Throughout history, there have been a number of people with all different types of theological backgrounds who try to refute the orthodox views found in the Bible. There are people all the way from Jehovah’s Witnesses, to Mormonism to Evangelicalism who do not adhere to the truth found in the Bible. In any event, no one is capable of perfect theology, and for this reason, one’s ideas and such must be lined up with the Word of God.
It is this compass with which truth shall be revealed and fortunately for us, the Word of God is unchanging, and for good reason. The danger of unorthodox, false teachings and doctrines can lead someone astray from salvation and hinder someone from realizing God’s love. With this in mind, it seems to be a necessary duty to correct, rebuke and exhort with great patience and long suffering. Let’s take a look at several biblical teachings and aspects of doctrines that were sought to be destroyed, changed, altered or tailored to meet the needs of the unorthodox and see how they simply do not rest well with the eternal Word of God.
DEFENDING THE NATURE OF SCRIPTURE
That the Bible was physically written by the human hand always seemed to have been a target for objection of the inerrancy of the Bible. Norman Geisler points to an argument where critics pose that the Bible contains words of humans and because of such, the Bible is erroneous.[1] One of the problems with this approach however, is that although humans might err, that does not mean that humans err all the time. As Geisler points out, the best this argument can do is show that the Bible can err, and not that it does err.[2]
It seems that critics of this nature of scripture do not understand the concept of the Word of God. The Bible itself says that it is inspired by God and useful for several purposes.[3] On top of this, there are passages in the Old Testament which say such things as, “the LORD said...” and the New Testament cites these as scripture (i.e. “the scriptures said...”). Also, the same is true for the reverse: Genesis 2:24 reads, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh,”[4]but when Jesus cites this in the New Testament, He asks, “Haven't you read that in the beginning, the creator made them male and female?”[5] Then Jesus proceeds to quote Genesis 2:24. So, what is going on here is Jesus is saying that what was written by the hand of Moses was really the Word of God.
One of the interesting things about this is that the Bible is the manner in which God chose to communicate to His creation and reveal Himself in a special manner to His creation. He used human language, something that we are familiar with to communicate to us His love for us and His plan of salvation.
The fact that man has penned the words of the Bible does not mean that it is full of error. A boat can reach its destination not only by diesel engine power but it can also reach its destination via wind in its sails. So it is with the Word of God. The Word of God can reach its destination (the heart of man)[6]through the hands of men.
DEFENDING THE NATURE OF THE TRIUNE GOD
The nature of the Trinity is sometimes argued by critics as well as Christian Cults that the doctrine of the Trinity (nor the word itself) is nowhere to be found in the Bible. Wayne Grudem, a research professor of Bible and theology in Phoenix claims that the "doctrine of the Trinity is progressively revealed in Scripture" Grudem immediately points to Genesis 1:26 which reads, “Let us create man in our image...”[7] This is also something that one might show to a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon. In any event, just because the word, Trinity hadn’t been invented yet, doesn’t mean that it is not something they spoke of. The term “dinosaur” was not in the Bible either, but they definitely existed!
Many critics and cults don’t understand that the trinity is not three Gods, but one. Deuteronomy 6:4, which is known by Hebrews as the Shema, explains that there is only one God. Jesus and His disciples agree with this fact multiple times in the New Testament.[8]
Jesus also explains that a man and a woman shall become one flesh using Genesis 2:24 in Matthew 19:5. With this in mind, Jesus also reveals that He and His Father are one. It is of course, silly to think that Jesus and the Father are married in the same sense that husband and wife are, but it is like when a person refers to a husband and wife as a union or as a marriage, so to they can understand Jesus as God and the Father as God and the Holy Spirit as God. At the same time, Jesus is not the Father but is of the same essence (it is ridiculous to think that Jesus was praying to Himself in the garden in chapter seventeen of the gospel of John). Marriage, then, paints a beautiful picture and understanding of the Trinity.
As far as scriptural basis is concerned, there are several passages that give immediate strength to the doctrine of the Trinity. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus charges His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, placing all of these on equal ground. Secondly, in John 10:30, Jesus says that He Himself is one with the Father. Immediately, in verse 31, the Jews picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy. The point is that the Jews recognized this as blasphemy because “He makes Himself out to be God” as verse 33 reveals. So then if the Jews recognized this as blasphemy, then we can clearly understand that Jesus was claiming to be God.
In the book of Acts, chapter five, Peter calls the Holy Spirit, God. He rhetorically asked Ananias why he lied to the Holy Spirit and in verse four, Peter answers the rhetorical question and in doing so, says that He lied to God. In any event, one can see that critics’ claims that Evangelical Christians worship many Gods via the Trinity is a false claim.
DEFENDING GOD’S RELATION TO HIS CREATION
In God’s relation to His creation, it is sometimes believed by critics that because God is love,[9] there are possible contradictions such as that this should lead to universalism, “since He is God and can accomplish whatever He desires, and if He desires to save all, then doesn’t it follow that all will be saved?”[10]
Although God is all-powerful (omnipotent), this does not mean that He can do things that are outside of His nature. For instance, God cannot tell a lie[11]because that is not in His nature. God cannot commit suicide, and God cannot make people freely love Him. “So while God is all-powerful, He must exercise His power in accordance with His love, and His love cannot force someone to love Him.”[12]
In regard to the problem of evil, since God is love, it seems that evil shouldn’t exist because God is all powerful. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, and at the same time, all-good, then shouldn’t He stop evil from happening to people (especially to those who do not deserve unjustified evil)?
There exists a formula: that God exists, that God is all-powerful, and that God is all-good and finally, that evil exists.[13] It seems that if one were to take any one of these away, the rest could logically exist. Now, how can we answer this seemingly philosophical riddle? It appears that there a few answers. One is that if evil didn’t exist, there would be no compassion in the world, which God clearly desires for us to have toward one another. So then there is the issue of the definition of what evil really is. Because God is love, and because He loves those who love Him, He works for the good of those who love Him.[14]
With this in mind, evil is not the same thing as sin. Sin, for instance, is like when David committed adultery with Bathsheba in second Samuel chapter eleven. Evil is like when David placed Uriah the Hittite (Bathsheba’s husband) on the front lines so that he would be killed.[15]
So then this evil, or injustice, happened toward Uriah the Hittite and critics are claiming that if God is love, which He is, then He should have stopped this from happening. So just to keep us on a straight path, God is all-good and all-powerful, and He loves us, yet evil exists. In the first few chapters of the book of Job, the man of the book’s title is basically destroyed, all but his life, because God brought Job to Satan’s attention claiming that Job was a God-fearing man. Satan then challenged God and explained that God protects Job from suffering which is why he doesn’t curse God. God then allowed Satan to attack Job. The question then follows, what is the difference between God allowing something to happen and God doing it Himself?
God does not cause people to sin[16] but He does allow bad things to happen to good people. In one direction, things happen to a person (Uriah), which is what God allows, and in another direction, as far as David is concerned in our analogy above, (David) makes a choice. So then one direction is incoming and the other direction is outgoing. The proposition is that God causes all things incoming, which works toward the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Evil, then, is an outward action of man, which God does not interfere with because of free will. But on the contrary, He does interfere (or cause) the incoming. In Exodus chapter four, verse eleven, God asks Moses rhetorically who created a man with blindness and deafness, etc. The obvious answer is that God does.
So God’s relation to His creation is that He loves them, because God is love. He wants to see His creation flourish and grow to become like His Son and will work for that end.[17] After all, He created a “very good” environment for His creation in the beginning.
DEFENDING THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST
It is common for people to criticize the nature of Jesus Christ and make the claim that He was simply just a man or possibly a good teacher who existed in history. The Bible, however, suggests something completely different as we shall soon see.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is simply “like” God, and not that He is God. This fails for several reasons. For one, Jesus makes the same claims that are clearly claims that God can make, for instance, that Jesus is the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega in Revelation chapter one verses seventeen and eighteen. This is a claim that only God can make. Another claim that only God can make is that He is able to forgive sins, which Jesus also does.[18] In forgiving sins, Jesus is claiming to be God. “The scribes correctly responded, ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ So to prove that His claim was not an empty boast, He healed the man.”[19]
We can see that Jesus is more than a good teacher or just a man, since, for example, He walked on water as recorded in Matthew chapter fourteen, among others, but something that is also frequently misunderstood is that he was also fully man. In the first chapter of the book of Acts, one can see that Jesus ate with His disciples signifying that Jesus had human internal organs, etc. Another interest of note is that when on the cross, Jesus said, as recorded in the book of John, chapter nineteen, that He was thirsty. That Jesus was thirsty and ate food is clearly understood as human quality.
Another noteworthy understanding of the nature of Jesus is that though He claimed to be God, it does not mean that He was the Father. For one thing, in John chapter seventeen, Jesus is praying to the Father. If Jesus were the Father, then He would be praying to Himself, which does not follow. No, Jesus was His own person, who is of the same essence as the Father and the Holy Spirit, which is God. Thus, the charges about Jesus are true, that Jesus was with God in the beginning.[20]
Jehovah’s Witnesses (et. al.) also like to make the claim that Jesus was a created being, and they like to use Colossians chapter one, verse fifteen in order to show that Jesus was created because it mentions that Jesus is the “firstborn” over all creation: “Jesus is the only Son that God created by Himself.”[21] In Psalm 89:27, God basically calls King David His “firstborn.” Now, it is clear that David is not God’s first born, so it must mean something different than “one who was born first.” In both of the mentioned texts, they refer to a rank of the subject at hand versus the face value of “firstborn.” In other words, that Jesus is God’s firstborn means that He holds Him in a special place. The first verse in the book of John truthfully states that Jesus (the Word) was with God in the beginning and therefore, He was never created.
DEFENDING THE DOCTRINE OF HUMANITY
There is an argument against the dichotomy of the nature of humans that is known as Materialism. Anthropological Materialism (as it is also known), basically states that the body exists, but the immaterial soul does not.[22]There are several problems with this view: “That there are two, and only two, elements in man’s being is a fact to which consciousness testifies. This testimony is confirmed by Scripture, in which the prevailing representation of man’s constitution is that of dichotomy.”[23] In other words, Scripture argues against the theory of Materialism.
There is a popular phrase that states, “Absent with the body; Present with the Lord.” This idea is taken from a verse in Second Corinthians which Paul speaks of being away from the body and at home with the Lord. Clearly, the body and soul are distinguished in these verses. What Paul speaks of here, makes it clear that the soul will leave the body when the body dies. Thus, there exists scripturally the body and the soul.
There are yet further arguments against Materialism one in which takes a philosophical route. As Geisler states, “The theory of materialism is not made up of matter,”[24] and because of such, there definitely exists something that is not materialistic and is self-defeated. If there is more to existence than body, such as the theory of Materialism, then matter is not all that exists and therefore Materialism fails.
DEFENDING THE DOCTRINE OF SIN
Is God asking too much from humans by demanding that we do not sin? There is an objection to the doctrine of Human sinfulness which basically states that “God is commanding the impossible [which is that humans, though mortal, cannot sin] and them blaming humans for not being able to measure up.”[25] So, how is it ok for God to ask something of us that is impossible? The issue lies in “the inability of fallen man in his natural state, of himself to do anything spiritually good.”[26] In other words, man cannot make a way for himself to please God in our sinful flesh.
It seems that God can demand this of us because we are His creation, for one thing; and secondly, because if we want to be with our creator, we have to meet His requirements (i.e. be free from sin). First Corinthians chapter ten verse thirteen explains that God will not allow us to be tempted above what we are able, but will make a way to escape from the temptation to sin. So with this, we have no excuse to sin, since He helps us out of sin when we are tempted.
Romans chapter seven also explains that we have a sin nature as humans, and it is basically a war between our sinful nature and our spiritual nature. Then the question follows, can we live a holy life even while we are in our sinful state? The answer is absolutely, because God provided Jesus to us, whom without, we can do nothing.[27] In any event, the notion that God is asking us to do the impossible is false because it is not actually impossible if He provides a solution, which we will discuss further below.
DEFENDING THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT
The doctrine of Atonement is basically the belief that Jesus died for our sins. Rather, Jesus blood covers our sins in the eyes of the Father, God, who requires that mankind, is found not guilty in order to receive eternal life in heaven with Him. Speaking of Jesus, John says, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”[28]The doctrine of Atonement then, is that God’s demands of mankind are met through Jesus.
Now there are some who believe that the doctrine of the Atonement was a payment to Satan, rather than God. This is called the Ransom theory of Atonement. “Used as a basis is Mark 10:45, where Jesus said, ‘Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give His life as a ransom for many.’”[29] So, in other words, People who adhere to the Ransom theory of Atonement basically believe that Satan will drag someone to hell after they die unless there is a ransom is paid to him. This is fallacious for several reasons.
To start, this acts as if Satan himself were some type of god who had special power to drag people to hell after they die. The problem with this is that the Bible only possibly describes Satan as an angel or a covering cherub, and nothing of higher ranking than this.[30] On top of all of this, there is only one God, as the Bible clearly declares throughout its pages.
Secondly, it is God who demands payment for sins in order to enter heaven, because all are doomed to Hell unless their sins are cleansed. In other words, everyone who is born will die and go to hell because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.[31] So, it is not that Satan will bring someone to Hell unless a ransom is paid; it is that God is sending everyone to Hell because everyone is a sinner and God requires Judgment of sin.
If we ask, ‘Who required Christ to pay the penalty for our sins?’ the answer given by scripture is that the penalty was inflicted by God the Father as He represented the interests of the Trinity in redemption. It was God’s justice that required that sin be paid for, and, among the members of the Trinity, it was God the Father whose role was to require that payment.[32]
In any event, the Ransom theory of atonement fails because Satan is powerless in demanding anything regarding salvation, and also because God demands penalty for our sins.
DEFENDING THE RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE
“Should the state be over the church in authority and influence?” There are basically three stances on the relationship between church and state,[33] and the above question implies one of them. The other two ask the opposite of the above and the third asks if there should be cooperation between the two. For the purposes of this paper, we will examine the first question, regarding secularism.
It appears that in secularism (state over church), the church is controlled by the state. If a person were to look at communist countries, one would most likely see that government literally governs religion. In other words, freedom of religion is extremely limited.[34]
One problem with the state being over the church is that it forces people to do things that do not necessarily reflect love, in the manner that Christ (or any religious teacher who taught on the subject of love) desired for people to follow. In other words, if people are forced to love others in a manner that people under the government do not see fit, then it is not love, but a socialistic worldview.
By abolishing freedom, socialism destroys all possibility of economical progress. The economical principle of socialism is that, relatively to the enjoyment of commodities, the individual shall be taken care of by the community, to the effect of his being relieved of the care of himself.[35]
With socialism (a shadow of communism), then, people lose the moral value (that which is being forced upon them) because there is no choice in the matter; they have no choice to love, to do good, to help others. In this sense, secularism (state over church) is self-defeating, because the very attitude and action that secularism is trying to condition in the people, causes them to be unable to make their own choice of love.
In any event, state over church clearly causes an imbalanced relationship. As alluded to above, forcing people to be good does not necessarily change their hearts. “Any attempt to ground human rights in human choice inevitably generates human wrongs.”[36]
DEFENDING THE DESTINIES OF THE DEAD
As biblical history states, Christ was resurrected from the dead; therefore, there is life after death.
So because Christ has been raised from the dead, the question might be asked, do all people who die have the same experience as Christ? The answers can be found in His teaching. Jesus says to Nicodemus in John chapter three, about Himself, that whoever believes in the Son shall not perish but have eternal life. So, immediately, it is recognized that there is a stipulation to eternal life. That stipulation is that sinners must place their trust in Jesus in order to gain eternal life.
It seems that in contrast, if one does not accept Christ as Lord and savior,[37] he or she will experience eternal death.[38] This is absolutely not the will of God, however.
Love is God’s very essence, while justice and creativity are two of His essential proper attributes, two of love’s essential attributes. If you love someone, you do not kill them. Since God is love, He does not kill us but gives life.[39]
So we can clearly see that God desires for us to remain living, because He loves us and wants to provide a way to eternal life.
An additional argument that there is a destination for the dead is that God created us in His image. “God annihilating His image would be an act of God against God, an attack of God on His own reflection.”[40] So, because God created mankind in His image, and because He is love (as well established above), He will not will to destroy that which He created in His image. With this in mind, when people die, they are definitely destined to live eternally, or die for eternity.
Jesus said to His disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me.”[41] This means that not only is Christianity an exclusive religion, but that eternal life is found through Jesus! Again, Paul explains in Romans chapter six that the wages of sin is death, but there is a gift which God provides which is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. It is noteworthy that the destiny of the dead is clearly seen throughout the Bible.
CONCLUSION
As we have seen, no one is capable of perfect theology. This is the reason that God gave us His eternal Word! We have also seen that many are led astray, because they do not read the Bible in context, but instead, they read the Bible at face value. People seem to forget that the newest parts of the Word of God were written about two thousand years ago. Westerners seem to not take into consideration the facts that not only were there extremely different cultures in biblical times, but it was also a different time period completely.
It is therefore, necessary for apologists to keep on their toes because people do not like to perform the work required in exegesis of God’s Word. With keeping on their toes comes an element of responsibility which is to always be ready to give an answer with gentleness and respect; and on top of that, as briefly mentioned in the introduction, correcting false doctrines and teachings, rebuking them and encouraging people must come with great patience and long suffering.[42]
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Geisler, Norman. Systematic Theology. Bloomington, MN: Bethany House, 2011.
The Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996, c1984.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994.
Kreeft, Peter and Ronald J. Tacelli. Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994.
Martin, Walter. The Kingdom of the Cults. Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2003.
Strong, Augustus. Systematic Theology. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2004.
Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997.
Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus
© Nace Howell, 2022
[13] Peter Kreeft and Ronald J. Tacelli. Handbook of Christian Apologetics(Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994) 129.
[26] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997). 2:257.
[34] The author of this papers’ best friend is an Art Teacher in China currently, and he claims that he has to go to government regulated churches, because that is all they allow.
[35] Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Bellingham: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2004). 894.
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