The Claims of Religious Leaders on a Doctrine of Mere Identification
Rabbis, imams or ulamas, and priests (particularly Catholic priests) from non-Protestant or non-evangelical Christian religions often critique the Protestant/evangelical doctrine of salvation by grace alone — especially the popular evangelical emphasis on “accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior” or simply believing in Jesus for salvation. They sometimes portray it as reducing salvation to a superficial or intellectual exercise, like correctly identifying who God or Jesus is, without deeper transformation, obedience, works, or submission to God’s law or will.
For instance, Rabbi Tovia Singer, a Jewish apologist essentially characterizes the Protestant or evangelical view, as contrasting with Roman Catholic, as making salvation contingent on a specific, non-biblical theological claim rather than on a person’s relationship with God through the Torah. Catholic apologists describe Protestant soteriology as treating salvation like a one-time mental agreement or “correct identification” of Jesus, without the ongoing cooperation with grace through sacraments, charity, and good works. They will mock it as reducing salvation to “just believing facts about Jesus.”
Singer portrays evangelical salvation as simplistic or deceptive — “just say you believe in Jesus and all is forgiven,” contrasting it with Judaism’s lifelong path of ethical living and direct accountability to God. In my knowledge and experience, I see the assent to the fact as to who Jesus is, often repeated in a prayer, as a common understanding of salvation in evangelicalism. In the most remedial way, it seems like a kindergarten class matching exercise with pictures in two columns and drawing lines for the purpose of identification.
Why Is Identification Important to a True Gospel?
Satan’s False Accusations
In rebuttal to the criticism from all the works-based religious systems in contradiction to scripture, I offer some explanation for why this aspect is major or important. Answering the criticism might seem like an embrace of what I have written about cheap grace. Perhaps I should just say the critics are right and leave it at that. Even though the extremes or exaggerations of identification as a factor in salvation by grace alone through faith alone do now, I believe, characterize mainstream Protestantism or evangelicalism, true or right identification itself remains of primary importance for salvation. Why?
I believe the correct identification of the object of faith remains most important for salvation and primarily because this also addresses a major work of the number one enemy of salvation for all history, that is, Satan. According to scripture, Satan has himself two main identifying attributes and works, that are related each to the other. “Satan” means “adversary,” so overall he opposes God in the conflict of the ages. One of the two attributes or works is found in the word, “devil” (diabolos), which means, accuser. Satan, the devil, is an accuser of the brethren. He makes false accusations.
Satan’s Deceits and Lies
When one examines all the various passages on Satan in the Bible, many of them include false accusations that he makes, which are a category of lies. Jesus said Satan was a liar from the beginning (John 8:44). He lies about God, which means He makes false accusations against the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that brings to the second interrelated attribute or work, that Satan is a deceiver. When God casts Satan toward the end into a bottomless pit, Revelation 20:3 says He does this so that Satan won’t deceive the nations during Jesus’ thousand year reign.
Later in Revelation 20:10 when the Lord throws Satan into the lake of fire, it again says, “the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire.” Earlier in Revelation 12:8, God says: “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” That is a very important verse about Satan and of all he does, and the description says he “deceiveth the whole world.” Some of what is deception is called, “false doctrine.” Paul calls false doctrine, “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim 4:1). On the other hand, in sharp contrast to what scripture says about Satan, the Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of Truth” (John 16:13). Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6).
I contend that wrong identification of God is the number one nemesis of true salvation, because Satan deceives about that identification. Instead of worshiping God, people worship something or someone else, getting it wrong in that very rudimentary way. The enemies of the true gospel, these religious apologists of salvation by works, the ones mocking this aspect of identification, in fact get the wrong identification of who God is. This occurs because Satan deceives them through his lies, false accusations, and false doctrine.
The Battle with Deceit
The Christian life itself becomes a constant battle with deceit. Paul uses metaphor to say that a believer puts on spiritual armor, one piece of which is the “helmet of salvation” (1 Timothy 6:17), which borrows from Isaiah 59:17: “For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head.” Satan wants to replace truth with error, give wrong impressions, and offer strong deceit in the nature of ‘imaginations that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God’ (2 Cor 10:5).
The error, accusations, and deceit become firmly implanted in people’s minds, feeding them with regular misidentification of God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. John writes in 2 John 1:9:
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
Messing up the doctrine of Christ is a major strategy of Satan. What occurs then is that someone misidentifies Jesus. He is not fully God, he is not fully human, or he is a mere mode of God like modalists teach. Jesus becomes not the Savior, not all the way the Savior, or not quite the Savior. He becomes not the Lord. This is such an issue that Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:3 that no one can confess Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Do you see how Satan and the nature of human deceivableness becomes such a problem?
People Also Deceive Themselves
It isn’t just that Satan deceives either. It’s also that people deceive themselves. In not every case can someone say, “Well, the devil made me do that.” In many cases, it started with what James writes, “every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed” (James 1:14). This mixes with pride. People don’t want their error corrected, just want to be told that they are right. They hate being told they are wrong and don’t want correction, so they continue deceived and keep on a broad path that leads to destruction.
I know many people right now who refuse to listen to sound doctrine. They will not receive it. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that the god of this world, who is Satan, blinds the minds of them that belief not. That explains the deceit. In fact, Judaism today is even wrong on the identity of Satan. The Jewish apologist again, Tovia Singer, says that in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), Satan is not an independent evil force or the devil in the Christian sense. Instead, Satan is an agent or servant of God who carries out divine will.
Singer emphasizes that without his adversarial role (often linked to the yetzer hara, the evil inclination), there would be no true virtue, because goodness requires the possibility of choosing against temptation. He describes Satan as a blessing in this sense: God created him specifically “to cast forth blandishments” (temptations) so that people can overcome them, achieve merit, and exercise free will. In several of his talks, he says you should thank God (Hashem) every day for creating Satan, because without him, humans would lack the opportunity for real moral growth or rebellion against God would be impossible in a dualistic way.
Misidentification Becomes Rebellion
Even though identification of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Satan, and other doctrines, like the true church or true spirituality, would seem intelligent, reasoning, or a function of the mind alone, they become more than that. The grasp and retaining of error becomes rebellion. If you today went to certain multiple whole nations with the ambition to deal with the error, they would kill you for trying. Because this identity issue becomes volitional, it requires a powerful solution, which is only scripture. Scripture alone with the accompanying work of the Holy Spirit is the weapon to deal with the deceit of misidentification.
Even the very false doctrine of mere identification needs scripture to pull down that stronghold in people’s minds. Truly, many professing evangelists in evangelicalism and fundamentalism sincerely reduce salvation to intellectual assent to facts or just praying a prayer or less. This takes the truth of actual identification, what is necessary for salvation, and minimizes it or perverts it to something short of saving grace or faith. In other words, Satan blinds deceivers who then impart this error to millions.
Even though there is a thing here with identification or misidentification, the critics have it right about a majority of evangelicals or who they call “Protestants,” who turn salvation into mere identification. People then proceed to live how they want and not in accordance with the nature of the true and living God. God is seeking for true worshipers, but they make a profession of faith very much in line with what John in his epistles calls, “He that saith” (1 John 2:3), James calls, “a man may say” (James 2:14), and Jesus labels, “Many will say to me in that day” (Matthew 7:22).
The religious critics of Protestants and evangelicals misidentify and remain lost. Those they criticize also misidentify. This is prevailing of deceit on such a massive scale. I ask and even challenge you to be informed and warned by what I’ve written here.