Sunday, May 01, 2011

Woe to you who make entrance hard

Matt 23:13 13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in." 
These are harsh words of the Lord Jesus Christ.


Do you say one must "forsake" their sin in order to be saved? Woe to the hypocrite who has not forsaken his own sins. 


Do you say one must obey laws and commands in order to be saved? Woe to the hypocrite who has does not obey in all things himself. 


Some take great joy in preaching what they call a "strong" gospel or a "hard" gospel saying that it is "hard to believe!" They take joy in shutting the kingdom of heaven up against man so as to keep those who would enter by faith out. 

8 comments:

Jan said...

That is exactly the truth, Kev, and thank you for saying it.

It is completely wrong headed to judge the validity of a gospel presentation by whether or not it makes salvation hard or easy.

Degree of difficulty is not the measure of truth and is irrelevant. The gospel is what it is, which may or may not be easy or difficult for a lost person to believe, based on a number of factors.

Someone may have a lot of difficulty trusting someone else to do something for him/her. Someone else may find that very easy to do. Either way, that is the term of salvation. And it will be just as effective irrespective of whether the person found it easy or difficult to do.

But to make the gospel deliberately difficult is wrong and does shut heaven up. To think that there are people who do this on purpose is staggering and truly frightening.

JanH

Kevl said...

Jan, you wrote:

Degree of difficulty is not the measure of truth and is irrelevant. The gospel is what it is, which may or may not be easy or difficult for a lost person to believe, based on a number of factors.

Well said!!

I'm currently reading Ryrie's Dispensationalism for the first time and this answer of yours is reminiscent of his reply to the non-dispensationalists who say that it must not be true because this or that person separated from an assembly. Is THAT the/or a measure of truth???

Well said Jan.

Kev

Jan said...

...his reply to the non-dispensationalists who say that it must not be true because this or that person separated from an assembly.

Huh? I don't think I have his book on Dispensationalism. Is he saying Dispensationalism was deemed untrue because someone else ditched it? Or someone had some issues in their church?

JanH

Kevl said...

One common argument against Dispensationalism is that it results in people separating from those who teach error.

Darby is noted as a separatist and various church splits are often recounted.

Of course Dispensationalism, much like the Gospel, comes down to being true or not based on how literally you read the Bible.

Non-Dispensationalists agree that if you read the entire Bible with the very same Gramatical Historical Hermeneutic that you will conclude that the Church and Israel are two different peoples of God, and that the Messianic Kingdom is a real earthy kingdom with Christ sitting on David's throne in Jerusalem... and so on.

The Gospel is the same - if you take the Bible for what it says without having philosophy re-define what it says then THE GOSPEL must be declared in 1 Cor 15, and that the sole term for receiving eternal life must be faith alone apart from works.

However, if you spiritualize various parts of the Bible or you subtly change the purpose of everything from God being glorified through all of His purposes all of His purposes being to redeem one group of people - then this new hermeneutic can result in LS theology and non-dispensational theology.

Kev

Kevl said...

I guess the point is, that once you make that choice to read the Bible in a plain - it means what it says, and says what it means - way you can no longer tolorate those who whether with good intentions or bad subtly change it to fit their theology.

The bible commands separation, and it is rightly a very hard thing for a Christian to do - but once you surrender your theology to the Scriptures, separation becomes easier - and so it becomes more common.

People say that Dispensationalism isn't true because it breaks up some churches....

is that the standard of truth though?

If so then the Reformation was heresy.... for it divided all denominations - and still does.

Kev

Kevl said...

Hey Jan, you wrote:

I don't think I have his book on Dispensationalism.

I actually don't read many books on theology, but since I got the Kindle I have read a couple that other people recommend. I really do not like to be introduced to an idea in a book - because they can be very influential.

I prefer to work the doctrine out in the Scriptures over a long period and then review what other people have to say about it.

That being said, I found Renald E. Showers work on Dispensationalism to be invaluable when I was still unsure about the system.

There Really Is A Difference

I believe my copy is a newer release though because it is a different, more modern looking, cover.

It is a most excellent work on Dispensationalism.

Kev

Jan said...

I do have Showers book. It is good.


Admittedly, as I understand it (per Miles Stanford), Darby did get a little nuts with the separation thing. That hardly proves Dispensationalism is a false teaching though. I think what they did there is throw the baby out with the bath water.

JanH

Kevl said...

Do you remember Miles Standford's old page on the NIV and other translations? Yikes!! He was a KJV Only guy. :)

He had a picture of the devil and demons reading and the headline said "How do you like our bible?"

He was pretty big on separation too - so it's funny to hear that about Darby from him :)

I have all of his letters here in print form, I'm slowly working my way through them.

Kev