"Understanding Your Religion- The Seven Major Doctrines that Define"
the Christian Faith," we're on lesson number eight. The title of this lesson
"The Complete History of Mankind". Imagine, in 30 minutes. We've reviewed the
first and second great biblical doctrines. The first of which was the
"Inspiration of the Bible." The second great Christian doctrine was or is the
"Divinity of Jesus Christ." The other Bible doctrines are all
based on these two. Today we're going to start to study the next three.
We're going slow at the beginning but now we're going to
pick up the pace. The next three Bible doctrines form a set. They are separate
doctrines but they form a set. The first one is "The Doctrine of Original Sin." The
second is "The Doctrine of the Fall of Man."
The third is "The Doctrine of the Restoration or Reconciliation of Man to"
"God." These three doctrines could be summarized as follows: In the beginning
God created the universe and man to be good. Man
disobeyed God and consequently was separated from God and made subject to
suffering and death along with all creation. Since then God has acted in
human history in a dynamic way in order to reconcile man to Himself through
Jesus Christ. There you have the three doctrines, that set of three compressed
into one or two paragraphs. There's the
summary. So let's drill down and take the first of these. The first of
this set of three is "The Doctrine of Original Goodness". That doctrine is
found in Genesis 1 and 2. We read in Genesis 1, "Then God said, “Let Us make man"
"in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule"
"over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over"
"all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God"
"created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and"
"female He created them." Man is created in the likeness of God and of course,
this explains man's potential and ability for doing what is good, doing
what is creative, for example. Why is he that way? He's made in the image
of God. It also explains why even the most evil of people have some good.
Hitler, for example, was a painter. I've seen some of his paintings.
They're not hanging in museums because of his great expertise,
but he had a gift for painting. Even the worst of terrorists love their
families, love their children. There's always some good in the most
evil of people. Why is that? We're created in the image of
God. Man's basic character begins as good. Let's keep reading. It says, "God"
"blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,"
"and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky"
"and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” So man is God's partner in
the management of creation and he's good at it. Man's purpose and man's work,
these things also are good from the beginning. We keep reading. This
time we skip over to chapter 2 of Genesis. It says, "The Lord God commanded"
"the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of"
"the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from"
"it you will surely die.” So here we see that man is given a moral code in order
to define his limits. This moral code gives substance to his
relationship with God. What kind of relationship does man have with God?
Superior and inferior. That's the relationship he has with God.
How does man know that God imposes a certain framework around him? You can do
all of this. You have all of creation multiply, subdue, but here's
the limit. Here's the lines you cannot cross. We understand the one who sets
the limits is usually the one who is above and the one who must obey the
limits is below. God establishes that relationship by setting a limit.
Man has free will. Yes, but he's not free to disobey God. This is the limit placed
on his freedom. The ethical code given to man awakens
the conscious part of his being and provides the perspective as to the
difference between himself and God. How do I know I'm not God? I've been given
the command by God to obey. I have limits. The awakening of his conscience. In
other words, the giving of the commandment jump-starts his
conscience. He understands what's right, what's wrong, what he's able to do, what
he's not able to do, what he's free to do, what he's forbidden to do. That's
what provides the tension, if you wish, the perspective in his relationship
with God. We've heard of the saying "I think therefore I am."
The reason I think is because God gave me the ability to choose. That's
why I think. God provides the tension in His relationship with us by
giving us a moral code. Genesis 2:18 says, "Then the Lord God said, “It is"
"not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” So a
perfectly suitable partner was given
to share in the joy of life and management of creation. Mankind's life
and enjoyment, this is a good thing from the very beginning. The
biblical view of man is that he was designed as a holy, godly eternal being.
His task was to choose, as a conscious act of his will, to remain good,
to remain holy and obedient to God. Without this ability he is like the
animals beware only of himself but not aware of God. What's the difference
between animals and men? Men are aware of God animals are not. Animals may
be aware of man but they're not aware of God.
This then is the third major doctrine of the Bible. This is "The"
Doctrine of Original Goodness." It's almost... You read that...
We know that. Trust me. When the false doctrine comes in this
is one of the doctrine that becomes perverted. To summarize, man
was created to have a relationship with God. He was created with the ability to
manage creation and produce a society. He was created with the capacity to choose
good and to avoid evil. He didn't just know God's will he had the ability to do
God's will if he chose to do it. Something we don't have today. We know
God's will but we don't have the ability to do God's will, not perfectly anyways.
That's the third major doctrine, "Original Goodness." The fourth
major doctrine of the Bible is "Man's Fall from Grace Through Sin." The
original position of mankind at creation, he had an intimate relationship with God.
He had a perfect social, natural, emotional spiritual balance between God
and man and the creation. Everything was in harmony. This perfect balance was
destroyed when man fell. How? Through disobedience to God. Let's keep
reading chapter 3:6. It says, "When the woman saw that the tree"
"was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree"
"was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also"
"to her husband with her, and he ate." So through the deception and seduction
woman and man are now tempted to disobey God. They do exactly the
thing that God had said not to do. They crossed the line. God's command
establishes what is right and wrong. Violating His will constitutes sin and
always, here's the lesson, always has negative consequences. You cannot disobey
God and avoid the negative consequences. This, in essence, is the substance of
the fourth great biblical doctrine. Man has been given the ability to choose.
Choosing to obey will result in maintaining his position and the harmony
that he has between himself and God, himself and his partner, himself and the
creation. Choosing to disobey will result in a fall. This fall is the subject
of the fourth great Christian doctrine. What are the results of the fall? Let's
keep reading. It says, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew"
"that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin"
"coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the"
"cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the"
"Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said"
"to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was"
"afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you"
"were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The"
"man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I"
"ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman"
"said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” What are the results of the fall?
Results of the fall. First of all, rebellion, disobedience,
shame. They were hiding. Anger. This woman you gave me... Like it's God's fault. Loss
of innocence and love. Notice in the dialogue the defensive attitude. In
addition to these, the unbalancing of the social natural and emotional order that
existed between God and man, between man and woman, and between man and creation.
All of this resulting in physical and spiritual death. The Old
Testament... You read through the Old Testament you just see the
outworking of this thing. Cain kills Abel. There's the flood and wars and
just gets worse and worse. Right? The doctrine of the fall through sin is
mirrored, as I said, throughout the entire Old Testament. Cain and Abel, the
sinfulness leading to the flood, the cycle of commands, disobedience, and
destruction that follows the Jewish nation throughout history, all of this
reflect the fall of man through sin. You don't have to have the history of every
ancient people to know what happened after the fall. The Bible simply traces
one of those nations, the Jewish nation. One that had actually
direct contact with God with all those advantages. Still what is their
history? Nothing but rebellion and war and idolatry and sinfulness and
disobedience and destruction. Right? A microcosm of what else is happening
in the rest of the world. The doctrine of the fall through sin is mirrored
throughout the entire Old Testament. Now there is miss interpretation
of major doctrines. This is where the trouble begins, not for them but for us.
The fourth major doctrine has been misunderstood and improperly taught to
the point that entire doctrinal systems have evolved around the
incorrect application of its core ideas. The fall of man, that doctrine has
been misinterpreted and misapplied. One teaching that
misrepresents the Doctrine of the Fall of Man is the doctrine of, not Original
Goodness, but the Doctrine of Original Sin. Let's look at that Doctrine of
Original Sin. This doctrine, this teaching was originally formulated by Augustine.
He was a 4th century Roman Catholic theologian. Much of his writing mixed
Christian doctrine with Greek philosophical ideas. He
married these two sources together. Basically, he taught that
Adams fall produced two things. First of all, it produced a human nature which was
unable by itself to choose good or to respond to God in faith, incapable of
doing that. So corrupted were human beings after the fall he taught, not
the Bible, but he taught that they were unable to respond to God. They were
unable to respond to God in faith. This idea, this source idea, this seed idea was
later developed by Protestant thinkers like Calvin, for example. The way that
it was developed, it gained another name. It was developed as an idea referred to
as "total depravity". "Total depravity" said that without the direct
intervention of the Holy Spirit a person was not even able to obey God.
Beginning with Augustine who says that because of original sin,
the fall of man, humans become so corrupted they can't
respond to God. Calvin develops this even further and says, it's total depravity.
We're totally, totally helpless to believe. We can't believe without
direct intervention of the Holy Spirit. That was one idea that came out of that.
Then the second idea that Augustine promoted was that original sinfulness
and it's condition of moral helplessness was passed on or imputed to every
descendant of Adam. In other words, every child born afterwards was not only born
guilty of Adam's sin but helpless to do anything about it. Because, according
to the doctrine of original sin men are born guilty and morally helpless. If you
begin with that thought then several practices grew out of this false
thinking. The first of which was infant baptism and also baptism for the dead.
Here's how the thinking goes if they are born guilty therefore they are condemned
at birth and they need to be saved immediately
at birth. If you can impute or pass on guilt, guess what? You can also impute and
pass on faith. Makes sense right? If that's what you're thinking. If
Adam's sin transfers to you it seems reasonable that your parents faith can
also transfer to you in order to save you. A lot of people say, why are they
baptizing babies? This is why they baptize babies. This is the thinking behind it. One
step further in the process. If you as a baby can be saved without being
conscious of it you can also be saved after you die. You're not conscious of it
then. Are you? That's where baptism for the dead begins. I
transfer my faith to my dead grandmother and I am baptized to transfer salvation
to her. It works if that's how you think.
Another false idea that grew out of this incorrect interpretation of "The Doctrine"
of the Fall of Man" was the thing called predestination or arbitrary election. The
thinking goes like this. If you were damned and have no power to save
yourself, Augustine and later some Protestant reformers taught, that God
therefore chooses in advance those who are to be saved and those who are to be
lost, because there's no other way to save them. They're corrupted totally.
There's nothing they can do for themselves to save themselves. God has
to step in, choose some for salvation some for damnation. Since you are
helpless to choose or obey the only way to be saved is if God arbitrarily
chooses you for salvation. Now the question that arises from this doctrine
is, if God chooses me how do I know that I have been chosen? When that
question arises then you have to develop more religious practices. You see
what I'm saying? Once you start building this thing on the improper base
then you have to keep adding components to it to make it stand up.
Evangelicals, Baptists, community churches, Protestant
groups, they see God's choice of themselves for salvation by observing
the progressive improvement of the moral character as a confirmation that one has
been chosen. In other words, if you believe and accept Jesus you're
not baptized right away. They observe you to see if you
morally start to improve. Your moral improvement and your maturity as a
Christian, as a believer, this is the confirmation that you have actually been
chosen by God. This is why there is a watch and see period before baptism. Ever
wonder why, a lot of Baptist churches, they do baptisms all in one day or they
scheduled it three months. This is why they
teach that baptism is not essential for salvation.
You're already been chosen. You're already saved. The baptism part, that's just a
ritual. It's only a symbolic ritual. It has no impact, no meaning, no nothing. It's
just an outward sign of an inward thing that's already happened. The idea
of once saved always saved also comes from the original teaching of original
sin. If God chooses you who's going to unchoose you? If God says you're saved
who are you to say you're not saved? Because if God chooses you for salvation
you're done man. You're saved. Other groups, charismatic groups, Pentecostal
groups, they had the same question. How do I know I've been chosen?
Charismatic and Pentecostal churches see the ability to speak in tongues as the
sign of election by God. It is the way that they know and are sure of God's
choosing of them. You can go up to a Pentecostal person and you can show them
all the Greek you want. You can give them a contextualized argument
that "tongues", that the actual greek word means an
actual language. They were speaking in actual language.
You can give them all the, is it right-brained or left-brained arguments,
logically, and walk away and say they didn't buy it. I wonder
why? Because for them speaking in tongues is directly related to their salvation.
If you say, no, no, you're not really speaking in tongues, what you're actually
saying to them is, no you're not really saved, because the outward confirmation
of your salvation is not true. It's not a spiritual phenomenon. It's a man-made
thing.
To summarize, the teaching of the incorrect idea of original sin was a
departure from the biblical doctrine of the fall of man. It said that by his fall
Adam spread the guilt for sin to all men. In other words, you're born guilty. It said
that because of this guilt man became unable to choose correctly, also using
the term depraved. So man was not able to choose or to respond to God in faith, did
not have the ability, you could preach the gospel to him all day long, they
couldn't do it. It also taught that God arbitrarily chose some for salvation and
others for condemnation. Once the choice was made nothing could change it.
Eventually this led to modern religious groups looking for signs of improved
moral living or special spiritual gifts as an assurance that they were
actually the chosen, the saved. This is why they say, "I accept Jesus as my"
"personal Savior." Why did they say that? They accept because they can not
choose. You accept it. Listen. I'm fairly certain that someone who's gone
through that experience, could not give the background to it. You know
what I'm saying? All they've got is the slogan, "I accept Jesus as my personal"
"Savior." They couldn't break it down and drill down and figure out where does
this come from. Roman Catholics respond to this doctrine by baptizing
babies. Since babies cannot save themselves the parents save them based
on their transferred faith. Then of course, somebody will challenge them and
say, what about choice? So in addition to infant
baptism they add another, a religious procedure that isn't biblical, and that
is the "Sacrament of Confirmation." When you're 12 years old
you are confirmed. You wonder, what is that confirmation? What
you're doing is, you've reached the age of reason, 12 years, 13 years whatever and
you are confirming what took place when you were a baby. I remember my own
confirmation. The bishop came and it was a
big deal. We had a party after. I remember I got baseball
equipment at the party. You'd go up and you
would... The bishop would have is homily and he would read.
Does everybody... I will never drink alcohol. Yes. Amen. Never drink alcohol. I
will never have sex out of marriage. Yes. He'd go through
all those things. I believe in Jesus. Yes I do.
Then we'd all proceed up. He would even... It's so confuddled. Then
he would lay hands on us, either put his hand on our head or on the
forehead to demonstrate that we had been confirmed. Everything that was done, not
against our will, but outside of our will with a baby, at confirmation, we confirmed
all of that stuff. Some people say, how did you get out of the Catholic
Church? I just read the Bible, that's all. I asked myself, wait a minute.
I didn't see this in here. Where is this in here? I was told, you just don't
understand. Oh? Yeah, I understand. I was with Pentecostal groups,
speaking in tongues and doing all their stuff. I would read. I just can't see
Jesus rolling around on the ground like this. I was told, you just don't
understand. I guess I just don't understand. So we're going to go more
deeply into these when we discuss these ideas and biblical context but for now
let's go back to our discussion of this set of major doctrines. The first
two doctrines in this set of three teach us about man's original goodness when
created and the consequences of his fall through sin and disobedience. The second
doctrine the fall through sin has been used to
publish a variety of other doctrines such as original sin, total depravity and
election as well as certain religious practices like infant baptism,
confirmation. However, in its original form "The
Doctrine of the Fall of Man" simply explained that from the beginning man
had the power to choose right from wrong. Listen. Even after the fall, continues
to have this ability, even if it is weakened by a sinful nature. Yes,
sin has weakened our nature. Yes, it is appropriate to say we have a sinful
nature. Yes, but our sinful nature has not robbed us of the ability to choose, has
not weakened us so badly that we cannot believe. This is where we differ from
Protestants. Most Protestants, evangelicals, Pentecostal, people say,
I went to the Baptist church and they did everything we did. They sang. They passed
around a plate for money. They had communion in that particular Sunday. I
don't see the difference. No, on the surface you don't, but if you scratch the
surface and go down a little bit you see a big, big difference. What does the
Bible teach? The Bible clearly teaches this idea that we have the
ability, Isaiah 59:2. Isaiah says or God says through Isaiah, "But your iniquities"
"have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His"
"face from you so that He does not hear." Isaiah is saying it is the individual
sins that condemn him not the sins of others. My father was a sinner and I
could articulate to you what his particular sins were, but I'm not guilty
of his sins. I'm guilty of my own sins. Ezekiel 18:20 to 21, it
says,"The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the"
"father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment"
"for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, "
"and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. But if the wicked man turns"
"from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes and"
"practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die." Can
it be any clearer here? One generation is not held responsible for the other
generation sins. Ezekiel, speaking from God says, and even the wicked person,
if that person changes and begins to obey means he has the ability, he or she
has the ability to do so. He will be accepted. Acts 2:38 Peter said to them,
"Repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the"
forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
In this passage we see that the gospel appeals to man's intellect and requires
a choice based on faith, something only an adult can do. Baptism is a ritual. Yes,
of course it's a ritual. There's water. You immerse somebody. It is,
by definition, it's a ritual. But it's a ritual that expresses one's faith.
God says to me, believe in me. Believe in Jesus and I'll forgive your sins.
I'll give you the Holy Spirit. I say to God, how do you want me? What do you
want me to do, not to pay for my sins? What do you want me to do to express my
faith in you? Do you want me to walk on hot coals? Do you want me to make the
sign of the Cross? Do you want me to take a trip to Jerusalem and visit the
holy wall and pray? What do you want me to do to show you that I actually
believe? Peter says, here's what I want you to do, not to pay
for your sins, here's what I want you to do to demonstrate that you believe.
Repent of your sin. Turn your life around and be
immersed in water. Why? Because it is the point in time where faith meets
salvation in the waters of baptism. Why is it that way? Because God made it that
way. Do we actually think that the "Church of Christ" invented baptism by
immersion? Some people say that's a Church of Christ thing.
All we're doing is simply trying to follow
the scriptures as accurately as we can. The scriptures say the person who
believes, expresses that faith, how? By repenting of their sins and by being
baptized. So when anybody wants to become a Christian what do we say to them?
Repent of your sins and be baptized. Period. Nothing more nothing less.
That's all. That's not legalistic. That's not narrow mindedness. That's just
Bible. Then in 1st Timothy 2:3 and 4 it says, God
excuse me, it says, ""This is good and acceptable in"
"the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved"
"and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Wait a minute. Who did he say that
God wants to be saved? Everybody. God wants all men to be saved.
Not I choose some for salvation. I choose some, all men, all men, all women.
The term man there, it refers to mankind. Right? So God required,
He doesn't just hope for it. He requires it. He requires that all people be saved.
Not just a few, not just those chosen by Him. Man still has the capacity to
accept or to reject Jesus Christ. Man's spiritual destiny is in his hands where
God originally placed it at the creation. How are we different from others?
This is how we're different from others. We believe that all individuals have the
capacity to be saved. We believe that all individuals can
understand, intellectually, the gospel. If they can't understand the
gospel intellectually because they're too young or for whatever reason, they
have some emotional, intellectual handicaps, that they can't
grasp these ideas, then they're not subject to condemnation. They're like
babies. They're like children. Christ died for all people and all of those who
believe in Him, repent of their sins, and are baptized, they will be saved. All of
them. So as I say, man's spiritual destiny is in his own hands. If we could read
the Bible in one sitting we would note how naturally and
seamlessly these three great doctrines just follow each other. The first to
describe and explain man's original goodness followed by his sin and his
fall and the consequences of these. The third major doctrine in the set explains
the wonderful story of how God restores man to Himself.
Let me read, 2nd Corinthians here. It says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he"
"is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."
"Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ"
"and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,"
Reconciliation, it means to bring into harmony, to realign us. Excuse me
I forgot to read the last verse. It says, "namely, that God was in Christ"
"reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them,"
"and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation." So the history and the
method that God used in reconciling man with Himself after the fall is what the
balance of the Bible is all about. It is the subject of the fifth major
doctrine and that is reconciliation. Remember, we said the first one
"Inspiration of the Bible". Second one, "Divinity of Christ". Third one, "Original"
"Goodness." Fourth one, "The Fall of Man." Fifth one,
Reconciliation of Man to God through Jesus Christ." Here's the
structure. This doctrine of reconciliation between God and man is
explained in the Bible in 10 sub doctrines. Here they are. The
major doctrines, Inspiration, Divinity of Christ, Original Goodness, Fall of Man,
number five, The Restoration, The Restoration of Man Back to God, that
Restoration of Man Back to God is explained theologically through 10 sub
doctrines under the doctrine of restoration; Election, Predestination.
You're thinking, wait a minute. I thought that was a false doctrine. No,
no, no. Election is a biblical doctrine. It simply been explained incorrectly.
Predestination is also a biblical doctrine but it has been explained
incorrectly. So Election, Predestination, Atonement, Redemption, Regeneration,
An Adoption, Justification, Perfection, Sanctification, Salvation, those
are ten sub doctrines that explain the major Doctrine of Reconciliation. The
next several lessons of our course will be a study of these sub doctrines which
explained God's plan and purpose in reconciling fallen mankind to Himself.
We're going to look at what these mean. Why God did it in this way and how these
doctrines impact our Christian lives. I have to tell you, if you know this,
you are as solid as a rock as far as your faith is concerned, if you know this.
You're not only going to understand the how, because that's pretty
much what you hear in preaching, the how, but these doctrines explain the why.
Why does God do it the way He does? That's it. I told you big
mouthfuls today. Big chunk. Thank you very much for your attention.