Home » Search results for 'worship' (Page 11)
Search Results for: worship
The Buddha Did Not Exist, According to Buddhism
Did you know that, according to the teaching of Buddhism, the Buddha (“the Enlightened One”) did not and does not exist?
“According to Buddhism … the Buddha does not exist because … nothing exists.” (Donald S. Lopez, Jr.,From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013], 220).
Why do Buddhists teach that the Buddha did not exist? According to the Buddhist teaching of anatman, “not-Self … the soul or any form of self or personal identity is an illusion.” You are just a bunch of sense impressions made up of groupings called skandhas. So, according to Buddhism, you are not reading this right now, because you are not real. Your family is also not real. Even Siddhartha Gautama—the Buddha—did not exist, if Buddhism is true. He was just an illusion, like you.
Not all Buddhists ascribe Divine attributes to the Buddha, but many do. Those who do so are worshipping someone who, according to their own religion, does not exist. Christians agree with Buddhists on this point–the divine Buddha does not exist, but for Christians, that the Buddha does not exist seems like a very, very good reason not to ascribe worship to him. That Buddhist meditation is harmful, not helpful would also seem like a significant problem for Buddhism.
The affirmation above is not that information about the historical Buddha is very scarce and unreliable. That is also true. The affirmation above is that, if one grants, for the sake of argument, that Buddhism is true–which it is not–then the Buddha did not exist. Buddhists also do not exist.
To many readers of this blog, the idea that Buddhism teaches that the Buddha did not exist seems almost unbelievable. I wanted to confirm that this is accurate, so I spoke to a Buddhist scholar who teaches Buddhist studies at a prestigious institution (I sought such confirmation for most of the material in The Buddha and the Christ, in addition to seeking to cite sources properly and so on). This significant Buddhist scholar confirmed the accuracy of this information. The Buddha did not exist, according to Buddhism.
You can find out more in my study The Buddha and the Christ: Their Persons and Teachings Compared. (Note: I have updated this pamphlet relatively recently, so if you are using it for evangelism in your church, please make sure you are utilizing the latest version.)
However, just like (according to Buddhism) the Buddha does not exist, you do not exist, either, and you are not reading this right now. Neither does this blog post exist. I will therefore stop writing it right now, especially since I don’t exist, either, according to Buddhism.
–TDR
The Relationship Between Wokeism and Revivalism in Churches
Some of you may know that right now the Southern Baptists (SBC) convene in Southern California for their 2022 annual meeting. At this very time, Mark Dever and 9 Marks, a Reformed faction of the SBC, produce their journal with the emphasis on revivalism (June 2022). I wish I could be happy to join their concern. Their accepted wokeism proceeds from the same root as revivalism, which is pragmatism.
One would think professing Reformed or Calvinists would insist on dependence on God for conversion and church growth. I don’t believe these men. They use measures as extreme as Charles Finney to produce results. Among many ways, their wokeism reveals their contradiction or hypocrisy.
Jonathan Leeman writes in his introduction, and I agree, “Revivalism depends on God’s Words plus our methods.” I also concur with these sentences:
Revivalism, which depends on our ingenuity and energy, brings short-term gains. It looks fruitful. It appeals to our yearning to see the results of our labors.
The SBC, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, and independent Baptists are all rife with revivalism. The adherents depend on more than the Word of God for the results.
A word to describe a particularly wicked kind of “our ingenuity and energy” and “our methods” is pandering. This manifested itself in the seeker sensitive movement and the purpose-driven movement. A church studies its particular demographic and forms a strategy that conforms to the culture. The region likes either pop rock, rap, or southern gospel through which a church panders to its audience.
In “Six Marks of Revivalism,” Andrew Ballitch writes, “Revivalism can actually make this happen,” referring to meeting conditions that spur church growth. He also writes, and I agree again, “This revivalism was by no means monolithic.” Revivalism changes in how it manifests itself, because it centers on man, not God. The new measures of Finney have morphed into whatever measures seem necessary to produce numbers.
Not that long ago, churches and their leaders decided they needed a neutral name to attract the lost to the church. About one of the journal authors who wrote a few of the articles, the journal says “is the senior pastor of Fellowship in the Pass Church in Beaumont, California.” A part of the church growth movement, which is an insidious form of revivalism, is that you’ve got to market your church with a branding or label. If it’s all God, why not just call yourself “Beaumont Baptist Church”?
Church growth philosophy says it might offend an unsaved person to hear “Baptist.” Someone might think, “Hell fire and brimstone.” You don’t want to have that happen, so instead you call yourself, “Fellowship in the Pass Church.” This practice illustrates a pragmatic mindset in the trajectory of revivalism.
The name “Baptist” carries with it doctrinal connotations. Revivalism isn’t monolithic. Unsaved people don’t like the feeling of “Baptist,” and you can change that feeling, help along the process of church growth and increase your numbers, by choosing a neutral, apparently non-offensive name.
Like we know that gas prices went up before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we know that revivalism in its present iteration panders to unchurched Harry and Sally. That means the “blended worship” that 9 Marks won’t include in its presentation. You also might want to appear “woke” to your younger and perhaps ethnic demographic.
To get and keep a specialized population, you must show support to its grievances. For instance, you should call January 6 more than a “dustup,” as a recent NFL defensive coordinator, Jack Del Rio, did and was fined 100,000 dollars by his team. It means muting strong statements against popular sin, especially homosexuality and even abortion, in the spirit of Tim Keller. You might be complementarian, but you manage your speech so as not to offend egalitarians. Be careful of delineating male and female roles as if those distinctions exist.
Mark Dever, Jonathan Leeman, and 9 Marks promoted and still push wokeism. This matches the spirit of corporate America flying rainbow flags to celebrate gay pride. You can’t go into a McDonalds or Starbucks without rainbows hanging all over.
Have you heard of “virtue signaling”? Wokeism sends a signal to a demographic to attract, gain, and then keep their allegiance. It is a new measure.
Ballitch gives as a characteristic of revivalism, “emotional manipulation.” Wokeism is emotional manipulation. He also lists “reductionist views of conversion.” Revivalism reduced conversion to something short of true conversion. Wokeism better “reconstructs conversion.” It calls for repentance over implicit racism in all white people, specifying group guilt rather than individual.
Critical theory claims special knowledge of racism, a modern form of gnosticism. The true gospel eliminates racial and ethnic barriers and sees everyone the same. Including race in the gospel corrupts it.
With wokeism, wokeness becomes a necessary fruit of repentance like speaking in tongues among the Charismatics. Important transformation of language must accompany the repentance. Leadership attracts followers by modifying language, conforming to wokeism. This easily fits a particular view of the kingdom compatible with the amillennialism of Dever and his church.
Root to Finney’s revivalism was pelagianism. In his Systematic Theology, he denied man’s total depravity. He saw within man a spark of goodness, which he could fan with human measures unto salvation. With man’s sinful condition, his rebellion, the only solution is divine. A theoretical Calvinism with God at center does not reach actual practice.
Is there a particular approach for growing an urban church? Revivalism and wokeism both say, “Yes.” The Bible says, “No.” Don’t do anything different. Just preach the gospel. Don’t change based on white, black, Hispanic, Chinese, African, whatever. Depend on God.
When 9 Marks points out the moat of revivalism in its audience’s eye, it should remove the beam of wokeism in its.
The Gospel In the Stars and the Gospel in the Bible
The Gospel in the Stars!
The gospel is in the stars! So say a number of books, such as the Lutheran minister Joseph A. Seiss’s The Gospel in the Stars and the Anglican ultradispensationalist soul-sleep advocate and flat-earther E. W. Bullinger’s The Witness of the Stars, following Ms. Frances Rolleston’s book Mazzaroth: the Constellations. (Amazon affiliate links). These advocates have been copied in modern times by people like the Presbyterian evangelical D. James Kennedy and Institute for Creation Research leader Henry Morris.
Baptists, however, have traditionally held with conservative Protestants that general revelation in creation is not saving. It reveals God’s power and glory (Romans 1), but the gospel is only revealed through His special revelation in Scripture. The “heavens declare the glory of God,” but only through special revelation does salvation come: “the law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalm 19:1, 7).
It is clear that the Baptists are wrong and the Lutherans, ultradispensationlists, and women Bible teachers are correct. After all, just look at the picture above. You can just look at it and understand that Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, became Man, died a sacrifical death for the sins of the world, and then rose victoriously from the grave, so that you could receive eternal life by repentant faith alone in Him (1 John 5:7; John 1:1-18; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 3:23-28).
Right?
Or maybe not?
The picture above is from the constellation called The Southern Cross. Without my telling you that–in words–would you have even known that there is supposed to be cross in that picture?
Let’s say you could see that some of the stars there have the shape of a cross if you squint just the right way. Would that mean that you understand the gospel? How many Catholics that worship before a crucifix understand the gospel? Would anyone understand the gospel by simply looking at the picture of a cross, or would someone need to explain to him in words what the cross means? Have people understood the gospel by looking at a cross on a church building?
How many people do you know have been truly born again by looking in the sky and understanding the “gospel in the stars”? How many heathen have rejected their idols and astrology and false gods because of the “gospel in the stars”? What if the number is “zero”?
Let’s say another group of stars in the sky forms a circle, so someone decides that it looks like the fat belly of an idol of Buddha. Does that mean “the gospel of Buddha” is written in the stars? What is another group of stars looks like the letter “Q.” Is that predicting the Quran? One can draw lines between stars that look like anything.
The Gospel in the Bible!
Does the Bible tell us that the gospel is in the stars as well as in Scripture? The word “gospel” appears 104 times in 98 verses in the Bible: Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 11:5; 24:14; 26:13; Mark 1:1, 14–15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9; 16:15; Luke 4:18; 7:22; 9:6; 20:1; Acts 8:25; 14:7, 21; 15:7; 16:10; 20:24; Rom. 1:1, 9, 15–16; 2:16; 10:15–16; 11:28; 15:16, 19–20, 29; 16:25; 1 Cor. 1:17; 4:15; 9:12, 14, 16–18, 23; 15:1; 2 Cor. 2:12; 4:3–4; 8:18; 9:13; 10:14, 16; 11:4, 7; Gal. 1:6–9, 11; 2:2, 5, 7, 14; 3:8; 4:13; Eph. 1:13; 3:6; 6:15, 19; Phil. 1:5, 7, 12, 17, 27; 2:22; 4:3, 15; Col. 1:5, 23; 1 Th. 1:5; 2:2, 4, 8–9; 3:2; 2 Th. 1:8; 2:14; 1 Tim. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:8, 10; 2:8; Philem. 1:13; Heb. 4:2; 1 Pet. 1:12, 25; 4:6, 17; Rev. 14:6.
I have listed below all the references where the word “gospel” is associated with looking at the constellations in the sky:
If you didn’t get it, here is that complete list again, in bigger font:
The gospel is not in the stars. The books at the beginning of this post do cite Scripture sometimes, but they take it totally out of context when they attempt to prove that the gospel is in the stars. The gospel is not in general revelation–it is in special revelation. General revelation condemns; it cannot save. The idea that the gospel is in the stars is unbiblical and false. If you have picked it up somewhere, reject it, along with the other evil teachings of those promoting the gospel in the stars, such as Lutheranism, ultradispensationalism and soul-sleep. Be thankful for Henry Morris’ defense of creation, but reject his false idea that the gospel is in the stars, as well as his willingness to work with the Seventh-Day Adventist cult and anyone else who accepts creation and rejects evolution, pretty much no matter what heresies they believed in on other matters.
If you don’t understand the gospel, click here to find out what it is in the Bible. Search the Scriptures to understand the gospel–it is there, very clearly, all over the place. Thank God for His wisdom and power when you look at the stars, but do not expect to find the gospel where He has not revealed it.
The following are some additional resources on the claims of the Gospel in the Stars:
Dave Hunt, The Gospel in the Stars
Danny Faulkner, The Gospel Message: Written in the Stars?
Charles Strohmer, Is There a Christian Zodiac, A Gospel in the Stars?
–TDR
The True God Versus a Made-Up One
God made man, but men also make their own god or gods. Only one God made man, but men have made many gods. The Bible also talks about this, listing names of various fictional gods invented by men. Among these are
Asherah, Astarte, Astaroth, Baal, Chemosh, Inanna, Marduk, and Moloch. There is a reason the first of the ten commandments (Exodus 20:3) says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Men make-up gods. The Bible shows that men make up separate gods, very often regional ones, who represent a local people. Since the completion of scripture, men made up other gods, very often representing separate religions. Among these are Allah, Brahma, Eshwara, Krishna, Shakti, Shiva, The Tao, and Vishu. Roman and Greek mythology presented Jupiter and Zeus.
Perhaps something more sinister than different gods is using the biblical names for God, except with a different one. God is more than a name. Many of you reading know that sects in Christianity have different beliefs about who God is. They all use the same designations. For instance, they might say, “Holy Spirit,” but they mean an active force in the world, not a Person. Joseph Smith, first prophet of LDS, taught that God was once a man on another planet before being exalted to Godhood.
Professors of Christianity today conform a God in their imaginations to their own liking. In Colossians 3:5, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Mortify . . . covetousness, which is idolatry.” Their God has the same name as the biblical God. So does Jesus.
Instead of abstaining from lust, professing believers make up a God who permits it or wants it. He desires it in worship. This is another way of changing “the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man” (Romans 1:23).
Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:16, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” True saints are a “holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).
What Is Atheism?
According to the Bible, no one is an atheist. Proverbs 14:1 reports that a fool says in his heart that there is no God, but that doesn’t mean he believes it. Romans 1:18 says he knows God and suppresses that knowledge. So atheism is not someone believing there isn’t a God. Atheism is living like there isn’t a God. Many more people do that than the typical polls show. In other words, on the atheist front, we’re in worse shape than you think.
Someone just wrote about this at the Big Think, entitled, “Atheism is not as rare or as rational as you think.” Will Gervais in the article makes at least the point in my first paragraph here, and even more. The Bible says this, so it must be true, but I find it by experience.
As I write this on a Saturday after out evangelizing for a couple of hours, I talked to an “atheist” today, who graduated from Vanderbilt, and he is affiliated with Weber State here. He announced he was not interested, because he is an atheist. He also said he did not want to argue at his door, but he did talk awhile, which is very often the case with “atheists.”
I asked the “atheist” if he thought, all this around us came about by accident. I find no one wants to say, yes, to that, because they know it isn’t true, which means they aren’t atheists. Then he said with a bit of a smirk, that after the Big Bang happened, everything came out of that.
The Big Bang is apparently a throw-down, trumping all else. In fact, a Big Bang says there is a beginning. It doesn’t help an atheist to stay that way, if he believes in a beginning. Some kind of explosion though still will not explain the amazing complexity all around. I didn’t bring that up, because I assessed that it would end the conversation. I took the tack, as I often do, that air, plants growing, all these did not come by accident, but people take these, and as Romans 1:21 says, are unthankful. These are atheists. God exists. They’re just unthankful He does.
An atheist is someone who doesn’t want a God. He has one. He just denies it. An atheist tries to block God out in part by saying he’s an atheist. He knows he’s wrong.
Gervais portrays many atheists, and it’s true, as appraising themselves as intellectually gifted individuals. Their position is intellectually bankrupt. They reject the truth based on their own lust (2 Peter 2-3).
Many atheists will say that those who carefully weigh things do it with science, all natural criteria, which is very intellectual, really Ivy League. No. The world did not appear and has not been sustained by merely natural means.
In his piece, Gervais uses science to show how professing atheists are stupid. Stupid is another word for “fool,” which bring us back to Psalm 14:1 again. The fool says he’s an atheist. He’s not being smart.
Since every atheist just denies God against his own knowledge, who are the real atheists? They live like God doesn’t exist. I think we could go further than that. They form a god, which allows them to live like that want. Evangelicalism is full of atheism. They deny the true God because they don’t like His requirements or expectations, which are against how they want to live. They’re worshiping themselves as Romans 1:25 says, and yet they say they worship God or follow God’s ways.
If atheism is denying the one, true God, there are far, far more atheists than any of us can give a percentage.
John 20:28 and the Watchtower Society
John 20:28 is a very difficult passage for the Watchtower Society or so-called “Jehovah’s Witnesses” to explain away. The Watchtower, in its New World “Translation” that was made by seven “translators” who did not know Hebrew or Aramaic, and only one of which had ever taken a single course in New Testament Greek in his life, egregiously mistranslates John 1:1 to affirm that the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, was “a god,” supporting a form of polytheism in the Watchtower, where their god Jehovah, who is different than the true Jehovah God of the Bible, is allegedly the Almighty God while Christ is a secondary true god, a “mighty god.” The Watchtower Society claims that their deity is “the God,” and only the true God is called “the God,” while Christ is merely “a god,” a secondary true god. Their mistranslation of John 1:1 is awful, but, in my opinion, is not the first place to go to in order to show members of the cult their error. While the facts are not at all on their side in John 1:1, it is too complicated in Greek for them to believe you; they will believe their cult over what you say.
However, their misinterpretation of John 1:1 leaves them with a huge problem in John 20:28. In John 20:28–the climax of John’s Gospel–we read the following. Notice John 20:28:
John 20:26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. 30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
In Greek, the Apostle Thomas calls Christ “the Lord of me and the God of me”–so Christ is called “the God” in the climactic section of the gospel of John! Christ then says that Thomas is “blessed” for having confessed the Lord Jesus as “the God” (v. 29), and then the Apostle John explains that this confession is involved in believing on Christ to receive life in His name (vv. 30-31).
Here are pictures of John 20:28 from an interlinear Greek New Testament. I recommend that you download or take a picture of these pics and keep them on your phone or other electronic device. Then, when you run into a member of the Watchtower Society, you can tell him that you noticed this in the Bible and would like to get his explanation.
The interlinear here is J. P. Green’s Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible, 4 vol. ed., the volume on the New Testament. I believe Green’s interlinear, based on the Textus Receptus, is the best interlinear that is out there. I personally do not need to use an interlinear because my Greek has passed that stage, but on whatever occasions I would need to use one, I use Green’s (I have a leather-bound version of the NT portion of his interlinear and a big one-volume work that has the OT and NT. I am not sure if the leather-bound version is still in print.) If you want an interlinear, here are (affiliate) links to where you can get it on Amazon:
New Testament:
One volume edition Old and New Testament (bigger book and smaller print):
Four volume set:
Usually people in the Watchtower will refuse to talk to you if they are aware that you know what you are talking about–they seek to prey on the Biblically ignorant, not show their (alleged) truth to those who know God’s Word, because once you know the Bible well you are not going to get sucked into their cult. So it is wise to ask questions of members of the Watchtower when you seek to evangelize them, because as soon as they know you understand Scripture, they probably will not want to talk to you any more.
So what can you ask a member of the Watchtower? Something like the following (which also includes their very feeble attempts to explain the text away):
In John 20:28, at the climax of John’s Gospel, the point to which the whole Gospel has been building after the prologue of 1:1-18 and before the epilogue of chapter 21, Thomas answers and says to Jesus, “The Lord of me and the God of me” O Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou (John 20:28), addressing Jesus Christ as “the” God. Christ commends Thomas for this statement, saying he was blessed, and that those who similarly confess and believe that Jesus is “the God of me” are blessed (20:29). Why do you think Thomas calls Christ “the God of me”?
The only explanations from members of the Watchtower that I have heard are the following:
1.) Thomas was taking God’s name in vain, like people who say “Oh my G**,” because the Apostle was surprised at Christ’s resurrection appearance. However, Christ would not have commended the Apostle for taking God’s name in vain. One of the Apostles taking God’s name in vain is the climactic confession of the whole Gospel of John? That “explanation” is ridiculous.
2.) Thomas was not really speaking to Christ when the Bible says Thomas “answered and said unto him.” But that also is to read into the Bible what it does not say, rather than drawing from the text what it does say. The “him” in 20:28 refers to Christ in 20:27. That is simply what the grammar requires. Thomas “answered” and “said unto” Christ, “him” of 20:28 who had appeared to Thomas. It cannot possibly be speaking about God the Father.
One Watchtower elder told me that only the “the Lord of me” was addressed to Christ while “the God of me” was addressed to the Father. However, looking at all the NT verses where the construction of John 20:28 appears, in all 61 instances, the same person gets the whole address (Matthew 11:4; 12:39, 48; 15:3, 23, 28; 16:17; 17:11; 19:4, 27; 21:21, 24, 27; 25:26, 37, 44; 26:33; Mark 6:37; 7:28; 9:12, 38; 11:14, 29; 12:17, 34; 14:48; Luke 1:19, 35; 3:11; 4:8; 7:22; 8:50; 10:41; 11:45; 13:8, 15; 17:20; 20:34; 24:18; John 2:19; 3:10; 4:10; 5:11, 19; 6:26; 7:16, 21, 52; 8:14, 33, 48; 9:20, 27, 30, 34; 10:25, 33; 12:34; 14:23; 18:5; 20:28). So this attempt to evade what sure looks like the plain sense of John 20:28 also fails badly. Thomas called Christ both “the Lord of me” and “the God of me.” Thomas answered and said to Jesus, “the Lord of me and the God of me.”
Because this text is so difficult for the Watchtower to explain away, they attempt to conceal from their members that Christ is called “the God” in John 20:28 (as He is in Hebrews 1:8). The Watchtower hopes that their “Jesus is a god, but not the God” explanation for John 1:1 works and that nobody notices that Christ is called “the God of me” in John 20:28. That is why this fact is very helpful and something worth pressing a Watchtower witness on.
The original audience who got the Gospel of John would have concluded that Thomas was “the Lord” and “the God” of Thomas, and that those who similarly believed were blessed (20:29). The Apostle Thomas was blessed when he confessed Jesus to be “the Lord of me and the God of me,” and I am blessed to make the same confession, 20:29. If members of the Watchtower repent, they also can make the same confession and receive eternal life through repentant faith alone in the one God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who is in all three Persons possessed of the glorious Name “Jehovah.” (Matthew 28:19).
You can learn more about the blessed truth of the Trinity by clicking here.
–TDR
Machen, Liberalism, and the Language of Liberalism Now So Common
J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) is not a name, I would think, most readers would know, even though Wikipedia gives him a long biography. It’s worth reading. He’s an outlier in that he went to Germany for post graduate education and rejected liberalism for conservative theology. He was a professor for 23 years (1906-1929) of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, then led a revolt against liberal theology there, and left to start Westminster Theological Seminary. He was a Presbyterian and usually called a fundamentalist Presbyterian.
As you would know, I am Baptist, and reject Presbyterianism and Protestantism in general. I respect though what they mean for history. I am happy about a conservative Presbyterian. I like him obviously better than a liberal Baptist and even a moderate Baptist. Sometimes I like a conservative Presbyterian more than a conservative Baptist, who is pragmatic, revivalistic, and a soft continuationist. Enough of those comparisons. I’m in part writing this because of a quote I read from Machen. Here it is:
In order to maintain themselves in the evangelical churches and quiet the fears of their conservative associates, the liberals resort constantly to a double use of language.
It comes from his classic book, Christianity and Liberalism. Carl Truman, Presbyterian historian, wrote this summary of the book:
The thesis of the book is devastatingly simple: Christianity, built on the authoritative, divinely-inspired, inerrant revelation of God in Scripture, embodying a robust supernaturalism, and focused on the exclusivity of salvation in the person and work of Christ, is a different religion to that liberalism that repudiates each of these things.
Machen uses as an example, a liberal saying, “I believe Jesus is God,” but the words meaning something entirely different. He uses the words to comfort the heart of a young one who has questions. Machen says he “offends against the fundamental principle of truthfulness in language.”
I see more offense than ever against this fundamental principle of truthfulness in language. People want to play both sides. They want acceptance from liberals and still maintain an audience with the conservative, bridge that gap.
Talking to a woman in evangelism, I said that Jesus wasn’t a rorschach ink blot, that we can look into and see whatever Jesus we want to see. She said she believed in Jesus, but she also believed that He really was like that ink blot. He was intended to be whatever people needed Him to be. This was what she meant by ‘she believed in Jesus.’
Perhaps with regard to truth, men still believe a large percentage of orthodox doctrine at least on paper, but they cave on beauty and goodness. They say they follow Jesus, but they don’t like what He likes. They do something different than what He did. They love the world.
Ambiguous words become vessels for whatever meaning someone wants to give them. They give liberty to those who hold them. They can live what they want, expecting in the end to play a word game. “That is what I really meant, what you said.” No, you didn’t.
When I took ethics, we imagined casuistry, which was called Jesuit casuistry. Casuistry comes from the Latin casus, which means “case.” It started out being a means of evading a difficult case of duty. “Were you there?” I was. It is the Clintonian, it was all a matter of what “there” means. I was “there,” just not where you’re talking about.
False religion is full of imprecision and fuzziness. The hermeneutic is speculative and mystical. With this use of language, man easily worships and serves the creature rather than Creator. The creature still calls it Creator though. Machen called it “the double use of language.”
Does Mysticism Mix With the Bible?
Mysticism pervades world history, and especially the history of the United States. What does mysticism do for a country or a person? Is it good? Is it all bad?When Jonathan Edwards described mysticism in the early 18th century, he didn’t use the word “mysticism.” The term mysticism was around, but perhaps not in the kind of common usage so that Edwards would use the term to apply to the “wildfire” and “carnal enthusiasm” he witnessed in the Great Awakening. Edwards also wrote the terms, “imprudences, irregularities,” and a “mixture of delusion.”When the United States got to the 19th century, it was a regular experience for men to say they heard directly from God, perhaps the greatest example of this Joseph Smith. The church history museum in Salt Lake City, Utah says concerning his “first vision”:
Joseph Smith’s First Vision stands today as the greatest event in world history since the birth, ministry, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. After centuries of darkness, the Lord opened the heavens to reveal His word and restore His Church through His chosen prophet.
The essence of Mysticism lies in this: when the influence of God upon the soul is sought and found solely in an inward experience of the individual; when certain excitements of the emotions are taken, with no further question, as evidence that the soul is possessed by God: when at the same time nothing external to the soul is consciously and clearly perceived and firmly grasped; when no thoughts that elevate the spiritual life are aroused by the positive contents of an idea that rules the soul,– then that is the piety of Mysticism.
In the human Jesus, we have met with a fact, the content of which is comparably richer than any feelings that arise within ourselves.
Mysticism is an assertion of a knowing that must not be tried by ordinary rules evidence the claiming authority for our own impressions.
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
Recent Comments