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Cecil Andrews, 29 Edengrove Park, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AZ, Northern Ireland Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEBSITE - http://www.takeheed.net Quick Links - Home - Assorted Articles - Audio/Video - Ministry Newsletters - Words of Wisdom |
Those that deny ‘penal substitution’ are
“the enemies of the cross of Christ”
[Philippians 3:18]
Over recent years there has been a
steady build up of opposition to and outright rejection of what some term as ‘the
theory’ of ‘penal substitution’. Amongst the definitions for ‘theory’ is one that reads – ‘a
conjectural view or idea’. When it comes then to understanding what was
happening on “the cross of Christ” for the faithful Christian the
doctrine of ‘penal substitution’ is not a matter of ‘conjecture’ but
it is the factual and glorious heartbeat that sustains God’s gift of “eternal
life” [Romans 6:23]. ‘Penal substitution’ is a factual divine truth that
leaps from the pages of the Bible and to deny otherwise is quite simply to set
oneself up as an ‘enemy of the cross of Christ’.
To begin with I want to quote a few lines from my own personal testimony that for years has been posted to our ministry web site –
‘The verse that began to
impact upon me was Leviticus 1:4 'And he [THE
SINNER] shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt
offering [THE SUBSTITUTE] and it [THE
SUBSTITUTE] shall be accepted for him [THE
SINNER] to make atonement [SALVATION]
for him [THE SINNER]'…The
reality of my sin and its consequences [eternity
in hell] became very real to me…but I know that during the
service God revealed to me that the sinless life and substitutionary death of
Jesus Christ would solve my problem…I deserved punishment for my sins and HE
didn't for HE was sinless but HE suffered in my place ["For Christ [the substitute] also hath
once suffered for sins, the just [the
substitute] for the unjust [the
sinner] that he [by his
sinless life and substitutionary sufferings and death - no work on my part] might
bring us [not assist us to get there by our own works/endeavours] to
God" 1st Peter 3:16]. Here I saw Christ fulfilling the role of SUBSTITUTE
as pictured in Leviticus 1:4…I went out of that service having been "born
again" - I was like the man born blind in John 9 who declared in verse 25
"one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see". I knew that
Christ had given me a perfect and permanent righteousness [HIS] and that
ALL my sins had been removed from me because "HE was wounded for our [my] transgressions,
HE was bruised for our [my] iniquities...and
the Lord hath laid on HIM the iniquity of us all [me]"
Isaiah 53: 5&6. That is the glorious and full gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ [His sinless life] and Him
crucified’ [His substitutionary death]
My sure hope for “eternal life”
is not grounded upon any ‘conjectural view or idea’ but foursquare
upon the factual truth of the ‘penal substitution’ of Christ on the
Cross of Calvary. For me I simply do not believe that anyone can be a true
convert to Christ who denies what I consider in ‘penal substitution’ to
be the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I should add that I’m not
alone in this view – when confronted by a quotation from Steve Chalke’s
book ‘The Lost Message of Jesus’ in which Mr Chalke denies this truth,
as we shall see later, Pastor John MacArthur simply said – ‘Anyone who
believes that is not a Christian’.
I have just mentioned Steve
Chalke and this brings me now to those that I view as “the enemies of
the cross of Christ’ for it was really the published views of Mr Chalke
that seemed in some ways to kick-start this most recent attack upon the
veracity of the doctrine of ‘penal substitution’.
Before elaborating on Mr Chalke’s
denial and then going on to identify other deniers who are masquerading as
Christians I want to quote some thoughts from the ‘Devotional Studies in
Philippians’ by Lehman Straus. Commenting on the verse in question, Philippians
3:18 Mr Strauss wrote –
‘It is a sad state of
affairs that there are many who are “the enemies of the cross of Christ”. I say
it is a sad state of affairs when men oppose all for which the Cross of Christ
stands, for it caused the great apostle deep emotion and tears. This is not
Paul’s first warning in this Epistle against such, for he spoke of these
enemies as “dogs” and “evil workers” (3:2). They may have professed that they
were Christians. However, they were of the opposition in disguise, wolves in
sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15), dogs and sows pretending to be chiefs (2nd
Peter 2:22)… To have to write so severely of professed followers of Christ
brought tears to Paul’s eyes. These were not drunkards and harlots that caused
him to weep, but men who said they were Christians… the Church must contend
with this peril which is one of the greatest hindrances to the progress of
Christianity. When a man speaks the language of the Church and professes to be
a part of her life and labours and at the same time is an enemy of her very
foundation, he inflicts greater havoc than does a Bertrand Russell [who
vacillated between being an atheist and an agnostic] and his
kind… These internal enemies “would pervert the gospel of Christ (Galatians
1:7) and in so doing will “trouble you”… In contrast to the true children of
God who glory in the Cross (Galatians 6:14) these are Christ’s enemies to whom
the preaching of the cross is foolishness (1st Corinthians 1:18).
How sad when the latter profess to be one of the former!
STEVE CHALKE
As stated earlier the first ‘enemy
of the cross of Christ’ that I want to identify is Steve Chalke. I
dealt with his rejection of ‘penal substitution’ in earlier articles
posted to the web site and they can be viewed on
http://www.takeheed.net/News_From_The_Front/DECEMBER2004.htm
http://www.takeheed.net/News_From_The_Front/March
2005.htm
http://www.takeheed.net/News_From_The_Front/June
2006.htm
The ‘offending’ views expressed by
Steve Chalke in his book run as follows on page 182 – ‘The fact is that
the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father punishing His
Son for an offence he has not even committed’. I do not plan to repeat
fully what I wrote in response to this heresy but feel it would be helpful as I
go on to identify other ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’ to include here
some of what I quoted from John MacArthur’s book ‘The Murder of Jesus’ –
I wrote –
In his book ‘The Murder
of Jesus’ Pastor John MacArthur gives an explanation of what Paul wrote in 2
Corinthians 5:21 of how God “hath made Him [Christ] who knew no
sin to be sin for us”. Pastor
MacArthur wrote [p71&73] ‘When Christ hung on the cross, He was bearing
the sins of His people and He was suffering the wrath of God on their behalf.
Second Corinthians 5:21 explains the cross in a similar way “He made him who
knew no sin to be sin for us”. In other words, on the cross, God imputed our
sin to Christ and then punished Him for it (cf. 1 Peter 2:24)…The holy Son of
God who had never known even the most insignificant sin would become sin
– an object of God’s fury’ and that is ‘penal substitution’.
Later in his book
[p218-221] Pastor Macarthur wrote words that could have been specifically
penned to answer Steve Chalke’s denial of ‘penal substitution’.
Pastor MacArthur wrote ‘As Christ hung there, He was bearing the sins of the
world. He was dying as a substitute for others. To Him was imputed the guilt of
their sins and He was suffering the punishment for those sins on their behalf. And
the very essence of that punishment was
the outpouring of God’s wrath against sinners. In some mysterious way during those awful
hours on the cross, the Father poured out the full measure of His wrath against
sin and the recipient of that wrath was God’s own beloved Son! IN THIS
LIES THE TRUE MEANING OF THE CROSS. THOSE WHO TRY TO EXPLAIN THE ATONING WORK
OF CHRIST IN ANY OTHER TERMS INEVITABLY END UP NULLIFYING THE TRUTH OF CHRIST’S
ATONEMENT ALTOGETHER. [EMPHASIS MINE]…God was punishing His own Son as
if He had committed every wicked deed done by every sinner who would ever
believe.
And He did it so that He
could forgive and treat those redeemed ones as if they had lived Christ’s
perfect life of righteousness. Scripture teaches this explicitly: “He made him
who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him”…It was God’s own wrath against sin, God’s own righteousness, and God’s
own sense of justice that Christ satisfied on the cross. The shedding of His
blood was a sin offering rendered to God…when Christ ransomed the elect from
sin (1 Timothy 2:6), the ransom price was paid to God. Christ died in our place
and stead and He received the very same outpouring of divine wrath in all its
fury that we deserved for our sin…The physical pains of crucifixion, dreadful
as they were, were nothing compared to the wrath of the Father against Him…all
our worst fears about the horrors of hell, and more, were realised by Him as He
received the due penalty of other’s wrongdoing”.
Just to conclude this section I want to quote some extracts
from an email I sent to a man that had challenged my articles on Steve Chalke.
This is what I wrote –
Finally you asked – ‘Did
Jesus preach penal substitution’? God’s Word states –
Matthew
16:21 “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his
disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the
third day”
Matthew
26:28 “this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed FOR
many FOR the remission of sins”
John 10:11 “I am the
good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life FOR the sheep”
John
10:14-15 “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am
known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay
down my life FOR the sheep”.
These are only a few of the
MULTITUDE of verses in the gospels where the Lord preached salvation through
His ‘penal substitution’ on behalf of His people – just as the
angel told Joseph in Matthew 1:21 “and thou shalt call his name
JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins”.
BRIAN McLAREN
Moving on to our next ‘enemy of
the cross of Christ’ I will mention briefly someone else that I have
written about at length, someone who is a close friend of Steve Chalke and who,
like him, rejects the truth of ‘penal substitution’ and that person is Brian
McLaren. Altering slightly Steve
Chalke’s expression of ‘cosmic child abuse’ Mr McLaren came up
with the expression ‘divine child abuse’. For a full treatment of
my how I responded to this I would direct readers to the article on this link
http://www.takeheed.net/Assorted_Articles/Emerging_Church/SummerMadnessMcLaren.htm
JEFFREY JOHN
Right at the outset I would state
that this person should not be confused with the ‘evangelist’ known as J John.
Rather the Jeffrey John in question is a ‘gay’ Anglican clergyman
that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams wanted to elevate to be
Bishop of Reading in 2003 but because of opposition was forced to shelve the
plan. Today Jeffrey John is the Dean of St Albans. An informative
article about him and one that is also very revealing where a former Bishop of
Oxford, Richard Harries is concerned can be found on
On BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday 4th
April 2007 during a series of broadcast services for the period of ‘lent’ Jeffrey
John delivered a talk on ‘The God of Wrath’. In the course of his
talk Mr John said –
Crucifixion may or may not be the worst form of
torture in the world, but it had a particular theological significance we
mustn’t miss. As St Paul explains, crucifixion was the method of execution
which, according to the Law, was the special sign of God's ultimate punishment,
his absolute curse: "Cursed be he that hangs upon a tree". On the
cross, says Paul, Jesus took the place of all those who were supposed to be
punished according to the Law. "God made him into sin who knew no
sin". "He became a curse for us". But hang on – you may well say
- what exactly does that mean – ‘Jesus took our place’ ? Does it mean, then,
that we are back with a punishing God after all, and that the Cross is somehow
to be understood as God’s ultimate punishment for sin?
That’s certainly what I was told in my Calvinistic
childhood. The explanation I was given went something like this. God was very
angry with us for our sins, and because he is a just God, our sin had to be
punished. But instead of punishing us he sent his Son, Jesus, as a substitute
to suffer and die in our place. The blood of Jesus paid the price of our sins,
and because of him God stopped being angry with us. In other words, Jesus took
the rap, and we got forgiven, provided we said we believed in him.
Well, I don’t know about you, but even
at the age of ten I thought this explanation was pretty repulsive as well as
nonsensical. What sort
of God was this, getting so angry with the world and the people he created, and
then, to calm himself down, demanding the blood of his own Son? And anyway, why
should God forgive us through punishing somebody else? It was worse than
illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a
psychopath. If any human being behaved like this we’d say they were a monster.
Well, I haven’t changed my mind since. That explanation of the cross just doesn’t work, though sadly it’s one
that’s still all too often preached.
It just doesn’t make sense to talk about a nice Jesus down here, placating the
wrath of a nasty, angry Father God in heaven. Christians believe Jesus is God
incarnate. As he said, ‘Whoever sees me has seen the Father’. Jesus is what God
is: he is the one who shows us God’s nature. And the most basic truth about
God’s nature is that He is Love, not wrath and punishment… The cross,
then, is not about Jesus reconciling an angry God to us
Just like Steve Chalke, Jeffrey
John highlights God’s attribute of ‘love’ to the detriment of His supreme attribute which is ‘holiness’ and in my articles on Steve Chalke I responded to that
error, particularly in my article located on
As for Mr John’s statement ‘The cross, then, is
not about Jesus reconciling an angry God to us’ let me state what God’s Word says about ‘reconciliation’
–
“when we were
enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…we also joy in God,
through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the reconciliation”
[Romans 5:10-11]
“And all things
are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to
us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their tresspasses unto them.. Now then…we
beg you in Christ;s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him, who
knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him” [2nd Corinthians 5:18-21].
The penal
substitutionary death of Christ did most surely
effect gracious and glorious divine reconciliation – it reconciled guilty
sinners to a Holy God who by His very nature is angered by sin.
Michael Wakelin
A year before the Jeffrey
John BBC Radio 4 April 2007 ‘lent’ broadcast,
on Monday 3rd April 2006, another Radio 4 broadcast service, this
time their Daily Service was presented by a Methodist Lay Preacher (and sometime producer of BBC TV’s ‘Songs of Praise) called Michael Wakelin. As a result of what
he said I sent the following letter to the BBC in Manchester –
Louise
Malone
c/o BBC,
PO Box 27
Oxford Road, Manchester
M60
1 SJ
3 April 2006
Dear
Louise,
Radio 4
Daily Service 3 April 2006
I want to thank you for your sympathetic hearing given to my phone call
today concerning the distress caused by the content of today’s ‘Daily
Service’ that was presented by Michael Wakelin. I haven’t had time
as yet to transcribe what Mr Wakelin said but in essence Mr Wakelin basically
advocated the view expressed last year by Steve Chalke
(well-known presenter in times past of BBC TV’s ‘Songs of Praise’ which Mr
Wakelin produces) that when Christ died on the
cross it was not a ‘substitutionary atonement’ nor was it what is
also known as ‘penal substitution’. Steve Chalke blasphemously
labelled such a view as ‘cosmic child abuse’.
Mr Wakelin basically traced this view to John Calvin and to some ‘Protestant Churches’. The reality is that this is not some novel, sectarian view put forward by John Calvin but it is a, if not the, central theme of God’s inspired Word, the Bible. Recently I had some email exchanges with a ‘fan’ of Steve Chalke in response to articles posted on our ministry website called ‘Don’t take your cue from Steve Chalke’. I am enclosing copies of these exchanges (and articles) as they get to the heart of the distress caused by Mr Wakelin’s unbiblical opinions expressed in today’s ‘Daily Service’. My hope is that in a near future ‘Daily Service’ the truth of the Glorious Gospel of Christ as set out clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 (‘substitutionary atonement’) will be proclaimed.
Your servant for Christ
Cecil Andrews
“Take Heed” Ministries
PO Box 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL
I shall not include here all the
email exchanges with the initially anonymous correpsondent that I sent to
Louise Malone but the following final email to Barry will hopefully be helpful
in giving understanding of the Biblical grounds for the glorious doctrine of of
‘Penal Substitution’.
Dear Barry [I do appreciate you
identifying yourself]
You state that you do not find ‘penal substitution’ summed up in Hebrews 9: 26 & 28 – I actually
find that a staggering statement by you. A few verses earlier in verse 22 we read “without shedding of blood is no remission” –
God’s judgment upon lost souls because of their sins cannot be removed by God
unless the suitable sacrificial shed blood of a ‘substitute’ [paying
the death penalty proscribed by God for sin] has been shed for this very
purpose.
The [‘penal substitution’] animal sacrifices of the Old
Testament, as we read for instance in Leviticus
1:1-4, were
only a temporary measure sanctioned by God and were designed to picture the
ultimate and only effective substitutionary, permanent sin-remitting sacrifice
that would be made by Christ at Calvary. That’s why the Lord took the 2 on the
road to Emmaus through the Old Testament and we read what He said to them “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things [‘penal substitution’ as pictured in
the Old Testament] and to enter into
his glory. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them,
in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” [Luke 24:26-27].
Going back to Hebrews, in the following chapter 10 we find a full explanation
of ‘penal substitution’ as
summed up in chapter 9: 26 & 28.
We read verses like these in chapter 10
verse 4 – “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats
should take away sins” verse 10 “And every priest standeth daily ministering
and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins”: [These
verses refer back to the Old Testament animal sacrificial system]. Then in
contrast we read of Christ crucified at Calvary –
verse 12 “But this man, after he
had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of
God...verse 14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that
are sanctified”.
Jesus Christ is God’s
anointed prophet, priest and King. Up to the end of John 16 He has fulfilled the role of ‘prophet’ – bringing God to people
but from John 17 onwards
He moves to His role of ‘priest’, bringing His people to God
and that of necessity involves a propitiatory sacrifice, but not a sacrifice of
some animal that can never permanently remove sins as we already read above,
but rather the sacrifice of Himself. Peter wrote “Christ also hath once suffered for sins [‘penal substitution’] the just for the unjust that he might bring us to
God’ [1Peter 3:18].
According to God’s Word there is no ‘gospel’ if there is no ‘penal substitution’ [see 1
Corinthians 15:1-4]. If
someone denies Christ’s ‘penal
substitution’ then they cannot be believing, as the Bible
teaches, that salvation is by grace alone [not merited on the grounds of any
personal works] through faith alone [‘not of works’] in Christ [‘penal
substitution’] alone.
Steve Chalke is denying that salvation is
found in the substitutionary work of Christ alone – he perceives that
notion or idea as trusting
in ‘cosmic child abuse’
whereas to God it is His “glory” –
that’s what John 17 is
all about. Barry, I am not standing on ‘dangerous
ground’ in asserting this – I am standing on ‘redemption ground’ as many saints
have phrased it.
God’s people likewise “glory” in the saving substitutionary
death of Christ at Calvary when “The
Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all” [Isaiah 53:6] –
we echo Paul who wrote “God forbid that
I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” [Galatains 6:14]. Steve
Chalke does not ‘glory’ alone
in the cross of Christ – he views those who do so as foolishly trusting
in what he views as ‘cosmic child
abuse’.
Paul wrote about such a situation
in 1 Corinthians 1:18 when
he said, “For the preaching of the
cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the
power of God”.
Barry, in your emails you have referred
to ‘one aspect of belief’ –
in this case the biblical truth of ‘penal
substitution’ – and the truth is that this ‘one aspect of belief’ will determine
the eternal destiny of all people – it is no mere side issue! The Apostle
Paul stated in his letter to the Corinthians ‘I determined not to know any thing among you except Jesus Christ [the
believers’ ‘righteousness’]
and him crucified [the
believer’s ‘redemption’].
Commenting on this verse Pastor John MacArthur wrote ‘Though Paul expounded the whole counsel of God to the church [Acts
20:27] and taught the Corinthians the Word of God [Acts 18:11] the focus of his
preaching and teaching to unbelievers was Jesus Christ who paid the
penalty for sin on the cross. Until someone understands and believes the
gospel there is nothing more to say to them’.
Finally you asked – ‘Did Jesus preach penal substitution’?
God’s Word states –
Matthew 16:21 “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his
disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the
third day” Matthew 20:28 “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to
give his life a ransom for many” Matthew 26:28 “this is my blood of the
new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” John 10:11
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” John
10:14-15 “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for
the sheep”.
These are only a few of the MULTITUDE of
verses in the gospels where the Lord preached salvation through His ‘penal substitution’ on behalf of His
people – just as the angel told Joseph in Matthew 1:21
“and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their
sins”.
Barry, as you know I’m in the midst of a
hectic ministry visit by Pastor Gary Gilley so perhaps you will take much time
to reflect upon these matters and if you want to come back to me could I ask
you to leave it until after Gary’s visit ends on 4th April [DV].
Meantime I pray that God will speak
clearly through His Word to your heart and understanding.
Your servant for Christ
Cecil Andrews
‘Take Heed’ Ministries
JOHNSTON McMASTER
On Sunday 12th April 2009 a godly
minister and gifted preacher who is personally known to me stated publicly that
it would be very rare that he would ever get angry and knowing the man I would
accept that as being an honest and accurate statement. He then went on to
‘confess’ that he had become angry on the preceding Friday morning when he had
listened to a ‘Good Friday Meditation’ broadcast on Radio Ulster. He mentioned
no name as to who the speaker had been but I was able to go to the Radio Ulster
web site and listen to the talk titled ‘At The Cross’ that had been given. It had been given by Johnston
McMaster, a Methodist who heads up the Irish School
of Ecumenics in Belfast that is also linked to Trinity College in Dublin. You
can view biographical details for Mr McMaster on http://www.tcd.ie/ise/staff/johnston-mcmaster.php
The Belfast location actually played host
to the talk given on 13th June 2007 by Pete Rollins, who heads up
the ‘Emergent’ grouping in Belfast known as IKON, that I refer to in my article
‘God in the Hands of Angry Sinners’ that can be viewed on
http://www.takeheed.net/Assorted_Articles/Emerging_Church/IKON_REFLECTIONS.htm
In his talk Johnston
McMaster tried, where events at Calvary were
concerned, to paint a scenario that would be familiar to and resonate with
those living in Northern Ireland – he described Jesus as having been a victim
of paramilitarism who, thanks to state collusion, was eventually executed. This
flight of imaginative fantasy would not have been the trigger for my friend’s [and my own] anger but
rather a statement that Mr McMaster then went on to make. To the very best of
my recollection this is what he said – “Christ didn’t die FOR our
sins but BY our sins”. No one can dispute that Christ was
“taken and by wicked hands and was crucified and
slain” [Acts 2:23] – actions that were sinful and for
which Christ prayed for the forgiveness of the perpetrators [see Luke 23:34] so in a sense
Christ did die ‘by our sins’ - but what did Johnston McMaster mean when he said “Christ didn’t die FOR our sins”?
On Wednesday 8th July
2009 I spoke to Johnston McMaster by phone and I asked him for clarification and in particular I asked
him if he subscribed to the penal substitution understanding of Christ’s death on the cross. The short
answer is that he does not accept the penal substitution view of Calvary. He views it as something that St Anselm
came up with about 1000 years after the crucifixion and something that was
centuries later latched onto by John Calvin. I asked Mr McMaster if it was his
view that the Scriptures themselves do not clearly teach penal
substitution, specifically the aspects of propitiation
and expiation, and his response was that these English word translations
do not accurately reflect the original Greek in which the New Testament was
written.
On page 493 of Vine’s Expository
Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words under the heading Propititation
(to appease) we read this – ‘It
is God who is “propitiated” by the vindication of His holy and righteous
character, whereby, through the provision He has made in the vicarious and
expiatory sacrifice of Christ, He has so dealt with sin that He can show mercy
to the believing sinner in the removal of his gilt and the remission of his
sins… it is man who needs to be reconciled to God and not God to man. God is
always the same and, since He Himself is immutable, His relative attitude does
change towards those who change. He can act differently towards those who come
to Him by faith, and solely on the grounds of the “propitiatory” sacrifice of
Christ, not because He has changed, but because He ever acts according to His
unchanging righteousness. The expiatory work of the Cross is therefore the
means whereby the barrier which sin interposes between God and man is broken
down. By the giving up of His sinless life sacrificially Christ annuls the
power of sin to separate between God and the believer.’
For my own fuller treatment of the
propitiatory
and expiatory
elements of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross I would direct
readers to an article I actually wrote on Seventh-day Adventism and it is
located on http://www.takeheed.net/News_From_The_Front/news11.htm
Mr McMaster basically claimed
during our phone conversation that for about 1000 years after the completion of
the New Testament there was no ‘appeal’ to penal
substitution until St Anselm appeared on the
scene. From an article that is located on http://midwestoutreach.org/blogs/losing-sight-of-the-lamb I want to quote this quite lengthy but very enlightening
section –
‘… soon after
the New Testament was complete we find references to Christ’s penal
substitutionary death for us in the writings of Christian leaders. For
example, in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to
Diognetus, the second century author tells us that “when our
unrighteousness was fulfilled, and it had been made perfectly clear that its
wages—punishment and death—were
to be expected, then the season arrived during which God had decided to reveal
at last his goodness and power…” How did God reveal his goodness and power? He
Himself came down from heaven, and “in his mercy he took upon himself our sins; he himself gave up his own
Son as a ransom for us, the
holy one for the lawless, the guiltless for the guilty, ‘the just for the
unjust,’ the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal.”
God the Son, according to the author, was our penal substitute, and he
practically breaks out into song in the middle of writing about it, marvelling,
“O the sweet exchange, O the incomprehensible work of God…!” (Epistle to Diognetus 9:2-5, in Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English
Translations, updated edition, [Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Baker Books,
1999], 547. Emphasis mine.)
During the same century, in chapter 89 of his Dialogue with Trypho, A Jew, by Justin Martyr (a.d.
100-165), Justin’s debate partner makes reference to Deuteronomy 21:23,
which includes the statement, “for everyone that is hanged on a tree is cursed by
God”—in the Greek translation that Justin and his Jewish friend would have
shared in common, the Septuagint (or LXX; cf. The Septuagint Version, Greek and English, [Grand
Rapids, MI, USA: Zondervan Publishing House, reprinted 1977], 260). This
causes an obvious problem for a Jew who is unaccustomed to thinking of the
Messiah as being cursed by God. (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, [Peabody,
MA, USA: Hendrickson Publishers, reprinted 2004], 244).
Justin does not shrink back. In chapters 94 and 95 he assures
Trypho that Christ was not cursed for his own sins, but the fallen human
race had earned God’s curse by breaking God’s law (ibid., 247). And then he summarized the matter by declaring (in
the form of a rhetorical question) that, “…the Father
of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses
of all…” (ibid.). In the context of his dialogue, it is clear that to take our curses upon Himself means that
Christ bore our penalty as our substitute. Justin Martyr assumed that Christ’s
death was a penal substitutionary atonement.
In the first
volume of his Proof of the Gospel,
the early church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265- c. 339) quoted from the prophecy in Isaiah
53:3-8, and then wrote:
In
this he shews that Christ, being apart from all sin, will receive the sins of
men on Himself. And therefore He will suffer the penalty of sinners, and will
be pained on their behalf; and not on His own.
[Proof of the Gospel, W.J. Ferrar, ed., and
trans., Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Baker Book House, reprinted 1981),
113.]
In his second volume he wrote:
And
the Lamb of God not only did this [i.e., shared the woes and labours of
humanity], but was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not
owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became
the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and
transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which
were due to us, and drew on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse
for us.
[Ibid.,
Vol. 2, 195.]
Thus, at the
beginning of the fourth century, the doctrine of penal substitution was still
central to the church’s understanding of Christ’s sacrificial death. And as the
great controversy over Christ’s nature sparked by the heresy of Arius (c. 250-336) heated things up in the first
quarter of the fourth century, Athanasius wasted no time in picking up the
ball. One of the most noticeable things about his famous treatise, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (De incarnatione verbi dei) is how
intertwined and interdependent the doctrines of Christ and salvation were in
his thinking. You can find a very helpful discussion of his view of the
atonement in the recent book, Pierced
for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach (Wheaton, IL,
USA: Crossway Books, 2007), on pages 169-173. The
authors of that book carefully examine Athanasius’s several statements in
chapters 1 through 9 and 21 of Athanasius’s work and also urge their audience
to read chapters 27 through 29, all of which make his understanding of penal
substitution abundantly clear. But I especially appreciate the way that Athanasius picks up the theme discussed earlier by
Justin Martyr, as he does in chapter 25:
But
if any of our own people also inquire, not from love of debate, but from love
of learning, why He suffered death in none other way save on the Cross, let him
also be told that no other way than this was good for us, and that it was well
that the Lord suffered this for our sakes. For if He came Himself to bear the curse laid upon us, how else
could He have “become a curse,” unless He received the death set for a curse? and
that is the Cross. For this is exactly what is written: “Cursed is he that
hangeth on a tree.”
[On the Incarnation of the Word of God 25.2,
in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), 2nd series, Vol. 4, (Peabody, MA, USA: Hendrickson
Publishers, reprinted 2004), 49. Emphasis mine.]
And what was this “curse” that
Christ bore all about? It was
…
because all were under penalty of the
corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all,
and offered it to the Father—doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to
the end that, firstly, all being held to
have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone
(inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s body, and had no longer
holding-ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had
turned toward corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and
quicken them from death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of
the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire.
[On the Incarnation of the Word of God 8.4,
in ibid, 40.]
He died for
us. We died “in Him.” And it was all because we had incurred the curse, which
was the penalty of God’s law, broken by us. Athanasius’s
language here derives unmistakably from Paul’s epistles, and points forward to
the comprehensive, precise formulations of penal substitution that would come
out of the Protestant Reformation some twelve centuries later.
The
resounding affirmations of penal substitution go on and on in the early
church. Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330-c.
390), also called Gregory the Theologian, picks up
the theme of the curse and declares that in taking away
the sin of the world “Christ is also called disobedient on my account”
(”Fourth Theological Oration,”
chap. 5, NPNF, 2nd
series, Vol. 7, 311). Ambrose of Milan (c. 337-397) speaks of the curse Christ
took for us in terms of fulfilling the sentence of death upon us, and
satisfying God’s judgment (Pierced for Our
Transgressions, 174-175).
John Chrysostom (c.
350-407) compares the benefits we receive from Christ’s death to that of
a hypothetical “robber and malefactor” for whom a king allows the guilt of his
crimes to be transferred to his only son, who is then slain in place of
the criminal (”Homilies on Second Corinthians,” 11.6, in Schaff, ed., NPNF, 1st series, Vol. 12, 335).
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) repeatedly declares in no
uncertain terms that the Son of God died “for our offences,” and “bearing our
punishment” (”Against Faustus,” 14.1, in NPNF,
1st series, Vol. 4, 207). Cyril of Alexandria (375-444)
assures Christians that “…we have paid in Christ himself the penalties for the
charges of sin against us…” (Pierced for
Our Transgressions, 180), and Gelasius of
Cyzicus (active around 475) declares that “…he, the Saviour of all, came
and received the punishments which were due us into his sinless flesh, which
was of us, in place of us, and on our behalf” (ibid., 181).
Finally, as
Christians in Western Europe had for some time been viewing the glory days of
Rome through a rear-view mirror, and the dawn of the medieval period was giving
way to its full daylight, Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) wrote of Christ as the
One “…Who, being made incarnate, had no sins of His own, and yet being without
offence took upon Himself the punishment of the carnal” (ibid., 183).
If anything seemed certain in the early church, it was that
Christ bore the penalty for our sins in our place on the cross. If any doctrine
seemed so simple and clear that it did not require a comprehensive and precise
formulation, along with a detailed response to objections, it was the doctrine
of penal substitution’.
To conclude this section I want to
quote two portions of scripture – firstly Luke
24:25-27 - “Then he [Christ] said unto them. O foolish ones, and
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to
have suffered these things [crucifixion –
see verse 20] and to enter his glory. And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, he expounded unto them, in all the scriptures, the things
concerning himself”. Then secondly 1st
Corinthians 15:1-3 – “Moreover
brethren I declared unto you the gospel… By which also ye are saved… that
Christ died FOR our sins according to the scriptures”.
GILES FRASER
On Saturday 11th April
2009 [Easter Saturday] an article by Giles Fraser was
published in The Guardian newspaper and it can be viewed on http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/11/christianity-easter
In the course of that
article Mr Fraser wrote the following – ‘Thinking
about the celebration of Holy Week in my new adopted cathedral [An Anglican Cathedral in
Western Ghana] brings home to me quite how important it is for Christians to insist
upon a non-sacrificial reading of the death of Christ. For too long, Christians
have put up with a theory of salvation that has at its
core the idea that God requires the sacrifice of his own son so that human sin
can be cancelled. "There was no other good enough to pay the price
of sin," we will all sing. The fact this is a
disgusting idea, and morally degenerate, is obvious to all but those
indoctrinated into a very narrow reading of the cross. No, Jesus is not a blood
sacrifice to appease a vicious God. The story is not an endorsement of the idea
that sacrifice brings peace with God but an attack on it’.
Then on this link http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=74030 the following article was published by The Church Times on
24th April 2009.
Giles Fraser: No
tasks left for the risen Jesus
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THIS WEEK it is
900 years since the death of Anselm of Canterbury, arguably most noted for
his invention of the ontological argument, and for putting up the
scaffolding for the theory of penal substitution, only really finished
off by Calvin in the 16th century. Now, while I think
the ontological argument is a pretty harmless parlour game for brain boxes
with too much time on their hands, penal substitution is a very bad
thing indeed. Some Christians get very
worked up by anyone’s having a go at penal substitution. This is
largely, I think, because they confuse this medieval-cum-Reformation reading
of salvation with the gospel itself, and just cannot see that penal
substitution is one reading of the text among others. The basic idea is
that human beings owe God an unpayable debt on account of their sin, and that
Jesus pays off this debt by being nailed up on a cross. To many of us, this
account turns God into a merciless loan shark, deaf to our pleas for
forgiveness. Whatever happened to “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (Hosea
6.6, Matthew 9.13)? Another weakness is that it gives the resurrection nothing to do in the overall scheme of human salvation. If we are saved on the cross, then there is no saving work left for the resurrection to do. Thus it gets sidelined as a spectacular after-party to the main event, which gets wrapped up on Good Friday. That just can’t be
right. Those who insist otherwise might like to take a closer look at
Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo? (“Why
a God-Man?”), where he sets out his understanding of salvation. It is made up
of 47 mini-chapters; all have titles, but not one of them refers to the
resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection hardly merits a mention throughout the
whole book — a book on human salvation. No wonder so many of us find penal
substitution so unconvincing. My views on all this
are mild and moderate compared with some of the things said about penal
substitution by members of the Orthodox Church. Take Dr Alexander Kalimoros’s
celebrated essay on Eastern Orthodox soteriology, The River of Fire, where he insists that “The ‘God’ of the
West is an offended and angry God, full of wrath for the disobedience of
men, who desires in his destructive passion to torment all humanity unto
eternity for their sins, unless he receives an infinite satisfaction for his
offended pride.” This theology, Dr
Kalimoros asserts, is the work of the devil, leading Western Christians to
atheism. That may be a little strong, but it might just wake some people up
to reconsider Anselm’s dubious legacy. Canon Giles Fraser is
Team Rector of Putney, in south London. |
Other than quoting Hebrews
10:12 “But this man [Christ] after he had offered ONE SACRIFICE
for sins” and Ephesians
5:2 “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for
us [on the cross] an offering
and A SACRIFICE to God for a sweet-smelling savour” I do not plan to rehearse again the arguments from scripture for the
truth of the penal substitution of Christ for His people on the Cross of Calvary despite Giles
Fraser labelling that glorious truth as being ‘disgusting’
and ‘morally degenerate’. Rather I want to address the portion highlighted in red
from The Church Times article where Mr Fraser asserts that if penal
susbstitution were true then the resurrection has
no salvation role to play in “the gospel of Christ (that) is the
power of God unto salvation” [Romans 1:16].
The Apostle Paul was very careful
to include the resurrection as a crucial element when he stated the gospel in 1st
Corinthians 15:1-4. Earlier I quoted portions from
the first 3 verses - “Moreover brethren I declared unto you the gospel… By
which also ye are saved… that Christ died FOR our sins according to the
scriptures”. Continuing his detailed outline of
the gospel Paul went on to say in verse 4 “And that
he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the
scriptures”.
The expression “Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures” points us to the sinless life of Christ that made Him worthy to be a
suitable sacrifice for sin, without blemish and without spot [see 1st
Peter 1:19] and also points to His substitutionary/vicarious sufferings on
behalf of His people on the cross.
Geoffrey Wilson in his commentary
on 1st Corinthians writes concerning
this expression on page 214 – ‘Since “our sins” were the
only reason for Christ’s death, this means that he died for us sinners, as the
substitutionary sacrifice through whom we receive the forgiveness of
sins’. Then quoting from ‘Studies in Theology’ by James Denney (p 104) Mr Wilson writes
– ‘In other words, there was no gospel known in the primitive
church, or in any part of it, which had not this as its foundations – that God
forgives our sins because Christ died for them’.
The expression “he
was buried and … he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” confirms that as a sacrificial offering for sin He truly
did die and that 3 days later He truly rose again from the dead. Did the
resurrection have any ‘role’ to play where the penal
substitution aspect of what happened on the
cross is concerned. Contrary to what Giles Fraser asserted it most certainly did. In the lead up to His
crucifixion the Lord instituted a memorial of what He would accomplish on the
cross – it is observed today when His people meet around the Lord’s Table to
observe Communion or The Breaking of Bread. When speaking to His disciples in Matthew
26:28 the Lord spoke in terms that His
substitutionay work on the cross would be “for the
remission of sins”. Through the substitutionary shedding
of His blood He was going to “offer himself without spot to God”
[Hebrews 9:14] and in doing so He would by Himself
“purge our sins” [Hebrews 1:3].
However, how ‘on earth’ were the
followers of Christ to know that His sacrifice on the cross on their behalf, penal
substitution, had been accepted by God the Father
to the extent that He would pardon or
JUSTIFY those for whom Christ died? Concerning the events at Calvary and what
followed Paul wrote in Romans 4:25 “(Jesus)… who was delivered for our offences
[penal substitution] and was
raised again for our justification”.
Commenting on this verse in his
Bible Study notes Pastor John MacArthur wrote – ‘The
resurrection proved that God had accepted the sacrifice of His Son and would be
able to be just and yet justify the ungodly’ [see Romans 3:26].
Charles C Ryrie in his Study Bible
wrote – ‘Christ’s resurrection was because of our justification; i.
e. as a proof of God’s acceptance of His Son’s sacrifice’.
Louis Bekhof in his ‘Systematic
Theology’ wrote on page 520 – ‘In Romans
4:25 we read that Christ was “raised up for (dia, causal, on account of)
our justification” that is, to effect our justification’.
Progressing further through 1st
Corinthians 15 and in the wake of Paul’s outline of the gospel in verses
1-4 the ‘Evangelical
Dictionary of Theology’
on pages 938-939 makes these points on the importance of the
resurrection – ‘Then Paul relates the importance of this event [the resurrection] for if Jesus did not
literally rise from the dead then the entire Christian faith is fallacious (v
14) [‘your faith is also vain’] and
ineffective (v 17) [‘your faith is vain and ye are yet
in your sins’]. Additionally preaching is valueless (v 14) [‘our preaching is vain’] Christian
testimony is false (v 15) [‘we are found
false witnesses of God’] no sins have been forgiven (v 17) [‘ye are yet in your sins’] and
believers have perished without any Christian hope (v 18) [‘they also who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished’]. The
conclusion is that, apart from this event [the resurrection] Christians are the most miserable
of all people (v 19) [‘If in this life only we have hope
in Christ we are of all men most miserable’].
The assertion by Giles
Fraser that penal
substitution basically renders the resurrection
of Christ as being without value and meaning is just not sustainable in the
light of the witness of God’s Word to the infinite and eternal value and
meaning of the resurrection for God’s people. I began this section by referring
to the article by Giles Fraser that was
published in The Guardian newspaper of 11th April 2009. I shall
conclude this section by quoting a large portion of a response to it by Dr Ian
Paisley that was published shortly afterwards in the British Church Newspaper –
The Atrocious Blasphemy!
by the Rt. Hon. the Rev. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley MP, MLA
“What vicious God would demand Jesus
sacrificed for our sins? We should ditch this view of Easter!” – Giles Fraser, the Church of England Vicar of
Putney, writing in The Guardian,
Saturday 11th April 2009.
Who would have thought that
The Guardian, and its religious
commentator Giles Fraser, would print such a hellish slander on the death of
our Lord Jesus Christ. The Cross is God’s answer to man’s sin. The whole
history of man’s battle with sin is the sad story of the success of man’s sin
and the damnation of man’s soul. Man is the great victim of his own sin and
sinning. Man is helpless in view of the power of his sinning. ‘Sin’, the Word
of God declares, ‘entered into the world and death by sin.’ Sin is the great
killer. Sin is the conqueror of all men. Sin reigns unto death. Where sin is,
the death-knell rings for all mankind. Death is the finality of sin. When man
sins, that act of sin breeds other sins. One sin condemns the sinner for ever.
It is impossible for the sinner to free himself from sin. There is absolutely
no self-salvation. There is no salvation by self-effort. Man is completely
under the dominion of sin. He is imprisoned in the arms of the great Suicide. The only lock-breaker of the prison-house of
sin is the Cross of Christ.
What an outrageous
blasphemy, that any man should write that which the Vicar of Putney has
written. Remember, his words are from the lips of a so-called Protestant
clergyman. To libel God Almighty as a ‘vicious God’ because He sacrificed His
only Son on the Cross to make possible the freeing of sinners from the
damnation of sin and hell, is the language of Satan’s vocabulary. To blaspheme
God because God the Father demanded the payment of the ransom in order that
sinners can be justified by faith alone in Christ alone is to rake in the
debris of hell. This is hell at its work. The fact that the pen of a Protestant
clergyman is the instrument employed is the twilight of a lost soul. The whole
message of the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus is that He came into the world
to save sinners. There was a debt to be paid. There were sins to be erased.
There was a ransom to be paid. There was a redemption to be accomplished. There
was a law to be honoured. There were lost souls to be loved and saved. There
was a payment of the price of salvation to be procured for the sinner, without
money and without price. There was God’s love to be exalted and His grace to be
eternally glorified. There was the vindication of the Almighty to be attained.
There was precious blood to be shed. To decry these objectives is the howling
of the beasts of hell’s pit, and the roaring of the Devil himself.
Further evidence of just how
‘spiritually lost’ Giles Fraser is
appeared in a Telegraph report that can be viewed on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5744559/Change-and-repent-bishop-tells-gays.html
The report focussed on
comments by the soon retiring Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali. In an
interview for the Sunday Telegraph timed to coincide with the ‘Gay Pride’
parade through London Dr Nazir-Ali reportedly said, “"We welcome homosexuals, we don’t want to exclude people, but we want
them to repent and be changed… The Bible’s teaching shows that marriage is
between a man and a woman. That is the way to express our sexual nature… We
want to uphold the traditional teaching of the Bible. We believe that God has
revealed his purpose about how we are made. People who depart from this don’t
share the same faith. They are acting in a way that is not normative according
to what God has revealed in the Bible. "
In the
article, reported comments by Giles Fraser made it clear that he does
not share the ‘same faith’ as Dr Nazir-Ali. The article stated, The
Rev Dr Giles Fraser, the president of the Inclusive Church, a liberal grouping
in the Church of England, said: "Homosexuality is
not a sin. It is the way many people love each other and is a gift from God.
Ordinary people in the pews know this. And they are a lot more theologically
aware than the handful of narrow- minded bishops who want to play politics with
the Anglican Communion."
In
closing I will paraphrase part of what Dr Paisley wrote earlier – ‘What an
outrageous blasphemy that any man should say that which the Vicar of Putney has said.’
BRENNAN MANNING
In December 2006 I received an
email from Lighthouse Trails Publishing in the USA and in it they stated the
following –
“Some leading contemplative proponents
say that a loving God would not send His son to a violent death on a Cross. Brennan
Manning, in his book Above All states:
The god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist (p. 58).
Although Manning
takes credit for penning these words, they are actually the words of
panentheist mystic, William Shannon, from his book Silence on Fire,
who wrote them several years ago. Shannon stated:
He is the God who exacts the last drop of blood from His Son, so
that His just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased ... This God does not
exist. This is not the God whom Jesus Christ reveals to us" (p. 110).
What are the
implications of Shannon's statement? [a statement clearly endorsed by Manning] Basically, making someone suffer a violent death to save others is
not something a loving God would do”.
So, just who is Brennan
Manning? From the first biographical article listed on this link http://unjobs.org/authors/brennan-manning
here are some enlightening extracts –
Brennan Manning Biography
In the
springtime of Depression-era New York City, Brennan Manning -- christened
Richard Francis Xavier -- was born to Emmett and Amy Manning. He grew up in
Brooklyn along with his brother, Robert, and sister, Geraldine. After
graduating from high school and attending St. John's University (Queens, NY)
for two years, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and was sent overseas to
fight in the Korean War.
Upon his
return, Brennan began a program in journalism at the University of Missouri.
But he departed after a semester, restlessly searching for something
"more" in life. "Maybe the something 'more' is God," an
advisor had suggested, triggering Brennan's enrollment in a Catholic seminary
in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
In
February 1956, while Brennan was meditating on the Stations of the Cross, a
powerful experience of the personal love of Jesus Christ sealed the call of God
on his life. "At that moment," he later recalled,
"the entire Christian life became for me an intimate, heartfelt
relationship with Jesus." Four years later, he graduated from St. Francis
College (major in philosophy; minor in Latin) I and went on to complete four
years of advanced studies in theology. May 1963 marked his graduation from St.
Francis Seminary and ordination to the Franciscan priesthood…
A two-year
leave of absence from the Franciscans took Brennan to Spain in the late
sixties. He joined the Little Brothers of Jesus of
Charles de Foucauld, an Order committed to an uncloistered, contemplative life
among the poor -- a lifestyle of days spent in manual labor and nights
wrapped in silence and prayer. Among his many and varied assignments, Brennan
became an aguador (water carrier), transporting water to rural villages via
donkey and buckboard; a mason's assistant, shoveling mud and straw in the
blazing Spanish heat; a dishwasher in France; a voluntary prisoner in a Swiss
jail, his identity as a priest known only to the warden; a solitary contemplative secluded in a remote cave for six
months in the Zaragoza desert. During his retreat in the isolated cave, Brennan
was once again powerfully convicted by the revelation of God's love in the
crucified Christ. [Cecil –
keeping in mind what happened to Mohammed when he secluded himself in a cave
outside Mecca we can see that such isolation can lead to ‘dark’ spiritual
encounters]
…The early seventies found Brennan back in the U.S. as he and
four other priests established an experimental community in the bustling
seaport city of Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Seeking to model the primitive
life of the Franciscans, the fathers settled in a house on Mississippi Bay and
quietly went to work on shrimp boats, ministering to the shrimpers and their
families who had drifted out of reach from the church. Next to the community
house was a chapel that had been destroyed by Hurricane Camille. The fathers
restored it and offered a Friday night liturgy and social event, which soon
became a popular gathering and precipitated many families' return to engagement
in the local [Roman Catholic] church.
From Alabama, Brennan moved to Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida in the mid-seventies and resumed campus ministry at Broward
Community College. His successful ministry was harshly interrupted, however,
when he suffered a precipitate collapse into alcoholism. Six months of
treatment, culminating at the Hazelden treatment center in Minnesota, restored
his health and placed him on the road to recovery. It was at this point in his
life that Brennan began writing in earnest. One book soon followed upon another
as invitations for him to speak and to lead spiritual retreats multiplied
exponentially. Today, Brennan travels widely as he continues to write and
preach, encouraging men and women everywhere to accept and embrace the good
news of God's unconditional love in Jesus Christ. His publications include:
Above
All
Abba's
Child
A Glimpse of
Jesus: Stranger to Self Hatred
Journey
of the Prodigal
The Wisdom
of Tenderness
Ruthless
Trust: The Way of the Ragamuffin
The
Boy Who Cried Abba: A Parable of Trust and Acceptance
Lion
and Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus
Signature
of Jesus
The
Ragamuffin Gospel
Reflections
for Ragamuffins: A Daily Devotional
Posers,
Fakers and Wannabes
The Rabbi's
Heartbeat
The
Importance of Being Foolish
Back in 2001 I hosted a ministry
visit by 2 former Roman Catholics, Rob Zins and Mike Gendron. Mike wrote a very
helpful article analysing the teachings of Mr Manning and also telling of
several personal encounters he had with Brennan Manning in. This is the
article as found on http://www.reachingcatholics.org/beware.html
|
Beware of Wolves in Sheep's
Clothing |
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The Lord Jesus Christ warned His followers, "Beware
of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are
ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15). The warning was important because Jesus later
said to them: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves;
therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16).
The apostle Paul, with a deeply troubled spirit and in tears, penned a
similar warning: "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come
in among you, not sparing the flock" (Acts 20:29). Throughout church
history these warnings concerning professing Christians who deceive even the
elect have seldom been taken seriously. How can the church be so easily
deceived? According to Webster’s Dictionary "deceive" means
"to lead astray or to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or
invalid." Could it be the church has not only lost its ability to
discern truth from error but also to discern wolves from sheep? Consider Brennan Manning, an inactive Roman Catholic priest,
who has some obvious characteristics of a "wolf," yet goes mostly
undetected. In the last ten years, he has become a popular speaker in many
"evangelical" churches. Manning was ordained to the Franciscan
priesthood after graduating from St. Francis Seminary in 1963. Later he was
theology instructor at the University of Steubenville (a Catholic
seminary and catalyst for Mary to be named co-redeemer). After being
treated for alcoholism and leaving the Franciscan Order in 1982, he married
Roslyn Ann Walker. The marriage has since ended in divorce but his popularity
as a writer and speaker continues to grow despite his proclamation of
"another" gospel. The teachings of Manning are charming, seductive, cunning
and dangerous as he takes advantage of his undiscerning audiences. He
teaches that you can overcome fear, guilt and psychological hang-ups, even
alcoholism, through meditation. His meditation techniques are drawn from a
mixture of eastern mysticism, psychology, the New Age Movement and
Catholicism. Manning gives the impression that he has a very intimate
relationship with God and reports having many visions, encounters and conversations
with Him. He assures his audiences that if they apply his teachings, they too
can become more intimate with God. I first met Manning at the Christian Booksellers
Association in New Orleans last summer. As he was signing autographs for his
book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, I asked
him if his "ragamuffin gospel" followed the Catholic plan of
salvation or the biblical plan of salvation. He responded, "Read it and
find out for yourself." Still trying to gain insight into his theology,
I gave him a tract I had written called Roman Catholicism: Scripture vs.
Tradition and asked for his comments. After looking at it for a couple of
minutes he tore it into pieces and threw it in the trash. The next
time I saw Manning was January 21st at Hillcrest Church, a growing
congregation of over 5,000 members in north Dallas. Manning’s message was
about our need for a second conversion, a conversion that can only take place
when one overcomes self-rejection and gains esteem through self-acceptance.
How contradictory were his words with the words of Christ! "If anyone
wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily,
and follow Me" (Luke 9:23). After the service I asked two elders of
Hillcrest Church how they could allow a Roman Catholic priest speak to their
congregation. Their response "we welcome everyone who loves God"
was a fulfilment of Paul’s prophetic words: "For the time will come when
they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled,
they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own
desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to
myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). All
Mankind is Redeemed As with
many such teachers who gain popularity by tickling ears, Manning overemphasizes
the love and grace of God while ignoring His attributes of justice,
righteousness and holiness. He teaches that Jesus has redeemed all of
mankind. His "good news" is that everyone
is already saved. Among those Manning believes he will see in heaven is
"the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his
body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last ‘trick’
whispers the name of the unknown God."[1] Manning’s
theology opposes God’s word again and again: "those who practice
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:21).
"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John
3:36). Accordingly, the only faith Manning thinks sinners need is to
"trust the love of God." This is a
major theme of The Ragamuffin Gospel, "trusting the love of
God," because God loves you no matter what you do. There is no call to
sanctification or holiness. Instead Manning excuses sin as human weakness
that God will tolerate regardless of whether the sinner is repentant or not.
In saying this, Manning has turned "the grace of our God into
licentiousness" (Jude 4). He writes: "False gods, the gods of human
understanding, despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter
what they do. But of course this is almost too incredible for us to
accept." [2] Yes, too incredible because it violates God’s word:
"Thou dost hate all who do iniquity" (Psalm 5:5). Stop
Thinking About God In The
Signature of Jesus, another one of Manning’s books, he teaches his
readers how to pray, using an eight-word mantra. [3] He says, "the first
step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer" (p.
212). The second step is "without moving your lips, repeat the sacred
word [or phrase] inwardly, slowly, and often." If distractions come,
"simply return to listening to your sacred word" (p. 218). He also
encourages his readers to "celebrate the darkness" because "the
ego has to break; and this breaking is like entering into a great
darkness" (p. 145). Jesus said, "He who follows me shall not walk
in the darkness" (John 8:12). The
Spirit of Antichrist Manning
often cites Catholic saints, humanist philosophers, heretics, monks and
medieval mystics. Some of the monks he quotes maintain that salvation is
really a transformation of consciousness to be awakened to the oneness of all
creation. Possibly the most dangerous practice and
teaching of Manning is his New Age mind-emptying method of meditation. This
is an open invitation to satanic activity. Many of the expressions and
techniques Manning employs in The Signature of Jesus are not found in
the Scriptures such as: centering prayer, paschal spirituality, the
discipline of the secret, contemplative spirituality, mineralization,
practicing the presence, inner integration, yielding to the Center, notional
knowledge, contemporary spiritual masters and masters of the interior life.
Extra-biblical spiritual practices can only produce confusion. They originate
from the father of lies in whom there is no truth. What
a contrast Manning is to the way Paul described the first century teachers.
He said: "We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use
deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting
forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the
sight of God." (2 Corinthians 4:2) Manning
rarely uses Scripture and shows his disdain for those who do and for those
who believe "The Word was God" (John 1:1). He writes: "I am
deeply distressed by what I only can call in our Christian culture the
idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer
to God but God himself. In a word “bibliolatry.” I develop a nasty rash around
people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how
God thinks and precisely what God wants" (p. 188). He criticized several
churches he visited, where "religiosity has pushed Jesus to the margins
of real life and plunged people into preoccupation with their own personal
salvation" (p. 193). Although Manning believes and teaches the life,
death, and resurrection of Christ, The Signature of Jesus is not a
guide to follow Jesus, but to follow "the masters of the interior
life." Paul wrote, "For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ
but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they
deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting" (Romans 16:18). Manning
reinterprets some of the most essential biblical truths in the light of
psychological healing. He looks upon "human nature as fallen but
redeemed, flawed but in essence good" (p. 125). His
instruction to meditate on nothingness instead of God’s Word is an exercise
of modern occultism. This practice invites demonic influence and contact with
the spirit world. Manning’s Catholic mysticism has no place in the
true Church of Jesus Christ. Christian leaders should warn others about Manning
and all "deceitful workers who masquerade as apostles of Christ" (2
Corinthians 11:13). They must be exposed (Ephesians 5:11). We all live in
days of great deception. May God give His church the gift of discernment as
we take Paul’s warning seriously: "See to it that no one takes you
captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of
men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than
according to Christ" (Colossians 2:8). End
Notes 1. Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel,
Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1990, page 33. |
I began this section with a quote
from Manning’s book Above All – a quote that rejects the truth of penal
substitution. A further detailed and very helpful analysis of the life and
ministry of Brennan Manning is found on David Cloud’s Way of Life
ministry website. By way of concluding this section, herewith is a portion of
the article on http://www.wayoflife.org/files/9ad06042d49138696773e1f9849f1aff-144.html
where David Cloud quotes what Mr Manning wrote and then responds with
biblical truths that refute Mr Manning’s views –
MANNING DENIES THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST
He writes:
“[T]he god whose moods alternate between graciousness and fierce anger ... the
god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger,
evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ.
And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist” (Brennan Manning, Above All, p. 58-59; the foreword to this
book is written by CCM artist Michael W. Smith).
Manning boldly states that the God that required a blood sacrifice is an idol,
but throughout the Old Testament we are taught that “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul”
(Leviticus 17:11) and “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews
9:22). Jesus Christ fulfilled all of the Old Testament blood sacrifices when He
came and died on Calvary. John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of
the world” (John 1:29). Hebrews says: “Neither by the blood of
goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12).
In reality, it is Manning’s god of unconditional love that is the nonexistent
idol.
WILLIAM PAUL YOUNG author of ‘THE SHACK’
On the blog site of a David
Westerfield on this link http://www.davidwesterfield.net/2009/03/shack-author-william-p-young-denies-penal-substitution-mp3/
there is a very frank posting concerning the denial of penal
substitution by William Paul Young, the author of the very
successful book ‘The Shack’ – a book that has been misguidedly
promoted in professing Christian circles.
The following are I believe very
helpful sections from that posting –
‘In
the interview, Young has specifically rejected penal substitutionary atonement,
the very heart of the Gospel we proclaim, that Christ, as our substitute, took
our place on the cross, willingly bearing God’s just wrath for our sins. And in
the interview, even before he denies this crucial, crux-point of the Gospel, he
clearly demonstrates to possess a flawed view of the justice and holiness of
God, which necessarily affects his view of wrath, which is then necessarily
going to affect his view of the atonement.
At
the end of the interview, in contrast to the interviewers’ recommendation of
the book Pierced For Our
Transgressions, Young recommends a book on atonement theory
that includes some of the most prominent, Gospel-rejecting scholars of our day
entitled, Stricken by God? Nonviolent
Identification & the Victory of Christ After looking at the
site for this book, I can’t help but think that all the questions that are
asked sound oddly familiar to the Garden of Eden in which Satan asks of Eve,
“Hath God said?”…
Based
on this interview, with these presuppositions in place, it is clear Young has
intentionally sought to paint a picture of God in the book that is contrary to
how He has clearly revealed Himself to us in His Word. Sure, Young believes
it’s Biblical, but under close scrutiny, it clearly is not. And so goes
post-modern theology, where you are the standard-bearer, not the Scriptures.
And on this point of penal substitution in particular, his distorted view is at
the very least passively (if not actively) implied at various points in the
book based upon his own words in the interview.
If
Christ did not substitute Himself for sinners, taking the Father’s just wrath
upon Himself on our behalf, in our place,
then what in the world is the good news of the Gospel? That God merely loved us
enough to die on the cross, non-violence triumphing over violence, without any
regard to God’s own Name, glory and honor being smeared by sin, justice due to
that sin, and Christ Himself satisfying divine wrath? That is the (theological)
liberal’s gospel, not the evangelical Gospel. Or did Christ rather come to
effectually accomplish something, namely the assuaging of God’s wrath in our
place, i.e. propitiation? Young’s view of the Gospel is severely distorted and
frankly dead wrong because of this denial…
And
this is what I do not like about fad-driven Christianity in evangelicalism in
America: we accept and market a product (in this case The Shack) based primarily on emotions first, because it “feels” right and may
be a good story, and only after that will we analyse it in a constructively
critical manner based upon the Word of God. Shouldn’t we be doing this the other
way around, while doing our best to be kind and generous to all with whom we
disagree?… I want to remind us all that many of those who have gone before us
in church history have died, given their lives, over doctrine. These are not
unimportant things. Heresy is called heresy for a reason, because those who
believe heretical doctrines result in them being condemned, because though they
confess Christ with their lips, they disbelieve the Biblical Gospel in their
hearts… the point is that those who deny orthodox doctrine, particularly the
heart of the Gospel itself, and outright deny the central “offence” of the
cross spoken of by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, can have no assurance they are
saved from God’s wrath and may even rest under it now… And I would like to add
that this severely grieves my heart.
Whilst I do not know David
Westefield personally, Pastor Gary Gilley most certainly is personally known to
me, as he was my guest here for a series of meetings back in March/April 2006.
On his church web site Gary has an extensive section on ‘Book Reviews’ and one
of the books reviewed by him is ‘The Shack’ and I want to conclude this
section by reproducing his review that can be located on
http://www.svchapel.org/resources/articles/22-contemporary-issues/536-the-shack-a-book-review
|
The Shack - A
Book Review |
|
|
|
Written by Gary Gilley |
|
(September 2008 - Volume 14, Issue 9) One
of the most popular and controversial Christian books of recent years is the
fictional work by first time author William Young. Evangelical recording
artist Michael W. Smith states, “The
Shack will leave you craving for the presence of God.” Author
Eugene Peterson believes “this book has the potential to do for our
generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progress did for his. It’s that good!” On the other hand,
seminary president Al Mohler says the book “includes undiluted heresy” and
many concur. Given its popularity (number one on the New York Times bestseller list for
paperback fiction), influence and mixed reviews, we need to take a careful
look. Good
Christian fiction has the ability to get across a message in an indirect,
non-threatening yet powerful, way. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is the most successful in the genre and
has been mightily used of the Lord to teach spiritual truth. What determines the value of fiction is how closely it adheres
to Scripture. It is by these criteria that we must measure The Shack. As a
novel, while well written, its storyline is not one that would attract many
people. The plot is developed around the abduction and murder of six year old
Missy, beloved daughter of nominal Christian Mackenzie Philips (Mack). This
great tragedy has, of course, shaped the lives of Mack and his family in
horrific ways. Mack’s life is simply described as living under “The Great
Sadness.” Then one day four years later God drops Mack a note in his mailbox
and invites him to the isolated shack where Missy was murdered. Obviously
sceptical, Mack takes a chance that God might really show up and heads alone
to the shack. There God, in the form of all three members of the Trinity,
meets with him for the weekend. God gives Mack new insight about Himself,
about life and about pain and tragedy and Mack goes home a new man. It
should be mentioned that the Trinity takes human form in the novel: the
Father (called Papa throughout) appears as a large African-American woman who
loves to cook; the Holy Spirit is called Sarayu (Sanskrit for air or wind)
and is a small Asian woman who is translucent; and Jesus is a middle-age man,
presumably of Jewish descent, who is a carpenter. Much interesting dialog
takes place as members of the Trinity take turns explaining to Mack what they
want him to know. The Shack, like many books today, decries
theology on the one hand while offering its own brand on the other. A story has the advantage of putting forth
doctrine in a livelier manner than a systematic work can do—which is why we
find most of Scripture in narrative form. The
question is, does Young’s theology agree with God’s as revealed in Scripture?
The short answer is “sometimes” but often Young totally misses the mark. Scripture and the Church Young’s
message centres on the Trinity and salvation, but before we tackle Young’s
main objective it is significant that he has a couple of axes to grind
concerning the Bible and the church. Young passionately rejects the
cessationist view of Scripture which his character Mack was taught in
seminary: “In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any
overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and
follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had
been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered
by the proper authorities and intellects…Nobody wanted God in a box, just in
a book” (pp. 65-66). Young would prefer a God who communicates with us in our
thoughts rather than on paper (i.e. the Bible) (p. 195). Realizing the
subjectivity of such revelation he assures us that we will “begin to better
recognize [the Holy Spirit’s] voice as we continue to grow our relationship”
(p. 196). Scripture comes in second to inner voices in Young’s theology.
Scripture puts God in a box; inner voices make God alive and fresh. This is
what Young wants to convey. Young
also has little good to say about the church or other related institutions.
While Mack had attended seminary, “none of his training was helping in the
least” (p. 91) when it came to understanding God. He consistently depicts the
activity of the church in a negative light: Mack is pretty sure he hasn’t met
the church Jesus loves (p. 177), which is all about relationships, “not a
bunch of exhausting work and long list of demands, and not sitting in endless
meetings staring at the backs of people’s heads, people he really didn’t even
know” (p. 178). Sunday school (p. 98) and family devotions (p. 107) both take
hits as well. Systematic theology itself takes a post-modern broadside as the
Holy Spirit says, “I have a great fondness for uncertainty” (p. 203). While
Scripture does not place such words in the mouth of the Holy Spirit, Young’s
love for uncertainty becomes frustratingly clear as he outlines his concept
of salvation. Salvation When
Mack asks how he can be part of the church, Jesus replies, “It’s simple Mack,
it’s all about relationships and simply sharing life” (p. 178). On an earlier
occasion Jesus tells Mack that he can get out of his mess “by re-turning. By turning back to me. By
giving up your ways of power and manipulation and just come back to me” (p.
147). Yet nowhere in The Shack
is the reader given a clear understanding of the gospel. When Mack asks what
Jesus accomplished by dying he is told, “Through his death and resurrection,
I am now fully reconciled to the world.” When pressed to explain, God says
that He is reconciled to “the whole world,” not just the believer (p. 192).
Does this mean that all will be saved? Young never goes that far, however he
certainly gives that impression when Mack’s father (who was an awful man and
showed no signs of being saved) is found in heaven (pp. 214-215), when God
says repeatedly He is particularly fond of all people, when God claims that
He has forgiven all sins against Him (e.g. 118-119), that He does not “do
humiliation, or guilt, or condemnation” (p. 223) and, contrary to large hunks
of Scripture, God is not a God of judgment. “I don’t need to punish people
for sin, sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not
my purpose to punish it; it’s my job to cure it” (p. 120). While Young’s
comment has some validity it does not faithfully reflect the teaching of
Scripture, which portray God as actively involved in the punishment of sin. Young
further muddies the waters as he has Jesus reply to Mack’s question, “Is that
what it means to be a Christian?” Jesus says, “Who said anything about being
a Christian? I’m not a Christian…Those who love me come from every system
that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrat,
Republicans and many who don’t vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or
religious institutions…I have no desire to make them Christians, but I do
want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa,
into my brothers and sisters, into my beloved.” With Mack we are confused.
“Does that mean,” asks Mack, “that all roads will lead to you?” Jesus denies
this but then says, “What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find
you” (p. 182). Jesus apparently means that He will travel any road to “join
them in their transformation.” The implication is that people are on many
roads that lead to their self-transformation. Jesus will join people where
they are on that road and apparently aid in that transformation. This is
certainly not the teaching of Scripture, which tells us that we must come to
the one road, the narrow way that leads to God through Jesus Christ. The Godhead The
main thrust of the novel concerns itself with an understanding of God and how
we are to be in relationship to Him. As already noted, the method by which
mankind comes into the right relationship with God is cloudy at best in The Shack. Young’s Trinity is equally
confusing. The author does not develop his understanding of God exclusively
from Scripture and, in fact, often contradicts biblical teaching. The first
issue is that of imagining and presenting human forms for the members of the
Trinity. While some slack might be given for Young’s portrait of Jesus, who
came in human form (although we don’t know what He looks like), the first two
of the Ten Commandments would forbid us depicting the Father or the Holy
Spirit in physical form. When we create an image of God in our imagination we
then attempt to relate to that image—which is inevitably a false one. This is
the essence of idolatry and is forbidden in the Word. Further,
the portrayal of God throughout the novel is one which humanizes Him rather
than exalts Him. Young quotes Jacques Ellul, “No matter what God’s power may
be, the first aspect of God is never that of absolute Master, the Almighty.
It is that of the God who puts Himself on our human level and limits Himself”
(p. 88). Really? This quote is in contradiction to the entirety of biblical
revelation which first and often declares God to be absolute Master, yet in
no way mitigates the incarnation, as Young and Ellul are trying to claim. Young
further humanizes God and contradicts Scripture by teaching that all the
members of the Trinity took human form at the incarnation: “When we three
spoke ourself into human existence as the Son of God, we became fully human”
(p. 99). Is Young advocating modalism (an ancient heresy which teaches that
the Trinity is not composed of three distinct members but three distinct
modes in which God appears throughout human history)? If not, it is
abundantly clear that Young believes that the Father died on the cross with
the Son and bears the marks of the cross to this day (pp. 95-95, 164). He
does not believe that the Father abandoned Jesus on the cross as Scripture
declares (p. 96). And any concept of authority and submission in the Godhead
is denied (pp. 122, 145), although 1
Cor. 11:1-3 is clear that such authority/submission exists. More than
that, God submits to us as
well (p. 145). By the end of the book God is reduced to being our servant as
we are His (it’s all about relationships, not authority) (pp. 236-237). The
very essence of God is challenged when Young, quoting from Unitarian
Universalist, Buckminster Fuller, declares God to be a verb not a noun (pp.
194, 204). In a related statement, Young has Jesus say of the Holy Spirit,
“She is Creativity; she is Action; she is Breathing of Life” (p. 110). Yet
the Bible presents God as a person (noun) not an action (verb). When this
truth is denied we are moving from the biblical understanding of a personal
God to an Eastern understanding of God in everything.[1] Thus, we are not surprised when Mack asks the Holy
Spirit if he will see her again he is told, “Of course, you might see me in a
piece of art, or music, or silence, or through people, or in creation, or in
your joy and sorrow” (p. 198). This is not biblical teaching. This idea seems
repeated in a line from a song Missy creates, “Come kiss me wind and take my
breath till you and I are one” (p. 233). At what point do we become one with
creation? Again, this is an Eastern concept, not a biblical one. Young
reinforces his Eastern leanings with a statement right out of New Age (New
Spirituality) teachings: Papa tells Mack, “Just say it out loud. There is
power in what my children declare” (p. 227). Ronda Byrne would echo this idea
in her book, The Secret, but you will not find it in the
Bible. Further, we are told Jesus “as a human being, had no power within
himself to heal anyone” (p. 100). So how did he do so? By trusting in the
Holy Spirit. Jesus, the Spirit says, “is just the first to do it to the
uttermost—the first to absolutely trust my life within him…” (p. 100). There
is enough truth here to be confusing but not accurate. Jesus, never ceasing
to be fully God, had all Divine power dwelling within Him. That He chose to
limit His use of that power and rely on the Holy Spirit while on earth in no
way diminishes His essence. While
Jesus is our example He is not a guru blazing a trail in which in this life
we too can be like God. This idea smacks of New Age teaching, not Scripture.
Jesus even tells Mack that “God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in,
around, and through all things—ultimately emerging as the real” (p. 112).
This is pure New Age spirituality. The Shack, while occasionally getting
things right is, in the end, a dangerous piece of fiction. It undermines
Scripture and the church, presents at best a mutilated gospel, misrepresents
the biblical teachings concerning the Godhead and offers a New Age
understanding of God and the universe. This is not a great novel to explain
tragedy and pain. It is a misleading work which will confuse many and lead
others astray. [1] God IN everything is known as panentheism—an Eastern
belief akin to pantheism which teaches that God IS everything. In reality
there is very little difference between the two. |
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
For those who have managed
patiently to work their way through this article I want now to conclude by
sharing some devotional thoughts by Pastor John MacArthur that emphasise the
vital need for believers to exercise biblical discernment when it comes to
those who are clearly promoting false teaching. They are taken from his book ‘Daily
Readings from the Life of Christ’ – and relate to thoughts for 4th
& 5th July when Pastor MacArthur considers Matthew
7:18-20 “A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit neither can a corrupt tree
bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn
down and cat into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them”. Pastor
Mac Arthur wrote –
‘Careful examination of a
false prophet’s teachings will always reveal unscriptural ideas and an absence
of a solid, coherent theology. Often he will teach a combination of truth and
error… The creed of the false prophet cannot withstand any careful scrutiny by
the pure light of the Word… False shepherds talk much about God’s love but not
His wrath and holiness… much about God’s universal fatherhood toward everyone
but not much about His unique fatherhood toward all who believe in His Son…
Their message is full of gaps, the greatest of which leaves out a biblical view
of the saving gospel…
We can spot false prophets
by the kind of people they attract… “many shall follow their pernicious ways,
by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” [2nd
Peter 2:2]… God has not ordained false prophets, but within His will He allows
them to exist. And it is within His purpose that false factions develop…
Factions often attract followers of false teachers. And in a sense this
protects genuine saints by separating the chaff from the wheat in the church… A
watchful, discerning, vigilant believer, armed with the Word of truth, will be
able to isolate false teachers and withdraw from them because he or she “shall
know them by their fruits”.
Those headlined and highlighted in
this article, by their rejection of penal substitution, are
producing a harvest of “bad fruit” and show themselves to be “the
enemies of the cross of Christ” [Philippians 3:18]. A line in the sand has
been drawn when it comes to penal substitution and according to God’s
Word, the side of the line on which people take their stand, indicates whether
they are “natural” [unregenerate – see 1st Corinthians 2:14] or “spiritual”
[regenerate and so able to judge in the light of God’s Word – see 1st
Corinthians 2:15].
Those in heaven sing a new song – “Thou
[Christ] art worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals;
for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” [Revelation 5:9].
This song focussing firmly on Christ’s penal substitution echoes
the praise of the beloved disciple John that is recorded earlier in Revelation
1:5 “Unto him [Christ] that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own
blood”. Such praise in heaven could not and will not come from the
lips of those who reject penal substitution – let any such, as might
read this article, “take heed”.
Cecil
Andrews – ‘Take Heed’ Ministries – 10th July 2009