Theology Corner

Addressing commonly asked questions about Christianity from the perspective of a non-theologian

Theology Corner

1.)  AREN'T ALL RELIGIONS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME?

2.)  WHAT IS YOUR THEOLOGY?

3.)  WHAT ARE THE CORE BELIEFS OF CHRISTIANITY?

4.)  IS THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT THE ULTIMATE ACT OF LOVE?

5.)  WHAT IS THE GREATEST OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY?

6.)  IS THERE AN INTERMEDIATE PLACE?

7.)  WHAT ARE THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT?

8.)  WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO AFTER YOU DIE?

9.)  WHAT IS THE APOSTLES' CREED?

10.)  WHAT IS THE NICENE CREED?

11.)  WHAT ARE THE DECREES OF GOD?

12.)  WHAT WILL YOU DO IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE?

13.)  WERE THE OT TEN COMMANDMENTS REPLACED BY THE NT GREAT COMMANDMENT?

14.)  WHEN DOES GOD MAKE HIS DECISION ABOUT YOUR FINAL DESTINATION?

15.)  WAS JESUS TEMPTED IN EVERY WAY?

16.)  SHOULD WE ASPIRE TO UNBROKEN COMMUNION WITH GOD?

17.)  WHAT WERE THE ATTRIBUTES OF JESUS DURING HIS INCARNATION?

18.)  WHAT IS THE MYSTERIOUS LAW OF RESERVE?

19.)  CAN CHRISTIANS DEFEND THE TRINITY AND THE INCARNATION?

20.)  WHY NOT CALVINISM?

21.)  WHO WAS JAMES ARMINIUS AND WHAT DID HE DO?

22.)  WHO WAS JOHN WESLEY AND WHAT DID HE DO?

23.)  IS JESUS CHRIST THEANTHROPIC?

24.)  WHAT IS THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST?

25.)  WHAT MIGHT A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN SAY ABOUT THE SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT?

26.)  WHAT MIGHT A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN SAY ABOUT THE TRINITY?

27.)  WHAT WERE THE ORIGINAL FIVE POINTS OF THE REMONSTRANTS?

28.)  DO INTELLECTUAL CHRISTIANS MINIMIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRINITY?

29.)  DID JESUS DESCEND INTO HELL?

1.)  CAN GOD'S WILL BE THWARTED?

2.)  DID GOD ELECT ONLY A FEW FOR SALVATION WHILE CONDEMNING THE GREATER PART OF MANKIND TO HELL?

3.)  FAITH OR SALVATION: WHICH COMES FIRST?

4.)  DID GOD THE FATHER BEGET JESUS CHRIST?

5.)  WHAT ARE THE TWO NATURES OF CHRIST?

6.)  WHAT IS ANTINOMIANISM?

7.)  WHAT IS SABELLIANISM?

8.)  WHAT IS PELAGIANISM?

9.)  DOES LOVE REALLY WIN?

10.)  IS YOUR WILL REALLY YOUR WILL?

11.)  CAN TWO THEOLOGIES BE TESTED FOR COMPATIBILITY?

12.)  WHAT IS THE FRAUD OF FIDEISM?

13.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES THEOLOGY?

14.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THEOLOGY?

15.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH MORMON THEOLOGY?

16.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS THEOLOGY?

17.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENTOLOGY THEOLOGY?

18.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH UNIFICATION CHURCH THEOLOGY?

19.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH THE WAY INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGY?

20.)  IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD THEOLOGY?

21.)  IS REPENTANCE REALLY NECESSARY?

22.)  WHAT ARE SOME MUSINGS OF A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN ON LIMITED ATONEMENT?

23.)  WHAT ARE SOME QUESTIONS FOR THOSE WHO TEACH A LIMITED ATONEMENT PROVIDED ONLY FOR THE ELECT OF GOD?

24.)  WHAT WERE CALVIN'S ACTUAL WORDS?

25.)  WHAT IS GNOSTICISM?

26.)  WHAT IS THE UNPARDONABLE SIN?

27.)  IS CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY COMPATIBLE WITH PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY?

28.)  CAN CALVINISM BE SENT TO THE DUST BIN?

29.)  IS YOUR FREE WILL AN ILLUSION?

1.)  IS CHRISTIANITY COMPATIBLE WITH POSITIVE TOLERANCE?

2.)  CAN WE HAVE A FORM OF GODLINESS, BUT DENY THE POWER THEREOF?

3.)  WHAT IS THE GREAT WAR?

4.)  SHOULD PRESIDENT TRUMP HAVE BEEN IMPEACHED FOR IMMORALITY?

5.)  WHO SAID MOSES WAS HUMBLE?

6.)  COULD CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE BENEFIT FROM WOKE REVISION?

7.)  DID EINSTEIN BELIEVE ALL CHRISTIANS WERE CALVINISTS?

8.)  WHY IS MARXISM A MAGNET?

9.)  WHAT IS TRUE SCIENCE?

10.)  CAN YOU LOSE YOUR SALVATION?

11.)  WHAT ARE THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS?

12.)  WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS?

13.)  WAS PAUL ENTIRELY SANCTIFIED?

14.)  ARE YOU LIVING IN A WORLD AT WAR?

15.)  WHAT IS THE DIRECT METHOD FOR PROVING A CONDITIONAL PROPOSITION IS TRUE?

16.)  WHAT IS THE CONTRAPOSITIVE METHOD FOR PROVING A CONDITIONAL PROPOSITION IS TRUE?

17.)  WHAT IS THE CONTRADICTION METHOD FOR PROVING A CONDITIONAL PROPOSITION IS TRUE?

18.)  WHAT MIGHT A METHODIST THEOLOGIAN SAY ABOUT PURGATORY?

19.)  WHICH BIBLE PASSAGES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

20.)  DO SELECTED NIV VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

21.)  DO SELECTED AKJV VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

22.)  DO SELECTED YLT VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

23.)  DO SELECTED 'VOICE' VERSES ELUCIDATE CORE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY?

24.)  COULD THE CONCEPT OF 'SALVATION ONLY FOR THE ELECT' HAVE BEEN ROOTED IN THE MIND OF AUGUSTINE BEFORE HE EMBRACED CHRISTIANITY?

25.)  DID AUGUSTINE RECEIVE PUSHBACK FOR HIS TEACHING OF 'SALVATION ONLY FOR THE ELECT' DURING HIS LIFETIME?

26.)  WHAT DOES REFORMED THEOLOGY MEAN BY PREDESTINATION; IS IT TRUE OR FALSE?

WHY EXACTLY DID JESUS DIE?

Many years ago my wife worked as an advisor for a counseling center offering abortion alternatives.  One day, a young woman, pregnant for the fourth time, visited the center.  Each of her pregnancies was by a different father and she freely admitted to being promiscuous.  My wife asked if she would consider changing her lifestyle.  She said, rather indignantly, “No, my pastor told me Jesus loves me just the way I am.  I have invited Jesus into my heart and I am a Christian.  That’s the end of it!”  She held membership in the largest Pentecostal church in a medium sized city.

When is the last time you heard a preacher say that everyone in the congregation was born with a sin nature and, without confession of sin, remorse, repentance, faith and obedience, no one would go to Heaven?   Have you ever heard that in church or from a TV preacher?

Classical Christianity teaches that:

 

 

Each person who responds to God's grace and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ by confession of sin, remorse, repentance, faith, and obedience receives the great gift of salvation. Each person who resists God's grace is condemned to everlasting punishment.

 

  • Each person who responds to God's grace and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ by
  • confession of sin (Ps 32:3-5; 1 John 1:8-10),
  • remorse (Ps 66:18; Luke 18:13),
  • repentance (Mat 3:8; Rom 12:2, 13:14; Eph 4:23-24; Rev 2:5, 16, 3:3, 19),
  • faith (John 6:29, 3:16-17; Acts 16:31; Eph 2:8-10) and
  • obedience (Mat 28:20; Luke 11:28; John 14:15; Rom 1:5, 6:16; Heb 5:9)
  • receives the great gift of salvation (Acts 4:12; Rom 1:16; 2 Cor 7:10; 1 Thes 5:9; Heb 5:9; 1 Pet 1:9, 18-19).
  • Each person who resists God's grace is condemned to everlasting punishment (Mat 25:46; 2 Thes 1:8-9).

Christian belief must be preceded by repentance and followed by obedience to qualify as faith. Faith is not just an intellectual exercise (Jam 2:19) or an emotional experience (Jer 17:9).

 

But, in many churches, confession of sin, remorse and repentance are of no importance.  If the preacher talks about sin, he is surely referring to someone else’s sin, not your sin.  After all, Jesus loves you just the way you are!  Just invite Jesus into your heart and go on with your life unchanged.  Preachers with such a message are alethophobic; they have a fear of truth; it might cost them some popularity within the church!  But sin, that evil residing in the soul of man, is the reason for the crucifixion of the theanthropic Jesus Christ.  Your sin, my sin and the sin of every preacher, killed Jesus!  So every preacher, pastor and minister should talk about sin?  It is central to the substitutionary atonement.

In the words of Oswald Chambers:

 

“We have to recognize that sin is a fact, not a defect; sin is red-handed mutiny against God.  Either God or sin must die in my life.  The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue.  If sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed.  There is no possible ultimate but that.  The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will be true in your history and in mine.  In our mental outlook we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation as to why Jesus Christ came, and as the explanation of the grief and sorrow in life.”  (Chambers, June23rd)

“Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption.  In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin.  God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin.  The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation.  ‘And this is the judgment’ (the critical moment), ‘that the light is come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light.”  (Chambers, October 5th)

“The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the Divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so.  It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love…The only ground on which God can forgive me is through the Cross of my Lord.  There His conscience is satisfied.

Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God – God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us.  That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament.  The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God.  Never accept a view of the Fatherhood of God if it blots out the Atonement.  The revelation of God is that He cannot forgive; He would contradict His nature if He did.  The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God by the Atonement.” (Chambers, November 19th and 20th)

 

Your sin and mine precipitated the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.

The guilt, penalty and pain caused by one individual’s sin against another can morally be borne either by the sinner through justice or by the victim of sin through forgiveness; either the sinner pays the price of justice or the victim pays the price of forgiveness.  The victim cannot forgive the sinner without paying a price.  In other words, there is no serendipitous land of cheap forgiveness where we simply forgive one another by overlooking a few inconsequential faults at no cost to us.  While forgiveness usually brings a sense of peace and relief to the victim of sin, the victim can also bear great burden and pain.  The consequence of sin may last a lifetime.

The penalty of sin cannot be transferred to a third party.  When we say that Christ died as our substitute, we do not imply that He was simply a third party who stepped in between God and man.  Christ was not a third party in the affair at Calvary.  He was God against whom every sin is committed.  When God the Son said, at Calvary: “Father forgive them” instead of saying “Angelic hosts, destroy them,” He, as the victim, bore the guilt, penalty and pain rightfully due every person who will ever live.  Jesus not only bore the guilt and penalty for your sins but he took a step further.  Since your guilt is canceled and your punishment remitted, He said that you can be accepted before God as righteous.  You can, therefore, stand before God as if you had never sinned; you are thereby justified.

(See also Sections 2.9, 8.6, 8.9 and 8.13 of Theology Corner)