The Importance of Doctrine

I did an interesting little case study/analysis and found a couple generalities to hold water.

- a Christian-based watchdog group lists ministries, ministers who are somewhat ethically challenged. A disproportionate number of them would rightly be characterized as charismatic.
- A disproportionate number of TV ministries out there are charismatic

Am I picking on charismatics? Well, yeah and it is important to realize charismatics are not alone in this. But more to the point, looking at WHY and HOW this is. I don’t think anyone starts off in their ministry or Christian journey saying they want to be corrupt or they want to contradict Scripture. The historic church certainly didn’t do that and yet it happens. How does that look in an individual?

One becomes a Christian
One studies the Bible
One seeks other fulfillment. Consciously, for another connection with God. Sub-consciously, for something ‘tangible’ that is ‘spiritual’.
One finds that in emotion-based, spirit-driven experiences. (not making a qualitative judgment here)
One begins to feel that these tangible experiences are more perceived or felt and thus more valued than Bible-centric ministry.
One senses a connection to God that is higher than what others are experiencing.
One senses an extra-Biblical revelation from God.
One logically (if erroneously) concludes that God’s direct communication to him/her is authoritative and defining.

From there, it isn’t hard at all to see how a fellow believer can get caught up in something that feels very real and valid and yet is very contrary to the Biblical model for Christian ministry. And with that, let’s jump into some other things…

Doctrine - a body of ideas, particularly in religion, taught to people as truthful or correct

Is Doctrine Important?
TBN president Paul Crouch has been quoted as saying,
"I'm tired of Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites blocking God's bridges when the harvest is perishing out there and God's calling the body to come together. Let Him sort out all this doctrinal doo-doo! I don't care about it!" (Praise the Lord, April 2, 2001)

Popular Oneness teacher Tommy Tenney - has also written,
"Truth is where God’s been. Revelation is where God is….Unfortunately, the Church today spends countless hours and much energy debating where God has been...[God chasers] want to run hard and hot on this trail of truth until they arrive at the point of revelation, where He presently exists….God chasers don’t want to just study from the moldy pages of what God has done; they’re anxious to see what God is doing. There is a vast difference between present truth and past truth." (Introduction to The God Chasers)

Wow. To start, the Bible is past and moldy? I would agree that there is a difference between present truth and past truth with the Bible being past truth and the current 'revelations' being present truth. The past truth is valid and trustworthy while the present is not.

Tenney also states,
“We’ve tried to cram doctrine down people’s throats...but people don’t want doctrine, they don’t want tracts…they just want Him!” (The God Chasers, pages 48-49)

People don't want doctrine because people don't want God. Or to put it another way and quote Michael Horton, "People can't find God for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman." When people want God and in the same statement, they don't want doctrine, then they don't want God at all. They want an experiential, mystical, and happy event in their lives so they can point to it and say, "now wasn't that God?"

Enough from me. How do these statements compare with historic Christianity's view of God and Scripture?

Apart from the teaching of Scripture, people can’t have Him, because the Holy Spirit works through Scripture to reveal Himself to us (2 Tim. 3:14–17). Additionally, the Bible does not tell us to give people whatever they want. Humankind, in its fallen state, doesn’t know what is best (Rom. 3:10–18).

Regarding the importance of doctrine, Martin Luther wrote:
The great difference between doctrine and life is obvious, even as is the difference between heaven and earth. Life may be unclean, sinful, and inconsistent; but doctrine must be pure, holy, sound, and unchanging. Life may show omissions and come short of what doctrine calls for. But from doctrine (says Christ, Matt. 5:18) not a tittle or letter may be omitted, however much life may fail to meet the requirements of doctrine. This is so because doctrine is God's Word and God's truth alone, whereas life is partly our own doing. On this account doctrine must remain
entirely pure. God will have patience with man's moral failings and imperfections and forgive them. But He cannot, will not, and shall not tolerate a man's altering or abolishing doctrine itself. For doctrine involves His exalted, divine Majesty itself. In the sphere of doctrine, therefore, forgiveness and patience are out of order. ("What Luther Says: A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian," comp. Ewald M. Plass - St. Louis: Concordia, 1994, 417.)

I would go a bit further and suggest those who want to suppress the importance of doctrine or emphasizing doctrine should consult other passages.

(Dt 13:1-6) The wrath of Yahweh breaks forth upon the heads of the false prophets who were not sent by him but speak visions of their own imagination.

Paul curses those who teach a gospel other than what has been taught (Gal 1:6-9).

The Colossians are admonished not to be deceived by any seductive philosophy or mere human opinions (Col 2:7-8)

Those deviating from the gospel speak of their position in attractive, relevant-sounding terms. But Paul was on to this sort of tactic. The author of Hebrews advises his readers not to be carried away by all sorts of strange teaching but rather to imitate the faith of their leaders (Heb 13:7-9).

Timothy is to warn people against teaching false doctrines (1 Tim 1:3), and he is reminded that the Church of the living God is the pillar and safeguard of the truth (1 Tim 3:15).

This faith is to be handed on to trustworthy teachers and not to anyone at all (2 Tim 2:2). Then there follows a series of admonitions to correct error, even to the point of being persecuted, for there will come a day when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but will gather for themselves teachers who will tickle their ears with falsehood.

Calvin: Those who, rejecting Scripture, imagine that they have some peculiar way of penetrating to God, are to be deemed not so much under the influence of error as madness. For certain giddy men have lately appeared, who, while they make a great display of the superiority of the Spirit, reject all reading of the Scriptures themselves, and deride the simplicity of those who only delight in what they call the dead and deadly letter. But I wish they would tell me what spirit it is whose inspiration raises them to such a sublime height that they dare despise the doctrine of Scripture as mean and childish...

But what kind of Spirit did our Savior promise to send? One who should not speak of himself, (John 16: 13,) but suggest and instill the truths which he himself had delivered through the word. Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.

J.I. Packer: Certainty about the great issues of Christian faith and conduct is lacking all along the line. The outside observer sees us as staggering on from a gimmick to gimmick and stunt to stunt like so many drunks in a fog, not knowing at all where we are or which way we should be going. Preaching is hazy.

John Piper: The sufficiency of Scripture means that we don’t need any more special revelation. We don’t need any more inspired, inerrant words. In the Bible God has given us, we have the perfect standard for judging all other knowledge.

Mark Dever: I think of another friend who attended an evangelical student fellowship, where for two hours the students sang and prayed earnestly and pleadingly that God would speak to them, all the while with their Bibles lying there closed on their seats. This is the problem that “God told me” piety brings for the sufficiency of Scripture.

From John MacArthur:

I believe if you look closely at evangelicalism today, you will find in many places people becoming preoccupied with the occult. They don't think that's what it is, but in fact that is indeed what it is. They are reaching into the world of mediums and demon spirits and the devil himself because they are searching for supernatural power, supernatural experience, ecstatic experiences. They are searching for miracles and signs and wonders. There are schools now teaching courses in signs and wonders. There are people saying that we can never reach the world with the gospel unless we can raise the dead and heal the sick and call down fire from heaven and do all kinds of supernatural things. Peter Wagner recently said at the American Association of Bible Colleges Convention, quote: "The simple gospel is no longer adequate without signs and wonders," end quote. We cannot reach the world, he is saying, with just the Word of God. We have to have signs and wonders and he is talking, along with many others, about finding the power source and delving into supernatural powers to do miracles and create these signs and wonders.

And to this sort of encroaching mysticism and preoccupation with supernatural powers and science of the mind and visualization techniques and hypnosis and all of this self-image stuff comes this psychology and together it is creating the new God of the church...There is nothing in this more than a pseudo-evangelical humanism.

And the reason we lack certainty is because we have a sinful view of Scripture. We do not any longer seem to believe that the Bible is sufficient for the life and conduct of the church. That is a sin...a sin of monstrous proportions, to deny the sufficiency of the Word of God.

Christ said this to His Father in John 17:17, "Sanctify them by Thy truth." Now the word "sanctify" means "set apart from sin, holy, separated unto God." It has the idea of spiritual perfection...spiritual completion, that which we should be in Christ, coming to fulfillment. And He says, "O God, make them pure, make them holy, set them apart from sin unto Yourself and do it by Your truth." Then He says in the same verse, "Thy Word is truth." We conclude then, very obviously, that the full holiness of the believer is the work of the Word of God, it is the work of the Word of God. It is not the Word of God plus something else, that's cultic.

In fact, it is so comprehensive, it is so effective, it is so complete, he says in verse 15 that by that Word of God through the Holy Spirit, we can judge or appraise and evaluate all things. Tremendously comprehensive statement. We can judge and appraise and evaluate and understand and comprehend everything based upon the knowledge of the Word of God. "For...he says...the Scripture, the revealed Word of God...in verse 16, marvelous statement...gives us...listen to this...the mind of Christ." Did you get that? The mind of Christ. Now is there any insufficiency in the mind of Christ? Is Christ limited? He knows a few things but He's also learning from some people? Not hardly. The mind of Christ is the consummate mind of God. The mind of Christ is omniscient. The mind of Christ is supreme. The mind of Christ knows no insufficiency. Paul says we have a word from God, a word not in the way that man teaches but taught by the Spirit of God, that word from God allows us to judge, evaluate, appraise, understand, comprehend and reason all things. Why? Because it brings to us the mind of Christ.