Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Wolf says Bah

Today I was reading over Cris Putnam's website. If you have not checked it out go there. http://www.logosapologia.org/ 

He is a very blessed apologist and scholar. What really struck me was his writing on Testing the Spirits. I think that at this time, with what we are seeing throughout the world, and on the horizon here at home we need to first know what the bible says. Following Acts 17:11 "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." We cannot test the spirits, and we will not be able to see the difference between truth and deceit if we have no clue what is in the Scripture, or if we are not searching to find out if what is being said is in the Bible. 

 We also must be aware of where we are in history. 1 Chronicles 12:32 "And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment." This statement is incredible. They knew what Israel, the whole nation out to do and all their brethren were at their commandment BECAUSE they had understanding of the times. We all must be as the Bereans and the children of Issachar.  It is time for the Christians of this nation and the world to stand up and become all that we are called to be, to go forth and preach the Gospel to all the world, to cast out devils, heal the sick.

 Supernatural healing is for today. Christ Himself said so in the Great Commission found in Mark 16:15-18 "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Does that mean we test God and pick up poisonous snakes everyday? NO. That is not the context. But, how can we say gifts of healing are done, when Christ himself said in His Great Commission that laying hands on the sick and them recovering was a sign that would follow them that believe? We have forgotten that we have the Holy Spirit, and it is not through us by our power, but through Christ and His Spirit that people are healed.  

Unfortunately, many churches today hit the 3 points to a better life with a little bible mixed in and "hey I'm good for the week." Are we not to pursue the Lord with every fiber of our being? Is he not to be our first love? Have we forgotten that we have the very word of God and His Spirit within us? We must return to Him that called us, and that saved us from death! 

 With that here is part 1 of Cris Putnam's "Testing the Spirits" http://www.logosapologia.org/?p=4011
The Bible teaches us “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good…” (1 Th 5:19-22). This teaching from Paul implies that, in contrast to the Mosaic standards for Israelite covenant enforcers (Dt 18:21-22) which was absolute perfection, the New Testament paradigm allows that there are imperfect prophecies. The exhortation to “hold fast to what is good” implies that sometimes we can test them and discard only what is in error. Other times, it is more appropriate to rebuke and move along. Clearly, there is need for Christian discernment.
One should expect an infusion of false teachings as the return of Christ nears, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,…”(1 Ti 4:1) While some Christians are too skeptical and deny the supernatural, others are too gullible and exhibit a naïve readiness to accept dubious messages from the spirit world. In John’s first epistle he writes, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”(1 Jn 4:1) Thus, sometimes unbelief (do not believe every spirit) can be as much a mark of spiritual maturity as belief. We should avoid both extremes, the superstition which believes that absolutely everything is supernatural and rationalist suspicion which defaults to naturalism.
Even so, the supernatural should be our default position. Whether we realize it or not, there is a spirit behind every teaching. One should be skeptical enough to discern between truth and error, whether it comes from the Spirit of God, or a demonic spirit. We are engaged in spiritual warfare “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12) The origins of false religions are demonic, “No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.”(1 Co 10:20) Even secular philosophies have a spiritual component, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Col 2:8) Paul’s use of the term “elemental spirits” (Gk. stoicheia) is likely speaking to the supernatural origins of ungodly philosophies.
In the ancient world, however, the term stoicheia was widely used for spirits in Persian religious texts, magical papyri, astrological documents, and some Jewish texts. Paul is likely using it here to refer to demonic spirits; it is the equivalent of “rulers and authorities” (vv. 10, 15).[1]
It follows that demonic spirits promote false ideas and spiritual warfare is largely a battle for your mind. John gives us a command to test the spirits. “Beloved, do not believer every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” He then describes three tests:
1) Test their Christology. (1 Jn 4:2-3)
2) Test their regeneration. (1 Jn 4:4-5)
3) Test their conformity to Apostolic teaching. (1 Jn 4:6)
For this post, we will look at test one as it applies to cults. In subsequent posts, tests two and three will be demonstrated with appropriate examples.
1) Test their Christology. What’s their doctrine of the incarnation and deity of Christ?
“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” (1 Jn 4:2-3)
This passage is teaching that whoever refuses to acknowledge that Jesus is God, “who has come in the flesh” (v. 2) is in the spirit of antichrist. Anyone can talk about Jesus and even believe that he lived on earth as a good teacher, as other religions (Islam, Baha’i ), cults (Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses), and even philosophies (Christ consciousness) often affirm. These groups cannot pass the “Lord, Liar, Lunatic trilemma.” This is the error of Arianism:
Arianism, Arius. An early heretical teaching about the identity of Jesus Christ. Arianism was founded primarily on the teachings of Arius (d. 335/336). The central characteristic of Arian thought was that because God is one, Jesus could not have also been truly God. In order to deal with the scriptural testimony to the exalted status of Christ, Arius and his followers proposed that Jesus was the highest created being of God. So although Christ was fully human, he was not fully God. Arius’s teaching was condemned as heretical at the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea) in A.D. 325.[1a]
Even so, confessing His deity is not enough. Evil spirits and demons recognized the deity of Jesus during his ministry (e.g. Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7–8; cf. Acts 19:15). There is an equal yet opposite error.
Some , like the ancient gnostics, may affirm his deity but deny his humanity. Apparently, when John wrote his first epistle, many false teachers were saying that Jesus only appeared to be human. This was probably based on an early gnostic idea that the material creation was intrinsically evil and therefore physical bodies were evil. This error is called Docetism.
docetism. In the early church, the teaching that Jesus was fully God but only appeared to be human (taken from the Greek dokeō, “to seem or appear”). Docetist theologians emphasized the qualitative difference between God and humans and therefore downplayed the human elements of Jesus’ life in favor of those that pointed to his deity. The early church rejected docetism as an heretical interpretation of the biblical teaching about Jesus.[2]
But unless they affirm both the full deity and the full humanity of Jesus, they are not really “confessing Jesus,” but, as John states in unambiguous terms, they are under the influence of the spirit of antichrist. Even so, you will not likely encounter many docetists today, it usually works the other way around in denying his deity. For example, Mormons will say they believe in Jesus but they believe Jesus is the brother of Satan who was born to an exalted man known as the heavenly Father, Elohim. While some modern Mormon apologists obfuscate the differences, the late LDS President, Gordon B. Hinckley, said that “The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak.”[3]
There are three biblical ways to test if someone has good Christology. This means we want to see if they believe in the historical Jesus rather the false one of Mormonism who was born from the carnal union between Mary and Elohim and is the brother of Lucifer [4] or the Jesus of the Adventist’s who is Michael the Archangel [5], or the Christ of the New Age Movement who is simply an enlightened man or worse yet, not even a person at all, simply a nebulous state of Christ consciousness. Here are three good Christological tests:
In cultist theologies, Jesus is a created being and therefore, He is not called God, prayed to, nor worshiped. As a prime example of test one, we will look at the Jehovah’s Witness Bible translation known as the New World Translation.
ESV: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col 1:16–17, ESV)
NWT: “because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created through him and for him. Also, he is before all [other] things and by means of him all [other] things were made to exist,” (Col 1:16–17, NWT)[6]
Greek New Testament (with English interlinear)[7]
16
ὅτι
ἐν
αὐτῷ
ἐκτίσθη
τὰ
πάντα



because
by
him
were created
—
all [things]1
ἐν
τοῖς
οὐρανοῖς
καὶ
ἐπὶ
τῆς
γῆς
,
in
the
heavens
and
on
the
earth


τὰ
ὁρατὰ
καὶ
τὰ
ἀόρατα
,
things
visible
and
things
invisible

εἴτε
θρόνοι
εἴτε
κυριότητες
whether
thrones
or
dominions

εἴτε
ἀρχαὶ
εἴτε
ἐξουσίαι
·
or
rulers
or
powers

τὰ
πάντα
διʼ
αὐτοῦ
καὶ
εἰς
αὐτὸν
ἔκτισται
·
—
all [things]
through
him
and
for
him
were created



17
καὶ
αὐτός
ἐστιν
πρὸ
πάντων



and
he himself
is
before
all [things]
καὶ
τὰ
πάντα
ἐν
αὐτῷ
συνέστηκεν
,
and
—
all [things]
in
him
are held together
JWs missionaries are infamous for obfuscating by appealing to the Greek text, so this should set them straight. Notice that in the original Greek NT, there is no use of a term meaning “other.” If Paul would have meant it that way he would have used the word ἑτέρως. Of course, he didn’t, “other” was supplied by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society to support the doctrines of demons.

Next we will examine test 2 using Joel Osteen as an example.
[1] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2296.
[1a]
Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 15.
[2]Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 40.
[3] As reported in Deseret News, June 20, 1998.
[4] (What LDS leaders have consistently, historically taught is that God the Father, in his glorified, immortal body, came down to earth and approached the young girl Mary. As a result of this carnal union, Mary became pregnant with a child who was both divine and human; and thus the young Christ was truly the Son of God. ) Latayne C. Scott, The Mormon Mirage (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 183. Also see: http://bible-truth.org/jesusbro.htm
[5] Adventists have concluded that “Michael” is another title for Christ rather than the name of an angel. The problem with this view is that Jude 9 says that Michael did not dare rebuke Satan. This could be true only if Michael were an angel and not Christ Himself. See: http://www.logosapologia.org/?p=1947
[7]The Lexham Greek-English Interlinear New Testament (Logos Bible Software, 2008), 524.

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