Bible Doctrine

• Basic Christian Doctrine
  
  Many people put Jesus on a pedestal alongside other great men. They readily acknowledge that He was a teacher of profound ethical ideals, or that He set an example of rare compassion and self-sacrifice, or even that in some sense He was a messenger from God. Yet, in holding such honorific concepts of Jesus, they fall far short of the truth. Jesus is the Messiah. He is the God-man who descended from heaven to save the world from sin. His genius was not a flowering of man's potential, but a revelation of God's greatness. Thus, His identity as the Messiah depends for verification upon such supernatural events as miracles and fulfillments of prophecy.
  
  Most people who accept Jesus as the Messiah, in the Biblical sense, have progressed to the fuller light that He is God. But the way from the truth of His Messiahship to the truth of His deity is not free of pits for the unwary. There are dangers even along this well-lighted road. The heresies that await careless feet are mainly of two kinds. Religious cultists like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses edit and annotate Scripture so as to belittle Jesus. Theological liberals, dominant in most Protestant denominations today, retain the forms and words of orthodoxy to gratify their appetite for religious experience, but deny that the historical Jesus was very God.
  
  Either kind of heresy can flourish only by drawing attention away from the Bible. Although cultists have a certain respect for the Bible, they do not read it for themselves. Rather, they look at it through the filter of official interpretations handed down by their leaders, who possess supreme authority. People under the spell of liberalism avoid the Bible as much as possible, taking refuge in the slander that it is a very imperfect human effort to understand God's workings and to memorialize Jesus.
  
  
  • lesson 1: Inerrancy of Scripture
    • Truthfulness of God
    • Scripture's view of itself
    
    
  • lesson 2: Prophecies of the Incarnation
    • The Incarnation
    • Isaiah's oracle
    • David's oracle
    • Other oracles
    
    
  • lesson 3: New Testament View of Christ
    • Deity of Christ
    • Humanity of Christ
    
    
  • lesson 4: The Holy Spirit
    • Personhood of the Holy Spirit
    • Deity of the Holy Spirit
    
    
  • lesson 5: The Trinity
    • Three persons in one being
    • The Trinity in the Old Testament
    • The Trinity in the New Testament
  
  
• Biblical Cosmology
  
  
  • The Devil
    • lesson 6: His Origins, Attributes, and Empire
      • Old misconceptions
      • His origins
      • His names
      • His appearance
      • The greatness of his power
      • His limitations
      • His empire
      
      
    • lesson 7: Spiritual Warfare
      • His works
      • His desire
      • His defeat
      • His future
      • Our view of him
      • Our defense
    
    
  • The Sons of God Who Fell
    
    The statement in Genesis 6 that the sons of God took the daughters of men for wives has provoked much debate. The only tenable view, accepted without question throughout most of church history, is that these sons of God were fallen angels.
    
    
    • lesson 8
      • Sinful intermarriage
      • Other references in Scripture to the sons of God
    
    
  • Is There Intelligent Life in Outer Space?
    
    Man in his present condition is confined to this world. Why then did God create such a vast universe? So we can explore it not in our present state, but in our glorified state, when we have immortal, powerful, spiritual bodies untainted by sin. Our possession of glory implies that we will have an immense power plant resident within us, and our access to the spiritual plane of reality implies that we will be able to go wherever we want in a relatively short time.
    
    
    • lesson 9
      • Vastness of the universe
      • Uniqueness of man
      • The impossibility of space exploration
      • The wonderful future of God's people
  
  
• Contemporary Issues in Theology
  
  
  • The Battle over Versions of the Bible
    
    The most contentious and divisive question in fundamentalism today is, "Which is the right Bible?" The combatants have sorted themselves out into two main camps. On one side stand partisans of the King James Version (KJV). On the other stand those who approve at least some of the many modern English translations based on the critical text of the New Testament. Both sides, especially the KJV-only side, are demanding that all who wish to remain in their good graces must submit to their point of view. The KJV-only side is branding dissenters as heterodox or heretical. The other side looks upon anyone who rejects the critical text as an enemy of learning.
    
    It is evident that the devil is succeeding in the same ploy he has used many times in the past. To suppress truth, he is creating two false extremes that are monopolizing the territory of debate, eliminating every choice besides themselves. They have identified each other as the evil empire. But neither side seems in danger of losing. The skirmishes that have so far erupted have merely helped each side unite and energize its following. As often happens when two extremes fire at each other, the only casualty has been truth in the middle.
    
    
    • lesson 10: The KJV-Only Position
      • The battle lines drawn
      • The heterodoxy in supposing that any translation is inspired
      • The fallacy in stamping a particular text as the perfect Word of God
        • Misuse of the doctrine of preservation
        • Proper use of the doctrine of preservation
      • The fallacy in exalting the KJV as a translation
      • The decline of learning
      • The pressures of pragmatism
        
        
    • lesson 11: Serious Faults in the KJV
      
      
    • lesson 12: Westcott and Hort
      • Arguments of Westcott and Hort
      • Current standing of these arguments
        • Conflates
        • Antiquity of readings peculiar to BT
        • Stylistic features of BT
          
          
    • lesson 13: The Critical Text
      • The evidence that might be used to settle priority
      • The evidence that AT includes corrupt readings
        • Names in degenerate form
        • Errors
        • Garbled readings
      • The evidence that AT includes elucidations
      • The evidence that AT includes attempts at updating
      • The evidence that AT includes biased readings
        • Possible rationalistic changes
        • Possible accommodations of emerging superstitions
        • Possible retreats from categorical statements
        • Possible antisemitic deletions
        • Possible prudish deletions
        • Possible changes to protect the status and authority of church leaders
        • Possible changes to avoid antagonizing solid citizens in the church
        • Possible changes to avoid antagonizing civil authority
      • The evidence that AT is not the original text
      • Source of the Alexandrian readings
        
        
    • lesson 14: My Own Position
      • The King James Version
      • The critical text
      • The Majority text
      • The Byzantine text
        • Providential preservation
        • Replies to Carson
      • Critical exegesis
        • Weighing text-types
        • Godet's position
        • Textual criteria
        • Spiritual criteria
    
    
  • Modern Hermeneutics
    
    At critical times in church history, God has assembled His people to identify and repudiate the devil's latest doctrinal innovations. The last, I believe, was almost a hundred years ago, when A. C. Dixon led a wide range of Christian leaders to write the volumes known as The Fundamentals, which gave fundamentalism its name. These volumes affirmed true Christianity in distinction from the liberal and modernist counterfeit.
    
    We seem to be on the threshold of another defining moment. This time, the issue will be hermeneutics. Wherever the church is firmly committed to inerrancy, the devil has been using the latest fashions in hermeneutics to lure people into positions I can only describe as forms of intellectual schizophrenia—positions which say in essence that the Bible is true because we must believe it is true, but true only because it does not mean what it says. With respect to a wide range of issues, this have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too sort of hermeneutics has found ways of manipulating Scripture to suit contemporary thought.
    
    
    • lesson 15: Legitimate Contrasted with Illegitimate
      • The next heresy
      • Legitimate hermeneutics
        • Authorial intent
        • The single sense
        • Context
        • The teaching of Scripture elsewhere
        • The literal sense
      • Illegitimate hermeneutics
        • Fallacy: The possible sense of a passage is limited by the knowledge and capacity of the human author.
        • Fallacy: The literal meaning of the text is the only meaning.
        • Fallacy: Hermeneutics is a science.
          
          
    • lesson 16: Doctrine, Prophecy, and Bible-Science Issues
      • Hermeneutical attempts to undermine doctrine
        • Fallacy: Some portions of Scripture are essentially worthless for doctrine.
      • Hermeneutical abuse of prophecy
        • Fallacy: Types and prophecies cannot reveal aspects of the future unseen by the prophet himself.
        • Fallacy: The correct approach to the Book of Revelation and similar prophecies is to recognize that they are examples of apocalyptic, a literary genre that includes many ancient writings outside the canon of Scripture.
      • Hermeneutical reshaping of Bible teachings at variance with modern science
        • Fallacy: The Bible does not teach that the worlds were made in six literal days. Rather, the word yom, translated "day," refers to a long period of time, an age.
        • Fallacy: The Flood was not universal, but restricted to the region of Mesopotamia.
          
          
    • lesson 17: Treatment of Ethics and Applications
      • Hermeneutical devices to condone sin
        • Fallacy: The Bible condemns promiscuous or abusive homosexuality, but says nothing against "monogamous" relationships between consenting adults.
        • Fallacy: The Bible does not condemn abortion.
      • Hermeneutical attempts to restrict useful applications of Scripture
        • Fallacy: We should not draw any truth from a text apart from the main lesson intended by the author.
        • Fallacy: Applications should be limited to those indicated in the text itself.
        • Fallacy: Exegesis is the paramount task of a preacher.
        • An older view
        • Evil effects of modern hermeneutics
    
    
  • The True Gospel: A Refutation of Easy-Believism
    
    Too often today, preachers give out a gospel that has the look and feel of a strong cord, but some of the strands are defective. The imperiled soul who grasps such a gospel may find some temporary security and hope, but when he is caught by the merciless waves of death, the line gives way and he sinks without aid or remedy into hell.
    
    
    • lesson 18: Believing in Jesus' Name
      • The dependable lifeline
      • The necessity for repentance
      • The object of belief
      • The name "Jesus"
      • The name "Christ"
      • The name "Lord"
      • Truth beyond the minimum
      • An erroneous view of the minimum (comments on Romans 10:9)
      • The gospel in a nutshell
        
        
    • lesson 19: True Repentance
      • Life-changing salvation
      • Objections
        • The meaning of the Greek word for repentance
        • The simplicity of the true gospel
      • The soteriology of historic evangelical churches
        
        
    • lesson 20: Against Easy-Believism
      • Our predicament in the Last Days
      • Law and grace
      • Antinomianism
      • Five characteristic teachings of easy-believism
      • Legalism
      • Christian liberty
        
        
    • lesson 21: Works as Evidence of Salvation
      • Exposition of James 2:14-26
      • Reply to Zane Hodges
        
        
    • lesson 22: The Conversion Experience
      • True and false conversions (comments on the Parable of the Sower and other texts)
      • Those who disobey the truth
        • The carnal Christian
        • The apostate
        • The backslider
          
          
    • lesson 23: Assurance of Salvation
      • Eternal security
        • The power of God
        • The love of God
        • The truthfulness of God
      • Evidence of salvation
        • Past decision (the imperfect test)
        • The four Biblical tests
          
          
    • lesson 24: Discipleship
      • Conditions
        • Hatred of all others but Christ
        • Willingness to bear a cross
      • Easy-believist misunderstanding of discipleship
      • Conclusion
    
    
  • Calvinism
    
    The doctrines represented by the acronym TULIP are known as the five points of Calvinism. Calvin himself never codified the doctrines of grace in this manner. Indeed, he would have objected to how these doctrines are understood and taught by some who call themselves Calvinists. Yet when properly formulated, all five points are Biblical in substance, although they easily become unbiblical in emphasis unless they are kept in balance with the doctrines of responsibility.
    
    
    • lesson 25: The Five Points (updated 3/26/19)
      • The doctrines of grace
      • TULIP
        • Total depravity
        • Unconditional election
        • Limited atonement
        • Irresistible grace
        • Perseverance of the saints
      • The doctrines of responsibility
      • DAISY
        • Deliberate sin
        • All-encompassing call
        • Infinite love
        • Spontaneous faith
        • Yieldedness of the saints
        • DAISY
      • Questions raised by the doctrine of election
        • Does not the doctrine of election disregard the free will of man?
        • Would not God be unjust if He granted saving grace to some and withheld it from others?
        • How may we explain the New Testament principle that God desires the salvation of all men?
        • How do the elect differ from everyone else?
        • Why has God declined to treat all men as His children?
          
          
    • lesson 26: Unsound Extremes
      • Doctrinal systems arising in reaction to TULIP
      • Arminianism
        • Total depravity
        • Unconditional election
        • Limited atonement
        • Irresistible grace
        • Perseverance of the saints
      • Hypercalvinism
    
    
  • Neo-Evangelicalism
    
    The deadening touch of neo-evangelicalism proceeds from a core weakness in basic doctrine, primarily the doctrine of faith. Although this new system avoids the legalism taught by the older heresies of Catholicism and liberalism, and although it recognizes that faith, not works, is the only avenue of salvation, its definition of faith is inadequate. Neo-evangelicalism denies—perhaps not in so many words, but certainly in the daily practice of Christianity—that genuine faith involves the desire and intent to live in full submission to God. Full submission is submission of heart to the viewpoint of eternity, submission of behavior to God's standards of holiness, and submission of mind to the unbreakable truth of Scripture. In this life, full submission is unattainable, for we never succeed in shedding our sin nature, but faith always longs to be free from sin. Faith with no intent to obey God, or with deliberate intent not to obey, is not faith at all, and to the extent that neo-evangelicals are preaching a counterfeit faith without saving efficacy, they are striking at the heart of redemptive truth. It is because they go wrong on the supreme question of how men are saved that their schismatic movement in the church deserves to be called heresy.
    
    
    • lesson 27: The Fourth Apostasy
      • Earlier apostasies
      • Neo-evangelicalism
      • Erroneous doctrine of faith
      
      
    • lesson 28: The Shift in Attitude
      • Christianity revised for modern man
      • Jesus' warning to Laodicea
      
      
    • lesson 29: The Shift in Behavior
      
      
    • lesson 30: The Shift in Doctrine
      • Taking away from Scripture
      • Adding to Scripture
      • Conclusion

© 2007, 2012 Stanley Edgar Rickard (Ed Rickard, the author). All rights reserved.