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Does Doctrine Matter?
President James Monroe on December 2, 1823 first communicated the “Monroe Doctrine” in his State of the Union address to Congress. The Monroe Doctrine viewed any foreign intervention in the Western Hemisphere, the Americas, as a potentially hostile act against the United States.
One might ask Spain and Japan whether the Monroe Doctrine matters. These nations acted in violation of the aforesaid doctrine, which was met by a strong military response from the United States, leading to the Spanish-American War and U. S. involvement in World War Two.
THE SUPERIORITY OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE
No doubt biblical doctrine matters more than the Monroe Doctrine, because God articulates that doctrine. 2 Timothy 3:16 reads: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine.” When the United States calls something a “doctrine,” this is tantamount to a sacrosanct law. The Bible treats doctrine the same, as seen in Proverbs 4:2: “For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.”
The Bible constitutes the law of God, God the Lawgiver and also the Judge. When God said to Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it” (Genesis 2:17), that is doctrine. Furthermore, the doctrine of the Lord said, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (also 2:17). The consequences for violating that doctrine were far worse for mankind than violating the Monroe Doctrine for the Spanish.
THE AUTHORITY OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE
Does doctrine matter? It depends whose doctrine. After Jesus ended His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 to 7, Matthew explained in 7:28-29 that “when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: “For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Jesus had authority. If He said it, that settled the doctrine.
Jesus later described the doctrine of the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 15:9: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Doctrine didn’t matter if it were only the commandments of men. A mere commandment or a lesser teaching of men has no ultimate authority. Earthly bodies may punish for transgressing their temporal edicts, but they hold no sway over eternal repercussions. God does not accept their vain and profane worship.
On the other hand, Jesus could say in the first verse of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Understood with this doctrine of Jesus was the converse doctrine: “Cursed are those not poor in spirit: for theirs is not the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus spoke doctrine with like authority in John 3:15, “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The opposite of believing is not believing and of eternal life is eternal death. Maybe nothing matters more to a human being than the true doctrine of salvation.
THE ABSOLUTE TRUTHFULNESS OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE
True Doctrine Versus False Doctrine
More than any quality, what distinguishes biblical doctrine as divine doctrine, versus the mere doctrine of men, is its absolute truthfulness. Scripture is truth (John 17:17). You can always believe what God says because it is always true. Always. God cannot lie (Titus 1:2).
As much as the true doctrine of God’s Word matters through all eternity, it also contrasts with false doctrine disseminated by false teachers, who at the same time claim to be true ones. False doctrine matters too, but for the opposite reason. Also, it matters through all eternity, but instead in harmful, destructive ways.
The Bible calls false doctrine, “heresy.” The English word “heresy” transliterates a Greek word, heresis, which means “division” or “faction.” The world started with truth and heresy divides from truth. Every falsehood takes a path away from the way of truth. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Jesus says He is the way to the Father, excluding all other ways. Other different ways than Jesus alone are heresies, diverging from the one path that leads to heaven, where are the Father’s house and God the Father.
God’s Truth is Truth
Postmodernism says, “Your truth is your truth.” It is saying, “Your true doctrine is your true doctrine.” God say “no” to that. In Romans 3:4, Paul writes: “God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.” God is the final arbiter of truth. If you contradict God, your contradiction is falsehood. I ask you to consider the doctrine of Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” God created two sexes and only two, male and female.
A male might call himself a female, but he isn’t. God also created a woman for man, not a man. He created Eve for Adam. God “brought her unto the man” (Genesis 2:22) and Adam said, “she shall be called Woman” (2:23). She was a “help meet” or fit for man. God created the woman to complement the man, not another man (2:18). A man does not complement a man and God calls this “an abomination” (Leviticus 20:13).
God also created distinct roles for the man and the woman that are required for a successful family and society (Ephesians 5:22-33, Titus 2, 1 Peter 3:1-7). The teaching, belief, and practice of these roles are true doctrine.
THE ETERNAL IMPACT OF DOCTRINE
Destructiveness of False Doctrine
The Apostle Peter says concerning certain heresies in 2 Peter 2:1, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” Heresies are mainly brought by “false prophets” and “false teachers” “among the people” or “among you.”
Certain false doctrines in particular, which deny the Lord that bought” us, bring “swift destruction.” What Peter describes in 2 Peter 2:1 about false salvation doctrine mirrors what Jesus also said in the Sermon on the Mount, when He said in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
Jesus speaks of the narrow way, which is the true way, and of the broad way, which is the false one. Few enter the narrow gate, which leads to life, and many the wide gate, which takes the broad way that leads to destruction. The wide gate and the broad way are more popular, even though they are false. The next verse, Matthew 7:15, explains why people take this damning path in addition to its popularity: “Beware of false prophets.” False prophets or teachers point the way through their false doctrine to a future damning destination, surely while still calling their teaching “the truth.”
Blessing of True Doctrine
Paul expresses the eternal and serious ramifications of true doctrine through his pastoral epistles in 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, especially declared by 1 Timothy 4:16: “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” “The doctrine” will “save thyself and them that hear thee,” Paul instructs.
The salvation that comes from true doctrine carries with it ultimate fulfillment. The doctrine Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12) could and would bring the kingdom of heaven, comfort, satisfaction, inheritance of all things, mercy, joy, gladness, and reward in heaven. Heeding the doctrine of Jesus was like building your house on a rock instead of sand, so that when a storm came, your house would stand and not fall (Matthew 7:24-27).
THE EXCLUSIVITY OF TRUE DOCTRINE
Teach Only the True Doctrine
Considering everything you’ve read so far about doctrine, can someone or at least should someone say, “Doctrine doesn’t matter”? Doctrine matters as much as anything that matters. For this reason, the Apostle Paul wrote his protégé Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.” Scripture requires church leaders to “teach no other doctrine.”
Because False Doctrine Deceives
God’s Word often explains how false teachers deceive people to believe wrong doctrine. The Apostle Paul again in Romans 16:17-18 writes: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” God requires separation from false teachers, who cause these divisions from true, scriptural doctrine. They are deceptive and use “good words and fair speeches” to deceive their listeners.
Separate from Those Who Teach Different Doctrine
The Apostle John joins Paul in the seriousness of doctrine, when he writes in 2 John 1:9-10: “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. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed.”
Akin to John’s warning in his epistle and Paul’s teaching in Romans, Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:3-5: “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; . . . . from such withdraw thyself.” If a man teaches other than the true doctrine or consents to it, that is, accepts or inculcates it, from such people, Paul commands, “withdraw thyself.” Nothing helps someone more than true doctrine, but also nothing hurts someone worse than false doctrine.
Today false teachers deceive listeners by devaluing true doctrine. They often say only certain essential doctrines matter, but not all doctrine. It is similar to Satan tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden by saying that eating of the tree wouldn’t matter to her. He said, “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). In fact, she did die. These kinds of seductions lure people into a false sense of security. Not only do people stop taking heed to the truth, but they are offended by those who do.
THE REQUIREMENT OF TRUE DOCTRINE
The Bible requires doctrine in the preaching and teaching of churches. They who “rule well” a church “labor in the word and doctrine” (1 Timothy 5:17). Paul commands Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2, “Preach the word . . . . with all longsuffering and doctrine.” He commands him despite the following warning in verses 3-4: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
Have we now reached the time, age, or era when people will no longer endure sound doctrine? Does doctrine not matter to most people any more? They want something else, that Paul characterizes as itching their ears. Instead of preaching sound doctrine, preachers will provide their hearers something they would rather hear. Instead of a place for doctrine, churches become mainly social gatherings to accommodate the carnal allure of this temporal world.
Many today see a drastic decline in the United States. Why is this happening? A growing percentage of people cease church attendance at all. It’s not just that churches stop preaching biblical doctrine. Neither do people want a church that preaches it. Churches adjust to this new reality by reducing their teaching time and minimizing doctrine when they do preach anything. If churches stop caring about doctrine, why would anyone else care?
Doctrine will equip and sustain people for and through tough times. As days become harder and worse, people more than ever need doctrine. It will matter more than ever. Yet, how available will it be to those for whom it doesn’t? Think about it.
“Know For a Certainty,” As Seen in the Old Testament, Especially Joshua 23:13-14 and the Hebrew Idiom There, and Its Relevance to Today
While reading through the Bible a second time this year, I came across Joshua 23:13:
Know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you.
In a day of uncertainty, where we are challenged to say that we “know” anything for sure, here is a strong statement at the beginning of the verse, something the audience should “know for a certainty” that would happen in the future. This could be considered a doctrine of its own, because how could anyone “know for a certainty” something is going to happen or not going to happen in the future? I decided to look at the Hebrew behind this English translation to see what the words were.
“Know for a certainty” translates a Hebrew idiom, where the same Hebrew word is used back to back, and in this case it is yawda (my transliteration). Yawda and yawda, the same Hebrew root, appear side by side. The first form is yaw-doe-a (my transliteration), which is a qal infinitive absolute verb, and the second is te-də-oo´ (my transliteration), a qal imperfect, second person, masculine, plural verb. Literally, the two words together say, “Knowing, ye will know.” The sense of those two words in the English is “know for a certainty.”
In 1933, Charles Eugene Edwards wrote a journal article about the above Hebrew idiom construction in Bibliotheca Sacra, entitled, “A Hebrew Idiom.” The first paragraph of that journal article reads [BSac 90:358 (Apr 1933) p. 232]:
In his commentary on Matthew, D. J. A. Alexander refers to a Hebrew idiom (p. 408) “which combines a finite tense and an infinitive of the same verb to express intensity, repetition, certainty, or any other accessory notion not belonging to the essential import of the verb itself”. An illustration is in Is. 6:9, which is more literally quoted in Matt. 13:14, “Hearing ye shall hear”, and “seeing ye shall see”. And Dr. Alexander remarks, (p. 358) “The Hebrew idiom is retained, which uses two forms of the same verb for intensity or more exact specification”. Too literal a translation might sometimes be barbarous or absurd. For example, Joseph never meant to say (Gen. 40:15) “For stealing I was stolen but as it is properly rendered, “For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews”.
The repetition of the same word brings intensity. For the verb “know,” bringing intensity to “know” is “certainty” or “surety.” That idiom of that exact Hebrew verb in Joshua 23:13 is found thirteen times in the Old Testament. For your reference, here are those twelve usages underlined in the King James Version, minus Joshua 23:13:
Genesis 15:13, And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
Genesis 43:7, And they said, The man asked us straitly of our state, and of our kindred, saying, Is your father yet alive? have ye another brother? and we told him according to the tenor of these words: could we certainly know that he would say, Bring your brother down?
1 Samuel 20:3, And David sware moreover, and said, Thy father certainly knoweth that I have found grace in thine eyes; and he saith, Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved: but truly as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death.
1 Samuel 20:9, And Jonathan said, Far be it from thee: for if I knew certainly that evil were determined by my father to come upon thee, then would not I tell it thee?
1 Samuel 28:1, And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. And Achish said unto David, Know thou assuredly, that thou shalt go out with me to battle, thou and thy men.
1 Kings 2:37, For it shall be, that on the day thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die: thy blood shall be upon thine own head.
1 Kings 2:42, And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Did I not make thee to swear by the LORD, and protested unto thee, saying, Know for a certain, on the day thou goest out, and walkest abroad any whither, that thou shalt surely die? and thou saidst unto me, The word that I have heard is good.
Proverbs 27:23, Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.
Jeremiah 26:15, But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth the LORD hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears.
Jeremiah 40:14, And said unto him, Dost thou certainly know that Baalis the king of the Ammonites hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to slay thee? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not.
Jeremiah 42:19 The LORD hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah; Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have admonished you this day.
Jeremiah 42:22, Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go and to sojourn.
Joshua in his speech to gathered Israel uses the same Hebrew verb in Joshua 23:14, the next verse:
And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.
Looking at the usage of the verb in verse 13 and then in verse 14, the understanding is that they should know with certainty about their futures and that they already do know in the present. They should know what’s going to occur in the future with certainty partly because they already know in the present. What they know in the present in their hearts and in their souls, an expression that also brings intensity to knowing, is that not one thing failed of all the good things which the Lord their God spoke concerning them. If they know that in the present, then they know with certainty also what God says to them through Joshua for their future.
Nothing is more sure than the Word of God. It is so sure that the knowledge is certain. If God says it, it is certain. This certain knowledge could be and should be called, the truth. It is the truth. Any contradiction to it is a lie. Today it could and should also at least be called, “science.” God created all natural laws and He spoke all moral law. They are both all true, knowledge, and scientific.
Uncertainty is a tool of Satan from the very beginning of time. Satan’s temptation of Eve created uncertainty about what God said. The uncertainty relates to the human will, giving a person liberty where he doesn’t have it. The uncertainty about what God said gave Eve what she thought was liberty to eat. Maybe she wouldn’t die if she ate of the tree. Maybe God was doing something other than what He said.
The liberty created by uncertainty is a confusion of sovereignty. Who is sovereign? Or, who is the true or actual sovereign in the world? Sovereignty shifts from God to man. If I can’t be sure of what God said, then I am free to do what I want to do. God can’t hold me responsible for something I couldn’t know. This conflicts with faith that pleases God. God isn’t pleased by the uncertainty that fuels unbelief and disobedience. He wants us to be sure.
In Joshua 23:14, Joshua says, you already know. This is a presupposition. The Apostle Paul uses the same presupposition in Romans 1:18-20:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
Not knowing, being uncertain, is an excuse. It isn’t a valid excuse. It allows for a wide range of possibilities for men. Anticipating that excuse, in Deuteronomy God takes a preemptive strike after repeating His law to the people Israel through Moses (30:11-14):
11 For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? 14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
Today people will say either the Bible was written by men, it isn’t preserved in a perfect way, or it can’t be understood because of the centuries of separation from its original writing. The will of God then becomes very pliable, very adaptable to the will of man. He won’t be challenged by authority because there is none. He gets to do what he wants with uncertainty as his premise. This is a lie, just like it was in the Garden of Eden. Don’t think that you are free to go your own way because you can’t know the truth. God’s Word is true. Know with certainty.
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