The Great Divide

I wonder how many times I've heard professing Christians say, I don't care about doctrine.

What I care about is Jesus. Doctrine doesn't matter because doctrine divides. Let's forget about doctrine and simply cling to Jesus.

And every time I hear it, I want to weep. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, warning him that a time would come when people will not endure sound teaching or doctrine. And perhaps, as you'll hear today, we've moved even further away, no longer caring for doctrine at all. This is the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. Truth is important when it comes to our witness to the watching world, but truth is also vital within the church for the sake of preserving sound teaching and doctrine. If you'd like to grow in your knowledge of what it is that we believe as Christians, we have prepared a resource package for you as a way of thanking you for your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. We'll send you a thin-lined Bible, R.C. Sproul's overview of systematic theology, and we'll unlock digital access to the entire series you're hearing select messages from this week, simply titled Truth.

This offer ends at midnight tonight, so be sure to respond today at renewingyourmind.org, and we'll get these resources to you. When it comes to doctrine in the church, the name of the game today is often conflict avoidance, no matter what, and that shouldn't be the case. Here's Dr. Sproul to explain. I wonder how many times I've heard professing Christians say, I don't care about doctrine. What I care about is Jesus. Doctrine doesn't matter because doctrine divides. Doctrine creates controversy. Doctrine creates quarrels. Doctrine disturbs the peace. Let's forget about doctrine and simply cling to Jesus. I've heard that sentiment expressed literally thousands of times in my lifetime, and every time I hear it, I want to weep.

On the one hand, I have a sense of empathy for the protest. I know that people have been wounded and hurt by godless controversies where people fight with rancor and malice at the drop of a hat over minor points of doctrine. And yet at the same time, in our zeal to overcome a contentious spirit and overcome godless arguments that are malicious, we want to so rope the table, as it were, that we say, well, the only way to have peace is to forget about doctrine altogether and say that doctrine is unimportant.

Now those people who make statements like doctrine is not important, and all I want to do is have Jesus, and I don't want to worry about doctrine, I think most of those people would rather choke than say out loud, all I want is Jesus. I don't need the Bible. I don't need the Word of God. I don't need the teaching of the Scriptures.

They don't want to say that, but that's what they're saying. Because what is the teaching of the Scripture? What is the Word of God other than the manifestation and revelation of God's truth? And the whole concern for doctrine in the history of the church has been focused upon being faithful to the truth of God, that that is of paramount importance to the Christian faith. And I don't see how we can even have a cursory reading of the New Testament without seeing on virtually every page a passionate concern for the purity of the truth of sound doctrine. Sometimes when we're young, we get extremely zealous about small points, and then as we grow older, we become more tolerant, and we mellow, and we become more statesman-like in our attitudes and are slow to voice disagreement or to enter into conflict over matters of doctrine. Let's see if that was the case with the Apostle Paul. At the end of his life, the end of his career as an apostle, from prison he wrote some of his last correspondence to his faithful disciple Timothy. And in the second book of Timothy, that is 2 Timothy, in the very last chapter of that book, he gives this statement, this command, this charge to the young Timothy, in chapter 4 of 2 Timothy. This is immediately following the famous verse in 2 Timothy 3.16 where Paul declares that all Scripture is given by inspiration and so on. He follows that by saying in chapter 4 verse 1, "'I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn away their ears from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of the evangelists, and fulfill your ministry.'" Now what is this solemn charge to Timothy that the Apostle Paul is giving but to be on guard to be sure that he teaches the whole counsel of God, that he keep his doctrine pure because Paul warns of those perilous days that are coming when people will not endure sound doctrine? Today people don't want doctrine at all. That happens after an antipathy toward sound doctrine comes. The next step is we don't want any doctrine, and yet at the same time they will heap up for themselves teachers because they have itchy ears.

They want to hear the cleverly devised insights, and all of that's fine as long as we don't talk doctrine. Now, I remember Luther said, and I've mentioned this before, in the sixteenth century where the most volatile doctrinal controversy that ever arose in the church took place, and people rebuked and admonished Martin Luther for stirring up all of this controversy, particularly Erasmus, who was saying, Luther, you know, you're like a wild boar. You've turned a church upside down, and now we have all this controversy, and the peace of the church has been disturbed. And Luther said, but what is the controversy about?

It's not on trivial matters. The controversy we're engaged in has to do with the very essence and core of the gospel itself. We're talking about the heart of the truth of God. And then Luther said to Erasmus, look at church history. And he said, tell me once in church history where the gospel was clearly proclaimed in this world where there wasn't controversy immediately following. Luther said, every time the gospel is preached accurately, there's a furor. In the Old Testament when the counsel of God was preached faithfully by the prophets, they were persecuted and killed. When John the Baptist comes announcing the gospel of the kingdom of God, he was executed. When Jesus comes teaching his doctrine of the gospel, he creates the greatest controversy that ever befell Israel, and he was executed. The apostles were daily in the marketplace engaged in debate, in argument for the sake of the truth of doctrine, and they were persecuted in every city they went. Come down through the pages of church history, and you see why it's inscribed on Athanasius' tombstone, Athanasius contra mundum, Athanasius against the world.

He was exiled from his homeland five times over controversies of doctrine as he sought to defend the Trinitarian faith against heretics. Consider Luther, consider Calvin, consider Edwards, and the suffering that those people endured for the sake of the truth of God. But in an age of relativism and pluralism, such as ours is today, we are told that it is the mark of the Christian to be pluralistic, not to be narrow or closely defined in their confession of faith or in their doctrine.

We must never let doctrine divide us. The idea is believe whatever you want to believe and keep the peace of the Christian community. Just the other day, I came upon a little booklet that I didn't know existed.

I had never seen it before in my life. It was the publication of a letter that was written during the Great Awakening in America. And if you recall that period in the middle of the eighteenth century where the greatest spiritual revival ever to occur in our land took place in New England chiefly. And the three major characters that were engaged in the preaching and teaching of the gospel in that period called the Great Awakening were Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley.

And they all knew each other, and they all enjoyed a close sense of fellowship and friendship among themselves. But both Whitefield and Wesley had come out of the Church of England with their creedal statement of the Thirty-Nine Articles, and Wesley of course then started the Methodist church as it were. But a dispute arose in this period in American history between John Wesley and his dear friend and brother, George Whitefield. And the occasion for this dispute was this, that Wesley objected to Reformed theology. He did not believe in the Reformation doctrine of election. He was opposed to the Calvinistic understanding of election that was being taught by Edwards and by Whitefield. But he didn't want to disturb the church over this doctrinal difference. And so Wesley agonized in his own soul whether he should speak against the doctrine of election as it was articulated by the Reformers. And he wasn't sure what he should do. So he prayed about it, and he cast lots. And the lot came up that he should preach against the doctrine of election. And so he preached the sermon against election, against particular redemption, and in favor of semi-Pelagian view of human freedom, and then subsequently printed the sermon, which then provoked a written response by letter from George Whitefield to Wesley.

And I would like to read a little bit of that letter to you just so that you can get the flavor of it and see how strange it sounds to your ears in this 20th century. speak, I had rather die than do it. And yet, if I am faithful to God and to my own and other souls, I must not stand neuter any longer. I am very apprehensive that our common adversaries will rejoice to see us differing among ourselves.

But what can I say? The children of God are in danger of falling into error. Nay, numbers have been misled whom God has been pleased to work upon by my ministry, and a greater number are still calling aloud upon me to show also my opinion. I must then show that I know no man after the flesh and that I have no respect of persons any further than is consistent with my duty to my Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

Now listen to what Whitefield says, this letter, no doubt, will lose me many friends. And for this cause, perhaps God has laid this difficult task upon me even to see whether I am willing to forsake all for Him or not. From such considerations as these, I think it is my duty to bear a humble testimony and earnestly to plead for the truths which I am convinced are clearly revealed in the Word of God. In the defense whereof I must use great plainness of speech and treat my dearest friends upon earth with the greatest simplicity, faithfulness, and freedom, leaving the consequences of all to God.

Can you feel the burden of Whitefield as he's picking up his pen now? He's about to enter a serious doctrinal dispute with John Wesley, the famous evangelistic preacher. And Whitefield is picking up his pen to call Wesley to task and accuses Wesley of teaching false doctrine, of teaching error that is injurious to the people of God. The beginning of the letter, he takes Wesley to task for tempting God and justifying his renunciation of the biblical doctrine of election on the basis of drawing straws or of casting lots and rebukes him quite clearly for this. And then he goes point by point through the sermon that Wesley had preached and published refuting the arguments that Wesley gives, which I have to say I was astonished at how simplistic Wesley's arguments against the biblical doctrine of election were and how he grossly misunderstood even the Reformation position on it. But with patience, sorrow, and love, Whitefield entered into the debate, but he didn't pull any punches.

He said this stuff is serious business. This has to do with the graciousness of God in our salvation. And it's of the greatest urgency that we be clear and that we be consistent with the testimony of sacred Scripture with respect to our doctrine. Now beloved, one thing is clear. These two titans of Christian faith disagreed and disagreed seriously on important matters of doctrine.

Now there's something else that we also need to see that is certain. They both could not possibly be right. One of them was teaching the truth of the Scriptures, and the other one was bearing false witness. Somebody was speaking the truth. The other one was speaking falsehood.

Now that grates at us, doesn't it? Because we love and admire them both, and we want them both to be our heroes, and we want them both to be our champions. And of course, so did Whitefield. Whitefield was not ready to write Wesley off, you know, and say he's not my brother or that he's not a great preacher or a great evangelist or a great worker in the vineyard of Christ. But at the same time, he's saying no matter how great he is, this doctrinal issue is even more important than our friendship. It's more important than the peace of the church because this is not idle doctrine. This has to do with our understanding of the very heart of salvation.

And so Whitefield was ready to lose his friends. And again I thought of Luther in the 16th century when he wrote the famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, where he came to that segment of the hymn where he makes this comment, and we sing it when we sing this hymn, Let Goods and Kindred Go, This Mortal Life Also. Now that wasn't an abstract sensitivity for Luther. This touched the very core of his own personal struggle. For Luther to take the stand that he did in the 16th century in behalf of the gospel of the free grace of God in justification, it cost him his goods, it alienated himself from his family and from his friends, and it racked his own body with pain. And everybody in the land was screaming for Luther to compromise. But Luther's conscience was held captive by the Word of God. And he came to the place in his own life where he had to say, in behalf of the truth of the Word of God, I have to be prepared to forsake my worldly goods, to let my kindred go.

That is family and friends, if it means that, and even this mortal life also. If you look at all at church history, we see in that landscape of church history an abundance of blood, the blood of our fathers that has been shed to defend the truth of God against error and distortion and falsehood. It's the blood of the prophets of the Old Testament. It's the blood of the apostles of the New Testament. It's the blood of the martyrs of the first and second century.

It is the blood of Ridley and Latimer, that blood that cries to us from the ground, just as Abel's blood cried to God from the earth, because their lives were taken for the sake of the truth. Now, maybe they were fools, and maybe they were just stubborn, obstreperous, contentious people who didn't reach the maturity that we have reached in the 20th century when we rule out doctrinal debate and doctrinal differences. I would think, however, that as Christians, if we disagree on a matter of truth, that we would have certain assumptions among us. If you and I differ on the doctrine of election, I would hope that you would assume that I am seeking to discover the truth of the Word of God and be faithful to it, and I am assuming that you want to be faithful to the truth of God, and so that I am not challenging your motives, your intentions, and you're not challenging mine. I don't assume a malice of forethought for those who teach error in the church, in the most part. But having done that and we make that assumption, and in the context of love, we should both feel strongly enough about the importance of the truth of God that we'd be willing to go to the mat and wrestle it through to its conclusion.

But the name of the game today is conflict avoidance, no matter what, whereas the name of the game for the Scripture he rose was the truth of God, no matter what. Have you ever been involved in a doctrinal controversy? Think about that for a second. Have you ever personally been involved in a dispute or an argument about doctrine?

Let me say this. If you answer my question by saying no, the next thing I'm going to ask you, you should be able to guess, is why not? Don't you care? Isn't what you believe more precious than life itself? The only place I can see where people would not want to debate doctrine is in an environment where people don't care about truth.

In certain liberal places, you know, anything goes because nothing's important. Everything is negotiable because nothing is sacred. But if you're convinced that God has spoken and has revealed sacred truth from His very lips, then you should be prepared to die by being burned at the stake, if necessary, in defense of that. Now, I can't say that I've never been involved in doctrinal debates.

I'm involved in them every day. But my fear is this, that I get on the wrong side of a doctrinal issue, because that's possible with me, and it's possible with you. It was possible for Whitefield, and it was possible for Wesley. And so we need to be very careful that when we are engaged in debate and when we are struggling, it's not simply to defend our own turf or our own reputation or our own pet feelings, but that we have done our homework and that we are, first of all, instructed ourselves about what the Scripture says. But for Christ and for His people, truth is that important. Truth is that important. What a poignant way to end this week's series on truth.

That was R.C. Sproul on today's edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. I'd love for you to have today's message, titled The Great Divide, and we'll make sure you can access it along with all the messages in this truth series when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800 435 4343. This series on the sanctity of truth is a reminder for all of us, especially within the context of today's society that has surrendered the idea of objective truth. While supplies last, we'll also send you an ESV Thinline Bible and a copy of Dr. Sproul's book, Everyone's a Theologian. But this offer does end in only a few hours, so respond before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. And if you live outside of the US and Canada, we'll unlock digital access to Everyone's a Theologian and this series on truth when you donate at renewingyourmind.org slash global. Thank you for serving countless Christians over the airwaves and on devices around the world every single day through the outreach of Renewing Your Mind. The story of Job is one filled with suffering, but it's also filled with truth to aid the struggling Christian. Be sure to join us Monday here on Renewing Your Mind. Thank you.