Does Rain Fall Up
“Principles it is said have no modesty. It is their nature to rule, and they steadily assert their privilege. Do they encounter other principles in their paths that would dispute their empire, they give battle immediately. A principle never rests until it has gained the victory; and it can not be otherwise- with it to reign is to live. If it does not reign supreme it dies.”
Dr. Merle D’Aubigne- History of the Reformation.
When New Testament Apostolic Christianity became ‘Catholicized’ in the following centuries after it was founded, Satan brought in false doctrine and idolatry to corrupt it. Then when Martin Luther ushered in the Protestant Reformation in the 1500’s, Satan corrupted it with division. Divide and conquer has been his strategy from Protestantism’s inception. To justify the divisions and shore up the walls several areas of deception were brought into the mix. One of these is what I call the ‘privatization of faith and practice’ which exists throughout the Christian church today. There is very little accountability to one another across church lines and to scripture regarding what we believe. We have made it a private matter. ATTENTION!! Truth can not be privatized and still be maintained as truth in any traditional sense of the word. This has produced an environment of what you might call ‘vigilante theology’. Most of our beliefs have been gleaned more from personal comfort, ignorance, and denomination than from clear text of scripture. This vigilanteism has pretty much insulated Christians from any kind of correction. If scripture is used to try and show someone is wrong the come back is usually “well that’s your interpretation”, Or “you may believe that but I don’t.” And that is the end of the discussion. There is no sense of the importance of truth just personal bias. And it insinuates that our God doesn’t place a premium on Truth over error. As a result we have basically inoculated ourselves from biblical truth trusting in our own thinking. So even though we may say we believe in the authority of scripture over all areas of fatih and practice in reality we believe in the authority of our own interpretation of scripture over all areas of faith and practice. We are so ingrained into this type of thinking people have no idea how to think otherwise. Yet there is a huge and possibly eternal difference between these two mentioned above. In this environment you can have 5 pastors who endorse opposing doctrinal positions on some teaching of scripture and yet all of them will maintain “we just believe the Bible.” Which means the Bible must contradict itself and if it contradicts itself what good is it over any other common work. And what does that contradiction actually say about its author- God. It says He is confused or at the very least doesn’t really care how we define Jesus and His work of redemption. The Bible is the only authoritative document we have for the Christian faith, outside of that we have nothing left but personal preference and opinion, and if Christianity is to be based on personal opinion then what difference is it really from any other religion. They all trust in their personal beliefs as well. We can not afford to base our eternal destiny on someone else’s or our own opinion. We have got to understand how to find and define biblical truth and hold onto it. This is very, very serious stuff and that again is just the tip of the iceberg of things holding the church back today. I have witnessed this debacle many times through the years and was part of it myself for much of my Christian life and ministry. These types of things move me to tears for the numbers of Christians today who embrace this thinking. Many of whom are stuck in it because most of the pastors believe the same thing. Paul told the Corinthian Church, which was a city wide church, “Now I beseech you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment’(1Cor.1:10). Place that biblical template over the way we do things today and it doesn’t fit at all. People say “you have to be kidding me, you actually believe Paul was calling the Corinthian Christians to believe the same things in their theology?” Absolutely! Paul was their mentor. Do we really think he spent all his effort teaching them on various issues just to give them license to believe whatever they wanted. Paul wrote, “If we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” (Gal.1:8). He said, “Now I urge you brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and turn away from them…”(Ro.16:17). Ok, that said let me develop this a little more because I realize what I am saying may seem a bit obscure in light of where so much of the church and its teaching is at today.
Let’s start off with this. Are the scriptures just a nice example of what could be or are they a pattern of what should be? Are they a prescription to be followed or a description to admire? Are they there to inspire or require? Until that question is answered it does no good to go on. There has to be some standard of authority to determine right and wrong or it is anyone’s best guess. Hold our finger in the air, see which way the winds of opinion are going and follow the most favorable route right? If it feels good do it right? I mean after all “everyone else is doing it.” The cheapness, cowardliness and danger of that thinking is outdone only by the insidiousness of the culture that has promoted it. God- if he exists at all becomes nothing more than a convenience for man’s whims and fancies. A Christian version of Baacus the ancient Greek god of wine and ecstasy.
Do we really want to commit our eternal destiny to our own or someone else’s opinion?? I mean really! And how is that to be justified before the judgment seat of Christ which we will all stand before someday (2Cor.5:10). “Well God it was what I wanted to believe”, “I was personally convinced it was right”, “that person sounded so convincing” and on the arguments go. Scripture says, “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its way is the way of death”( Prov.14:12). Follow me on this a little more.
If I believe that God is yellow, loves to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lives on a little green planet called Bubba, does that make me right? Is God going to give me a pass on it because I am so convinced of it? If I believe the earth is flat, sits on a big green turtle does that mean I’m right? Where is common sense in all this? Or is that gone too? Have we gone so far down this dead end street to no where’s land that there is no such thing as right and wrong any more? Absolute truth? And how about that? Does rain fall up? Does the sun go around the earth? If I am absolutely convinced that I can jump off a cliff and float to the bottom, does that make me right? No! The law of gravity makes me wrong. It isn’t subject to our culturally driven nonsense! And maybe when I hit the bottom of the cliff and break some bones or perhaps die, I will have learned that there is a very real difference between right and wrong, fact and fiction, truth and error regardless of personal convictions! If I drive 65 mph on a 50 mph road because I believe it’s right for me, does that somehow make it right? And when the policeman pulls me over to give me a ticket what am I going to say to him? “Well officer 50mph maybe fine for others but not for me. I believe 65-75 is best for me.” Do we really think he’s just going to say, “Oh well that’s different.” No, he’s probably going to give me a ticket and perhaps make me walk a line. Right and wrong exist and I was wrong! You can’t rationalize such an obvious fact out of existence because of a culture that may say otherwise in the church or not. I had a person tell me a while back, “I don’t have a problem with people believing whatever they want to believe, I just don’t want them telling me what to believe.” Great! Such incredible reasoning right? There’s just one problem. It doesn’t matter how hard one tries to believe what they may want to believe, that doesn’t make it right and life and judgment will prove things just don’t work that way.
All of creation operates according to very specific and complex laws that govern its existence, any violation of those laws and problems set in. 330 billion cells are replaced in our bodies every day. That’s right 330 billion. That goes on without us even thinking about it. If the laws that govern that process are disrupted in any way cancers and various forms of disease can set in. Again you can stretch about 250 human red blood cells across the head of a pin and there is a universe of complexity and complex activity going on in each one of them all the time. It all follows specific laws and a complex order that no one can fully figure out. Right and wrong is so exact in these processes it defies our imagination! There is no exception to the laws that govern these processes or disease and death can result. And yet when it comes to human conduct and beliefs we think there is no absolute truths that govern our lives and behavior.
Ok, enough said. I don’t know how I can make the case for truth any stronger. So the dominance of truth and its laws goes on all around us all the time every day. So why oh why is there an exception to that in the church. Why do we think we can believe whatever we want to believe as long as we are personally convinced it’s true for us. Truth is not personally defined and that especially goes for biblical truth. God didn’t give us the 10 suggestions but commandments. If scripture represents truth as it does; “Your word is truth” Jesus said (Jn.17:17), then how can it possibly be represented by so many contradictory and varied interpretations that promote our walls? Truth does not exist in contradiction to itself. I repeat, truth does not exist in contradiction to itself! If it is truth it can not be privatized to fit our personal persuasions and walls. It has to mean the same thing across the board for everyone. Truth is a standard that applies to everyone all the way down through time. Please let that sink in and let it slowly displace all the sectarian, divisive misguided rhetoric promoted by our high-walled independent isolated church systems. We are on the cusp of Reformation and this is one of the main reasons why it is absolutely necessary. Once the justifications for the privatization of biblical truth and practice crumble all our walls will begin to crumble with them. We can not go on claiming to have the truth saddled with so many obvious hypocritical contradictions. You may be saying, “Wow if that’s true there’s going to have to be some major changes” and you’re right. More next article.
Luther Canon
Sola Scriptura 