There are a lot of foolish scholars out there, and I’m not going to link to them: they don’t need the traffic, and I don’t really want to spend too much time discussing the heresies of this age. Their arguments are threefold.
The first argument dates back to German Philologists of the late Victorian period, and was called “higher criticism”, By looking at the text, and using naturalistic assumptions, they attempted to dismantle the gospels and the Pentateuch, finding the ur-texts, and teaching that both were late compilations, and unreliable. The gospel becomes a useful myth, without historical veracity.
The second error is dated to the same time but is far older, and is linked. It denies that God can intervene: it is, if you will a form of “Christian Theism”. The clockmaker has left the room. This is the teaching of the Sadducee, and it is very close tho the atheism that was resurrected by the first evolutionists and their Marxist fellow travellers.
The final argument is a post modern one: that the texts we have are (a) power structures written by men, and thus to be rejected because social justice and (b) applied to the contest of the time, and have no relevance now. That our ideas should evolve, as Frank Bruni said.
And all of these are refuted by one pithy speech at the very beginning of Acts.
And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.
On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
(Acts 4:1-12 ESV)
The gospel is very simple. We are fallen. We cannot, thus stand in the presence of a holy and righteous God. Christ, God himself, became human, walked among us, was killed for our transgressions and fallen state, and then rose again, and has returned to be with God, until he comes again.
Hateful Far Left HS Coach Suspended After Threatening Christian Indiana Pizzeria – BB4SP http://t.co/dgiDtBkjG5 pic.twitter.com/JAVVgr8v8Q
— Conservative Chick (@NaughtyBeyotch) April 9, 2015
There are creeds: they have been worked out by those far wiser than I, and they formulate these things in a way we can memorize and meditate upon.
And this Gospel cannot be legislated away by any nation or country or movement. It is not something that can be removed by fifteen minutes of hate. Even if you kill the believers, the gospel will remain and the words of Christ will stand against you.
Every Christian I know readily acknowledges Christ's descent into Hell, @Salon. This is dumb even for you. pic.twitter.com/8YyThvOarU
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 9, 2015
But those external issues are ones that we can pray about. Our God is active, and nations rise and fall: indeed when praying for out nations we should not be pleading for justice, but mercy. The greatest error is to keep the form of religion, and deny the power of it. This was the place the Sadducee wanted Peter to be in.
And we should not be there. We should not deny the gospel, and not be like those who teach this. For there is but one way to salvation, and that is through Jesus, who is both the Lord of all and the Messiah who saves us.
