Stay With What Is Written God said through Moses, Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it (Deuteronomy 4:2; see also Deuteronomy 12:32; Revelation 22:18-19). Every word of God is flawless... Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar (Proverbs 30:5-6). Paul wrote, Do not go beyond what is written (1 Corinthians 4:6). Jesus rebuked those who nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition (Matthew 15:6). I think sometimes today we come very close to doing this. I believe this is a very basic principle. We must not ignore or disregard anything that is in Scripture, just because we do not like it, or it does not fit into our logical schemes. Augustine, one of the early church fathers, said, If you believe what you like in the Gospel and reject what you do not like, it is not the Gospel you believe but yourself. Scripture tells us that we are a very unreliable authority (see Jeremiah 17:9-10). There is also a danger in adding to Scripture. Sometimes, without meaning to, we seem to give to a fallible human interpretation of Scripture an authority equal to or even greater than the very words of Scripture themselves. If we learned it in seminary, or if our pastor has taught it, we tend to think of it as gospel truth. This can become a form of idolatry. If we set human teachings above the word of God, are we not serving created things rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25)? It is good to be like the Bereans, who searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so (Acts 17:11, KJV). Let me illustrate with two examples. (1) Scripture speaks, in several places, of men being elected or predestined for salvation. From this some have drawn the logical inference that there must also be those who are predestined for eternal damnation. Scripture never says this. It never speaks of being elected or predestined for damnation. The teaching may be valid, although I find it in conflict with passages in Scripture that say that God wants everyone to be saved (see, for example, John 3:16; 1 Timothy 2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9) But we need to recognize that it is based on human logic and not on the words of Scripture. There are a number of other teachings of which the same can be said. We need to be very clear as to what is the revealed word of God in Scripture, and what is human teaching. The human teaching may be valid, but it should not be given the weight or authority of Scripture. (2) Some years ago I read a book by a highly respected British pastor and author in which he said that he could not accept as authentic the account of Jesus judging the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) because it was inconsistent with his concept of Jesus. A loving Jesus, he thought, would not condemn people to eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46). (Actually he did not go far enough; by his criterion he should also have rejected a substantial number of other passages that talk of judgment, and eternal punishment and the wrath of Jesus. Usually, when we start trying to edit something out of the Bible, we find that we end up by having to make a lot of changes because the Bible is so tightly interconnected.) The basic issue is this: How can I reject a part of what is in Scripture simply because it not consistent with my idea of how God ought to do things? Since the Bible is the word of God, we cannot apply to it some standard of political correctness and rewrite it - adding here, taking away there, rephrasing there - to make it correspond to our ideas or wishes We have no right to tell God, You made a mistake; you should have said it this way. God said, through Isaiah, Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker (Isaiah 45:9). But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me like this? (Romans 9:20). We need to take the Bible as it is, understand it as it is, and not try to impose our ideas upon it.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 21:10:12 +0000
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