Daily Archives: February 26, 2006

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Interesting.

A friend and I have discussed a few times about some of the heresies that we see today - most of them are coming out of Arminian churches. Mormons (Elena made the point that Joseph Smith began life as a Methodist) and "Oneness Pentecostals are the two I have been studying most recently.

It would appear evident that when the Reformers moved away from Rome, there were those who tried to return (in doctrines, if not in name).

I've looked at "TULIP" from the Roman standpoint, as well as Reformed and Arminian. In all but the "T", Arminius made moves back toward Rome.

Today, every step away from the Reformers is a step toward Rome. And as Arminians churches get further away from the Reformers (and closer to Rome) the more heresy we see.

See the complete post here.

(In order to discuss this intelligently, I'm going to ask that all who comment here have a working knowledge of the differences in doctrine between Arminianism and Calvinism - thank you!)

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In the “Allegory of the Cave”, we see an example of people seeing “through the glass dimly.” Plato describes a group of people in a cave since their childhood, chained so that they cannot move their heads. I could not picture this until I saw the illustration, but imagine a fire behind the people, casting shadows on the wall in front of them. There is also a walkway and animals, people and things are carried along between the fire and the wall in front of the prisoners.

All these people know of the world are the shadows on the wall in front of them. In fact, they may not even know that there is a world outside of those shadows. All they can see – all they can know – are the flickering shadows on the wall in front of them.

Imagine that one of these prisoners is set free. He stands up and turns around, seeing the fire for the first time. This is the first time he sees the direct flame and he is blinded. At first, before his eyes grow accustomed to the light, the objects that cast the shadows seem unreal – less real than the shadows. He rebels – this is not what he is used to!

(continue reading)

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Very few people care about defending the doctrine of God against those who teach heresy. Adn those that point out the heresy are not welcome.

I've never believed that a person can lose his or her salvation - there are too many passages that indicate that Christ cannot lose one of His own. So the last straw in leaving my Arminian church was when my kids and I were talking about their childhood and I asked if they remembered the moment that they "got saved". My son could tell me where he was, what he had been doing, who was there.

My daughter said, "What do you mean? Do you mean the first time, or all the other times?" The surety of her salvation (to her mind) depended on how many times she had "gone to the alter" - this was the consequence of this bad doctrine.

What are the consequence of having "relationships" with those who deny the Trinity?

James White says (In "The Forgotten Trinity):

True worship must worship God as he exists, not as we wish Him to be. The essence of idoloatry is the making of images of God. An image is a shadow, a false representation. We may not bow beforea statue or figure, but if we make an image of God in our mind that is not in accord with God's revelation of Himself, then we are not worshiping in truth. Since sin and rebellion are always pushing us toward false gods and away from the true God, we must seek every day to conform our thinking and our worship to God's straight-edge standard of truth, revealed so wonderfully in Scripture.

(page 195) Look at the "gospel" message of every single group that denies the doctrine of the Trinity. You will find error and perversion in every group. Why? Because the true Gospel must be based upon the work of the one true and triune God. Without that basis, the Gospel cannot stand. Look at Mormonism, which denies the pillar of monotheism: the Gospel becomes the means of becoming a god. Look at the Witnesses: the Gospel is a mere appendage, a message of how we can live forever in a paradise earth. Such is what happens when the Redeemer becomes Michael the Archangel, and the Spirit becomes an impersonal active force. And in the Oneness groups the Gospel becomes legalism, replete with "necessary" things one must "experience" to be truly saved.

Bad doctrine has consequences - twisting the Gospel to fit our own desire about how it should look - has consequences.