When you
look at the teaching of evangelicals, fundamentalists, Pentecostals and
charismatics today you will find this phenomenon. You will find people that emphasize
law, holiness and obedience, and those who emphasize grace, love and forgiveness.
These groups are constantly at war against each other and often doubt the
salvation of the other group. The former group, those who emphasize law always
have a legal constitutional view of scripture. If one takes a hard line on the
legal constitutional aspect of scripture it is impossible to come to any other
conclusion. You end up with a schizophrenic view of salvation. Yes, we are
saved by grace and not law obedience but we prove our salvation by law
obedience and if there is no *law-obedience* then salvation is questionable at
the very least. John Calvin stated it this way; “faith alone saves, but faith
that saves is never alone.” This means that there will always be obvious law
obedience with all who have been saved… Not necessarily and this is the source
of the problem.
The legal
constitutional view of scripture ultimately leads to fear of not measuring up.
Come on now, look in that mirror tomorrow morning and say it isn’t so
This is why Jesus taught the redemptive view of scripture. He
knew that grace (believe it or not) leads to obedience from the heart. Grace
changes the heart. Peace with God, (Rom 5:1) develops a supernatural love for
God because of His love, mercy and grace. The supernatural love is what enables
one to be obedient. One develops what Paul calls the obedience of faith (Rom
16:26 & 1:5)
Paul said
it this way in his letter to Titus: Tit 2:11-12
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men, (12) Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present
world;” The legal constitutional view of scripture robs the effectiveness of
transforming grace. This is probably the single most prohibitive factor in a
broad acceptance of the paradigm shift that is ever increasing in the ranks of
day to day Christians.
Believe me
when I say that the New Covenant way of viewing scripture is solely redemptive.
This can be proven. In fact, I have proven it over and again over the three hundred
posts of this blog. Here is the crux of today’s prophetic word. We must shift
the paradigm to a redemptive view of scripture. It will not diminish in any way
the inspiration of scripture. It will however bolster faith in the gospel and
the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. When one puts the legal constitutional
view of scripture to the test it does not really stand up and that is why there
are so many liberal Christians that deny the resurrection and the deity of
Jesus Christ. More to come on this topic tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment