“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that he has borne witness concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the son has the life; he who does not have the son of God does not have the life.” –1 John 5: 9-12 (NASB)

The clarity with which John makes known the foundational truth of Christ’s supremacy –his complete divinity and humanity is far from ambiguous. Jesus is God. He’s not a lesser god, he’s not a mode of God, he’s not a representation of God. The inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is evidenced in John’s letter addressing the divinity of Christ –a stumbling block to belief by countless millions through the centuries. The word stands in stark opposition to nearly every belief system on the globe from Islam to Atheism. The denial of Christ’s being co-equal with God the father is a dangerous and deceptive doctrine of one of the most prominent contemporary cults: Jehovah’s Witnesses.

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Over the last month or so, from the blogosphere to the news, to Facebook, etc., much has been said regarding Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins.  I commented on this book in my last post and will devote this post to it as well.  Given that this heretical book will probably influence many for years to come, it seems important to interact with Bell’s ideas now so that five years down the road when people research this book they can turn to TVN as a resource!

I want to address a fundamental problem with Rob Bell’s approach to theology.  As you read the following quotation from Love Wins, look for the reason why he prefers one story over another:

It’s important that we be honest about the fact that some stories are better than others.  Telling a story in which billions of people spend forever somewhere in the universe trapped in a black hole of endless torment and misery with no way out isn’t a very good story.  Telling a story about a God who inflicts unrelenting punishment on people because they didn’t do or say or believe the correct things in a brief window of time called life isn’t a very good story.  In contrast, everyone enjoying God’s good world together with no disgrace or shame, justice being served, and all the wrongs being made right is a better story.  It is bigger, more loving, more expansive, more extraordinary, beautiful, and inspiring than any other story about the ultimate course history takes. [...]

Picture someone walking into their favorite local bookstore and going to their favorite section.  Perhaps he went into the fiction section of the store and picked up one of the Harry Potter books.  This person picks up the last book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, turns to p. 458, and reads the following:

“‘Well, Draco?’ said Lucius Malfoy.”   This is the first time this person has even glanced at the words within this book, ever.  Nevertheless, immediately after he finished reading these words he looks down the aisle at another person standing a few feet away examining some other fictional book and says, “I know what this line means.” [...]

Many Christians only stress the importance of Bible reading.[i] While that task is important, more should be stressed.  That is, it also matters how one interprets the Bible.  It is often in the task of interpretation that false teaching, heresy, etc., are founded and thus spread.  We at TVN, however, want out readers to be cautious of bad interpretations lest they fall into some of the same errors.  Hopefully by looking at the error in Rob Bell’s approach to interpretation, our readers will learn from his mistake. [...]

In Part 1 of this article, we looked at how the Speech Act Theory interacts with Post-modernism and critiques its generalized skepticism on truth. This should be encouraging for a couple of reasons. Not everyone in the world is Post-modern(!) no matter what your college professor leads you to believe. Also, even secular theorists realize the possibility of discovering truth from texts like the Bible despite what your college professors lead you to believe. I do poke fun at the academic culture right now, but the fact is there is more diversity than what you hear on the typical college campus and you need to know that.

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So here is the situation. Post Modernism thinks language fails and true communication between people is limited, if even possible. Christianity, on the other hand, affirms God has revealed himself through language in the Bible and eternal life or condemnation depends on this revelation.

Uh oh. That seems irreconcilable. Spoiler Alert: it is irreconcilable.

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What is a covenant?

We do not have covenants in our culture. When we make a business decisions, we make contracts. But, when God chose to reveal his relationship to humanity in redemption, he chose the covenant. In many situations, we want to take the Bible and apply it to our culture and transform our culutre. However, when it comes to the giant idea of covenant and how God revealed Jesus through the covenant, we want to take our lives and dive into the world of the Bible.

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The Blessings and Cursings of the Covenant

When God gave the covenant to Israel, he did not hide the outcome of their faith or faithlessness. Rather in Deuteronomy 28, He clearly told them of the blessings the nation would experience for their faith and obedience but also of the curse that would come if they were unfaithful. The outcomes of the covenant are directly related to God’s plan for his creation that we saw in Genesis 1-3. Faithful Israel will either fill the earth with God’s image enjoying his blessings, or unfaithful Israel will follow Adam and be under the curse that leads to death.

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God of the Covenant

The first thing we see from Genesis 1-3 is that God is Creator. We constantly see in the Bible, that when something happens that is good, God is the creator or originator. We also saw by the example of Genesis 1-3, that when something happens that is bad, man is the one messing it up. Thus, our relationship with God is that of Creator to rebel; it is hostile.

But the first thing we see about God is that he reaches out to humans even in our sin. Let us look at the covenant of Abraham and see the God of the Covenant. In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with Abraham and we see three incredible promises that reveal God’s grace. First, God’s grace will allow men to be under God’s rule again like in the Garden of Eden. Verse 1 assures Abraham, “Fear not, Abram; I am your shield.” God’s grace leaps from the page at this point when we remember humanity’s rebellion, yet God will be his people’s shield. Second, verse 5 says, “Look towards heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them, so shall your offspring be.” God’s grace will make a people to fill the earth just like the charge in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1:28. Finally, Genesis 15:7 says, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” God’s grace places his people back in a land to be the people underneath his authority like the Garden of Eden. Man messed up the Garden, but in his grace reaches out to restore what the Garden should have been in righteousness.

The rest of the Bible shows in history how God completes and fills out this covenant in Genesis 15 to restore the Garden of Eden throughout the entire world and make man what he should be. God completes this mission through covenant.

The Fulfillment- God of the Covenant

Jesus is the God of the Covenant. We see in Colossians 1:16 that all things were created by Jesus and everything that was created was for him. John starts his Gospel by claiming Jesus was the Word that was God from the beginning of time (1:1). Philippians 2:6 claims Jesus is God saying that he did not use his deity for his advantage when he came to earth. And Acts blatantly exclaims Jesus as God when it says that God gave up his own blood for the church (20:28).

Any reading of the Old or New Testament that does not see the fulfillment of the revelation of God to be Jesus is inadequate.

Great Illustration of Law and Gospel

Muscles are a great example of how a Christian must read the Law and Gospel. To grow, a muscle does not build on top of itself. When you lift weights you do not create new muscle by the repetition of weight. Rather, with every repetition you tear away the muscle that exists. Afterwards, one must fuel their body with protein to help the muscle heal back. Finally, after the muscle heals, it grows back stronger than before. To grow at all, the Christian must realize his inadequacy of good deeds and moral character and righteousness, once we know our condition and are fed a healthy diet of grace upon grace; our faith may grow back stronger than before. The law destroys but grace and the gospel give life.