Monday, May 1, 2017

Is there any idea more destructive than a "Law-Gospel" division?

Update: I wish to question the claims made in the text below that is now highlighted in yellow. For more on that, please see my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible.
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Is there any more destructive idea than that Christianity creates a split between "laws" on the one hand, and "the gospel of righteousness by faith alone" on the other? 


How many lives have been destroyed, through eternally deadly sins, through destroyed families (when divorce and remarriage are liberally approved), through social breakdown (when dishonesty, corruption, incompetence, slackness and laziness are normalised)?

This is the error that draws the most focus from the New Testament books, namely the error that Christianity should be associated with licentiousness, moral libertarianism. Jesus provides many of the most stark and clear warnings.*

Its competitors for most destructive idea are surely:

(2) Christians remain slaves to sin. 

(3) The Church can forgive every evil, even evils that the Lord Jesus and the NT apostles condemned (e.g. blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, voluntary sin, persisting in sinful conditions such as adultery). The Church can contradict its founding apostles like St. Paul (who said that for example adulterers do not inherit the Kingdom of God). 

(4) God is not a just and impartial judge.

(5) Christ Jesus does not chastise (manifested as, for example, sicknesses, even lethal ones).

Atheistic and anti-Christian ideas are of course very destructive too; but are they as deceptive and blinding to the every day, every moment judging and chastising that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit carry out? It is not easy for even very intelligent people to see through the deception of theologians and spiritually deprived churches.

What all the destructive ideas (1)-(5) have in common is that they are covered by the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ about the wasteful and dishonest house-manager, who when dismissed solves his inability to support himself by dishonestly writing down his masters' debtors' debts!** How different is that from a fleecing pastor-wolf who tells people that their debts to God are cancelled, but only if they continue to support his church?

Nota bene that one key verse is most usually mistranslated, weakening the force of Christ's teaching: compare Luke 16:9 in the King James and New Revised Standard versions, with the Christ Family Bible


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Notes:
* See for example: Matt. 7:21-27; Mark. 8:34-38, 9:42-48; Luk. 6:43-49, 14:25-35, 21:34-36; John 15:9-14; Rom. 2:4-11, Gal. 5:16-21; Eph. 5:1-11, Phil. 2:12; Heb. 12:14-17; Jam. 2:14-26; 1 John 3:7-12; Jud. 3-21; 1 Pet. 1:17; 2 Pet 2:1-22; Rev. 2:1-3:22, 21:5-8, 22:12-15.
** Luke 16:1-3.

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