No Turning Back

Hebrews 3: 6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. (NIV)

I couldn’t believe what happened at our Presbytery meeting yesterday. A candidate for the ministry made, what I believe to be, two apostate statements and still had her call upheld! In front of everyone, she stated that she wouldn’t be bound by the scriptures, and that Christ was not the only redeemer of humankind. I asked her directly if she believed Jesus to be the sole redeemer of the world, to which she answered, “I would hesitate to say that. That would be putting God in too small a box for me.”

So, it’s okay to put Jesus in a small box? It’s all right to diminish His Lordship and ministry of salvation? When did we start to become Deists and Universalists in the Presbyterian Church? What are they teaching our candidates for ministry at seminary? Why is it that no one sees the link between accepting universalist pastors into our pulpits and the decline of church membership?

The first Christians were surrounded by thousands of pagan gods and idols. Do we honestly think that if Jesus was just a localized, personalized redeemer that His earliest of followers would have allowed themselves to become martyrs? Do we really believe that first century Christians refused to say “Caesar is Lord” before Roman authorities and be led to savage deaths in the Coliseum if they thought that salvation could be found outside of the Christianity? They knew that to be in and of the house of Christ that they had to hold on to their courage in the face of cruelty and terrifying persecution.

We have become so biblically illiterate, so theologically ignorant, and so arrogantly apostate that we don’t see ourselves becoming blatantly heretical through wanting to be culturally sophisticated and religiously tolerant. Our need to be liked and courteous is leading us down a narcissistic path that takes us outside of God’s Kingdom and Christ’s household. Unless we put the brakes on this apostasy now, unless we draw lines of belief in the sand, the Presbyterian Church is going to continue to die. God will not bless or honor that which does not honor His Son.

We need to seriously start reading the Bible again and stop using it as a pathetic panacea to ease our consciences. We need to understand that Christianity is not a leisure pursuit that we shape to fit our lives. We need to recognize that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, the only Truth, Way, and Life, and that our work in the world, according the first stated end of the Church in our current Book of Order, is to preach the Gospel in order to save humankind.

I am fed up to the core with faithless statements and false ideas. I am a sinner saved by Christ alone, whose work of salvation saves the world alone. There is no other name given to humanity under heaven that can save the earth. There is no other Savior than Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, please stop the Church from wounding itself by giving up age-old beliefs about You. Grant us the courage to stand up to those who would diminish Your ministry and devalue Your Gospel. We are all sinners in need of saving; we are all imperfect in need of redemption. Help to do what is right and not what we think to be right. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.