Is Error in Doctrine Always Sin?

At the risk of sounding snide: you brethren walk the dog by its tail, and marveling that the going is so tough. No, the puppy will not learn to like it!

Division DIVIDES, wonder of wonders!

I see brethren here, articulately engaging in endless debate and discussion, and with much self-congratulation (one brother put it well; largely just opinions) regarding tributary issues, while LIVING the very sin that lies at the root of the subject issue.

That sin is denominationalism, born of human pride and obstinacy; lack of humility and teachability. Augustine was right and Pelagius wrong about soteriology; the Bible is not muddy on the issue. But because Augustine was wrong on other things, later Christians have been able to choose the opposing side and gloat, in unbiblical practice.

One sees this at high-school “pep rallies” that are so common in the government schools. One sees this at GOP and Democrat political conventions: the pugilist picks a side, and squares off against the ‘stupid’ enemy, just because he is the enemy. He is the other team. He is weird!

Yes, wonder of wonders: division does divide! The very sin against which Christ prayed, the Calvinist or Arminian wears on his shield as a badge of honor! Is it really so hard to read the Scripture and see quite clearly that there is not ONE instance of a person being baptised first, and THEN coming to Christ? No; it’s the clearest thing in the world to know that paedobaptists are just playing by their team play-sheet.

And because, like all those Augustinians in the days of Pelagian heresy — the modern ‘Reformed’ braniac refuses to budge because he has some major brianpower behind his position, on his team! Can he ever see giants such as RC Sproul*, backtracking on his pseudo-papist baby-wetting insurance policy? At his age? No, indeed.

And of course, RC Sproul and those of his ilk are really, really smart fellows. They’ve done the study. They can’t be wrong.

Just because you can’t find it in the New Testament, doesn’t mean you can’t find some really interesting theological threads back to the OT circumcision rite, etc! Oh, it’s all there in the Bible, you just have to be a real intellect to grasp it! And we all know that an Arminian is intellectually challenged!

So yes, we ‘baptise’ our infants, not just because RC Sproul and such heavy-hitters do it, but because Calvin did it**, and Augustine*** did it. OK, so you can’t find our favorite doctrine or practice explicitly in the New Testament, but let’s not be picky! As with the fine classical Christian school that we have enrolled our children in: nothing is too good for our children. They are children of the Newest Covenant.

And no, we’re not giving one inch, even if you show us from the Bible that we’re following what you call ‘doctrines of men’. The men we follow are the Fathers of the Faith; the Giants of the Church! Yes, there are denominations, because doctirne is important.

Even if it’s stuff that men made up.

We are mere men, and fallible. As long as we continue to join in troops and camps under banners of men, we should not be surprised that Christ’s Church finds no unity. This is the way with men.

Ironically, this particular sin is far less evident in the huge growth areas of the Church where most of our brethren now live (Asia, Africa, Latin America) — but these burgeoning portions of the body of Christ are those most in need of the solid doctrines articulated by Calvin — without the Romanist accretions about infants and such.

Baptismians are almost as bad as Calvinians; the Baptismian, still furious over his forefathers who were drowned (in the name of Christ!) by followers of Luther and Calvin, simply refuses to give doctrinal ground to “the other team”. Thus, even though the developing Church badly needs what both “teams” have to offer, they will likely get neither.

We should pray that men would cease the partisanship; and that if it means leaving a die-hard camp with recalcitrnat unbiblical doctrine, so be it.

Christ prayed that we be one. Semper reformanda.

_____________

*I consider RC Sproul one of my key teachers in the Christian faith and life, and a dear man. But flawed, as we all are.

**Calvinians love to say that Calvinism is nothing more than biblical theology, systematised; that it is merely Augustine’s theology in redux, a millennium later. Indeed, that is so. Now read Augustine, if you will; for all his excellent philosophical and moral teaching, some of his doctrines were demonstrably Roman Catholic hogswallop from nose to tail. A man of his time. As was Calvin, who cut political deals with potentates to keep his head on his shoulders and so as not to disenfranchise fearful parents, who given the infant mortality rate of the day, demanded insurance on their newborns. Calvin was a half-reformer; anyone in that time who wanted FULL reformation was lumped together with the gaggle of theologies, practices, and movements that did not keep the Roman rites, and tagged under the single epithet, “Anabaptist”. Some of these were nut-flakes; most of them were mere NT Christians.

Those who worship “the Reformation” only show their ignorance of Church history; serious reforms to the Roman Catholic heresies began as early as the 5th century, and continued apace in every generation through the time of the “magisterial reformers” and beyond.

It’s ironic to hear those of “the Reformed Faith” team, chant about “ecclesia reformata, reformanda semper” (the reformed church, always reforming), and yet resisting with all their might, any attempt to show where Calvin was just a man of his political times, and wrong. Demonstrably wrong, from a plain reading of the NT.

***To read Augustine is to see a man’s theology and ecclesiology at war against one another. Go figure.

To put it in list form:

1) No, the sin is not to hold an errant doctrine while yet ignorant of the facts; the sin is to maintain it after knowing the facts full well, but being unwilling to leave one’s beloved team, with all of its trappings.

2) The unwavering, proud, un-teachable, unforgiving spirit of denominational men is sin, whether it is a Baptismian, a Lutherian, or a Calvinian committing the sin.

3) As long as a Christian is more concerned with the approval of men in his camp, and not going against the teachings of his camp (even though he sees the opposing position supported by the preponderance of God’s Word) then he worships not Christ but a denomination. That is indeed sin; the sin of idolatry.

4) The ‘reformed baptist’ should realise that having an entire denomination based on just one of Christ’s institutions, is silly. Why not have a whole denomination (and sub-denominations) called “Lord’s Supperist” then? Is it because like the 21st century Black American, you are still furious over your forefathers 500 years ago being killed by the other team? Forgive your brother; understand how much good could come of re-unifying these huge warring camps!

5) The ‘reformed Calvinist’ and ‘reformed Lutheran’ should realise that on the one issue (baptism), Luther and Calvin were simply unbiblical and WRONG. They were great men, indeed; but they sold out to the powers of their day, who were sold out to Rome. They SHOULD have reformed entirely, but didn’t (in their place, we’d have done the same, to keep our heads).

6) Modern ‘reformed’ Baptismians, Calvinians and Lutherians can live up to their self-proclaimed ‘reformed’ labels by giving up their cherished, unbiblical positions in doctrine and praxis. In other words, by becoming mere Christians.

They would have to sacrifice a lot of cool stuff (‘precious distinctives’); slough off centuries of cherished team trophies.

What would happen to their beloved seminaries, libraries, buildings, universities, and the like? Hmmm…no, I doubt they will leave all that good stuff, just to live the Scriptures. Better to keep one or two pet doctrines that they “just don’t see” yet. Uh huh.

7) The thing that simply will NOT happen, given man’s sin nature: proud, articulate, cerebral power-lifters will not, on principle, mouth the expression, “I was wrong.”

Jesus’ lament/prayer over this issue indicates that as with everything else that can be known, our King knew this.

The most ironic (funny?) part of the ‘Reformed Paedobaptist’ position is that apparently the pope is just as Reformed with regard to wetting babies and calling it “baptism”.

Yes, just last month, the current pope (Joe Ratzinger) ruled that he was shutting down Limbo. No, not the dance; he was referring to the Roman Catholic baby-ovens that have been set on ‘simmer’ for millennia. Pope Joe just turned them off, presto! But the Vatican was quick to point out that RC parents should still wet their babies as an insurance policy.

If I was a betting man, I’d wager that many Calvinists who’ve been seeking a high-church liturgy to match their classical Christian school, to be coming on home to “Mother Church” soon.

After all, doctrines are secondary; if there’s now no Limbo, who’s to say there might be no Hell, eh?

;o)

Joop,

I don’t think that’s the way Tim nuanced the question. The statement that Mike just quoted was the gist (I believe) of Tim’s position, with which I agree wholeheartedly.

Doctrine is terribly important, and in every case in which men have killed other men over doctrine — or at the very least, where men have created new denominations over the issue — the Christian can do as the Breans did (search the Scriptures with a pure heart and a desire only for God’s truth) and find a clear preponderance of NT directives or indicatives for one doctrine or practice over another.

This is certainly so for baptism. Baptism is only ONE thing: it is the ‘washing’ ceremony that takes place after a person has been saved by grace through faith: Repent, believe, be baptised. That is the only order we see in Scripture.

Yet, when faithful Christians in Europe and the Lowlands attempted to simply live the NT model of baptism (rather than baptise babies as the twisted Roman rite required), the followers of Luther, Calvin, and popes drowned them for it. By the hundreds, Christians were killed for simply following the NT model of a practice instituted by Christ and the apostles. To this day, Lutherans and Calvinists who proudly call themselves ‘Reformed’, still refuse to give up this papist superstition, this religious rite that turns Scripture on its head!

The other divisive issue that Tim mentioned- eschatology- also divides the Church today. A whole new generation of ignorant Christians follows the Christian Zionist legend about Israel, totally sundering the gospel of Jesus Christ; erasing the book of Hebrews from Scripture and idolising a political state created by England and the USA in 1947…a state that is avowedly dismissive of Christ as son of God, and Christ as Lord!

These people drum up their own Armageddons (in books, CD’s, false teaching series and conferences) for a false prophet’s profit! They preach end times, when the Lord Himself directed us NOT to listen to such false prophets! He warned us that they would come, and told us NOT to follow them!

Now, it is not as though these false teachers (Calvinists, Zionists) and followers of men (rather than of Christ) don’t know any better. Of all things, they are NOT stupid or unschooled men, most of them. But they ARE obstinately attached to their false teachings, and lead others astray in the same.

They will answer for it one day, and their judgment will be far worse for teaching such things, not just believing them. Christ has said it; I am only repeating it.

If a man teaches falsehood even after much reproof and evidence from the Scriptures, brought to him in love and over a period of time, then he faces judgment for it. If he is unwilling to give up his adoration of popes (of John Calvin, or John Hagee), then he already has his captain, his king, his lord. And it’s the wrong one.

Luther did his best, I’m sure. But what he REALLY meant by “my conscience is captive to the word of God”, was this:

1) My conscience in certain matters that are very unpopular with the people (ie, selling of indulgences, vatican censures) is captive to the word of God;

2) my conscience on other matters that are popular with the people (ie, wetting infants to assure them of heaven, and calling this NT baptism) is captive to the vatican teaching and popular opinion.

Luther was a great man, indeed, although much finer men preceeded him but lacked his PR talent and political contacts. Luther was far from perfect; although his statement was correct to the extent he was applying it, I don’t think he meant that his conscience was actually bound by all of Scripture. His papist accretions and superstitions prove that his conscience was bound by tradition at least as much as by Scripture, which teaches the opposite of what Luther taught.