But He said to them, Excellently and truly [so that there will be no room for blame] did Isaiah prophesy of you (Isaiah 29:13), the pretenders and hypocrites, as it stands written: These people [constantly] honor Me with their lips, but their hearts hold off and are far distant from Me. In vain (fruitlessly and without profit) do they worship Me, ordering and teaching [to be obeyed] as doctrines the commandments and precepts of men. You disregard and give up and ask to depart from you the commandment of God and cling to the tradition of men [keeping it carefully and faithfully]. And He said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting [thus thwarting and nullifying and doing away with] the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition (your own human regulations)! Thus you are nullifying and making void and of no effect [the authority of] the Word of God through your tradition, which you [in turn] hand on. And many things of this kind you are doing.

Reference: Mark 7:6-9&13 (Amplified Bible)

I have recently been questioned about my response to certain people in their interpretation of the Bible. I was asked how I could be so direct and show no love to a fellow brother in Christ. That all my points were valid and true, but my ending comment was out-of-line and showed a lack of love. My response was that person was not my brother and that if he was willing to preach a different gospel and uphold a different God, then we were not brothers.

It had me thinking about how to convey simply the differences in differing applications of doctrine and the blatantly false doctrines disquised as simply a different interpretation of the written Word.

To promote a false doctrine a person must first have a different belief system from real Christianity, and then plug in scripture to support it. This means the person has taken the Word of God to give authority to their false doctrine. It then is no longer the Word of God. So they can use it to say something that God did not say, and take out of context it’s true meaning in order to give substance and standing to their own context.

If done this way they are not a brother in Christ.

That being the case I will not treat such things with a respect due to a brother in Christ. Rather my response will be as to a son or daughter of the world (perdition). a differing application of the Word is not the same as misrepresenting that Word. Again, a different application of a concept inherent in a passage is not the same as a manmade concept draped in the robes of Christianity. As John (Pastor John MacDonald) has said he dismisses “christianized religion” and instead holds fast to “relationship” in Christ. And that is the truth of it, relationship not religion.

Religion simply means a way of life, not necessarily God’s way of life.

So the above scripture illustrates that point clearly and vividly. These were the Pharisees of which Christ declare “ye brood of vipers!”. They were supposed to be the epitome of the theocratic government, and the teachers of God’s truth. If God on Earth, Jesus Christ, so vehemently dismissed them, and their worldly agenda, what is to be our response when faced with false doctrines and apostacy? Yes, we love our neighbor as ourselves, but what is needed is “love with wisdom”. Wisdom to know who is your brother walking with you—and who isn’t.

The path of faith is walked in unity, those who promote false doctrines are not in union with God, nor will they be in union with you if you follow Christ. The danger here is that in using the Word, they will seem to be of Christ, that they serve God, but “just” have a different understanding. As Mark so clearly relates, this is not true. Even in the Old Testament we have Isaiah warning us against just that situation. The traditions of men is any doctrine that is espoused different from the specific commands of God. One concept that God created some people to die in hell.

This is called Hyper-Calvinism.

Most doctrinal positions are simply a human filter covering the truths of God. A good sign to this is having them put several differing passages, books of the Bible, and manmade doctrines all together to try an illustrate a point not made in those things, except perhaps the manmade doctrines. God puts everything in context IN the verses themselves. We can link supporting passages of the Bible to clarify the point, but it will always stand on it’s own merits.

I have been in heated debate with those who take Romans 8:29&30 out of context to promote that only God’s saved children (created from the start) get this promise. My position is that all are predestined and foreordain, but some do not cleave to their heritage.

Here is the passage:

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

Here we see that God (being the “he” here) foreknew those He predestinated, wanted conformed to the image of His Sone (this is the predestination) and so He called them (once born) to this destiny. So we also see that those He called, all His children by choice, speaking of those who answered the call (other verses make this clear), those He justified (made permanent their choice) and so He now glorifies them.

This is what is IN the verse.

However another position that is the false doctrine, is that God only foreknew His children, not everyone. Then they go on with the proper interpretation. It may seem to some that is only a differing application of the concept, but it is not. The very beginning of what is said has been changed, the “foreknow”, and thus makes a lie of the whole verse. It then would mean that God preselected His own and embued them (put inside them) a destiny no one else could fulfill.

But it does give wings to the false doctrine of the Depravity of Man.

Now it can be said that this verse PROVES the concept by bestowing a destiny ONLY on those who were predestined to receive it. This makes a difference between those lost and those saved BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN BORN. The reasons it can’t stand are many; God is no repector of persons (favoring some over others), that Salvation is a gift to mankind (not just some), that those who choose Christ have an adoption (not those whom Christ/God chooses), and so on. Each of these points easily read within the pages of God’s Word.

So it is sometimes hard to distinguish between darkness and light, lies and truth, because the use of corrupted interpretation of scripture is subtle. We would see outright apostacy from afar. But using manmade sophistries (complex manmade logic which can’t stand on their own merit) as applied to scripture can give a wholly entire new meaning to God’s Word.

That is the nature, meaning, and face, of False Doctrine.

Be blessed, be loved and be at peace,

Jonathan

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