Apostasy From the Holiness of the Gospel: Part 2
By John Fast
For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. – Hebrews 6:4-6 (NASB)
“It is one of the clearest principles of Divine revelation, that holiness is the fruit of truth; and it is one of the plainest inferences from that principle, that the exhibition of the truth is the best means of promoting holiness. Christians regard the word of God as the only infallible teacher of those truths which relate to the salvation of men. But are the Scriptures really a revelation from God? If they are, what doctrines do they teach? And what influence should those doctrines exert on our heart and life?”[1]
It was with this statement, a statement which I already quoted in a previous study into the nature and causes of apostasy (Part 12), that the great 19th century American theologian Charles Hodge began his book The Way of Life, first published in 1841. The questions which Charles Hodge asked almost two-hundred years ago are still valid today, as are the answers he gave to those questions. Those answers, taken directly from Scripture, describe the way of true salvation, the way of life, which is the way of holiness, “Your way, O God, is holy” (Ps 77:13). Sadly, the doctrine of holiness, along with the practice of holiness itself, has all but vanished in our day. In its insatiable and frantic pursuit of success, popularity, and cultural relevance modern Christianity has sacrificed holiness on the altar of the world so that not only do most professing Christians not know what holiness is, but they more often than not ridicule, belittle, malign, and scoff at personal holiness when it is defined, taught, and practiced. Instead, ritualism, superstition, morality, tolerance of evil and error, inclusivism, mysticism, social and political conservatism, egalitarianism, ecumenicalism, humanitarianism, and perverted notions of ‘love’ and ‘grace’ are just some of the things that have become popular substitutes for holiness.
If we are to know what holiness is we must first know what the word itself means, as well as its relation to other important biblical words, such as the words “righteous” and “righteousness”, which, when they refer to man, mean “conformity to a moral rule and standard”, which is God’s own perfect nature and righteousness clearly revealed in His moral Law, namely, the Ten Commandments. Two other important words, “godly” and “godliness”, mean “to be devout”, and refers to behavior both in heart and practice that is God-centered, and sincerely strives to do what is pleasing to God, which is a loving and trusting obedience to His Word, as the Apostle John makes clear: “because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 Jn 3:22). In 1 Timothy 6:3, “the doctrine which is according to godliness”, is the doctrine that is consistent with godliness, specifically, “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Tm 6:3), in contrast to all that is not. Worldly desires are ungodly desires (Tit 2:12), because they are carnal, worldly, man-centered, and self-centered, not God-centered. We are promised that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tm 3:12). Another important word, “sanctification”, is the work of God in the life of all true believers by which He sets the Christian apart for a holy use and purpose, which ultimately is to glorify Him. Sanctification may be positional, which refers to the Christian’s being reckoned and declared legally righteous by God through faith in the imputed perfect righteousness of Christ (Rm 3:21-26), or it may be experiential and progressive, resulting from the Holy Spirit working through the Word to conform the Christian more and more to His standard of righteousness (Jn 17:17; Rm 12:2; 2 Cor 3:18: Eph 4:24), or it may be final, which is the perfection and glorification of the Christian, body and soul, at their resurrection (Rm 8:30; 1 Cor 15:35-49; Phil 3:20, 21; 1 Jn 3:2).
The basic meaning of the words “holy” and “holiness” is to be separate, set apart, and distinct from all that is unholy, common, and ordinary. God is holy because He is totally separate from His creation and because He is the rule and standard for moral and spiritual purity. So when God requires that we be holy as He is holy, He is not calling us to some subjective idea, or mystical experience, or some shifting and everchanging human standard of morality, or compliance to a list of man-made rules, or to be conspicuously strange; rather, God has given us a concrete and objective standard of holiness by and to which we are to be conformed, which is His moral Law. Therefore, holiness may also be defined as “conformity in heart, mind, will, and practice to the revealed will of God”, which He has clearly revealed in His Word. God’s holiness is the standard and pattern for ours. All Christians are equally righteous because we have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, but not all Christians are equally holy. The more we desire and diligently pursue holiness, and the more holy we actually become, the more we will be set apart from all that is not Christian and from all that merely professes and pretends to be Christian. In the words of Iain Murray:
“The gospel, rightly believed, far from displacing the necessity of holiness establishes it. …. It is reconciliation through the atonement that provides both power and motive for obedience. There have been those who have held that God sees no sin in those who are justified and therefore holiness of life need be no concern for the Christian. Such teaching has ever been rejected by orthodox Christianity as a dangerous error. It is true, God sees no sin in believers as a Judge to condemn them, but he sees it as a Father who will act to correct them. A parallel error is the belief that because obedience to the law is ‘ended’ for Christians as a means of acceptance before God, it is also ended as a rule for his life. But the law, ended for our justification, is far from ended in sanctification. It is the character of God, as revealed in the law, that is now written on the heart of a believer, so that he can say with Paul, ‘For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man’ (Rom. 7:22). It is by the gospel, the same apostle says, that ‘we establish the Law’ (Rom. 3:31).” [2]
Practical Theology
Christian theology has rightly been defined as the practice of living for God through Christ (Rm 6:11; 2 Tim 3:16; 1 Tim 6:2, 3; Tit 1:1). A nominal, lukewarm, cultural, mystical, man-centered Christianity that does not make God and His glory the end for which we are to live is not the Christianity of the Bible. A Christianity in which self, man, and the things of this world are the highest ends rather than God, His glory, and the things of God, is not a Christianity that will take anyone to heaven. Where ‘faith’ is professed without a changed heart, mind, nature, and life devoted to the purpose and sincere practice of universal obedience to God’s clear Word, and doing what is pleasing to Him, it is because there has been no true regeneration. Partial and selective obedience is still total disobedience. A true Christian’s obedience will always be imperfect in this life, but it is not selective and partial. In describing the genuine work of the Holy Spirit and the effects of true salvation that all real Christians share in common the great 19th century American pastor and professor of theology Archibald Alexander stated,
“All are convinced of sin, not only of life, but of heart. All are brought to acknowledge the justice of God in their condemnation, and to feel that they might be left to perish, without any derogation from the perfections of God; and that they have no ability to bring God under any obligations to save them, by their prayers, tears, or other religious duties. All true Christians, moreover, love the truth which has been revealed to their minds, and are led to trust in Christ alone for salvation; and they all hunger and thirst after righteousness, and resolve to devote themselves to the service of God, and prefer His glory above their chief joy.”[3]
True Christian practice, that is, the practice of living for God through Christ, is a life devoted to the practice of holiness, which is the result of the exhibition of truth, which is nothing but, “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tm 6:3), and “the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness” (Tit 1:1). The New Testament not only teaches us what we must believe to be saved, but the effect and influence which the truths and doctrines it teaches are to exert on our heart, our mind, our life, and our behavior. Jesus joins together right doctrine and right practice, “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them” (Jn 13:17). As R.C. Sproul once said, everyone is a theologian, it is just a question of whether you are a good one or a bad one. Bad theology and bad doctrine will always produce bad practice. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Bad practice can sometimes be the result of good intentions, but good intentions do not make the practice any less bad and sinful. People can do bad things with good intentions. Spiritual ends done with worldly and carnal means does not redeem the means, but only corrupts and pollutes the ends (Hag 2:12-14). Bad practice done with good intentions does not make the practice holy (Rm 3:8). Hell will be full of people who had good intentions but were poor practitioners. Just as practice without knowledge is meaningless because it has nothing to inform, guide, govern, and direct it (Jn 4:22; Ac 17:23), so also knowledge without practice is no better than the faith of demons (Jm 2:19, 20).
Christians are to be “doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (Jm 1:22). All those who name the name of the Lord, that is, all who profess to have a saving faith in Jesus Christ, are to “abstain from wickedness” (2 Tm 2:19). Many profess to be Christian, but how few abstain and flee from wickedness; how few call sin by its right names. Many who profess to be Christian busy themselves with doing all sorts of things, but how very few are doers of the Word. No one can be a doer of the Word if they are ignorant of the Word or have a wrong understanding of the Word; instead their practice will be governed by their wrong beliefs, false interpretations, bad theology, and by their own darkened understandings. The overwhelming majority of what today professes to be Christian, in fact, entire denominations, responds in a similar fashion to the clear teaching of God’s Word as did the Jews to whom Jeremiah preached for over forty years, “As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you! But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths,” (Jer 44:16, 17). In other words, instead of pursuing obedience and holiness and avoiding and abstaining from all that is unrighteous, they insist on practicing unrighteousness and justify it by giving it different names. The reason people suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rm 1:18) and call evil good and good evil is because they will not tolerate having their sin, ungodliness, and unrighteousness called by its true names, so they suppress, restrain, hinder, intimidate, misrepresent, slander, lie, and do all in their power to prevent the truth about their evil ways from being known. Like the scribes and Pharisees, modern Christianity has become expert at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep its unholy, ungodly, worldly, and man-made traditions, ideologies, beliefs, and practices (Mk 7:9). When the clear meaning of Scripture conflicts with what they want to believe and with what they want to do and with how they want to live, then they carry out every word that proceeds from their mouths as if they and not God are the source and standard for what is good, right, true, and holy. By their lives and practices they say to God, “Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways” (Job 21:14). The examples of this are so prolific, shameless, and self-evident that it would be superfluous to try and list them.
Most of what professes to be Christian today has become very good at inventing and ‘doing’ all kinds of things, but fails miserably when it comes to being doers of the Word. It is very good at inventing different Jesuses, doctrines, forms of worship, and meanings of Scripture. It is very good at doing conferences, entertainment, podcasts, social media, political and social activism, marketing, humanitarianism, and a thousand other things which can be done and are done by the world and false religions, but none of which are being a doer of the Word. The world is full of doers and do-gooders, both religious and secular, but there are very few who are doers of the Word. These do-gooders establish a non-profit, they form an organization, they work to get people to join and contribute to it, and they are going to fix the world’s problems. But there is one thing they hate, and that is this gospel of holiness which tells them they can never solve the world’s problems in this way, and that they are in fact contributing to the world’s problems as long as they continue to corrupt and reject the true gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a terrible thing to be told that all your own doing counts for nothing in the sight of God, that all your good works can never make you a good person in the eyes of God, and that all your own righteousness has no more value than filthy rags.
It is impossible for anyone to practice commands, truths, and doctrines of which they are ignorant, and that they willfully neglect, distort, corrupt, despise, reject, and deny. It is impossible for anyone to be a doer of the Word when they work to bend Scripture to the opinions, experiences, wisdom, and ideologies of man, to forge new doctrines, to undermine the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture, and to invent new meanings and new forms of religion which they still call Christian, which is an epidemic disease in this age. A Christianity without the practice of the holiness which true Christianity teaches and requires is not Christianity but a form of godliness without its power, that is, without the transforming power of the gospel producing a life devoted to the practice of holiness (Rm 12:2; 2 Cor 3:18); it is a Christianity that is Christian in name only.
Practical Love
The doctrine of both the Old and New Testament is not first and foremost a doctrine of ‘love’ and ‘acceptance’, but of holiness (Lev 19:2; 1 Pt 1:15, 16). Love that does not produce a love for holiness is not the love that is the fruit of the Spirit. Anyone who does not love holiness cannot love God. A holy person loves holiness; they love God because He is holy; they love His will because it is holy; they love His way of saving sinners because it is the way of holiness; they love all of His Word because all of it is holy. The Christian is to love not merely “with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 Jn 3:18). When someone professes to love Jesus but neglects, corrupts, adds or subtracts from, misrepresents, and rejects His Word and instead practices, approves of, defends, and encourages sin and error, then they show that their love for Jesus is nothing but words. In order for faith and love to be true Christian faith and love, they must express themselves in Christian practice and behavior that is pleasing to God: “but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior” (1 Pt 1:15). True Christian practice and behavior must be rooted in and regulated by the truths, commands, and doctrines of Scripture, that is, in conformity with the revealed will of God. Nothing is more common, especially in times of apostasy, than for people who profess to be Christian, yet have no idea what the will of God is, or know it but reject it, to accuse true Christian love and behavior of being ‘unloving’ and ‘un-Christian’. Concerning the relation of love to holiness Samuel Davies, one of the great preachers of the 18th century Great Awakening, stated,
“What is the holiness of God but love – pure refined, and honorable love? …. It is because He loves His creatures so much that He requires them to be holy: and that very thing, against which there are so many cavils and objections, as too severe and oppressive, and a rigid restraint from the pursuit of pleasure, is the highest instance of God’s love for them, and His regard for their happiness. …. Whatever has a tendency to prevent sin tends to prevent misery also, and that for this reason, because sin is necessarily productive of misery, and destructive of happiness.” [4]
True Christian love, namely, the love that is the fruit of the Spirit, is a holy love; it loves holiness, which is loving obedience to the Law of God, and so it hates, fears, and is averse to sin and error. People who do not understand the holiness of God can never understand the sinfulness of sin. It is because most have such low, mistaken, carnal, and dangerous views of God’s holiness that they have such perverted views of God’s love and such favorable views of sin. The love which God has for His own children is a holy Fatherly love that “disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness (Hb 12:10). The free, independent, holy, and sovereign love of God is the source of the accomplishment of redemption (Jn 3:16), and the divine purpose for which God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” is so “that we should be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4). To reject the purpose and ends of the gospel is to reject the gospel. To reject the purpose and ends of God’s love is to reject God’s love. True Christian love expresses itself toward God and others by observing God’s commandments, “And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has been perfected.” (1 Jn 2:3-5); “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments” (1 Jn 5:2). True Christian love is to “receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Th 2:10). The two great things the Christian is called to pursue in this life are peace with God through faith in the person of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:20), and personal holiness (2 Cor 7:1). True love for God and the love that is the fruit of the Spirit is expressed by pursuing and practicing a life of increasing holiness (Jn 14:15, 21, 23; Rm 12:1; Eph 1:4; 1 Jn 5:2, 3).
Many people have spent their entire life doing good works in the name of Jesus, but they are not doers of the Word; rather, they still practice lawlessness not holiness (Mt 7:21-23). Holiness is the fruit of true saving faith, which is itself a gift of God’s grace (Eph 2:8). What the Law could not do, namely, make us holy, the gospel does for everyone in whom it has its perfect work. The Law could never instill a love for God and His holiness. Holiness is what the gospel teaches, describes, requires, and commands; it is what the grace and power of God produces (Tit 2:11, 12); it is the example Jesus set for us to follow (1 Jn 2:6). One of the principle effects of genuine salvation is God writes His Law on the hearts of all who are truly born again by the Holy Spirit (Jer 31:33; 2 Cor 3:3), transforming them into the image of the divine holiness which His Law represents and requires. God’s Law becomes an inward principle that governs and regulates all of our life, not as a means of salvation, but as the fruit of genuine salvation, and as the rule and standard for holiness. The Bible clearly teaches that our habitual lives and practice reflect the inclination of our hearts, “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart” (Lk 6:45; cf. 1 Jn 3:7-10). Should not God’s Law written on our hearts be visible to others in our habitual life and practice? Should not a true love for God manifest itself in submissive and loving obedience to His revealed will, especially since love is the fulfillment of the Law (Rm 13:10)?
The Christian life is a “holy calling” (2 Tm 1:9), that is, we are called out from the world, set apart from the world: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pt 1:14-16). The Christian is to “come out from their midst and be separate,” (2 Cor 6:17). The Spirit which indwells all true believers is the Holy Spirit, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God” (1 Cor 2:12), and “the Spirit who is from God” is “the spirit of holiness” (Rm 1:4). True faith is a “most holy faith” (Jude 20). Holiness is what characterizes the new self, the new nature, it is the fruit of a new birth; “and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4:24). This holiness is “holiness of the truth”, that is, it is the result of the power of the truth, which is the same as sound doctrine, on the heart, mind, and life; it is conformed to the truth, and it is defined and governed by the truth: “Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth” (Jn 17:17).
But is this love for holiness a natural human trait? Do we see people instinctively pursuing and practicing holiness? Is it holiness or ungodliness that is exceedingly rare? Is it holiness or lawlessness that must be restrained? The answer is self-evident. The generality of mankind and even the generality of professing Christians encounter no difficulty in loving the world, money, pleasure, self, possessions, popularity, family, friends, and even that most evil of evils, sin. These they can easily and willingly love, serve, and pursue with a passion and with all their might. But to love holiness and God because He is holy is something they have no desire or ability to do, “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (Rm 8:7).
Supernatural Holiness
That holiness is not a natural human trait or characteristic is a fact too obvious to deny or defend. Holiness is beyond the ability of the natural man. In fact, the natural man has a natural inbred hatred for and is “hostile in mind” (Col 1:21; cf. Rm 8:7) to the ways of God, and is naturally attracted to and loves what is sinful and unholy (Tit 3:3). The “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor 2:14). “Men are unwilling to acquaint themselves with any truth that leads to God,” wrote Stephen Charnock, “because it leads away from self …. there is an antipathy in the heart of man against that doctrine which teaches us to deny ourselves and be under the rule of another; but whatsoever favors the ambition, lusts, and profits of men, is easily entertainable.” [5]
We have no natural love for God because of His infinite holiness and hatred of all sin. Men and women are by nature haters of God because God hates what they love the most, which is their sin and their idols of self and this world. True love for God loves God because He is infinitely holy, because He hates all sin, and will not permit His people to indulge in one sin, or neglect the least occasion of holiness, but commands them to be holy as He is holy in all their behavior. Self-love may motivate someone to love God for His perceived blessings, and so many who profess to love God love Him with selfish motives, but they do not love Him because He is holy. The love which most profess to have for God is really for a god of their own imagination; they love Him because they imagine He does not hate sin, or them for their practice of sin, as much as He does, and that He actually condones and approves of their sin, or that He does not consider it to be sin. This is so far from being a love for God that it is in fact an expression of the utmost hatred for Him, to imagine Him to be just as wicked, sinful, and unholy as they are. Some people are so far from holiness that they demand God be as sinful and wicked as they are, and approve of what they approve. Some are so wicked that they work to make others as wicked as they are, and these are so wicked that they comply with their enticements and demands to be wicked (Mt 23:15). Some are so wicked that they approve of, defend, and protect the wickedness of others. Some, like Nebuchadnezzar (Dn 3:10), are so wicked that they enact and enforce laws that demand people disobey God’s Law, as if they were more holy than God.
No one can make themselves holy by doing or not doing certain things. Meticulously following religious rituals and man-made rules, superstitions, and doctrines never made anyone holy. The scribes and Pharisees did all of this. Evangelizing others and preaching and teaching the gospel never made anyone holy. Judas and Demas did this. Doing all kinds of religious good works never made anyone holy. The rich young ruler did this (Mt 19:20). Establishing, contributing to, and participating in great charitable and humanitarian organizations and causes in the name of Jesus never made anyone holy (Mt 7:21-23). Holiness is not the result of a subjective mystical experience or a “personal encounter” with God. Conservatism is not the equivalent of holiness. Nor is holiness mere morality, honesty, kindness, being a “good” person, or treating others the way we want to be treated. It is not avoiding, exposing, and refuting obvious heresy and wickedness. It is not having our heads filled with the mere knowledge of biblical truths and doctrines. Holiness will certainly include these things, but they are not the essence of true holiness. Someone can do all of these things and still be a total stranger to holiness. False Christianity has invented all kinds of counterfeits, including counterfeit holiness, but the most dangerous counterfeits are those that most resemble the true and genuine.
The holiness which the gospel teaches and requires is an obedience that is of a totally different nature and kind than what is required by any other religion, doctrine, or teaching. It is to become “obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Rm 6:17, 18). The “form of teaching” to which we are to render whole-hearted obedience and commitment, and the righteousness to which we become willing slaves, are the “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tm 6:3), and “the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness” (Tit 1:1). The obedience which characterizes true holiness is an obedience from the heart, that is, it is motivated by a true love and reverence for God, His Word, and for His glory, as Charles Hodge so well said,
“… reverence, gratitude, love, submission, are the spontaneous exercises of the renewed heart. They are the free, unbidden, unconstrained effusions of the soul. That religion which is reluctant, or forced, whether by fear, or by stress of conscience, is spurious. Filial obedience, if rendered from a dread of punishment, or from mere regard to appearances, is very different from that which flows from respect and love; and unless the service we render to God flows from the heart, it is no evidence that we are His children. The Bible represents the people of God delighting in the things of God.” [6]
No one can delight in the things of God if they are willfully ignorant of what those things are, or if they substitute their own things, their own inventions, rituals, rules, standards, works, opinions, and their own ideas of holiness for the things of God. If holiness is conformity to the revealed will of God, then holiness requires that we truly understand what the will of the Lord is (Eph 5:17). The Sadducees knew the Scriptures, but they did not understand them, nor the power of God (Mt 22:29). Outwardly the scribes and Pharisees appeared righteous to men, but inwardly they were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Mt 23:28). Just as there is a great difference between the mere outward appearance of righteousness and a true inward hunger and thirst for righteousness, so there is a great difference between an intellectual knowledge of the truth and a right understanding, love, and practice of the truth. The first can be achieved by natural men through the use of natural means, whereas the second is a work of the Holy Spirit working through the Word to enlightening the mind (Eph 1:18). Archibald Alexander described this distinction when he wrote,
“To believe in divine truth is an act of the mind, precisely the same as to believe in other truth; and the difference between a saving faith and a historical or merely speculative faith consists not in the truths believed, for in both they are the same; nor in the degree of assent given to the proposition, but in the evidence on which they are respectively founded. A saving faith is produced by the manifestation of the truth in its true nature to the mind, which now apprehends it, according to the degree of faith, in its spiritual qualities, its beauty, and glory, and sweetness; whereas a historical or speculative faith may rest on the prejudices of education, or the deductions of reason; but in its exercise there is no conception of the true qualities of divine things. The humblest, weakest believer possesses a knowledge of God, hidden from the wisest of unenlightened men; according to that saying of Christ, ‘I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes’ “.[7]
There are today many “renowned theologians” and “notable scholars” and “beloved pastors” who are “always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tm 3:7). They may have an academic, theoretical, and intellectual knowledge that is the product of education, but their knowledge is not “the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness”. Despite all their knowledge they are still “darkened in their understanding” concerning what a Christian is and what it is to be Christian (Eph 4:18), and their minds remain blinded by the god of this world to the true spiritual nature, qualities, and glory of the gospel, “that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4). The holiness which the gospel teaches and requires demands the denial of self, a teachable, humble, and submissive spirit, and a sincere love for the truth; it requires a new birth, a new nature that loves and desires holiness (Jn 3:3). It requires perseverance in the truth, and unlike other spiritual gifts, perseverance is a gift of God which can never be counterfeited (Rm 15:5). There are many who persevere in doing good works and in being a “good” person. There are many who persevere in their commitment to error, false doctrine, various forms of godliness, their own beliefs and practices, their own self-serving goals and ambitions, but they do not persevere in the truth; rather they deny, dilute, modify, oppose, and undermine the truth either in word or in practice or both.
Practical Knowledge
Christian theology consists of “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,” (1 Tm 6:3), and “the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness” (Tit 1:1). True Christian theology is not just a system of religious beliefs and doctrines based on the teachings of the New Testament. Such an understanding of theology is much too narrow. True Christian theology is intensely practical. It involves understanding the holy nature of God, His holy will for our lives, His holy purpose in salvation, and the nature of the holiness which He demands and requires of us. Holiness is to both understand and obey the truth out of a love for God and for His truth (Jn 14:15, 21, 23; Gal 5:7). It involves an inward spiritual hunger and thirst for righteousness (Mt 5:6), and a longing “for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Pt 2:2). The only means we have of truly knowing God, His Son Jesus Christ, His will for our lives, and what is pleasing to Him, is His revelation of Himself and of His will in Scripture. Whatever is of value in the writings of other men, they got it from the Scriptures, and whatever “does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (2 Tm 6:3), has no value whatsoever. No one can love who they do not know, and who we truly love we want to know better. Someone who has no desire and makes little or no effort to be holy as God is holy, or who redefines holiness as something other than conformity to the holy Law of God in both heart and life, cannot have a love of the truth so as to be saved, and someone who has no love of the truth can never be holy; they cannot expect the least benefit from the gospel in this life or in the life to come.
Since holiness is the effect of truth on the heart, mind, and life, then true holiness includes a zeal and love for the truth. The Jews had a zeal for God, but their zeal was “not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God” (Rm 10:2, 3). In other words, their bad theology resulted in bad practice. People substitute their own standard of righteousness and holiness for God’s standard because they refuse to subject and submit themselves to God’s standard, which is revealed in His commandments. They do not like His way of saving sinners so they invent their own ways that are more in keeping with their unholy natures. Some substitute various religious duties and activities, some substitute their own mystical experiences, some substitute various natural gifts, abilities, and their own free will, some substitute political and moral conservatism, some substitute humanitarianism, others substitute their own man-made rules, doctrines, and ideologies. Some have a zeal but only for one particular teaching and doctrine of Scripture, like eschatology, but not for all the truths and doctrines of Scripture, and certainly not for holiness. Many have a zeal for undermining the authority and inerrancy of Scripture and its truths and doctrines. They have a zeal for their own beliefs and opinions, for their man-made doctrines and superstitions, for their mystical experiences, for their bad theology, and for their imaginary superior wisdom and self-importance. Muslims have a zeal, Mormons have a zeal, atheists have a zeal, sinners have a zeal for their sin, but it is not a zeal in accordance with knowledge. A true Christian zeal and love for knowledge and wisdom is not for just any knowledge and wisdom; it is no mere intellectualism or philosophical speculation or, as one 17th century Dutch Reformed theologian stated,
“There are those who seek knowledge for the sole purpose of knowing: and that is shameful curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to sell their knowledge: and that is shameful profit. There are those who seek knowledge in order to be known: and that is shameful vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to edify: and that is charity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to be edified: and that is prudence.”[8]
This zeal for knowledge and wisdom is not for an imaginary wisdom in which we are wise in our own eyes and appear wise to other men. Nor is it for a false, carnal wisdom, which is nothing but the wisdom of this age (1 Cor 2:6). Nor is it for a worldly wisdom which is nothing but “philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ” (Col 2:8), that is, rather than according to “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (2 Tm 6:3). The wisdom of this world “is earthly, natural, demonic” (Jm 3:15), and therefore is foolishness before God (1 Cor 3:19): “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God,” (1 Cor 1:21). How can anyone come to truly know the holy God who is Spirit by means of what is earthly, natural, demonic? Instead, “Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, and what kind of wisdom do they have? (Jer 8:9). Why the only other kind of wisdom there is of course; that which is “earthly, natural, demonic”. True biblical wisdom is the gift of God by which we come to know, understand, discern, and practice the spiritual things given by God (1 Cor 2:12, 13); it is to become foolish in the eyes of the world in order to become wise (1 Cor 3:18); it is to “abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ” (Phil 1:9, 10). Without a habitual growth in real and genuine knowledge, not false, pretend, worldly, or imaginary knowledge, there can be no growth in all discernment, nor can there be any practice of holiness in the life.
Discernment
Discernment (aisthesis) is the ability to understand the true nature of things, namely, to understand the difference and distinguish between truth and error, right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral, holy and unholy, genuine and counterfeit, valid and invalid, rational and irrational, real and fake, sound and unsound doctrine, true and almost true, the wisdom that is from the world and the wisdom that is from God. All people are born with the ability to distinguish between what is morally good and what is evil. Go anywhere in the world and ask anyone if they have ever done anything wrong and the answer will be, if they are honest, of course they have. But how did they know it was wrong? Because God has given everyone a conscience (Rm 2:14, 15). When sin becomes the norm and habitual then people are confirmed and hardened in sin and wickedness. Where everyone goes about naked then none are ashamed; they do not even know how to blush (Jer 6:15; 8:12): “And they display their sin like Sodom; they do not even conceal it” (Is 3:9). This describes not only most of the world today, but most of what professes and pretends to be Christian. As a result, “they have brought evil on themselves” (Is 3:9).
This natural light of conscience may, through the continual practice of sin, lose its ability to discern good from evil until it calls evil good and good evil, and even degenerate to the point where large numbers of people are unwilling to define what distinguishes a man from a woman or woman from a man. They still discern what is evil and sinful, and know what the judgment of God is concerning such things (Rm 1:32), but their love of sin and practice in sinning desensitizes and sears their own conscience and causes them to despise God’s holy judgment, so that they approve of, defend, delight in, take pride in, and even turn into a virtue, what is sinful and evil, namely, what is contrary to the revealed will of God, and even contrary to the light of nature, to a rational mind, and to common sense, until they become “like unreasoning animals” (2 Pt 2:12). Such people are described as, “having become callous” (past the point of feeling any conviction for sin), “have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity, with greediness” (Eph 4:19). Those who have given themselves over to the practice of every kind of sin their depraved minds are capable of conceiving are eventually given over by God to their own depraved mind (Rm 1:28-32). Not only the world, but most of what professes and pretends to be Christian is today filled with such people.
The two-fold purpose of discernment is (1) that we may approve the things that are excellent, namely, “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness”, and (2) so we may be “sincere and blameless until the day of Christ”, that is, so we may persevere in the truth and practice holiness until the end. The word translated “approve” (dokimazo) means to judge, regard, prove, and approve something as genuine, true, and good on the basis of testing. The standard against which everything is to be tested is the “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (2 Tm 6:3). This requires that we “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (1 Th 5:21, 22). The Christian is to always be “trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph 5:10). The phrase “trying to learn” translates the same Greek word dokimazo. The Christian is to be constantly testing, proving, and approving what is pleasing to the Lord so they may “walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Eph 5:8, 9). Whatever cannot abide the test of Scripture is not the fruit of the light but of darkness.
It is painfully self-evident that most of what today professes and pretends to be Christian, to say nothing of the culture in general, approves of and aggressively propagates teachings, doctrines, ideologies, and practices that cannot abide this test, thereby giving the clearest proof that it is destitute of “real knowledge and all discernment”. In other words, it makes “no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and clean” (Ezk 22:26). This unwillingness and inability to discern and distinguish between the holy and profane, and this penchant for approving of all that is worldly and unholy are simply symptoms of a mind that is still hostile to the Law of God and still darkened in its understanding to the true nature of the things of God. Jesus Himself tells us that the spiritually blind lead the spiritually blind (Mt 15:14), and if people were not blind, they would never allow themselves to be taught and led by blind guides; they could not belong to blind denominations and to blind churches.
By the world’s standard and wisdom Mother Teresa was a good person, even a saint, but because she denied true Christian theology and the true way of salvation she was devoid of the holiness which the gospel requires, teaches, and produces, and without which no one will see the Lord (Hb 12:14). She may have been a great humanitarian and done many good things in the name of Jesus (Mt 7:21-23), but her Jesus was not the Jesus of the New Testament and her theology was not “the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness” (Tit 1:1). She may have had a zeal for her idea of God, her idea of Jesus, and for Roman Catholic doctrine, but it was not a zeal according to a true knowledge of Christ and His gospel. Likewise, there is no shortage today of “renowned theologians” and “scholars” with impressive academic credentials, not to mention popular preachers and podcasters, who endeavor to appear wise in the eyes of men in their attempts to undermine the historical accuracy of Scripture, or to integrate and assimilate the wisdom and ideologies of the world with Scripture, thereby undermining its inerrancy and authority so they can more easily deny its truths and doctrines.
It is not hard to see that behind all these attempts to undermine the authority, sufficiency, inerrancy, and clarity of Scripture is a low view of the doctrine of divine inspiration, a low view of Scripture, and a low view of the authority of God. It is not only a new view of the Bible, but an entirely new theology, an entirely new Christianity, because now we must have a new basis for doctrine, and a new basis for testing and approving what is and is not genuine Christianity, and even a new basis for distinguishing and discriminating between what is good and what is evil. Is the basis of Christian doctrine and practice to be what the Bible clearly teaches, or what “theologians”, “scholars”, and modern Christianity teach and practice? Is the basis of good and evil to be the holy Law of God or the unholy and unrighteous opinions of man? Is Christianity to be judged by how it is practiced by most of what professes to be Christian or by what is taught by Jesus and the inspired writers of the New Testament? The answer of Scripture could not be more plain, “Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil;” (1 Jn 3:7, 8). Scripture is clear, without holiness no one will see the Lord (Hb 12:14). Eternal life and joy are reserved only for persons of particular characters, namely, those who habitually pursue a life of holiness, and multitudes who professed a hope of eternal joy and happiness will hear those awful words, “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Mt 7:23).
Studying To Be Holy
Ezra “set his heart to study the law of the LORD, and to practice it,” (Ez 7:10). The whole purpose of studying any subject is to practice it. People study medicine in order to practice medicine. The Catholic studies Catholicism to practice Catholicism. The Mormon studies Mormonism to practice Mormonism. The Muslim studies the Quran to practice Islam. The true Christian studies the Bible as the authoritative and inerrant Word of God so they may truly know and understand it in order to practice the holiness that it teaches, commands, and requires. The heretic and apostate, however, come to the Bible with the assumption that it contains errors, made-up stories, historical and scientific inaccuracies, and as the fallible word of men so they can more easily undermine, distort, corrupt, and nullify the Bible in order to validate, justify, and approve their own unholy and ungodly opinions and practices. It goes without saying that the Bible and Christianity emerges from the hands of such people in a very mutilated and mangled condition, which describes modern Christianity in all its various forms.
The scribes and Pharisees honored God with their lips but their heart was far from Him (Mt 15:8). They were experts at setting aside the clear commandment of God in order to keep their own man-made traditions (Mk 7:9), and “they say things, and do not do them” (Mt 23:3). A tree is known by its fruit. The Apostle Paul described false teachers as “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power,”, and “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”, and who “oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected as regards the faith” (2 Tm 3:5-8), and that “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him,” (Tit 1:16). Paul says they are the exact opposite of what they profess and pretend to be. They professed to know God, to teach and obey His Word, they professed themselves to be holy, but Paul says they are really “detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed” (Tit 1:16). There was more of a denial of God and His gospel in their works and practices than there was the truth of God in their words. Many today profess and appear to be “pastors”, “theologians”, “scholars”, and “Christians”, but the fact that they oppose the truth and advocate a different doctrine of the inspiration, inerrancy, authority, and sufficiency of Scripture, affirm and approve as Christian what is obviously not Christian, and a different doctrine of salvation than that of Jesus and the apostles, and do “not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,” (1 Tm 6:3), they simply show by their practice that they are really blind, ignorant, and conceited scoffers (1 Tm 6:4). They are the exact opposite of what they profess and appear to be. Where there is no love of the truth in practice, it is evident there is even less in the heart, or as the great Puritan Steven Charnock once wrote,
“Actions are a greater discovery of a principle than words. The testimony of works is louder and clearer than that of words; and the frame of men’s hearts must be measured rather by what they do than by what they say …. Men’s practices are the best indexes of their principles: the current of a man’s life is the counterpart of the frame of his heart …. A practical denial of God is worse than a verbal because deeds have usually more of deliberation than words; words may be the fruit of a passion, but a set of evil actions are the fruit and evidence of a predominant evil in the heart …. Those, therefore, are more deservedly termed atheists who acknowledge a God, and walk as if there were none, than those (if there can be any such) that deny a God, and walk as if there were one. A sense of God in the heart would burst out in the life; where there is no reverence of God in the life, it is easily concluded there is less in the heart.”[9]
Jonathan Edwards articulated the same general principle when he wrote,
“Natural men do not generally conceive themselves to be so bad; they have not this notion of themselves, that they are enemies of God …. So your objection arises from this, that you do not find such a sensible hatred against the god you have formed, to suit yourself; a god that you like better than the true God. But this is no argument that you have not bitter enmity against the true God; for it was your enmity against the true God, and your not liking Him, that has put you upon forming up another in your imagination, that you like better …. For we see that when men come to be…made sensible that God is not as they have heretofore imagined…they are much more apt to have sensible exercises of enmity against Him than before …. If you pretend that you do not feel enmity against God, and yet act as an enemy, you may certainly conclude that it is not because you are no enemy, but because you do not know your own heart. Actions are the best interpreters of the disposition: they show, better than anything else, what the heart is. It must be because you do not observe your own behavior, that you question whether you are an enemy to God.” [10]
And in another of his works Edwards wrote,
“None will deny but that for persons to signify things one to another by words, may rationally be supposed to tend to enlighten each other’s minds; but the same thing may be signified by actions, and signified much more fully and effectually. Words are of no use any otherwise than as they convey our own ideas to others; but actions, in some cases, may do it much more fully. There is a language in actions; and in some cases, much more clear and convincing than in words.” [11]
Charles Spurgeon made this same point to the students of his Pastor’s College:
“A man’s life is always more forcible than his speech; …. If his life and his doctrine disagree, the mass of lookers-on accept his practice and reject his preaching. A man may know a great deal about truth, and yet be a very damaging witness on its behalf, because he is no credit to it. …. I can conceive no surer method of prejudicing men against the truth than by sounding her praises through the lips of men of suspicious character. When the devil turned preacher in our Lord’s day, the Master bade him hold his peace; he did not care for Satanic praises.” [12]
People who, under a profession of being Christian, invent and approve of other Jesuses, other gospels, other doctrines, and other forms of religion which they still call ‘Christian’, simply express by their actions their natural hostility against the one true God. Those who redefine holiness as something other than the sincere pursuit of obedience to the truths and commands of God simply show by their actions their enmity for the holiness of God. Those who affirm and approve as Christian what is obviously not Christian simply show their hostility toward what the Bible teaches it is to be Christian. Those who elevate their own finite knowledge and wisdom above the infinite divine wisdom of God simply reveal they are still darkened in their understanding and hostile in mind toward the things of God. This enmity becomes especially evident when they are shown by the clear and plain meaning of Scripture that their Christianity is not the Christianity of the Bible, in other words, by how they respond to the clear exhibition of the truth. Our minds, life, and theology are to be conformed by and to Scripture, we are not to conform Scripture to our own opinions, desires, experiences, ideologies, preconceived systems of theology, and our own ideas of God.
The Great Commission commands that we teach people to observe all that Jesus has commanded (Mt 28:20), namely, “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tm 6:3), not the opinions, wisdom, rules, extra-biblical revelations, mystical experiences, doctrines, religions, and ideologies invented by the mind of man (Mt 28:20); it commands that we make disciples (Mt 28:19), which involves teaching and practicing Jesus’ demands of discipleship (Lk 14:26, 27, 33). It is painfully obvious that whatever the church has been doing for the past one hundred or more years, it has not been making disciples. It must have a very different idea of what it means to be a disciple than did Jesus and the apostles. Instead, modern Christianity has become a devoted and devout disciple of the world, and in the process has made itself into an avowed enemy of the ways and revealed will of God. Since only true Christian theology ought to be taught by and to other Christians, and since we are surrounded on all sides by so many different forms and kinds of false theologies, false Jesuses, false gospels, false doctrines, false teachers, false churches, false Christians, and false Christianity, it is essential that we be able to distinguish and discriminate the latter from the former, especially since this is both commanded by Scripture and is the principle means by which the holiness of the gospel is to be preserved (Mt 16:11-12; Eph 4:14; 5:6, 17; 1 Th 5:21; 1 Tm 6:20-21; 2 Tm 1:13-14; Phil 1:9-10; Hb 5:14; 1 Jn 4:1; 2 Jn 8; Jude 3).
Making Distinctions
The Bible defines false theology as any doctrine that is different from the doctrine and theology taught by Scripture, namely, any teaching, doctrine, or theology that “does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness (1 Tm 6:3). The eternal destruction or the eternal salvation of the soul depends upon our being able to discern between true and false theology in both teaching and practice (2 Cor 11:3; Gal 1:6; 2 Pt 2:1-3; 3:17-18). This requires us to have an objective, unchanging, and authoritative standard for Christian theology against which we can examine and compare everything that professes and pretends to be Christian theology. The command to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God;” (1 Jn 4:1), implies an unchanging, authoritative, sufficient, and objective standard of truth by which we can test the spirits. This standard is, of course, the “sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,” (1 Tm 6:3), which the Apostle Paul also describes as “the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus” (2 Tm 1:13). There is a “standard, a pattern, a model” of sound words that is to be retained and strictly adhered to. Any deviation from this standard no longer “agrees with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and is to be corrected, exposed, refuted, and opposed (2 Cor 11:3; 1 Tm 1:3, 19; 2 Tm 3:16, 17; Tit 1:9; Hb 2:1; 2 Jn 10). People can use different words to express the same meaning, but when people give biblical words different meanings then they no longer retain the standard of sound words. Instead, they become like Elymas in that they seek to turn people away from the true faith and gospel to a different faith and gospel, thereby showing that they, like Elymas, are “full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?” (Ac 13:8-10).
When compared with this “standard of sound words”, every false theology will be discovered to be either unbiblical in that it “advocates a different doctrine” (1 Tm 6:3) than the doctrine taught by Scripture, which is why Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Universalism, Antinomianism, Pentecostalism, Arianism, Modalism, Open Theism, Charismatic, Progressivism, Higher Criticism, Liberalism, Feminism, Rationalism, Theistic Evolution, Egalitarianism, Liberation Theology, and baptismal regeneration collapse. Or it will be exposed as being defective in that it “does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tm 6:3), either by addition, subtraction, or by distortion, which is why all claims of extra-biblical revelation, all the attempts to integrate the wisdom, ideologies, and practices of the world with the doctrines of the Bible, and in fact, most of what professes to be Christian today, collapses. Or it will be apart from Christ, that is, not teaching the truth about Jesus Christ, which is why cults such as Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, New Apostolic Reformation, and the multitude of false theologies that misrepresent or speak falsely about Jesus, such as Jewish and Muslim theology, and the various Jesuses of modern Christianity and those portrayed by various actors, fail the test of Scripture. Or it is deficient in that it does not conform the mind and life to godliness, but rather conforms the Bible to this world and to its values, its ideologies, its theories, its wisdom, its opinions, its religions, and its preferences.
Every false theology is opposed to Jesus, His Word, and His gospel in that it either speaks falsely about Jesus and misrepresents Him, His Word, and His gospel, or it is ignorant of Jesus, His Word, and His gospel. When any so-called theology is compared with the clear and plain meaning of Scripture, it will be discovered to be either unbiblical in that it “advocates a different doctrine”, or deficient in that it “does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,” (1 Tm 6:3). God has not given Satan and his servants the ability to deceive people in ways that could not be detected and exposed when examined against the clear and plain light of Scripture: “But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light,” (Eph 5:13). Only people who are doers of evil refuse to come to the light (Jn 3:20); they refuse to allow the clear and plain light of Scripture to be the sole authoritative test and judge of their beliefs and practices, “But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought by God” (Jn 3:21).
Since holiness is the fruit of truth, then there can be no holiness where what is taught, preached, and practiced “does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness”, and where there is no love of the truth in the heart and life. Today there is a popular and growing belief that the Christian life can be lived apart from a true knowledge and understanding of Scripture, and that the Bible is not necessary; that all we need is the direct guidance and influence of the Holy Spirit, which some call “being led by the Spirit”. This is a lie of the devil and a doctrine of demons. It turns Christianity into nothing more than pagan mysticism and superstition, and it leaves us without any means of testing and distinguishing between truth and falsehood. Most today treat the Bible as an antiquated and useless book instead of what it really is, the living, active, and authoritative Word of God. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth (Jn 14:16; 15:26), to guide true believers into all the truth already revealed in Scripture (Jn 16:13). A Christianity that is divorced from Scripture is like a ship that is detached from its mooring; it cannot help but suffer shipwreck. The teaching and preaching of the true gospel and its doctrines is always accompanied by an administration of the Spirit which has been given to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement (Jn 16:7-11). The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:17), not the spirit of error. To be “led by the Spirit” is to be led, guided by, governed, and conformed to the true meaning of God’s Word and the implications of that meaning. It is by means of the Spirit working through the “standard of sound words”, namely, through the true and accurate meaning of the Word, not through error, the wisdom of men, mystical experiences, extra-biblical revelations, and false interpretations, that the Spirit works upon the heart to produce true and genuine holiness in the life. The new birth and sanctification are by means of “the living and abiding word of God” (1 Pt 1:23; cf. Jn 17:17). It is by means of the pure, unadulterated milk of the Word that we grow in respect to salvation (1 Pt 2:2).
True Christianity, namely, Christianity that has anything of truth and reality in it and is not merely Christian in name only, is an effect of the Word and the Holy Spirit. Paul told the Thessalonians, “when you received from us the word of God’s message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe” (1 Th 2:13). It is by means of “the pure milk of the word,” that we grow in respect to salvation (1 Pt 2:2). It is by means of the truth that God saves and sanctifies the sinner (Jn 17:17). It is by means of “His precious and magnificent promises … that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature,” (2 Pt 1:4). True Christians are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit “after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation – having also believed,” (Eph 1:13). It is by means of “the foolishness of the message preached” (1 Cor 1:21) that God has chosen to save those who believe: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rm 10:17). “And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard?” (Rm 10:14). It is the pure, unadulterated gospel, which is all of the New Testament, that “is the power of God for salvation” (Rm 1:16).
God has appointed means to be used for the propagation and advancement of the gospel, chief of which are the faithful and accurate preaching and teaching of all of Scripture accompanied by fervent prayer. The means cannot be separated from the ends nor the cause from the effect. Other means cannot be substituted for the means God has appointed. People are not “loved” into the kingdom of God. To neglect and corrupt the means is to lose the end. It is by these means alone, namely, the pure, undiluted, unedited, unadulterated, and accurate preaching and teaching of the Word, earnest prayer, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, that people in all ages have been made genuinely holy, and many continue to be made so wherever the Word is faithfully taught and preached.
Yet no human actions can produce or guarantee results. God is sovereign over the means as well as the ends. The Spirit blows where and when He wills (Jn 3:8). No one can come to saving faith in Jesus unless the Father Himself draws them (Jn 6:44, 65). God has never promised to bless any means He Himself has not appointed, nor has He promised to bless His means with the same results, nor in proportion to the efforts of His people. Noah was a preacher of righteousness yet no one repented at the preaching of Noah. To some it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God while to others it has not been granted (Mt 13:11). God “has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires” (Rm 9:19), and He “has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, (Jn 12:40), and given them over to a depraved mind (Rm 1:28). Sometimes the simple reading or hearing of the Word has been the means of bringing a careless sinner to true salvation, when at other times the most clear, faithful, and powerful preaching has been in vain. Without the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit the Word of God remains a sealed book. The natural man may be able to attain a natural, speculative, academic, and intellectual knowledge of divine truth, but he can never come to a true understanding and love of the truth so as to be saved. A person may be a cultural Christian by birth, but unless they are given a new birth by means of the Word and Spirit, they can never love holiness. They may be able to invent various forms of Christianity that are Christian in name only, but they can never love or pursue genuine holiness. Instead they will work to bring God’s standard of holiness down to some absurd standard of their own.
Regeneration and the faith and holiness that are always the fruit of it, are the gift of God. True conversion and the holiness which it always produces is not brought about by the fulfillment of certain conditions or by the gimmicks and inventions of men, but by the sovereign power of God. This is a truth that has been largely forgotten today, but was clearly taught by Jesus, the apostles, and by all who have understood the true nature of salvation. It is not by might nor by power but by the Spirit of the living God that the true work and interests of the kingdom of God are advanced (Zech 4:6). The most powerful and accurate preaching is all in vain without the influence of the Holy Spirit, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves” (2 Cor 4:7). Paul planted, Apollos watered, “but God was causing the growth” (1 Cor 3:6). It is “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope” (1 Pt 1:3). If the gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing (2 Cor 4:3). When the vast majority of what is taught and preached is not the pure milk of the Word, and when most of what professes and pretends to be Christian will not endure sound doctrine, then people cut themselves off from the only means by which God saves and sanctifies the sinner. They in vain try to enter the kingdom of God by means which they themselves have invented and which God has never appointed. No wonder holiness has virtually disappeared in our day. A nominal, lukewarm, worldly, carnal, man-centered, mystical, counterfeit gospel and Christianity that is Christian in name only can never produce true holiness. Unlike most of what professes to be Christian today, God is not inclusive. There is no “Everyone is welcome” sign on the gates of heaven. Many who profess to be Christian will hear those most awful words, “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Mt 7:23). Comparatively few enter by the narrow gate. The kingdom of God is reserved for people who possess a certain character that is consistent with a new nature. Without holiness no one will see the Lord.
God’s end, His purpose in the salvation of sinners is holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Salvation is not just salvation from the guilt and punishment of sin, but from the power and principle of sin, and from a life characterized by the practice of sin to a life characterized by the pursuit, practice, and love of holiness. But, sadly, even true Christians, for one reason or another, often allow themselves to decay and deteriorate in holiness. Such was the case with those churches and people that Jesus admonished and warned in the second and third chapters of Revelation, some of which had utterly fallen into the serious condition of having lost their first faith and love. Some have had their minds led astray by false teaching and teachers from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3). Others, through neglect of sound doctrine, have gradually drifted away (Hb 2:1). And others who have made a profession and outward pretense of holiness, first decay in their outward practice of it, and eventually totally fall away from it into the practice of open sin and conformity to the world. This is what characterizes not only every mainline Protestant denomination today, but the vast majority of what professes to be Christian. Such churches and institutions may have, at their beginning, been pure and holy in their doctrine and practice, but over time they drift away from the truth, decay in holiness, adopt the wisdom, ideologies, values, methods, practices, and principles of the world, until the faithful city becomes a harlot (Is 1:21). This is how and why Christianity has today lost all of its glory, power, respect, and influence in the world, and how the blessing it once brought with it to all the nations in which it took root and flourished is now lost and forfeited. The unholy doctrines, lives, and practices of what professes to be Christian today is the reason why “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles” (Rm 2:24).
Whenever and wherever people and churches call themselves Christian, and profess to follow Jesus and His Word and expect to receive forgiveness and eternal blessing from Him, yet fall short of this holiness and instead practice what is contrary and opposed to it, then there “they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame” (Hb 6:6), and “because of them the way of the truth will be maligned” (2 Pt 2:2). Since love is the fulfillment of the Law (Rm 13:10), then when holiness decays it is because love for God and His Word has decayed. When love grows cold, then the practice of holiness becomes dead (Mt 24:12). When the practice of holiness is neglected then the practice of sin becomes normative because lawlessness leads to further lawlessness (Rm 6:19), and ungodliness leads to further ungodliness (2 Tm 2:16). There are different degrees of holiness, but not different kinds of holiness. To the degree holiness is neglected and decays, sin increases tenfold and spreads like gangrene (2 Tm 2:17), until a person’s life becomes characterized by the practice of sin instead of the practice of holiness, and their last state becomes worse than their first (2 Pt 2:21, 22). The old saying has been proven true over and over again, if we are not killing sin, then sin will be killing us.
It is self-evident to anyone who has eyes to see that there is now an open, flagrant, obstinate, and shameless apostasy from the holiness of the gospel on the part of most who call themselves Christians. Instead of pursuing and practicing holiness, many “display their sin like Sodom; they do not even conceal it” (Is 3:9). Not only do entire churches and denominations make no attempt to conceal their sin and rebellion, they openly boast and take pride in it, all while making a profession and pretense of being Christian. They take pleasure in wickedness (2 Th 2:12), not in holiness. Their entire self-interest is totally dependent upon their sin so that, “their deeds will not allow them to return to their God” (Hos 5:4). To do so would be catastrophic for all their worldly self-interests. Instead of approving what is holy and righteous, they approve of what God clearly forbids and condemns, if not in word, then certainly in their practices. When we look around us and see multitudes full of hopes of heaven, yet they can give no biblical reason or evidence for those hopes to themselves or others, and while they indulge their delusions, they habitually engage and live in and approve of practices that are mentioned by God Himself as the certain marks and evidences of not only an unregenerate sinner, but of having given themselves over to the practice of every kind of sin with greediness, that is, they cannot get enough of it and greedily refuse to part with it (Eph 4:19), and of being given over to a depraved mind (Rm 1:28-32), and if they are so obstinate and tenacious in maintaining their false hopes, and will not tolerate having them exposed for what they really are by the clear and plain light of Scripture, then they cut themselves off from the only means of holiness in this life, and without which it is impossible for anyone to enjoy heavenly joy and happiness in the life hereafter: “Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves” (Is 3:9).
Today not only has the profession and practice of holiness virtually vanished among all that professes to be Christian, but it is very often ridiculed, mocked, and scoffed at. The practice of holiness is not only neglected, but scorned and vilified. To expose and identify sin, paganism, evil, and the unfruitful deeds of darkness by their right names is the quickest and surest way to be labeled some kind of “phobic”, or an “oppressor”, or an “extremist”, or just a religious nut. Upholding and defending the biblical roles and distinctions of men and women will bring accusations of being a misogynist. The practice of sin is justified, especially when it is committed “after much thought and prayer”. Grace has been turned into licentiousness. Sin is given respectable names, turned into a virtue, made something of which to be proud, “and whose glory is in their shame” (Phil 3:19). Our sin and ungodliness, we are told by some, magnifies the love and grace of God, which is the same thing as saying that sin glorifies God. It is no exaggeration to say that it is very rare and has become virtually impossible to find true Christianity among professing Christians, and the apostasy seems to be increasing every day. If anyone thinks there is not such a widespread apostasy in the world today, and that the lives and practices of the generality of churches and professing Christians are a proper and accurate representation of the gospel, and that the language, lives, practices, and behavior we hear and see continuously among the generality of professing Christians are the true and genuine effects of the truths, doctrines, and commands of Christianity, then I will not argue with them. To try and convince people who love sin to love God and His holiness is beyond the ability of flesh and blood. I would simply encourage them to seriously and honestly compare what they imagine it is to be Christian with what the Bible clearly teaches it is to be Christian, and pray that perhaps “God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Tm 2:25, 26). But whatever other people, churches, denominations, and institutions do, love the Lord and His holiness, all you who call upon the name of the Lord, “that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life,” (Phil 2:15, 16).
In the next study I will examine some of the reasons for this apostasy from the holiness which the gospel teaches and requires, and the means by which it might be arrested and reversed, or at least some individual people might be preserved from it, and from the judgments that always accompany it.
[1]Charles Hodge, The Way of Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2020), v.
[2] Iain Murray, The Old Evangelicalism (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2005), 90-91.
[3] Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967), 66, 67.
[4] Samuel Davies, Sermons of the Rev. Samuel Davies, Vol 1 (Grand Rapids: Solo Deo Gloria, 2021), 469, 470, 476.
[5] Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 107.
[6] Charles Hodge, The Way of Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2020), 238.
[7] Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience, 66.
[8] Quoted in Petrus Van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, Vol 1 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2018), xlii.
[9] Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 92.
[10] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 135.
[11] Ibid, 263.
[12] Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 1998), 256-257.