value of diversity and how our differences make us stronger yet when it comes to Christianity that is one diversity we don’t see as worthy of inclusion. We celebrate some types of diversity while attempting to homogenize others. Sadly some Christians will seek the path of least resistance and embrace this watered down, homogenized Christianity. The true followers of Jesus will not hesitate to say Merry Christmas and celebrate a risen Lord rather than an easter bunny. This is the wake up call the church in America has needed. Too long now American Christianity has been easy. It has not cost us much. It’s when our faith comes at a price that we find out how real it is.
Without Jesus there is no Christendom. Strip Him of his divinity and you are left with a liar or a lunatic. America turns her back on God to her own peril. While humanity possesses more knowledge than ever before in history. our knowledge has proven to be foolishness as we are rejecting our Creator. As the Bible says, “There is a way that seems right unto man, but in the end leads to destruction.”
Our God is Too Big 
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